You never wanted to see her eyes, yet here you are, finally awake and now standing in the Library's rotting heart where the walls are made of stories that scream when you touch them.
When you take a few steps, ink drips down from the ceiling like blood, pooling at your feet and every step you take sinks you deeper into the thick black fluid.
The book you shouldn't have opened is still in your hand, pulsing like a dying heart.
Its pages quiver and whisper your name in voices that sound like they're yours but of course you know better.
There's a single corridor stretched before you which is narrow, impossibly long and lined with crooked shelves.
The books on the shelves are breathing as if they are living beings, and some weep while others bleed.
One is sobbing---- again with your own voices, and it makes you feel the bile rise in your throat.
You shift your feet and take a step towards the scary corridor but then it stretches.
You're puzzled but take another step and then the floorboards beneath your feet begin to move and slide on its own like a snake and carries you by your feet over to the other end.
At the end of the corridor is a door, blacker than any shadow possible, pulsing and throbbing as you look at it.
Its handle is a skeletal hand with fingers that are broken at every joint.
As if you're possessed, you reach out and touch it, feeling it's ice cold temperature against your palm.
Then you push the door open and look inside.
The room beyond--- which you see---- is larger than any room should be, and looks like it has been folded inside itself a thousand times.
Ink drips down from the ceiling here as well, forming a pool that twirls and twists like a living thing.
... And there at the far end sits the Librarian.
She is not what you expected of the creature whose voice you heard before you passed out cold earlier.
Her shape seems to bend and disappear constantly, changing every time that you blink.
First she looks like a woman with too many eyes, then she looks like a child with a mouthful of needles, and then she looks like a shapeless mass of teeth and hunger.
... But in each form she takes, one thing always remain... and that is her eyes.
She has so many eyes, and they all watch you, without blinking for even a second, burning into your very soul.
"Welcome, Reader," she says, and you realise that her voice sounds like a hiss of dry, brittle turning pages.
"You've come to feed the Library."
You open your mouth to tell her that that's not true but your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth and words won't come out no matter how hard you try.
She leans forward---- too close for your comfort---- towards you, and you smell her breath.
Strangely you don't smell any normal scent, just the scent of old books and rotting stories.
Just then you pause and wonder how you know what rotting stories smell like, but before you can think too long, HER eyes swim with several reflections of yourself.
... And you see yourself, your face, each and every one of your fears, and ALL of your secrets.
"The Library is alive," she croons, and her odd pronunciation of the syllables grate at your ears badly like knives.
"... It devours every word and every lie, every scream. It is hungry. Always hungry."
You back away, but the room tilts and then spins in a full circle, making you nauseous.
Shadows---- you don't know where from---- slither up your legs like serpents, binding you in place so that you don't run.
"Don't run, little Reader," The Librarian says.
"You opened the book. Now you MUST feed IT."
She gestures, and a cracked mirror rises from the ink pool at her feet with its surface streaked with red lines that look so much like veins.
For the second time since you opened the book, you see a small SOS, this time carved on the frame of the mirror and not the book itself:
"Help me. She's watching."
It's the same words as the first SOS you saw and somehow, just before it happens, you immediately know that it will happen.
------- You look into the mirror and scream, because you know that your reflection doesn't match.
Its eyes are too wide, black and empty. And its mouth hangs open in a scream that you don't hear at all.
You touch your lips with your free hand and realise that your own lips are closed, and then sigh in relief.
But just then the thing that is not your reflection claws its hands at the glass, leaving bloody smears on it.
For some reason, you wince and you try to look away, but the mirror pulls at your gaze, dragging you to stare into its depths.
The Librarian's reflection stays behind you, and you see her many eyes watching, as if she is amused by your constant attempts to escape.
"You can't escape," she whispers, bending down to your ear level. "You belong to the Library now."
You shut your eyes in fear, but the mirror is still there, in your mind, and you can suddenly see your room reflected in its surface— your bed, your desk and even that your favoritE window with the torn curtains.
Thinking you're back home and all of this was a dream, you turn around and open your eyes but see nothing---- only HER and the creepy corridor.
The Librarian laughs, and you see her many teeth which gleam like they were made from broken glasses.
"Reality is just another story," she says, licking her lips that You didn't realise she had.
"... And here, I write the endings."
She reaches for you with her hand that's made of shadows and ink and touches your cheek like your her valued treasure.
Her touch is cold and wet, like a dead thing and as a result you flinch, but her fingers slip right under your skin and comes back up again, this time holding your cheeks firmly.
"Feed the Library," she says and your heart triples it's beat.
"Feed it, or be devoured."
Then the mirror now behind you trembles and cracks.
As a result of this, the reflection inside it claws more desperately at the glass, screaming, and the SOS on the frame begins to glow red.
You turn and begin to walk closer, drawn by---- you don't know what.
Your hand rises on its own, and you press your fingers against the mirror's surface— and sink in.
Ink drips down from the glass, running down your arm like oil and then you see words forming on the mirror's surface:
"The missing eye must be found. Fail, and she finds you."
A sudden pain stings in your chest and you gasp., turning to look at the Librarian.
"Your challenge, Reader," she hisses, and her voice immediately splits into a thousand voices all at once.
"Find the missing Eye. If you fail, I will find you."
You pull your hand free then, but the mirror is blank now.
And now you wonder where on earth you'll find this 'eye'.