Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

September 1st of 2023, 8:00 AM (UTC)

Another day in the library. Even though there is no real sun in this place, days and weeks and years still cycle around in this place, closely oriented to the daylight cycle of the real world. The sky shines a bright, clear blue in the morning, for all of the library characters to see. The seasonal cycle is based on the real world as well, and right now it is late summer. Though, now something else lies in the sky for all of the characters to see.

74:21:00:00

An array of giant, fiery numbers. Numbers that count down. They are counting down time. 

74:20:59:59

74:20:59:58

74:20:59:57

…and so on.

Everyone that is able to see these numbers, does so with great confusion. What do these numbers mean? What happens when the countdown hits zero? Who put it there? What did the puppets do this time? Why is the sky blue in the first place? Only a short while later, the puppets, Pharrah and Noya, call all of the library’s fairy tale protagonists to a large and round room of the library, filled with books in the walls and a huge round table in the center of the room. The room has one wide rectangular window, which allows a view to the outside of the remaining library, and also the dreaded countdown.

74:20:45:28

Alice. Snow White. Cinderella. Red Riding Hood. Pinocchio. Gretel (or Hansel?). Princess Kaguya. Sleeping Beauty. The Three Little Pigs. The Little Mermaid. Dorothy. Rapunzel. Aladdin. Little Match Girl. Hamelin. And even the Nutcracker. All of them, united around a singular wooden table, seated at their chairs. Sitting in anticipation and confusion. Mumbling between the characters occurs.

“A big countdown… for what though…?”
“These puppets must be plotting something…”
“I want to go back to sleep…”
“The sky looks tainted with these numbers! It’s repulsing!”
“These numbers… I want to see what happens when it goes to zero!”

And in the center of the table, the two puppets hang from the ceiling with their strings. Both clap with their hands to silence the entire room so that they can speak instead. The white one begins the speech of the end. “I welcome everyone to this… emergency meeting, you could say.”
The black one continues speaking. “Today, we must share something truly tragic.” The puppets switch speaking between each other repeatedly.“You all surely noticed the big countdown in the skies of every story, haven’t you?” The entire room of characters nod in unison. “Course’ we did.", Cinderella announces. “...It’s in the fucking sky.” Snow White, the woman sitting next to the aggressive Cinderella whispers something to her, likely telling her to quiet down. The others comment on this too.

“That’s a stupid question.”
“Yeah, you don’t even need to pay to see it.”
“You couldn’t miss it.”
“And it disturbed my sleep…”
“It’s an ugly stain in the sky. It should be gone.”

The puppets clap their hands together again in order to make the characters quiet down again. “If we may continue speaking…”, the white puppet speaks again. “...We have very, very bad news.”
“...Actually, are you sure you actually want to hear it? It’s pretty bad.”, the black puppet warns.
The atmosphere inside the small building is tense. What bad news could they possibly have? What could happen when the countdown hits zero? Worry and nervosity is spread across the table. But after a short moment of silence and exchanging gazes with each other, they agree and let Alice speak it out. “Yes, please tell us.”, Alice says, speaking for the entire table.

“Well… we warned you."
“Also, don’t share this with anyone else other than everyone present here, lest we cause absolute anarchy to wreak havoc inside of the stories.”
“But here goes.”
“It has been a nice time with all of you lunatics.”
“However…” The white puppet pauses. “We are afraid to tell you…”
“That it will soon have an end.”
“When this countdown hits zero…”
“The Library ends. It will die.”
“Everyone and everything within it… will cease to exist.”
"We. You. The countless stories.” The countless books. They will all cease to exist.”
“This countdown tells us how much time we have left here.”
Most of the characters attending are in shock.
As soon as the puppets had finished their speech, the entire table errupts into chaos.

“What? The end?!”
“That can’t be true!”
“But I want to keep playing!”
“Someone… save us.”
“Money can solve this… surely.”
“Beauty really is… fleeting.”
“What… it can’t… be.”
“No… I need to be… with brother..”
“Wonderfully miserable.”
“If it means I can sleep forever… it doesn’t sound bad at all.”
“...”

Cries, shouts and mumbling could be heard from everyone. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance fills everyone.
“You puppets… Why have you done this?!” Snow White screams extraordinarily loudly in between everyone's mumblings.
“This time… we actually have not done a thing.”, the black puppet speaks. The table goes quiet again.
“We are at the whims of gods who want to erase our world.”
“Bullshit. This place couldn’t have a god, let alone several.”, Cinderella attempts to correct. The puppets continue to speak, now in an upset tone.
“The gods who have abandonded us… call themselves Pokelabo.”
“Today, we received a message from them.”
“A message saying that this Library will end soon.”
“We asked why.”
“We asked what we could do to prevent this.”
“They simply told us we ‘didn’t make enough money for them to be profitable to keep supporting.’”
“They simply told us it's impossible.”
“They simply told us to accept our fate.”
Despite the puppets being unable to express emotions like sadness through their faces, the tone of their speech expresses it. This is the first time they have ever been powerless to anyone. Usually they are the ones holding the strings. But now, they truly are just puppeteered puppets. Silence covers the room again for a moment. Then, the table erupts into chaos again.

“We didn’t make enough money?! But I have all the riches of the world! That is impossible!”
“I will never accept this fate!”
“I am glad that it will end in a tragedy.”
“What a bummer…”
“Can’t… sleep.”
“Can’t we… can’t we do anything?”
“I’ll sell some more matchsticks to save our butts!”
“We got two and a half months left…?”

The puppets start speaking again while the characters are still screaming and shouting at each other.
“There is nothing we can do.”
“It seems that we, too, are powerless this time.”
“We are powerless to do anything.”
“When this countdown is over…”
“Then we are over too. It will be our death.”
“It is now simply up to you…”, Pharrah begins.
“...as to how you will spend these last 74 days within the library.” Noya finishes.
The counter in the sky continues to count down.

74:20:25:48

74:20:25:47

74:20:25:46

…and so on.

The counter continues to count down until the very end. It truly is up to the characters to decide what they will want to do with their little remaining time. Will they enjoy their remaining time in the library to the fullest, or will they sulk over their eventual end?

Chapter Text

73:21:54:34  

The first night since the announcement of the end has arrived. Most of the dear library characters were simply still shocked and could not get their eyes to close at all. Some however, we’re mostly unphased. Especially the Sleeping Beauty, who sees the eventual end of the Library as another reason to sleep even more. Everyone who was not asleep instead tried to keep themselves busy as much as possible with the things that are the most dear to them. They will lose it soon enough, after all.  Alice is one of the characters that simply could not fall asleep, no matter what. Even after killing hundreds of nightmares on the prior day within the dark forest she has found herself in, she just could not become tired enough to finally fall asleep. Sleeping is usually no issue for her, even after slaughtering waves and waves of nightmares. But knowing every second spent away would just mean that she would lose time terrifies her. The little time they all still have, she thinks she could still revive her author, Lewis Carroll, within that short time of two and a half months. Or rather, she hopes. In fact, she is the only character to still even do so. Most of the others decided that still hunting nightmares for the revival of their author would simply be pointless. There simply wouldn’t be enough life force to take from the nightmares. Pharrah and Noya too recommended everyone to stop fighting exactly because of that. But she simply continues. She would not know how to spend the rest of her life except for chasing the one thing she truly desires. It is an unrealistic dream. But Alice has always been the one to chase white rabbits. Finally giving up on the sleep, she gets up from the little fireplace she had made to warm her up and takes hold of her blood-stained sword again. Wherever she looks, she always finds enough nightmares to kill, all in different shapes and sizes. Her deep blue combat skirt is decorated by dried blood. To revive her author. That truly is her dream. The rabbit she follows into the rabbit hole. Even one that a dreading end could not solve. The fact that the Library would end soon, is something she could at the very least comprehend and accept was happening. She knows that this day is inevitable. She knows that nothing she would do could change it. It is her way of accepting it. As her blade is cutting through more of the gray flesh of more lesser nightmares, a loud and sudden shriek pierces her ears. The cries continue even after cutting down the last nightmare. It sounds human. It sounds like a cry. Like that of a girl who has lost everything. Irritated by the loud sound, she decides to investigate said sound and follows the direction it came from. The closer she gets, the louder it gets. Eventually, she does find the source. A girl, leaning against a tree. And crying. Alice carefully approaches from behind. Only as she gets closer, she is able to recognize the person the cry belongs to. A pathetic and delusional Gretel. Sitting on the leaves of the forest floor and crying. They hold their dear brother tight to their chest. Or at least what they think is their dear brother. “…Brother…”, Gretel sobs. Alice is already aware of Gretel's strange antics with their brother. One would not need to spend a lot of time around them in order to realize that.
“...I’ll always be with you!”, they cry, clutching the cage with the rotten head inside even closer to their body. A flood of tears stream down their eyes. They do not even register Alice’s presence. They simply continue crying. “How long has she been doing this…?” , Alice wonders. It would not be unbelievable if they have been like this the entire day. After all, with the end of the world, they would also lose the one dearest to them. The brother. As Gretel is still crying, Alice is puzzled on what to do. She is just here to hunt nightmares. But she also feels responsible for helping Gretel. A great feeling of pity. And it would also stop her headache she sustained from the loud cries of Gretel. “...Hello, Gretel…”, Alice attempts to speak to Gretel. She is ignored.  “Hello..”, she repeats, now standing in front of Gretel. She knows that she is not the greatest at conversation. But even this seems ridiculous. Extremely ridiculous. “Hello!”, she attempts to say even louder. Gretel is still crying. She sighs. “GRETEL! DO YOU EVEN HEAR ME!?”, she shouts now directly in front of them. No reaction. Another sigh. How could she possibly get them to notice?  After a second, it becomes obvious. The only thing that could draw the attention away from their brother… she can imagine. And she does exactly what she imagined. Alice reaches her hand out to Gretel, just to lightly tap at the cage.
A single second later, Alice finds herself with a blade pointed to her throat and backed against a tree. Gretel stands in front of her with the violet blade pointing at her. Their saddened expression has completely faded, now replaced with pure wrath in their eyes. Alice expected Gretel to turn on her as soon as she did that. Though, she was in no way prepared to have a blade held at her throat in that singular second.
“...Don’t you fucking dare touching him.”, Gretel whispers. “...What is your actual problem? Do you not have anything better to do than to bother me?” Alice answers in a louder tone. “...Do you know how loud you were crying? I saw it as an assault on my ears.” 
“Because you don’t get it.”
Alice would never get it.
Alice would never get it.
Alice would never get it.
She would never get how Gretel feels.  Only Gretel, of course, would know the pain of knowing the one you love the most will die. 
“I also felt like… I had to calm you down.”, Alice answered as well, saying her honest thoughts.
“What? Are you pitying me? For… crying.”
“Wouldn’t you pity someone crying on the ground?”
Gretel stayed silent. They simply could not answer it.
“Just… everything will be f-”, Alice tries saying before being interrupted by Gretel.
“Shut up! The library is ending, you fucking idiot! I won’t be with brother anymore! Nothing will be fine!”
Nothing will be fine. Nothing will be fine. Gretel repeats that inside of their head. Nothing will be fine.
“...Crying about it won’t help eit-”
“SHUT UP!” Gretel grips the hilt of the blade and thrusts it forwards. Alice cannot do anything but watch the blade move again. She did not want to fight, and much less die against Gretel. She awaits the sharp pain. But it never arrived. She looks over to her right. The blade sticks into the tree, right next to her face. Gretel’s hand slipped, so it seems. Because she is not dead. The other hand is still holding the cage. The other looks right into her eyes. Tears fall again. Gretel lets themselves fall to the ground again. They sob on top of the cage once again. Nothing will be fine. Whatever they are saying now, it is completely unintelligible for Alice. Nothing will be fine. The cage and the head are made wet by the tears. Nothing will be fine. These words keep repeating inside Gretel's head. They could not live knowing that their time with their brother would have an end. It is so unfair. So unfair. Alice simply stares at Gretel, who is now laying on the ground again. Gretel is back to crying. Now knowing that trying to get Gretel to calm down has proved to be an utterly fruitless endeavor, Alice decides to cut her losses, grabbing her bloody blade and running away from the scene as quickly as possible, leaving it exactly how it started. With Gretel crying. She continues running and running, running deep into the dark forest at night. Once again, she continues to slay more and more nightmares, until the very day the library meets its end. After all, the time never stopped ticking down as the two were interacting with each other.

73:21:19:26

73:21:19:25

73:21:19:24

…and so on.