Beep beep beep.

As the sound of the alarm pollutes the beautiful drizzling morning, with it's squealing cries of torment. A pale slender hand, bravely marches forward, from under the covers of comfort... And promptly misses the abhorrent beast's weak spot.

Finally, after a long struggle, the beast is thrown to the outer world, through the window. Drawing another scream of agony, from what one can only assume to be it's next victim.

"Sorry", I utter quietly. Getting up from the bed in a languid way, promising myself to hire a maid, for the sole purpose of making coffee. 

After finishing my much needed cup of coffee for the day, I make my way to the reason of today's unusual early rise. Opening up the laptop, and seeing the red notification fills me with anticipation, Of which is cruelly squashed.

"What do you mean you don't make deliveries."Muttering annoyed, and taking a glance at my ostensibly decrepit personal library. Well, I am running out of things to read, and that damn bookstore is only open until noon.

Given the bookstore's relatively close distance to my house, I only wear on some jeans and a coat over a casual shirt, not forgetting to take a cookie for the journey.

Unfurling the umbrella I take a step outside. after and spending approximately two seconds considering whether to recover the likely broken alarm, The echoing sound of what appears to be something metallic falling, and the screech of a cat in pain draws my attention to the corner of the house anyway. 

And wouldn't you know it, in the middle of a messily thrown trash heap, a rather pristine looking alarm clock. It slightly alleviates my annoyance at having to fetch my order, knowing that the thing is where it rightfully belongs.

On my walk through the streets, my already unpleasant mood lowers further, seeing that despite being quite free of human festering, the few present ones, can not help but turn towards me with their incessant murmuring. 

Much to my displeasure, perhaps the cookie I am holding in my mouth, added a few too many extra points of charm, to my already head turning visage.

My musings are interrupted as I Reach the front of the store, that although being close, and rather grand in it's size and quality, is still fully deserving of a one star review.

Making my way to the front desk, looking around the store seemingly empty, as a young man wearing a clerk uniform walks out the backroom. "I'm sorry, but we ar-", his sentence stopping at the exact moment he lays eyes on me. 

Clearing his throat, and with clearly tensed demeanor, the young man continues. "Apologies, but as I was saying, we are in the middle of organizing some orders. The package belonging to Mr. Celyn should be in the backroom, but there has been a little 'problem' with the delivery."

"What kind of problem?" I impose the question with a not so pleased smile, causing to young man to release a semi audible gulping sound, before quickly catching his composure back.

"It would be best that Mr. Celyn sees it for himself." He suggests with polite but strained smile. It displeases me further, but, the earlier I get the books, the sooner I get to satiate my cravings for some good quality 'literature', plus coffee of course.

I nodded to the young man in agreement, "let's see it then.", the young takes me to the backroom he previously emerged from, and much to my surprise and displeasure, it is by all means, a gigantic mess of books strewn about, piles of boxes, both opened and unopened.

"What exactly am I supposed to see here?" I politely inquire him, with a smile, of course.

"Well, I was hoping to show Mr. Celyn that we were doing our best efforts to catalog everything, but due to a backlog from the delivery company, all orders arrived on the same day, some, reached other locations by accident." he ends with nervous smile.

"I suppose mine happens to be a part of the accidents?" 

"Yes... I apologize for the inconvenience, however I have contacted the delivery company for the location of the missing ones, and was planning on recovering it, but..." He glances at the aforementioned mess, with a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"All right, just tell me where it ended up, I'll go get myself." After being promised some free books, and a generous discount on my next purchase, my brows furrow as I release a sigh from seeing where my purchase 'ran off' to.

And I begin to wonder if this perhaps, was another scheme to take advantage of me, (in ways that one should only keep in the confines of their own minds), that some random influential women came up with, or men for that matter, mostly men, for that matter... If it were to be a cute girl I would've perhaps made an exception and pretend to be caught.

Well, I'm probably overthinking it, probably. After all, the dubious invitations from influential people, and fidgety blushing young masters to attend some questionable gatherings, have suspiciously stopped over the last few years.

Shrugging my shoulders, "can you call a cab for me in the mean time?" I ask the clerk while writing the location on a piece of paper, "Of course." the nervous looking young clerk answers with a relieved sigh. while I wait outside, soon enough, one arrives fairly quickly.

As I get into the cab and sit down on the backseat, I am faced with peculiarly, yet another nervous looking man, this time, looking to be middle aged.

Is there some kind of event going on, for everyone to be anxious about. Well, it shouldn't really concern me, as long as I get my books. I pass the paper to him, and incline my head against the window, counting the droplets of rain, rowing down as the car goes by.

My attention is brought to the road, as the car goes through a narrow muddied road, and a surprisingly well maintained building complex comes into view.

"Wait here, I'll be back soon."

"Of course." The middle aged driver nods,"of course, I'll be right here." the middle aged affirms, though both hands tensely gripping the steering wheel. 

A significant number of faint footprints trail on the wet muddy way up to the entrance, giving it the impression of being frequently occupied.

Pushing the opaque glass door open, the first thing that draws my attention, is not the fact the the building is empty, but the single trail of mud footprints leading up to one of the rooms. 

So of course, that tells me one crucial factor here. If there is one trail, I'm sure two won't be much of a problem to the cleaning staff, besides, no one told them to steal my parcel, dirtying their floor a bit is the least I could do.

As I get inside the room ate the end of the trail, I am faced with my parcel, conveniently placed at the middle of the room.

Makes sense, I suppose the delivery man left it in an obvious location, since no one came to receive him. After approaching and confirming it indeed belongs to me.

Unfortunately as the contents of the parcel were being merrily lifted by me, I happen to catch with the corner of my eyes, a dimly glowing light from the corners of the room, seemingly coming from beyond the walls, likely spanning the whole complex.

The light apparently coming from lines etched into a pattern on the ground itself, rapidly converges towards me. Finally forming a complete pattern at my feet, finishing with a blinding flash of searing bright light.

The echoing sounds of books hitting the ground spread through the empty room, as the light fades.