*CLICK*

The electric light illuminated the dungeon-like basement. The door opened wide as a young red-headed woman entered the bottom floor of the library. Long shelves loomed all around Penina Hargreaves as she wheeled a cart of books to the far wall. Her tennis shoes slapped the uncarpeted floor loudly, almost uncomfortably.

The shelving began in earnest. This was her favorite part of the day: closing time, when everything was to be put away and she could go back to her barren room, where her computer with the Internet connection awaited her. Damn work-study, she thought quietly to herself, damn college, and damn life.

She glanced over the titles that had been perused by the patrons. The Neverending Story, Momo, Through the Looking Glass, The Hunting of the Snark, The White Deer. “Someone’s a children’s book aficionado,” Penina muttered. She went over her shift at the checkout desk in her mind, looking for who it could be. Bingo. It was a young man dressed in a shabby trench coat. He had borrowed a yellowed copy of Gulliver’s Travels and a little beige tome labeled on the spine with the appellation Grimm’s Fairy Tales just before the public hours were done. Just the sort of romantic fool who would be interested in these. Going back over her time at this college, she discovered his name to be Thaddeus Smith. He did not go to this college: rather, he was a vagrant who was more popularly known as “Mad Thad”. She had seen him out of the corner of her eye several times while walking through the streets.

After filing this away for future thought, she placed the books on the shelf quite precisely with her steely arms. After putting the cart back in its place, she paced through the aisles between shelves, searching for misplaced volumes. Once that was taken care of, she walked back to the cart to grab her bag. As she neared the exit, she saw that it was shut tight.

Penina stopped dead in her tracks. No one else was in the library, and she had placed the doorstop under the door to prevent this from happening. Even if it had slipped, the door could not be locked unless she had done it on this side of the door.

Her senses pricked up as she listened carefully. She inhaled deeply of the musty air. She looked around her. If there was anyone here, she would have known. Nothing other than the shut door seemed out of place. However, there was a reddish flickering light cavorting on the floor, whose origins she traced back to the glowing crack beneath the door.

She reached to her side and pulled her keys out of her pocket. Penina plucked the key off the key ring, and left her room key and ID card on the cart, from which she retrieved her delivery bag.

As an academic exercise, she had filled her bag with what she would absolutely need if she was to run away, to get out of here and enter the world. It was filled with things she would need to run away from her life. Well, it looks like an opportunity just came up.

“Could be Hell,” she said to herself, “but that would sure beat the **** out of this place.” Unlocking the door, she threw it wide open and boldly stepped through it. She made sure to lock and shut the door before she left, of course.

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I blame my incoherence on stress and prescribed drugs. Nayru Award: Of mantequilla and they of the deceptive peanut its dog in Pleasuring is probably the cover.
The Malarchy: My Post-TP Fanfic Amphitheatre character:Penina Hargreaves