~ Sizzle ~

  ~ Sizzle ~

  June held the lighter steady and carefully pressed down on the nozzle of the gas canister, controlling the release just enough to produce a small burst of flame. He tested it first: a short-lived cloud of fire danced in front of him before flickering out. He blinked, heart racing with a mixture of awe and satisfaction. It wasn’t large, not enough to start a wildfire with a flick, but it burned bright and hot, and more importantly, it worked. That was enough.

  From what he’d seen so far, it didn’t matter whether the hostile entities here were made of paper, wood, or leather - If one of them lunged at him, this fire would scorch it before it got too close. And considering their size, most of these things didn’t seem built for power. Like the vacuum pump that could suck everything, or the toilet with its abyss-like mouth. The books clearly were on the weaker side, based on both their size and ability to attack.

  Though, he didn't dismiss the fact that some books might have powerful abilities like the phrase said, "knowledge devours the reader." What if one of these books didn’t attack with claws or teeth, but through words—trapping his mind inside, or swallowing his thoughts whole? That was a different kind of fear. One he couldn’t fight with a bat.

  So he adjusted his plan: Burn first. Test the reaction. If nothing jumped, then maybe it was safe to read. If something did, it would be ash before it had the chance to do more damage. With his plan solidified in his head, June moved to the first shelf. He didn’t bother targeting a single volume. Instead, he sprayed fire across the entire lower half of the shelf in a sweeping line, the flames licking upward instantly as they caught on the dry spines and old covers.

  The result was immediate.

  The entire dungeon shivered, like a living thing jolted awake in pain.

  [Hostile Entities: Books (Sentient) - Alive]

  [Type: Cognitive Trap]

  [Threat Level: Moderate]

  The books screamed, literally.

  But, they didn’t screech like monsters or howl like beasts. No, their cries were, thin, high-pitched, shrill sobs like newborns wailing in unison, echoed through the space eerily. As the fire spread, some of the volumes leapt off the shelves on their own. They twisted and folded mid-air before hitting the floor, their cries growing louder.

  June flinched, his breath caught in his throat. “God…”

  He stared wide-eyed as the shelf burned, but didn’t stop.

  Most of the covers that went up first were magazines, old fashion glossies, celebrity spreads, half-naked models with tacky headlines still visible through melting ink. Whatever these things once were, they clearly didn’t hold the answers he needed. He watched one of the covers bubble and curl, the paper blackening until it fell apart completely. There was no further reaction, no psychic attack or pull on his mind. Just ash.

  But a flicker of caution returned in June's eyes as the fire climbed higher.

  If the flames spread too far, if they consumed the entire bookstore before he could get what he came for, and if there truly was no way out until the dungeon was complete, he could end up dying here, trapped in smoke and fire of his own making. The thought chilled him. Still, he needed to send a message to the rest of these entities that he wasn’t afraid to burn them if they tried anything funny again. Using his bat, he knocked down the burning volumes before they could ignite the shelves above. Some he kicked across the floor, others he stomped out, their cries silenced one by one until the ground was full black with scorched paper and smoldering pages.

  Then, one after another sounds rang out in his head, pleasant, rewarding, almost like a chime from a forgotten arcade game.

  [Hostile Entities: Books (Sentient) - Burnt/Dead]

  [100+ XP Gained]

  His eyes widened. That was more experience than he’d ever gotten in one go. No radicals, though, which surprised him. He’d assumed every dead entity dropped both XP and radicals, but apparently not. Maybe even they had levels or perhaps it depended on size. Either way, he wasn’t disappointed. Not really. He had gotten something. He quickly turned to move to the next shelf.

  But the dungeon moved first.

  The ground shook, harder than before. The shelves trembled. The books leapt, not at him, but away, all at once, as if a far greater monster had entered the room. Dozens of volumes fluttered open and slammed shut, scattering from their places like a wave of fear crashing through the archive. And then they screamed, not like babies this time, but like birds caught in barbed wire. Rapidly, the cries intensified in fear, rising into an unbearable chorus that drilled straight into June’s skull, making his head pound like a balloon ready to burst

  …

  “Stop! Please stop, or you’ll burn every book in here!”

  A voice, clear, human, cut through the noise.

  June flinched and stepped back, startled, nearly dropping his lighter and gas canister. A figure had appeared beside him, materializing out of thin air. It was an echo.

  A girl.

  “Please,” she said gently, “stop burning everything. If you do… there won’t be anything left for you or anyone else to read.”

  She looked like a teenage girl, probably a part-time worker, the kind you’d expect to find in a bookstore during after-school hours. She stepped forward without fear, not quite looking at him, more focused on the flames. Her hands moved with quiet urgency, patting down books, whispering as she worked, her voice calming, like a librarian soothing a scared child.

  June stumbled back a step, blinking in surprise. He had expected there might be one hidden here, and this all but confirmed another theory: Tier I dungeons held only hostile entities, but to earn the title of Tier II, a dungeon needed to house at least one echo, some fragment of human memory.

  He lowered his hand, switching off the lighter, and placed the canister back into his bag. The girl’s echo was already moving, flitting between shelves, trying to put out the remaining fires with her bare hands, her expression drawn in panic and urgency. She spoke in soft words to the books, cooing as if to comfort them. And June… found himself staring , not in fear or suspicion either. But with something unfamiliar. His expression twisted for a second into confusion, and then, without warning, his cheeks turned a shade of red he hadn’t experienced in… well, maybe ever. His eyes darted away, lips pressed tight, suddenly embarrassed by a thought he hadn’t meant to have and couldn’t quite put into words.

  He quickly looked elsewhere, forcing his attention back to the shelves, pretending he wasn’t thinking what he was thinking.

  …

  It took the echo girl nearly twenty minutes to put out all the fires licking at the burning books, running between the shelves in a flurry of quiet panic, patting down flames and pushing fallen volumes back into order so the damage wouldn’t spread. June, in the meantime, simply stood aside, watching as if he weren’t the true culprit behind the chaos. A small part of him had wanted to help, but he still wasn’t convinced that her presence meant the books would no longer try to bite his hand off. And besides, who knew what her true nature was? Just because she had a pretty face didn’t mean she wasn’t the most dangerous thing in the dungeon. After all, there must be some preconditions to be reached to become an echo.

  It was only after she had carefully returned the last volume to the shelf and dusted off her skirt that she finally turned toward him, arms crossed, eyes sharp and accusing.

  "Why would you do something like that? What kind of stupid person burns books?" she demanded, her voice sharp with indignation. "Do you have any idea how rare some of these are? Or how much knowledge you almost destroyed?"

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Her words stung. June scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. Still, he wasn’t without a defense, "They would have attacked me if I hadn't attacked first," he fired back innocently. "I've seen what these things can do when they come alive."

  "But they didn't," the girl argued, running her fingers along the singed spine of a nearby book. "You were the one who started the fire first. I've been here for... well, I don't know how long, but the books never hurt anyone who just wants to read them."

  June’s face twitched, “So you’re saying I should’ve just waited around until they swarmed me? All of them were animated, every single one. What was I supposed to do, ask nicely?”

  "Look, I get it. Things are weird out there. But in here..." she gestured around the bookstore, "they only bite if you try to steal them or damage them. They're protective, not aggressive."

  "How was I supposed to know that?" June countered. "There's no manual for surviving in this place. I'm figuring it out as I go."

  They both went back and forth for a while with no one willing to come to the middle ground.

  "..."

  "Will they let me read them now then?" June finally cut to the point.

  He was starting to realize the girl, who hadn’t even introduced herself, was probably more frustrated than actually angry, maybe even lashing out because she hadn’t seen a real human in a long time. It felt like she was just using this moment to vent, to fill some long-starved need for interaction.

  June watched her with narrowed eyes. She reminded him of the kind of senior girls at school who always had a small crowd of admirers following them—pretty on the outside, maybe even kind when they wanted to be, but sharp-tongued and full of that strange mix of passive aggression and practiced charm. He was starting to think he’d come to the wrong place entirely. Still, he ignored her. She clearly needed some time to cool off.

  He turned his attention back to the shelves. Most of the books were still visibly shaking, shivering, as if scared out of their binding from the massacre he’d just unleashed. He figured they were intimidated enough now not to try anything rash, but just to be safe, he activated Stasis Lock, carefully stretching its radius like a rubber band and controlling the field so that it only expanded over the book he was about to take. It froze instantly, locked in place, unable to resist or spring to life. He pulled the book off the shelf with a steady hand and began flipping through it, watching for anything strange, but so far it remained still harmless under the effect of the skill.

  "Wow, you got a pretty nice skill. What’s it called?" Zoe immediately jumped to his side, her mood shifting on a dime.

  She had stepped closer without warning, and now stood at his shoulder, eyes shining with curiosity and interest. Her earlier irritation had all but vanished, replaced by fascination.

  June didn’t say anything and kept his eyes on the book, flipping through the pages slowly, trying to focus.

  "Come on, no need to act shy with me," she said innocently. "I know all about you guys, especially pretty one like you... I used to have a boyfriend before the world decided it had enough human shit." She took a long sigh. "Now I don't even know if he's alive. Hell, I don't even remember his name now... Ugh, Jesus!"

  June found her story interesting, especially how this strange world ended up in this state. Perhaps, she can tell me what happened for everyone to disappear... His thoughts churned.

  “Do you know how it started?” he asked suddenly, sliding the book back into place and deactivating the stasis field while still staying alert. He knew the cooldown was ten seconds, and in this place, that could mean life or death.

  “What?” Zoe blinked and looked at him, completely thrown off. “What do you mean, ‘how it all started’? Where were you when planes started falling out of the sky? Or when almost all electronics fried themselves, and the ones that didn’t started attacking people?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, “You’re not serious, right?”

  June let out a fake smile. "I was asleep the whole time and just woke up."

  Zoe stared at him like he’d just told her he was the Tooth Fairy. Her brows lifted, her lips parted. “Are you joking?” she asked, half-disbelieving, “You’re actually trying to play the coma card on me? What, hoping I’ll feel sorry for you and give you a free tour of the apocalypse?”

  He could see her baffled expression growing more skeptical by the second, so he rushed to add something, anything.

  “I was really sick,” he said quickly, “That’s why I didn’t know what’s going on outside.”

  “You mean… like you were in a real coma? Real real coma that lasts for a long time?” she squinted at him.

  June didn’t actually know if such a sickness existed that kept people asleep through the end of the world, but since she already filled in the blanks herself, there was no point correcting her. “Yeah. Coma. I’ve always been a sick kid. Literally just woke up three days ago. Walked outside and saw the streets empty, everything broken. No people. No noise.”

  “I honestly thought I’d died and was in some kind of afterlife… until a vacuum cleaner tried to suck me in and a magic car nearly ran me over. It was only yesterday that I stumbled into this place to read some books on survival.”

  Zoe fell quiet for a moment.

  Then, unexpectedly, she reached forward and placed her hand gently on his shoulder, "I think you had it good," she muttered seriously, looking into his eyes. Then she pointed at the rotting corpse on the table. "See that body?" she asked.

  June turned to follow the motion, his gaze settling on the corpse that had earlier left him nearly vomiting. “She used to be pretty and hardworking. Had everything. Good family, good grades, friends. She was just finishing her applications, getting ready to leave for her dream college in NYC, and then someone decided to let the hell loose…”

  …

  The door and windows to the bookstore had returned sometime ago, and the micro-dungeon had slipped back into its original, quiet calm. June now sat on the spiral stairs leading to the second floor, his legs pulled in loosely as he rested his chin on his knee. Beside him, Zoe leaned against the railing, half-lounging, half-lecturing, clearly bored out of her mind.

  “This is the wrong place to start if you’re looking for books on survival,” she said flatly.

  “I mean, yeah, there are a lot of books in here, but we only kept what actually sold. If you’re into romance or random fiction, there’s plenty. But actual, useful stuff, the kind that teaches you something? We didn’t carry much. If I had to guess, the town library would be a better place to start. Have you gone there yet?” she asked, tossing a glance at him.

  June shook his head. “I don’t know where the library is.”

  “Really?” Her brow arched. “You’re not from this town?”

  “I am,” he answered quietly. “But I told you, I was sick. I couldn’t go outside most of the time.”

  He immediately felt bad for lying, the guilt creeping in like a shadow curling under his thoughts.

  “Sorry, sorry, my bad,” Zoe said quickly, waving her hands in apology.

  “It’s fine, I guess. Honestly, the library’s probably crawling with animated books too. And someone like you probably already figured out the quick EXP trick, so maybe it’s already been burned to the ground. If not, well, you’re welcome to go check it out.”

  June nodded. She wasn’t wrong. He had only burned half a shelf and gained nearly a hundred XP in one go. A library one with tens of thousands of books was like a goldmine. If even a portion of them were hostile entities, and EXP flowed that easily, it could shoot someone up several levels in a day. And leveling up was no joke. His Stasis Lock, which used to freeze time for just three seconds at Level 1, now lasted eighteen seconds at Level 6. The gains were huge. He understood why people would do anything to power up as quickly as possible.

  He turned to her again, this time eyes soft, almost pleading. “Can you please tell me now what happened back then?”

  When Zoe smiled, her eyes crinkled like half moons. She shook her head slowly, as if enjoying the way he squirmed. “Please.”

  “Fine,” she groaned dramatically, rolling her eyes. “But you have to bury my body first. I can’t keep existing with that thing in the corner. Ugh. It’s messing with my head.”

  “Sure,” June agreed without hesitation.

  Zoe had partial control over the dungeon now that it was stabilized, so exiting wasn’t a problem. After looking around through the front door, she agreed that the garden nearby would be a good spot. Without wasting time, June geared up. He wore a mask and gloves before handling her corpse, an act that felt somehow more surreal than fighting off a vacuum or an animated toilet. There was something heavier about it, something real and quiet and strange.

  Zoe helped him along until the threshold of the shop. “I can’t step outside,” she said simply, as though it was a rule she’d long accepted.

  From there, June took over. He hauled her corpse in a plastic tarp, then spent the next two hours digging through the hardened ground under the gray sky. It was almost afternoon by the time he was finished, sweat clinging to his neck and his arms sore from the effort.

  “Thanks,” Zoe said softly, extending a hand toward him. June hesitated for a breath, then reached out and shook it.

  “I’m Zoe,” she said with a bright smile. “We can be friends.”

  June smiled back. She could be called his first friend in life, even if she was a ghost—or an echo, or whatever this world had made her. He didn’t care much about definitions. The word “friend” was enough.

  “I’m June.”

  “You mean like the month of the year?” Zoe’s eyes sparkled. “Couldn’t your parents have picked something better?”

  Immediately, half of the goodwill she’d just built evaporated like a soap bubble. But June didn’t snap. It was the truth, after all. His mother had abandoned him at birth, and the name was given by a nurse who couldn’t leave the field blank on the form. He’d been born on the first of June. So, that’s what they called him.

  Just another leftover thing.