## A Voice from the Second Floor
Rain had been falling since afternoon, with no sign of stopping.
Beyond the tall glass windows of Darma Pustaka Library, the city looked like a collection of shadows dissolving in water. Streetlights shimmered in puddles, vehicles passed occasionally with the hiss of tires, and then everything fell silent again.
On the first floor, only Naya remained.
Her laptop was open on a table near the window. The screen displayed a paper containing only three paragraphs, even though she had been sitting there for nearly four hours. Beside the laptop were two cups of instant coffee, an unopened package of biscuits, and a stack of books about the oral history of coastal communities.
Naya held down the delete key until an entire paragraph disappeared.
“Great,” she muttered. “Four hours to delete six lines.”
She leaned her head against the chair, closed her eyes, then opened her phone. There were three text messages from her academic adviser.
Don’t forget to submit the revisions tomorrow morning.
If it isn’t finished, don’t come to my office.
And one final message containing nothing but a period.
Naya stared at it for a long time. Mr. Arman had never used a period as a threat, but that night, a single punctuation mark felt more frightening than a long sentence.
She turned off her phone screen and went back to typing.
Darma Pustaka Library was usually crowded until late afternoon. Students filled the long tables, schoolchildren ran between the bookshelves, and office workers came to read the newspaper. But after nine at night, the old building became an entirely different place.
There was no music.
No air-conditioning.
No sound of the staff member’s footsteps.
Only the sound of wood expanding from the damp and the creaking of the old bookshelves whenever wind slipped through the gaps around the windows.
Naya had actually intended to leave an hour ago. She simply couldn’t bring herself to accept the possibility that her paper wouldn’t be finished. Not because she was afraid of being scolded by her adviser. She’d been scolded before and was still alive. What made her uneasy was failure.
Ever since her mother died three years ago, Naya had been used to handling everything herself. She didn’t like asking for help, didn’t like looking confused, and especially didn’t like it when someone said, “You don’t have to be strong all the time.”
The sentence sounded like permission to give up.
That was why she was still there, even though her entire body was begging to go home.
11:31 p.m.
Naya had just found a quote that might save her paper when she heard footsteps coming from the service desk.
She raised her head.
Mr. Wiryo stood there.
The library guard was over sixty years old. He was thin, with white hair, and his brown uniform always looked too large for him. He was known as a man who rarely spoke, but that night he looked at Naya as if he were waiting for something.
“Not going home yet?” he asked.
“In a minute, sir.”
“Does ‘in a minute’ mean before or after midnight?”
Naya gave him a small smile. “Before, if my paper cooperates.”
Mr. Wiryo didn’t smile back. He glanced at the wall clock, then looked toward the staircase at the end of the room.
The staircase led to the second floor, which had been closed for years. A large chain stretched across it. A sign reading NO ENTRY hung crookedly, as if someone had once tried to pull it down.
“Sir,” Naya said, “is the second floor really still empty?”
“There’s nothing you need to see up there.”
“I was just asking.”
“Questions can open doors, too.”
Naya stared at him. “What does that mean?”
Mr. Wiryo walked closer. The smell of raincoat and wet earth clung to him.
“When it’s eleven fifty, go home. Don’t wait until midnight.”
“What happens at midnight?”
Several seconds passed.
From the direction of the second floor came the sound of something falling.
Thud.
Mr. Wiryo didn’t turn around. But his face had gone pale.
Naya saw his hand gripping the edge of the desk until his knuckles turned white.
“If you hear a little girl calling from upstairs later,” he said quietly, “don’t answer.”
“Why?”
Mr. Wiryo finally looked at Naya.
“Because that voice no longer has a child.”
Naya furrowed her brow. Mr. Wiryo took the key to the main entrance, then left without explaining anything.
Before going out, he stopped near the door.
“And don’t read the book with the red cover.”
The main door closed.
The lock turned from outside.
Naya listened to Mr. Wiryo’s footsteps fading beneath the sound of rain. She waited until the sound disappeared, then shook her head.
“Old people really do love scaring college students.”
She tried to get back to work.
11:48 p.m.
The new paragraph was finally finished after fifteen minutes. Naya was about to save the document when the light above her head flickered once.
She stopped.
The light came back on as usual.
Naya looked around. The bookshelves stood in long rows. There was no one there. The main entrance was locked. The windows were closed.
She continued typing.
The second flicker came three minutes later.
This time, from between the shelves at the very back, came the sound of a chair being dragged.
Creeeak.
Naya raised her head.
Creeeak.
The sound came from the second floor.
She looked at the staircase. The chain was still in place, but one end appeared looser than before.
Then she heard a child’s voice.
“Naya...”
Her hands stopped above the keyboard.
The voice was so quiet it almost sounded like part of the rain.
“Naya...”
She held her breath.
There couldn’t be a child on the second floor. There couldn’t be anyone else in the building. Mr. Wiryo had locked the door from outside.
The voice came again, this time closer.
“Naya, please get my book.”
Naya stood.
She shouldn’t answer.
Mr. Wiryo’s warning was still clear in her mind. Don’t answer.
But there was something in that voice that made it difficult to stay silent. It didn’t sound like a mere call. It sounded like someone who had been waiting for too long.
Naya stared at the staircase.
“What?”
The moment the word left her mouth, the entire library fell silent.
The sound of the rain disappeared.
The hum of the lights vanished.
Even the second hand of the wall clock stopped moving.
Then the chain on the staircase came loose.
Ting.
Ting.
Ting.
The chain slowly fell to the floor, even though no hand touched it.
The no-entry sign spun once and fell with its lettering facedown.
Naya backed away.
Footsteps came from the second floor.
Small.
Wet.
One step down the stairs.
Two.
Three.
Naya grabbed her phone, but its screen displayed only 12:00 a.m. She tried pressing the call button. There was no signal.
At the bottom step, a little girl appeared.
She was perhaps eight or nine years old. Her long black hair was wet and covered her entire face. She wore a white dress whose hem was caked with mud. Water dripped from her clothes onto the floor, forming a small puddle.
In her right hand, she held an old library card.
The girl stopped a few yards from Naya.
“My book hasn’t been returned,” she said.
Naya tried to speak, but her throat was dry.
“What book?”
The girl’s hair shifted slightly.
“The book you brought.”
Naya turned toward the table.
Among her reference books was a red book she had never seen before.
The book was thin, with no title and no author’s name. Its cover looked wet, as if it had just been lifted from the bottom of a river.
Naya didn’t remember putting it there.
The girl stepped closer.
“Naya,” she said, “open it.”
“This isn’t my book.”
“It will be yours soon.”
Naya backed up until her back touched the table.
The red book opened by itself.
The first page remained blank for several seconds. Then black ink appeared on its surface, one letter at a time.
Naya arrived at Darma Pustaka Library at 7:16 p.m.
She didn’t move.
The next sentence appeared.
Naya bought two cups of coffee but drank only one and a half.
Naya stared at the cups beside her laptop. One cup was indeed empty. The second was only half full.
The ink continued writing.
Naya read her adviser’s messages at 10:04 p.m.
Naya pretended not to be afraid when Mr. Wiryo warned her.
Naya heard a voice from the second floor at 11:48 p.m.
Naya answered at 11:59 p.m.
The book stopped.
Beneath the final sentence, a blank line appeared.
Naya stared at it.
The line began to fill.
At 12:03 a.m., Naya will turn the next page.
She immediately shut the book.
The cover slammed against the table with a loud bang. But the book opened again, faster than before.
The little girl in front of her let out a sound like restrained laughter.
“Don’t close it.”
“Who are you?”
“My name was written on the final page once.”
“What’s your name?”
The girl tilted her head.
“Once you’ve read it, you’ll remember.”
The lights flickered.
When they came back on, the girl was already standing beside Naya.
Her wet hair brushed Naya’s arm. The smell of mud and rotting paper filled the air.
Naya held back a scream.
She ran for the main entrance.
The door wasn’t far away. Only about twenty steps. She could see its brass handle, see her reflection in the glass, and hear the rain outside.
But every time she took a step, the door remained the same distance away.
One step.
Two steps.
Five steps.
Ten steps.
The table and bookshelves around her began to pull away. The library aisle stretched like rubber being pulled taut. The main entrance appeared to shrink.
Naya turned around.
Where the table had stood, there was now a new corridor that had never existed before.
Black shelves towered on the left and right. Untitled books filled every level. At the end of the corridor, a small yellow light glowed above a table.
The red book was already there.
Open.
Naya walked backward, but the floor beneath her feet began to tremble. From behind the shelves came the sound of pages turning one by one.
Rustle.
Rustle.
Rustle.
Then whispers arose from every direction.
“Don’t go.”
“Your story isn’t finished.”
“We’re waiting for that part.”
Naya covered her ears.
“I don’t want to hear it!”
“But you’ve always wanted to be heard.”
The whisper changed into her mother’s voice.
Naya fell silent.
“Naya,” the voice said gently, “Mom is still here.”
The world seemed to stop.
It had been three years since Naya had heard that voice. She still remembered it clearly: slightly hoarse when tired, always softening when it called her name.
Naya stared into the dark corridor.
“Mom?”
The little girl behind her gave a small laugh.
“Just answer.”
Her mother’s voice came again.
“Naya, come here. Mom wants to talk.”
Something inside Naya collapsed.
She knew it wasn’t her mother. She knew the voice was only an imitation. But knowledge wasn’t always enough to protect someone from longing.
For three years, Naya had hoped to hear one more sentence from her mother. Just one. It didn’t have to be advice. It didn’t have to be her last words. She would even accept a simple reprimand.
She stepped toward the voice.
On the floor, puddled water formed a trail of small footprints. The footprints led toward the corridor of black shelves.
“Come here,” her mother’s voice called.
Naya stopped in front of the table.
The red book was open to a new page.
Naya’s mother died on Tuesday at 4:20 p.m.
Naya stared at the writing, her chest tight.
The next line appeared.
Naya was not at home when her mother died.
Her hands clenched.
She knew.
She knew all of it.
At the time, she had been taking an exam. Her phone was turned off. When she got home, the ambulance had already left and the house was full of neighbors. She hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye.
What she regretted most wasn’t her mother’s death.
It was that they had fought before she left.
The last words Naya had spoken were, “I’m tired of handling everything by myself.”
She had never had the chance to take them back.
The book wrote it down.
Naya fought with her mother at 2:07 p.m.
Naya hoped her mother wouldn’t call again.
Naya regretted it when her hope came true.
Tears fell onto the page.
The ink beneath them spread, but the sentences didn’t disappear.
The little girl stood across the table.
“Everyone carries a story they want to hide,” she said. “The library only keeps them.”
“Then why me?”
“Because you opened the door.”
“I only answered a voice.”
“An answer is a key.”
From behind the shelves came the sound of a key turning.
A tall figure emerged from the shadows.
Mr. Wiryo.
Or something wearing Mr. Wiryo’s body.
His uniform was wet, but not from the rain. Black fluid dripped from his sleeves. His face was covered by sheets of paper sewn together. A different name was written on each sheet.
Students’ names.
Children’s names.
The names of people who might have once come to the library and never gone home.
Mr. Wiryo raised a large rusted key.
“Sir!” Naya shouted. “Help me!”
The figure stopped.
The sheets covering its face moved slowly. A new sentence was written there.
He is not Mr. Wiryo.
Naya backed away.
“Where is Mr. Wiryo?”
The figure did not answer. It inserted the key into the air, as if there were an invisible keyhole in front of it.
Click.
Every door on the first floor opened at once.
Beyond the main entrance there was no way out, only a long corridor filled with shelves. Behind the administrative office door were shelves as well. Even the restroom door revealed a dark room filled with wet books.
The library no longer had a way out.
The figure raised its pen—Naya had only just realized that its left hand held an old black pen.
It wrote something in the air.
When the final stroke was complete, a thin cut appeared on the back of Naya’s hand.
Naya screamed and stumbled backward.
The red book shook violently.
On the open page, ink wrote rapidly.
12:17 a.m.
Naya tried to escape.
12:18 a.m.
Naya realized that the library was reading her fear.
12:19 a.m.
Naya found a way to fight back.
She stopped.
“What?” she whispered.
The final sentence was unfinished. The ink moved slowly, as if the writer behind the page were hesitating.
Naya found a way to fight back, but she had to sacrifice someone else’s story.
Beside the book, the little girl’s library card fell to the floor.
Naya picked it up.
The name on the card was almost faded. She rubbed its surface with her thumb.
MAYA SASTRANEGARA.
Date of birth: May 12, 2011.
Return date: blank.
Naya looked at the faceless girl.
“You’re Maya?”
The girl said nothing.
“This book is yours?”
For the first time, she nodded.
“Mr. Wiryo tried to return it,” Maya said. “But the book can’t be returned if its story isn’t finished.”
“Whose story?”
Maya raised her hand and pointed at the tall figure behind Naya.
“The guard.”
The figure moved.
Its feet didn’t touch the floor. It glided between the shelves, carrying the pen that still dripped black ink.
Naya turned the pages of the book.
There was a great deal written about Mr. Wiryo. About how he had started working at the library forty years ago. About a little girl who fell from a balcony. About the night he found the red book in the archive room.
And about the agreement he had made.
For Maya to remain alive inside the book, someone had to guard the library and bring new readers to her.
Mr. Wiryo had been the guard for thirty years.
Not because he wanted to.
Because the book had written his name on the final page.
Naya turned another page.
There was one section that had not yet been written.
The figure’s pen began moving through the air again.
Naya realized something. The book didn’t merely predict events. It needed someone to read it so the next writing could appear.
If she stopped reading, the story would stop.
She closed her eyes.
Then she closed the book.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then every shelf began to scream.
The sounds of splintering wood, shattering glass, and hundreds of books hitting the floor filled the room. The whispers turned into a roar.
The guard figure shot toward her.
Maya screamed without a mouth.
Naya hugged the red book to her chest and ran.
She didn’t know where to go. The corridors changed every time she looked away. Black shelves appeared and vanished. Doors opened on their own. Behind her, something continued to chase her.
Naya saw a staircase.
Not the staircase leading to the second floor.
This staircase descended into the basement.
Above it was a small sign that read ARCHIVE ROOM.
She remembered something. When she had first come to the library, she had seen an old floor plan near the service desk. Beneath the first floor was an archive room that had not been used since the great flood.
If the book stored every story, perhaps that was where it had begun.
Naya descended the stairs.
The air below was much colder. The walls were covered in water stains and scribbled names. Some names had been crossed out in red ink.
At the bottom of the stairs, an iron door waited.
The door had no handle.
Only a hole shaped like a handprint.
Naya pressed her hand against it.
The door opened.
The archive room was full of metal shelves. Thousands of books were arranged there, all with human names as their titles. Some books looked new. Others had been destroyed by age.
A wooden table stood in the center of the room.
On it lay a large black book.
The red book in Naya’s hands trembled.
She opened it.
The final page was still blank.
The guard figure stopped in the doorway of the archive room.
Maya stood beside it, her body trembling.
“Naya,” Maya said, “write your name.”
“If I write it, I’ll be trapped.”
“If you don’t, he’ll write it for you.”
The guard figure raised its pen.
Naya saw her reflection on the surface of the black book. Her face was pale and her eyes swollen, but she could still recognize herself.
She thought of her mother.
Of their final argument.
Of all the things she had never gotten to say.
She thought of Mr. Wiryo, who might still be trapped behind those sheets of faces.
She thought of Maya, a child who had waited for decades just to find someone willing to finish her story.
Naya picked up the pen from the table.
The guard figure lunged.
Naya did not write her name.
She wrote the name that appeared most often on the pages of the book.
MAYA SASTRANEGARA.
The red book screamed.
The scream came from every shelf. Books fell, opened, and their pages scattered like black birds.
The guard figure stopped directly in front of Naya.
The sheets covering its face tore away one by one.
Beneath them was the face of an old man.
Mr. Wiryo.
His eyes were full of tears.
“Why?” he asked.
Naya gripped the pen tighter.
“Because she’s been waiting too long.”
Maya stood between them.
For the first time, her face appeared.
The face of a little girl with deeply tired eyes.
She smiled at Mr. Wiryo.
“Thank you for looking after me.”
Mr. Wiryo shook his head.
“Forgive me.”
Maya touched his hand.
Their bodies began to turn into scraps of paper. Mr. Wiryo managed to look at Naya one more time.
“If you manage to get out,” he said, “never come back looking for answers.”
“Sir!”
But the voice had already vanished.
The archive room collapsed in white light.
Naya fell.
When she opened her eyes, she was back on the first floor. The rain could be heard again. The wall clock showed 6:12 a.m.
The main entrance stood open.
Morning light streamed through the tall windows.
The library was back to normal.
There were no black shelves.
No open staircase.
No little girl.
Only the red book lay on the floor beside her.
Naya picked it up with trembling hands.
Its cover had changed color to dark brown. A new title had appeared on its surface.
MAYA SASTRANEGARA.
She opened it.
The first page contained the story of a little girl who had finally gone home.
The final page held a single sentence:
Thank you for reading the end of my story.
Naya breathed a sigh of relief.
Then she saw the next page.
Even though the book should have been finished.
The page slowly filled with ink.
Naya left Darma Pustaka Library at 6:19 a.m.
Naya took home a book that was not supposed to leave.
Naya thought everything was over.
She closed the book and put it in her bag.
Outside, the rain had stopped. The wet streets reflected the morning light. Naya walked a few steps, then heard something from inside her bag.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Like someone tapping on the book’s cover from inside.
Naya stopped.
Her phone lit up by itself.
A new message arrived from an unknown number.
Open the final page.
Naya didn’t touch it.
A second message appeared.
Mom wants to talk.
Naya closed her eyes.
From inside the bag came the slow sound of pages turning.
Rustle.
Rustle.
Rustle.
And on her phone screen, a new sentence appeared:
6:20 a.m.
Naya decided to return to the library.