Chapter 1: The Book That Shouldn’t Exist
Percy Fogg had long accepted that his life would be quiet, orderly, and largely devoid of interdimensional incidents. As the head librarian of the Lower Brampton Public Library and Multi-Purpose Bingo Hall, he prided himself on his ability to maintain a strict Dewey Decimal system, enforce a zero-tolerance policy on loud gum chewing, and go entire weeks without speaking to another human outside of work.
Then, on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday, he checked out a book that didn’t exist.
It wasn’t his fault. Not entirely.
The book had been wedged between A Concise History of Incredibly Boring Bridges and The Definitive Guide to Collecting Rare Mold Samples—both well within the range of titles that regularly went unread. Percy only noticed it because it was… humming. Very softly. Like a cat contemplating mischief.
The cover was a deep, inky black with a title embossed in gold lettering that seemed to rearrange itself every time he looked at it. At first, it read:
THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THINGS THAT SHOULDN’T EXIST.
Then:
PROPERTY OF THE QUANTUM MISPLACEMENT BUREAU. RETURN IMMEDIATELY.
Then:
SERIOUSLY, PUT ME BACK.
Percy frowned. He was, by nature, an obedient sort of person. He had never once in his life failed to return a library book on time, much less stolen one. And yet, something about the shifting title made him uneasy. It was, in a word, untidy.
“Hmm,” he muttered, adjusting his glasses. “You’re not in the system.”
That should have been the end of it. He should have simply put the book back, walked away, and continued living his safe, predictable life. Instead, and this was the part where things truly went wrong, Percy scanned the barcode anyway.
The library terminal emitted a small, panicked beep.
Then the lights flickered. The air smelled briefly of burnt toast.
And then, the computer screen simply displayed the following message:
PATRON IDENTIFIED: PERCY FOGG.
ERROR: YOU DO NOT EXIST.
PLEASE SEE CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Percy stared at the screen. Then at the book. Then back at the screen.
“Ah,” he said, carefully. “That seems incorrect.”
The library speakers crackled to life. A robotic voice, clipped and thoroughly unamused, spoke directly into the quiet:
“ATTENTION: EXISTENTIAL ANOMALY DETECTED. DEPLOYING CORRECTIONAL MEASURES.”
Somewhere above, a ceiling tile dislodged itself and dropped unceremoniously onto the reference desk.
Percy decided it was time to leave.
He scooped up the book and walked as quickly as possible toward the exit, making it exactly three and a half steps before the air around him shimmered. A glowing, circular portal, roughly the size and shape of a disgruntled DMV employee, materialized in the library lobby.
From within, a floating metallic orb with a glowing red eye emerged, scanning the room with an expression that somehow conveyed the distinct impression that it had seen enough nonsense for one lifetime.
The orb fixed its gaze on Percy.
“PERCY FOGG,” it said, voice laced with bureaucratic exhaustion. “BY ORDER OF THE QUANTUM MISPLACEMENT BUREAU, YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED FOR IMMEDIATE REALITY CORRECTION.”
Percy clutched the book to his chest. “That sounds ominous.”
“IT IS.”
The orb emitted a sharp whirring noise, and the world around Percy glitched—for a moment, everything looked pixelated, like a poorly rendered video game. Then the bookshelves rippled, the library walls shifted, and Percy had the distinct and horrifying sensation that reality itself was trying to eject him like a bad filing error.
Panicked, he did the only thing that made sense at the time.
He ran.
The orb sighed. Or at least, it made a noise that sounded very much like a sigh if sighs were composed of static and deeply buried resentment.
“OH, FOR THE LOVE OF CAUSALITY,” it muttered. Then it activated pursuit mode.
And so, Percy Fogg, mild-mannered librarian, found himself sprinting through the stacks, clutching an apparently illegal book, while a robotic enforcer of reality chased him with all the enthusiasm of someone desperate to finish their shift.
This was, by all accounts, a very bad day.
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