Story 1185: The Book That Reads You

In the forgotten wing of the Blackmoor Library, sealed by chains no key could open, a boy named Corwin Hale found a door that wasn’t there the day before.

It had no handle. No hinges. Just a frame, and within it, a yawning dark like an eye blinking open.

He stepped through.

Beyond was a circular room made of interlocking shelves, curving upward like a tower swallowed in shadow. There were no stairs. No ladder. Only the feeling that the books themselves were watching.

And in the center of it all, resting on a pedestal of ribs carved from some massive creature long dead, was the Book.

Bound in skin darker than night, its cover bore no title. No lettering. Just a shape… shifting. As though something writhed beneath its binding.

Corwin, ever the curious apprentice, reached out.

The moment his fingers brushed it, the room breathed.

The pages fanned open—without wind—and the words inside began to rearrange.

Not in ink. In blood.

They formed his name.

Then his birth.