The Library - The Complete Series Read Online Free PDF

effort is completely pointless; if I'm in a coma, I might as well just sit around and wait until I wake up. Then again, I've seen films about people in comas, and they usually have to keep going in order to prove that they're not ready to die. Damn it; if I just sit and wait to wake up, I might just fade away to nothing. Sighing, I keep moving, and after a couple of minutes I spot something a little further ahead. Struggling a few more meters, I come to a small door set into the wall. I glance back the way I came for a moment, before reaching down and turning the door handle; to my surprise, I'm able to pull the door open, at which point I step inside and find myself in what appears to be a long, open-air corridor. The inside of this place seems to be lined with bookshelves and filled with books of all sizes and colors. I look left, and then right, but all I can see is what appears to be mile after mile of shelving, while up above there's nothing but clear, orange-blue sky. It's as if I'm in the world's largest open-air library.
    "Huh," I mutter as I hobble forward, putting my weight on the nearest shelf. I definitely don't remember ever hearing about a place like this, so I guess the coma theory is becoming more and more likely by the second. Looking at the shelf, I see books with titles such as 'How to Freeze a City' and 'The Dangers of Gum'; I pull one of the titles out but, just like the books back in the box at home, it seems to be a fairly impenetrable piece of work that makes references to things I've never heard of. I put the book back and, figuring I might as well take a look around, I make my way slowly along the aisle until I reach a cross-point; I can either keep going, or turn right. Deciding to try a new direction, I find myself walking along an aisle that seems to run all the way to the horizon, with fresh bookshelf-lined aisles branching out regularly in each direction; in fact, the aisle is so long, I feel I can almost see how the horizon dips slightly to follow the curve of the planet.
    It's hard to believe that there are so many books in the entire world, but this place seems to be vast. It's as if someone took a copy of every book in the entire universe, and then built a massive outdoor library in which to store them, and then just left the place to rot. I'd have thought a place like this would be full of people, although I suppose the internet makes a trip here less necessary. Frankly, I feel as if I'm trespassing in someone's private project. Then again, if I'm in a coma, then maybe this is all some huge manifestation of my brain. I guess that's the most likely thing; I'm just wandering through my own mind, waiting for the doctors to figure out how to bring me around.
    "Hello!" I call out, figuring I might as well see if there's anyone nearby. After all, if my subconscious mind has created an entire landscape, I'm sure it could stretch to coming up with a few inhabitants. I pause for a moment, but I don't hear anyone shouting back at me. "Typical," I mutter, stopping to lean against the end of an aisle. While I'm not particularly keen to just sit down and wait to wake up, I kind of don't see the point of pushing on when I'm in pain. As far as I can tell, this whole library is just one big series of empty aisles, in which case I don't see that there's much reason to keep going. Then again, I can't help but wonder if I'm in the middle of some huge metaphor: if I surrender to my painful ankle, and choose to just sit down and wait, does that mean I'm giving up in the face of whatever real-life problem is keeping me in the coma? Damn it, is my subconscious really so obvious? I guess I can't take the risk, so I hobble along despite the agony.
    After passing the ends of a series of long aisles, I glance to my left and finally spot something a few hundred meters away, resting against one of the shelves. Narrowing my eyes a little to get a better look, I realize that it's a human shape, slumped on the