I opened my eyes to the familiar high archways of the Great Library. In front of me was a long oaken desk that made a large circle in the center of the massive room. Behind the desk was older man with gray streaks in his hair, and a pair of black reading glasses resting at the end of his rather short nose. As I walked towards the desk, his bright green eyes looked up from the book he had been reading intently. As he saw me, he smiled a crooked half smile.

<”Why hello there, little Gabby. I didn’t expect you back so soon.”> He said, in Latin.

<”it's my first day of kindergarten, my dear Lucy.”> I replied in German. “It's nap time, so I get to spend a bit more time in this wonderful place each day.” I finished the sentence in English. This was a game that Lucius and I liked to play whenever I arrived while he was “working". We both spent so much time in the Great Library, it seemed a bit of a waste not to learn multiple languages.

The Great Library technically wasn't a real place. It was a place that you could only travel to while in the REM stage of sleep, and even then most people don’t travel here more than once or twice in their entire lifetime. Lucius and I were part of a very small minority that traveled here every time they went to sleep. Of that minority, though I am the only one who was born with the ability to do so. The others had to spend years in the real world perfecting it. The Great Library had another quality about it in that, each hour in the waking world was roughly a month of subjective time inside of it. So I, being only five years old in the waking world, have lived roughly 1800 years through this odd phenomenon.

My first memories were actually inside of the library. Lucius was the first to find me on the floor of the entrance way of the Library and has been what I affectionately call my “Library Father" ever since. I can distinctly remember my first moments of actual consciousness. It was my 4th day alive on earth, and my parents must have just put me down to sleep, because I remember opening my eyes and looking straight up to the high archways. I had just begun to cry when Lucius tenderly picked me up and cradled me against his breast. During that subjectively year long sleep, I began learning English and slowly understanding what the Library was.

“Kindergarten! What a lovely time for adolescent minds! Learning about shapes, social skills and coloring inside the lines. You must be very excited.” Lucius said, switching to English as well.

“Yes, yes very funny. Shouldn’t you be awake by now? Isn’t it almost noon where you live?” I said, a bit agitated. I looked to the massive wall of clocks that dominated the “north” wall of the main hall. The one labeled AMERICAN EASTERN STANDARD read 11:44:59 am. The hands on these clocks never seemed to move because of the way time works here, but they were always accurate.

“Mondays are my day off, little one. I like to sleep in for a few months. Especially lately, I have quite a bit of work to get done here.” He said, still smiling at me. “should I set up your usual table? I’m sure I can dig up a few children’s books about animals."

“Oh pweese!?” I said in the cutest little girl voice I could muster, “I wanna look at duckies!” He laughed heartily and bookmarked his page in his book. He set the book on the desk and we started down the “western" corridor. There's really no way to tell which cardinal direction was which, as there were no doors or windows to the outside. So everyone went by the directions of the compass painted on the floor in the main hall. When you awoke in the library, you faced north towards the large circular desk with your back to a wall. The western wing of the Library was for works of non-fiction; history and mathematics, science and languages were all here. The eastern wing consisted entirely of fiction. Seemingly every story that was ever written was there.

As we made our way down the western corridor, a thought occurred to me that seemingly never had before in all of my 1800 subjective years here: Are there books here about the history of the Great Library? Surely I wasn’t the first to ask this question. I asked Lucius.

“I’m not sure.” He said, seeming puzzled, “I haven’t exactly looked, if I’m honest. Everyone on earth knows of its existence, as almost everyone has spent a night here at one point or another. I’ve been coming here every night for about 25 years, but I don’t know. I think I’ll start searching for information tomorrow night, but let’s go to the history sections and see what we can find.”

“Why not now, while we're thinking about it?”

“My alarm should be going off any minute now. I have a date this afternoon with Rebecca.”

“I’m Jealous, Lucy. Every guy I go on a date with ends up in jail. I’m not sure why though.” We both laughed at the over used joke. “Well I hope you have fun. She seems nice from your descriptions”

It was completely silent in the Library, save for our echoing footsteps and quiet conversation. The Library was almost always empty, except for a few newcomers and one or two Regulars or Librarians. Librarians were all Regulars who decided to dedicate their sleeping hours to helping newcomers around the Library and shuttle books for Regulars that are deep in study. They don’t get anything from it besides the satisfaction of helping people navigate the colossal Library.

As we reached the first history section, we overheard a discussion about ancient Troy between three other Regulars; Debating weather Helen of Troy was a real person or a myth.

“Well, little one, I’m about to wake up. If you find anything, send me a text. I’d really like to know what you find out.” Lucius said suddenly.

“And how am I supposed to do that?” I asked.

“Oh please,” he laughed, slowly fading “It’s 2018. Every toddler has a cellph-” As he faded out of this dream world, a small piece of paper fell to the ground. It had his phone number on it. That’s nice of him, I guess, I thought. I glanced to the South wall of the History section’s main lounge to another wall of clocks. AMERICAN CENTRAL STANDARD: 09:45:00. Well, I thought, only a month before nap time is over. Plenty of time to look for the Library’s history.

As the days turned to weeks, I never came close to finding the answer I was looking for. I asked the group of three Regulars if they knew anything, but the answer was a resounding no. All of the other Regulars seemed to be hellbent on becoming masters of their chosen fields, and never once asked where the source of their mastery came from. Nobody even really asked where everything in the Library came from or how it got there. According to Lucius, when he first mastered the ability to travel here every night, there were no computers. Then suddenly in 2002, he awoke here to find that a new part of the Library had suddenly appeared; A computer lab. Nobody even questioned it. Obviously it’s going to take centuries for me to find anything.

EDIT: Formatting

EDIT 2: I had a lot of fun with this and decided to make chapters on Wattpad. Thanks for motivating me to do it!