Chapter 1
Lucien Ashford had always believed that history never truly disappeared. Someone had to erase it, hide it, or make others believe that something had never happened. That belief was also what made him more comfortable spending his time behind the library shelves as one of the assistants rather than sitting too long in the university cafeteria. To Lucien, old books were more than collections of pages yellowed by age. Every book was a silent witness, and as long as there was someone willing to open it, there was always a chance that a fragment of once-hidden truth would emerge again.
That morning, as usual, Lucien pushed a book cart toward the rearmost aisle of the Faculty of History building. That was where the collection inaccessible to ordinary students was kept, inside a room known as the Restricted Archive. Its wooden door was thick, its windows narrow, and entry was granted only to professors, researchers, or certain students with special permission. Lucien was one of them. For nearly two years, he had helped Professor Aldric Whitmore maintain the rare collection in that room—long enough to memorize the locations of most of the shelves, the order of the collection, and even a few small sections that others often passed without noticing.
Professor Whitmore had once said that the ability to notice details was one of the most important qualities a historian could have. Lucien had never known whether it was simply advice or a jab at how often he spent time examining things other people considered unimportant, but he still remembered it. Perhaps that was why he always noticed even the slightest changes in the archive.
The Restricted Archive door opened with a soft creak as Lucien pushed it. The scent of old wood, dust, and aging paper immediately filled the air. Morning sunlight streamed through the tall east-facing windows and fell between the wooden shelves, leaving some aisles bright while others remained submerged in shadow. Lucien gave a faint smile as he pushed the cart farther inside. Compared with lecture halls full of student voices and conversations he did not always want to hear, this place felt far more comfortable.
He began returning the books to their places one by one. He put the book on maritime history on the third shelf in section B, returned the manuscript about the northern kingdoms to the second shelf in section D, and arranged several explorers' travel records on the fifth shelf in section A. His movements were quick and practiced; he no longer needed to read the labels to know the locations of most of the collection. After nearly two years, returning books to the shelves felt like returning belongings to their respective homes.
Once the cart was nearly empty, Lucien picked up a cleaning cloth and walked toward the rearmost aisle. The shelves there were older than the others, and some of their surfaces had already begun to look dull. He cleaned the tops while inspecting the tightly packed books, then moved from one side to the other. When he reached the middle of the last shelf, his hand stopped and his brows furrowed.
"Huh... wait."
Wedged between two books with dark brown covers was an unfamiliar black book. Lucien did not take it out right away. Instead, he moved closer and examined the gap between the two books. He knew this shelf well. Just yesterday afternoon, he had even cleaned the same area because the dust was so thick, and he was certain there had been no black book there.
But perhaps he was remembering incorrectly. There were many collections he had to handle every day, and someone could have moved the book after he left. With that thought, Lucien finally pulled it from the shelf and turned it over, searching for any information that might explain where it had come from.
The cover was plain, without a title, an author's name, or the ornaments usually found on old books. Its spine had neither a catalog number nor a library label. Even when Lucien turned the book over to inspect the back, he found nothing except the slightly dulled surface of its black leather.
"That's strange..."
He looked back at the shelf. The books around it had a thin layer of dust along their tops, while the surface of the black book was almost clean. If someone had just placed it there, that meant the book had entered the room after he finished work yesterday. The problem was that everything brought into the Restricted Archive was supposed to be logged first, and Lucien did not remember any new collection item scheduled to be placed on that shelf.
Curiosity led him to carry the book to the cataloging desk. He opened the digital catalog first and tried searching by size and collection type, but found no results. He then opened the old index-card drawer and checked the collection list by shelf location, but the result was the same. There was no inventory number, no transfer record, and no name of a previous owner that could connect the book to the university's collection.
During his nearly two years working in the Restricted Archive, Lucien had seen all kinds of objects that even the library staff themselves considered difficult to categorize. There were manuscripts with only a few pages remaining, books whose covers had come loose, and travel records written in ink that was almost impossible to read. Some documents did not even have known authors. Yet all of them still had at least one sign that they had once been part of a collection. The book now lying before him had nothing.
Lucien opened the front cover.
The first page was blank. He turned to the next page and found the same thing. Several pages later, nothing had changed. There was no title, no page number, no handwriting, not even the library stamp usually printed on the opening pages of old collection items. He kept turning the pages, his curiosity gradually giving way to confusion, until he finally realized that nearly the entire book was completely blank.
"So it's a blank book?"
Lucien was about to close it, but before the cover fully returned to the desk, he noticed one of the pages in the middle. Its surface looked slightly different when the light from the window struck it. He turned the page, then touched it with his fingertip. The paper felt a little thicker than the other pages.
He took a small magnifying glass from the desk drawer and examined the surface. There was no hidden writing, no symbol, and no recognizable trace of ink. After a while, Lucien finally gave up and decided the difference was probably just the result of an uneven papermaking process.
He should have reported the book to Professor Whitmore. That was the proper procedure. Every unidentified object found in the Restricted Archive had to be recorded and examined before being moved or added to the collection. But curiosity made Lucien hesitate. He wanted to know whether there was something inside the book before handing it over.
Lucien went back to turning the pages one by one, this time more slowly. Most remained blank until he reached the very back. There, on one of the last pages, he finally found writing.
His hand stopped.
The writing consisted of only one sentence, made with faded ink that was still clear enough to read. Lucien leaned closer, making sure his eyes had not misread the letters. He read it once, then repeated it silently in his mind. Something about the sentence made his curiosity turn into unease.
Lucien traced the writing with his eyes once more. What disturbed him most was not the sentence's content, but one word in it.
We.
Not I. Not me.
That meant the person who had written it was not alone.
Lucien leaned back slightly in his chair, then read the sentence once more.
> "If this book still exists... then we failed to disappear."