The antiseptic smell of Saint-Antoine Hospital had become familiar, almost comforting in its consistency. Aiden Norask watched the rain hit the windows of his third-floor room, each drop tracing erratic paths on the glass like so many silent tears. At thirty-five, he knew this view by heart the gray rooftops of Lyon stretching as far as the eye could see, punctuated by chimneys that no longer smoked and rusted TV antennas.
Another day won, he thought with that bitter irony that had accompanied him since he'd been given his diagnosis at the age of twelve.
Hereditary Huntington's disease, a genetic curse that slowly ate away at his neurons, turning every simple gesture into a daily challenge. His hands trembled slightly as he turned the page of the book resting on his knees, a tremor that worsened month by month.
- "Mr. Norask?" Nurse Camille's gentle voice pulled him from his melancholic contemplation. "How are you feeling this morning?"
Aiden gave her a tired smile, the one he'd perfected over years of hospitalization. "Like an Olympic champion who forgot his discipline, Camille. But I have my faithful companion to keep me company." He slightly raised his book.
Camille approached, mechanically adjusting his IV with precise and caring gestures. She had been one of the few to understand his devouring passion for reading, even accepting to bring him books from her own library when the hospital's budget was no longer sufficient.
- "Fantasy again?" she asked, glancing at the cover. "Don't you ever get tired of it?"
Aiden tenderly caressed the worn spine of the volume. The Chronicles of Vaelthara, a title he'd never heard of before, but which had immediately attracted him during his last visit to the municipal library. The book seemed ancient, with dark leather binding and slightly yellowed pages that gave off that particular smell of old books, a mixture of dust and forgotten secrets.
- "Never," he replied with a conviction that surprised Camille with its fervor. "In these worlds, I can be a hero, a mage, a king... Anyone except a thirty-five-year-old guy counting his days in the number of pages read."
There was a heavy silence. Camille knew the results of his latest tests, and so did Aiden, for that matter. The doctors no longer needed to lie to him with false hopes. A few weeks, maybe a month if luck smiled on him. His body was failing, neuron by neuron, like a library from which pages were being torn out one by one.
- "I'll leave you with your adventures then," Camille murmured, gently pressing his shoulder. "And... Aiden? If you need anything at all, don't hesitate, okay?"
He nodded, already immersed back in his reading. Camille knew he wouldn't ask for anything. He'd never been the type to bother others with his problems. Even dying, he remained that quiet and polite boy who preferred to escape into stories rather than impose his reality on others.
The hours flowed by in the muffled silence of the room, punctuated by the regular beeping of machines and the delicate rustling of turning pages. Aiden was completely absorbed in the story of Lyrian Nightbane, a young librarian who discovered he could physically enter the books of the Great Library of Aethermoor. The irony of the situation didn't escape him, he who had spent his life mentally escaping into books was now reading the story of someone who did it literally.
If only it were possible, he mused, looking out the window where twilight was beginning to tint the sky with golden hues. If only I could disappear into these pages and leave this sick carcass behind me...
The book seemed to answer him. Was it his imagination, or did the words on the page begin to glow slightly? Aiden blinked, attributing this vision to the fatigue that was accumulating. His visual hallucination episodes had multiplied lately, yet another poisoned gift from his disease.
But the phenomenon persisted. The golden letters seemed to pulse gently, as if animated with a life of their own. He brought the book closer to his eyes, frowning. The characters were now dancing on the page, reorganizing themselves, forming new words that had nothing to do with the story he was reading:
- "Aiden Norask. Passionate reader. Eternal dreamer. Soul tired of a world too small. Are you ready to turn the real last page?"
His heart skipped a beat. This time, it was definitely not his imagination. The words continued to change, addressing him directly:
- "You've spent your life seeking escape in other people's stories. What if you could finally write your own? What if the end of your story in this world marked the beginning of an adventure in all the others?"
Aiden felt his hands tremble, not because of the disease this time, but from something that strangely resembled hope. A hope he hadn't felt in years.
- "Just turn the page, Aiden. Just once. To see what awaits you on the other side."
His breathing quickened. Was he dying? Was this a hallucination caused by the approach of the end? It didn't matter. For the first time in months, he felt... alive. Vibrating with an energy he thought was lost forever.
Slowly, almost religiously, he turned the page.
A blinding flash filled the room. Not a classic white light, something deeper, more absolute. As if the entire universe was erasing itself at once, leaving him floating in a cosmic void where time no longer made sense. He had the impression of falling and flying simultaneously, of dissolving and reconstituting in the same instant.
I'm dying, he thought with surprising serenity. Finally.
But death, he discovered, tasted like library dust and smelled of fresh ink.
When his consciousness returned, was it seconds or eternities later ? Aiden found himself sitting in the same hospital bed, in the same room, with the same view of Lyon. But something had changed. The air itself seemed different, denser, charged with an energy he couldn't identify.
The book was still there, resting on his knees. But it was no longer the same. The dark leather binding had taken on a deeper hue, almost black, and golden runes had engraved themselves on the cover, forming complex patterns that seemed to move when he wasn't looking directly at them.
Aiden hesitantly reached out toward the book. The moment his fingers brushed the cover, an electrical discharge ran through his arm not painful, but intensely invigorating. The book began to glow, and before his amazed eyes, it started to dissolve into particles of golden light that wrapped around his wrist like an ethereal bracelet.
- "What the..." he murmured, but his voice was covered by a sound he'd never heard before like the crystalline song of a thousand microscopic bells.
Before him, suspended in the air at eye level, a translucent screen had just appeared. Electric blue, with sharp contours reminiscent of a video game interface, but infinitely more refined. Text displayed in golden characters, in a font that seemed to change style depending on the viewing angle:
[LIBRARIAN SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
[Compatible Host Detected: Aiden Norask]
[Narrative Passion: ████████████ 100%]
[Thirst for Escape: ████████████ 100%]
[Will to Live: ██████████░░ 83%]
[INTEGRATION IN PROGRESS...] ███████████░░░░░░░░░░ 73%
[Preparing teleportation to the Eternal Library...]
Aiden blinked frantically, pinched his arm, even tried to get up—nothing worked. The screen remained there, perfectly real, perfectly impossible. His pulse raced when new messages appeared:
[WARNING: First activation detected]
[Consciousness transfer imminent]
[Estimated duration: PERMANENT]
[Preparing replacement body...]
[Configuring basic parameters...]
[Link with Vital Flame established...]
[TELEPORTATION IN: 10]
- "No, no, no, wait!" cried Aiden, reaching toward the screen, but his fingers passed through it as if it were made of air. "I don't understand anything! What's happening? What's this library business?"
[9...]
Panic seized him. All of this was too fast, too intense. He was just a terminally ill patient who liked to read, he wasn't made for... for anything extraordinary! He just wanted to escape his reality for a few hours, not leave it permanently!
[8...]
- "Please!" he pleaded, not even knowing who he was addressing. "I'm not ready! I don't even know what you want from me!"
[7...]
But deep inside him, a small voice, the one he'd stifled for so many years—whispered something else. Isn't this exactly what you've always wanted? A real adventure? A chance to matter for something?
[6...]
His hands no longer trembled. For the first time in months, the nervous spasms linked to his disease had completely disappeared. He felt... strong. Alive. As if new energy was flowing through his veins, chasing away the chronic fatigue that had weighed on him for so long.
[5...]
Maybe... maybe this is my chance, he thought. My one and only chance to become something other than a medical statistic.
[4...]
He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. The hospital smell had disappeared, replaced by something that evoked old parchments and beeswax candles.
[3...]
- "Alright," he murmured, surprised by the firmness of his own voice. "Alright, I'm ready."
[2...]
The world around him began to pixelize, like an image decomposing. The walls of the hospital room fragmented into thousands of small luminous squares that swirled through the air.
[1...]
The last thing Aiden saw was his reflection in the window, but it was no longer the emaciated face of a dying man. He was a young man, a teenager of what? 15? 16 years old?
- "Wait... WAIT WHAT'S THIS BORD..." he barely had time to finish.
[TELEPORTATION INITIATED]
[WELCOME TO YOUR NEW LIFE]
[LIBRARIAN AIDEN NORASK]
A white flash engulfed him entirely.
And then, absolute silence.
Somewhere in a corridor of Saint-Antoine Hospital, nurse Camille pushed open the door to room 237 to check on her favorite patient's condition. She found the bed empty, the sheets still warm, and on the bedside table, a golden trace in the shape of a book, as if someone had placed a shining volume that had left its imprint in the wood.
She frowned, searched for Aiden everywhere on the floor, alerted security. But strangely, when she tried to describe the missing patient, she couldn't remember his face with precision. As if her memories of him were already fading, leaving only a vague impression of a kind man who loved to read.
Aiden Norask's medical file was classified in the archives of "unexplained disappearances"—a curiously thick file for a hospital that usually kept no trace of this kind of incident.
But this, Aiden would never know.
Because he had just begun a completely new story.