Athena was in the library, studying witchy things, which is how she would spend her lunches. It wasn’t normal, but it was her normal, this was her safe space, she loved to be around books, the smell of the stories alone was enough to bring her a sense of calm centered joy. Plus it was quiet and there were lots of places to tuck away.
Athena wasn’t the only one who was like this, Kyla liked to read here during lunches too, the two had a sort of head nod friendship, game recognized introvert game sort of thing. Kyla was tucking into Pride and Prejudice, not for school, but just because she liked reading and romance and love and wit and words, in fact she was more romantic about words than she was about Jay, or any other boy she had a crush on.
Jay was in the library too, completely unaware of Kyla or her feelings and planning a dungeons and dragons campaign for later weekend, while listening to a podcast about Marvel movies and most of all avoiding Biff, who would never come in here to take his lunch money, like he had when he had done this planning before at a lunch table.
Biff was also here, because Jay was wrong and Biff wanted Jay’s lunch money.
Sarah was here because Biff was here, tagging along, though she was hoping that they could use one of the hidden corners for some fun.
There was a librarian of course, keeping an eye on everything, and shushing when appropriate.
On the computers was Karyn and Jon, who were busy looking up magic stones, though they claimed it was just a group project. IT WASN’T PORN! They swear. But it did look like they were looking at porn.
Nadine was also there, but she was so quiet, and reading her bible, that no one actually knew she was there.
Then quite suddenly those people were no longer there. The room went blank as a fresh page. Books fell out the air clattering to the ground with an unlibrary like loudness which then covered the sudden and shocking return of the whole room full of people.
But they came back different, they all came back changed. You see in that moment everyone had been sucked into a story, forced to live the life of one of the characters, or in some cases, just absorb the knowledge of a magazine or fantasy landscape or website, really explore the knowledge base of it all, become it for a moment and then popped back into the world. For many of them it was like living a whole lifetime, or for some it was horror, for others joy, for others oddness.
Sarah had found herself as Thanos the mad titan from the Avengers movies, and she could still feel the glove on her hand, the power of a God streaming through her veins, the sense of purpose and drive and confidence, beyond what she had ever known. As she looked back on it all, she was still her, but she had done those things…it was her…it was all real. She still thought of herself as Thanos, and her mission was incomplete.
Everyone else was similarly disoriented, and equally changed.
