Caged, Caged, Caged, Caged
The following diary entry was found — and authored — by Assistant Librarian Ivury Tower. For the crime of spitting in The Library, Ivury has been given a stern talking to.
“Maybe if I work harder, I’ll get a reward?” Three drops of wine and three grains of wheat!
The Miskatonic Occult Literature Library & Unusually Special Collections Department
“Maybe if I work harder, I’ll get a reward?”
12.15.22.53.18.16.20
That is not a clue: that’s the combination to the locker containing the records of my birth, medical history, my identification and a book of the Holy Scriptures. I want implore you to find that locker, and burn its contents to ashes.
My birth name has long since slipped my mind. Though as of my hiring at The MOLLUSC Department, I’ve been referred to as ‘Jr. Part-time Book-keeper and Assistant Producer.’ I have been caged within the library of a Miss Eldra Echo since the Third of February with not a drop of wine nor grain of wheat to slip past my lips. Curiously, I am not dead. Curious more so is the lack of entrance or exit I’ve found since I began my first shift in this musty labyrinth.
The acrid tone of well-loved literature pierces my nostrils, as nostalgic as it is foul. To plug one’s nose is tired and fruitless, to breathe through the mouth is an uncouth invitation for the taste of curses, to halt the lungs? Well I’d rather not, I fear I’d never draw breath again. No, I am surrounded by history, able to be perceived with every sense I do and do not possess! I have an opportunity to immerse myself in a sea of the known and unknown! Who else could find themselves so lucky? I believe that was the mentality I took on after the impromptu rhinoplasty I’d performed on myself with an oddly shaped knife in the ritual aisle some time ago. I have yet to find an explanation for the oddly colored fluid now trickling from my sinuses in any medical textbook I’ve read thus yet. Though the Bookworms seem lured by it.
Bookworms, the vile things. Plenty tasty though. Skimming the pages of an old tome to find a Bookworm nibbling its contents is an easy way to sour any reading experience. I loathe how they skitter and writhe, the twisted, prickly shapes they take send needles through my brain. Smashed beneath a heaving grimoire, cursed with ancient texts, pleaded with in all my known languages, still I find their colonies entrenched in countless pages. That was until I had a lovely strike of wit! You see, I was born a Human, and like a Human I still find myself chained to these primal needs of food and flesh. Yet upon pacing through rows upon rows of towering, dust-laden shelves, I found that was simply all there was. Not a dining hall nor rest area in sight. ‘No food or drink inside the library’ was taken to its utmost limit, there was nothing but the library, simply nothing but.
108 days I spent dutifully ridding books of dust and grime. Patiently keeping my stomach at bay with empty promises of dinners and desserts, I trudged on growing ever slower. I was fasting, I was waiting for my lunch break, I was a caged bird singing sweet melodies. If I could just stock one more shelf, surely I’d find a feast prepared around the next aisle. And upon opening a particularly infested spellbook, I found my buffet!
A jaw is a Bookworm’s guillotine. Eaten starting from wherever you deem the head to be, front teeth lop them into segments. Chewed slowly and deliberately, molars soften the spines while the tongue and saliva glands soak up any toxic bodily fluids. The solid parts are swallowed, while the liquids are spat onto the floor (sorry Eldra.) The process is never quick and rarely easy, but it is the most efficient method I’ve discovered in Bookworm extermination tactics.
The pursuit of knowledge is a noble cause, but try as I might to read the ancient texts, I have long since found my ceiling in what I find decipherable. The scant bits I can glean bring a twitch to my nose and a raise of my brow, yet I find my symbiosis with the Bookworms to be far more captivating. They taste good in mating season! Though the Worms have proven themselves increasingly voracious, long since shredding through my notebook of occultic research I’d kept them caged in. Thankfully, they don’t appear picky on flesh.
Worms don’t complain, they don’t expect much of me either. I’ve never had a Bookworm flash me a single look of doubt nor disappointment. So long as they eat, they are my friends. So long as I eat, I may feed them. They are brainless insects. They are without sin. In my distant youth, I used to say a silent prayer before mealtimes. Now, with each cherished morsel held between my teeth I give everlasting thanks to my dear brothers, inside and out! Each meal, a blessing! I haven’t any need for whoever that man once was! No burdens of illness! I am not a prisoner of any god, caged within any religion! I am the Keeper of Tomes! I am the King of the Feast! Dear Eldra, I am more than a Man!
