It’s a warm, summer evening in Coldwater Harbor. Katya finally comes out of the entrance of the Edward Ford building, practically skipping as she runs. She’s still dressed in her cap and gown from the commencement ceremony, clutching her fake diploma under her arm. A black Honda Civic pulls up to the front of the building, the poofy, black hair, dramatic makeup and all-black, witchy clothing is all Katya needs to recognize who it is. She circles around the vehicles before swinging the door open with a huge smile on her face.
“Silvia!” she squeals as she practically tumbles into the car, crashing against Silvia’s shoulder like a heavy sack. Silvia leans back against the window, fake-coughing with the added weight.
“Christ, Katya, you can’t just throw your weight around like that,” she says, smiling wide as she helps Katya sit properly in the passenger seat, “So that’s it, huh? Lemme see.”
Silvia whisks the diploma away with a grin, despite Katya’s meager protests, and opens it up, clearing her throat loudly.
“‘On recommendation of the President and Faculty,’” Silvia begins with a dramatic voice, “‘The Trustees of the Bear River School of Fine Arts System have conferred upon Katya A. Marc the degree of Bachelor of Studio Art and Graphic Design with all the rights and thereunto pertaining-’”
“Oh my god, stop!” Katya interrupts her, laughing and trying to snatch the diploma out of Silvia’s beautifully manicured hands.
“Hey!” Silvia yelled joking, a smug grin on her face, “I got roommate privileges, okay? Why are you so self-conscious about it anyways?”
“Just give it back and let’s get out of here!” Katya replies, with Silvia laughing and tossing the diploma back at her.
“Okay, okay, fine, we’re getting out of here! God!” Silvia says loudly before putting the car into drive and messily pulling away from the building.
A short time later, the car pulls into the empty parking lot for Winterfall Lighthouse. A full moon shines down brightly on the lighthouse, the water sparkling with pale, blue light. The two girls are still laughing and smiling together, the mood of the night one of celebration. Silvia pulls two strawberry sodas out from the glove compartment and hands one of them to Katya, who’s already taken off her cap and gown. Her dark, wild hair and peasant-style dress blew gently in the ocean breeze as she and Silvia walked over to the docks.
“You really killed it, you know that?” Silvia says to Katya softly, the smile on her face genuine and warm, “You had a rough couple semesters, but you really pulled through.” Katya can only sigh with both happiness and relief as she stares down at the diploma in her hands.
“Yeah, really,” Katya says softly, stopping just shy of the edge of the wooden dock, “To be honest, it doesn’t really feel real, you know what I mean? Like, I still don’t even know what I’m gonna do from here, but now…”
“Things seem more possible now,” Silvia finishes Katya’s sentence, coming closer to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“Oh, yeah,” Katya says, “Especially after Mom and Dad went on the whole ‘you’ll never be able to get a real job with an art degree’ rant last Christmas.”
“Oof…yeah, I remember you telling me about that,” Silvia says with a gentle voice, “But you showed her! You’ll get a job in no time, I can feel it.”
“In this economy?” she says with a less than optimistic look on her face, “I don’t think so…but I suppose if worse comes to worse, I could work for one of those big art houses for a while, and then come back and ask for a TA position.” Silvia nods and shrugs in response to that.
“Hey,” she says with a chuckle, “Whatever works.”
Katya opens her mouth to reply, but she’s interrupted by purple light flashing over blue eyes. She blinks for a moment, thinking she’s just experiencing a migraine aura, but when she looks up towards the night sky, she sees a bright, twinkling light.
Is it some kind of star? She thinks to herself, Maybe there’s a supernova happening right now… Sivlia blinks, too, squinting up at the same object. At least Katya’s not hallucinating, that’s for sure.
“The hell is that?” Silvia says quietly, rubbing her eyes, “God, it hurts to look at.”
Katya squints as well, holding her hand up over her eyes to try and reduce some of the glare from the shine of whatever that thing was. Then she hears a soft roaring sound coming from whatever it is. That’s when she realizes to herself:
That’s not a star…that’s a meteor. A meteor headed straight for us!
“Silvia, get down,” Katya says, without giving any other explanation. Silvia looks at her with a strange expression.
“Wh- What do you mean?” Silvia replies, obviously confused as to what Katya was talking about. Katya continues to not elaborate.
“Get down!” Katya yells, pushing Silvia down as the bright, purple light comes hurtling towards them and catches Katya dead-center in her forehead. The searing hot pain plus the force of which the light strikes her sends her flying three feet backwards onto the wood planks of the dock. Katya’s blood-curdling screams could probably be heard by the whole town, but it’s the only thing she can do. Her fingernails scratch uselessly at the burning wound on her forehead, as if that would do anything to alleviate her suffering. Worse still, strange, distorted, terrifying images flicker before her eyes, making her feel sick and even more in pain than she already is. In her ears, she can hear screaming that isn’t her own, as well as other sounds of static, agony and insanity, like a cacophony of pandemonium inside her brain.
Silvia comes running over to her, cradling her in her arms. She can hear Silvia yelling frantically, but she can’t hear anything she’s saying over the sounds of her own screams and the sounds inside her head. Eventually, before her screams die down and her vision fades into black, a deep, haunting voice cuts through the noise and shakes her to her very core:
“I will have what I am owed.”
When Katya’s blue eyes flutter open, she realizes she’s not on the docks anymore. Her gaze darts around what appears to be a hospital room, white, clean and sterile. The scent of window cleaner burns her nose, making her cough as she tries to push herself up further on the bed. Her head hurts, too. She feels a weight on her leg and looking down, she sees that it’s Silvia sleeping with her head in her arms. It doesn’t take long before she rouses from her sleep, too, though, and when she lays eyes on Katya, her face and eyes light up like never before.
“Katya!” Silvia screams with joy, flinging herself at Katya and wrapping her in a big, tight hug. Katya can feel her head throbbing as she feels Silvia’s arms around her.
“Agh, Silvia, that hurts,” Katya says weakly, patting Silvia’s arm in order to further send the message. Silvia loosens her grip a bit and sits on the side of Katya’s bed.
“Holy shit, the doctors said it’d be another month until you woke up,” Silvia says with a smile on her face. Katya’s eyebrows furrow at the remark.
“What? What do you mean, ‘another month?’” Katya says quietly, laughing in confusion, “I can't have been out for that long, could I?” Silvia’s smile falls. A look of worry sets into Katya’s face as she reaches up towards her forehead, the pressure of her hand against it causing her to wince. She can feel gauze wrapped around the entirety of the top of her head. Her eyes go wide.
“What the hell happened to me?” Katya shakily whispers to Silvia, who pinches her eyebrows at her in confusion.
“You really don’t remember?” Silvia asks Katya and when Katya naively shakes her head, she continues, “You got hit with this…this…purple light. I-I thought it was a meteor at first, and it’s what the doctors told me it could’ve been, but…but it just doesn’t make sense…all that’s left of it is that big scar on your head.” She points towards Katya’s wrapped-up head and then shrugs incredulously.
“I mean…well, a meteor’s space debris…it’d put a hole in your head, if that kind of thing were to hit you,” Silvia rambles on before taking in a long, deep breath, “...I’m sorry, Kat. This whole situation is just messed up, is all.” She stops talking for the moment and just smiles at Katya in reassurance. There’s several heartbeats of silence between the two women before it’s finally broken.
“...How long have I been out for?” Katya eventually asks. Silvia sighs heavily and gently takes Katya’s hand into her own.
“Katya…I don’t know how to tell you this in a delicate way, so I’m just going to tell you straight-up,” Silvia says gravely, “...You’ve been comatose for about a month.” Katya shoots up in her bed.
“A month?!” Katya yells, her eyes wide and her head pounding, causing her to lie back down in pain and rub her face. Silvia sighs again.
“Yep,” Silvia replies, “Knew you weren’t gonna take that well.” Katya puts her hand down and looks back at Silvia with even more worry than before.
“That’s about a month that I wasn’t working,” Katya says, her voice shaking, “A month that I wasn’t helping to pay the bills and that you’ve had to work all on your own.” Just as she finishes, another realization dawns on her.
“Oh god, and now we’re gonna have to deal with the medical bills from this,” Katya says, smacking herself in the face and aggravating the wound on her forehead again. She hisses in pain, her eyes squeezing tight. Silvia rolls her eyes and scoots closer to Katya, wrapping her arms gently around her.
“Yeah, I was working alone,” Silvia says, “But if I had to do it all over again, I would. We’ll be okay…we’ll work through the bills however we can.” Katya sighs, leaning her head against Silvia’s and Silvia doing the same for Katya.
“I’m sorry,” Katya whispers sadly, “You shouldn’t have had to have been saddled with this. I-I’ll make it up to you however I can…I could-” Silvia interrupts Katya by softly hushing her.
“Shhh, you’re fine,” Silvia replies gently, “I told you, it’s gonna be fine…we’re gonna be just fine…okay?” Katya closes her eyes and gives a heavy sigh.
“...Okay,” Katya whispers again, “We’re gonna be fine.”
Katya lies on her bed and draws in her notebook, as Silvia sits on hers while reading a book, inside their shared bedroom. Their sides of the room are distinct from one another in that they reflect their differing interests; Silvia’s side has all kinds of goth and horror-themed decorations, while Katya’s side looks like it had been splattered with paint and covered in chaotic collages.
As much as Katya loved lazing about in her room, another month of just being inside the house and not being able to go anywhere is starting to drive her crazy. She’s been click, click, clicking her pen for the past hour, hoping to annoy Silvia enough to get her attention. After a while of this, Silvia rolls her eyes and closes the book loud enough to sound like a gunshot.
“What?!” Silvia snaps at Katya, a pointed look in her eyes. Her hair is down and she’s not wearing any makeup.
“...I don’t know,” Katya says, casually shrugging, “I was bored…I am bored, actually. I wanna get out.” Silvia sighs and starts to pick up her book again.
“Katya, you’re still on bed rest,” Silvia dismisses Katya, opening her book and earning herself a groan from Katya.
“Come oooooon,” Katya protests to her roommate, “I’ve been going stir-crazy for the past two months. At least, let me go to the art shop down the street to buy something nice for myself.”
“Katya-,” Silvia starts, but is immediately interrupted by Katya giving her the puppy eyes: where Katya looks at Silvia with sad eyes and a quivering lip.
“Pleeeeeease?” Katya begs Silvia, like a child asking their parents if they can go into the ice cream shop. Silvia gives another sigh, caving to her roommate and closing her book again.
“Fine,” Silvia says in a tired voice, “But only for an hour at most…and even then, no strenuous activity, okay?” Katya rolls her eyes good-naturedly.
“Yeah, fine,” Katya replies, “I can do that…but only for you.” She winks at her roommate, who jokingly shakes her head like a disappointed older sibling.
With the help of Silvia, Katya manages to get out of bed with minimal pain. After she eats, brushes her teeth and generally does all the things she needs to do first in order to feel human, she and Silvia exit their apartment and take the elevator down to the first floor. When they’re outside of the apartment building, Katya takes a moment to breathe in the fresh air; it’s warm and vaguely smells of old garbage, but it’s outside and that makes Katya happy.
Walking down the street, Katya starts rambling to Silvia about what kind of projects she’s going to be undertaking when she’s done recovering.
“Maybe I’ll make a sculpture,” Katya says excitedly, pointing towards her unbandaged, but still covered forehead, “It’ll be a mini me with jewels on my head to represent the scars! I’ll call it—” That’s just about all she got out when she feels a harsh bump on her shoulder. She turns around to see a man standing in front of her: a tall, thin man with pale skin, black hair and…purple eyes? She doesn’t think her eyes are playing tricks on her, but she assumes that they’re probably contacts. There’s no way any human can have eyes like that, right?
“Jesus, dude, watch where you’re going!” Katya snaps at him. He holds his hands up and bows his head towards her.
“Oh! So sorry, my dear,” the man says to her in a deep, oddly resonant voice. It felt strange to her ears, to the point where it was almost off-putting. Before she can ask where he’s from, though, he’s headed off in the opposite direction. Katya looks at Silvia with confusion and Silvia shrugs with the same confused expression as her.
Shaking her head, Katya continues to walk with Silvia to the art shop, called Wonders and Oddities. She browses the shop with elation and great interest. At the moment, she’s looking into a glass display case containing some amethyst geodes with a sparkle in her eyes that hadn’t been there since the incident.
She makes the mistake of raising her eyes to the street, though, and that’s when she sees him: the strange, purple-eyed man that bumped into her before. He’s across the street, leaning against the building behind him with his arms crossed. His eyes, that were unnerving once the novelty had worn off, are trained directly on her, like he’s staring directly into her soul. A morbid grin appears on his face, sending a terrified shiver down her spine before she feels a hand on her shoulder. She practically jumps at the sensation, only to sigh in relief once she realizes it’s just Silvia getting her attention.
“Hey girl, I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past two minutes,” Silvia says in a concerned tone, “Are you okay? You look white as a sheet. What were you looking at?” Katya opens her mouth to speak, turning back to…nothing? The man is gone? How? She blinks repeatedly for a moment before slowly closing her mouth and gulping softly.
“...I think I’d like to go home now,” Katya says quietly, slowly pulling herself away from the glass display.
I'm definitely not going out again anytime soon, she thinks to herself while quietly following Silvia out of the store.
Katya sits on the couch with her laptop in her lap, scrolling through movies she’s saved to it in order to find one she wants to watch. Nothing’s appealing to her; she’d already watched through all of them several times in the four extra months she spent recovering and she’s now bored with them. She leans back against the back of the couch and sighs dramatically.
“Silvia!” Katya yells for her roommate, who lets out an audible, exasperated sigh from the kitchen.
“What?!” Silvia shouts back, the sounds of plates and glassware clinking together. They had just gotten done eating instant ramen noodles.
“I wanna go out tonight,” Katya proclaims, “And I want you to come with me.” Silvia peaks around the corner of the kitchen wall to peer at her judgmentally.
“Katya, it’s, like, one in the morning,” Silvia replies, “Nothing’s gonna be open and there’s probably going to be creeps out there, stalking the streets. What the hell do you want to go out there for?”
“I just wanna go for a walk,” Katya says, closing her laptop, “I’ve been cooped up in here for five months and I wanna be able to walk around for a while. I miss being outside, Silvy. Please?” As much as the run-in with the creep with the purple eyes made her nervous to be outside again, she knows she can’t stay inside forever. She’d go crazy if she stayed in the apartment for another month. The goth girl rolls her eyes.
“Fine, but why do you want me with you?” Silvia asks. Katya gets up from the couch and starts heading towards the bedroom.
“Because like you said, there could be weirdos out there,” Katya replies, “And I don’t wanna walk out there alone.” Silvia sighs again before walking back into the kitchen.
“Alright, I’ll go with you,” Silvia says loudly so that Katya can hear her, “But we’re only gonna be out there for half an hour, okay? Just let me finish these dishes first.” Katya gives a loud “mm-hm” from the bedroom before the ambience noise of the apartment was more clinking of the dishes and the opening of drawers.
After Silvia had done all the dishes and they both got dressed in warm, comfortable clothing, they venture together out of the apartment and head outside. It’s a clear, autumn night with the leaves already turning bright red, orange and yellow. As Katya breathes in, the cool night air burns her nose and makes her cough lightly. She turns her head towards her roommate and smiles, which Silvia returns wordlessly. Katya turns back towards the road and sighs.
“Alright…let’s go,” Katya says, walking forward. She can hear Silvia’s combat boots thumping behind her, a reassuring sound for her. Silvia’s always had her back, something that she’s always been grateful for, now more than ever. As they pass by a dark alleyway, she’s especially glad to have Silvia with her when she sees something moving in the shadows.
“What the hell?” Katya whispers to herself, slowing down and trying to peer into the darkness to see what’s in there. She almost doesn’t want to know, but she can’t help but try and look. Silvia catches up to her and looks between her and the shadows.
“What is it?” Silvia asks, her eyes narrowing at whatever Katya’s staring at. As Katya squints, she sees a familiar figure saunter slowly from the dark and her face turns white as a sheet. It’s the same man that bumped into her four months ago. Now that he’s closer to her, she can actually see his eyes; they’re still the same purple, but they have multiple, alien-looking pupils that were in…a familiar pattern?
Katya reaches up towards her forehead and slowly begins to realize why the pattern is so familiar:
It’s the same pattern as the man’s pupils, she thinks frantically to herself, But how? How could a light like that create a scar like this? HOW? Her eyes go wide and her visible distress causes a sickening grin to spread across the stranger’s face. Katya can feel Silvia’s hand on her arm, though she’s too transfixed on the man’s eyes to look back at her roommate.
“Ah…I knew you were the little thief that stole my prize,” the man’s deep voice returns and echoes within Katya’s skull.
His eyes dart briefly towards Silvia behind her and she finally realizes what happened that night: it wasn’t her that was supposed to be hit by the light…it was Silvia. The man starts to slowly approach the pair, his grin growing wider and his eyes practically glowing with malevolent joy. Katya instantly starts backing up into Silvia, who was in turn backing up along with her.
“Run!” Katya yells at Silvia and both of them break off into panicked dashing in the opposite direction. Katya breathes heavily and starts sweating profusely as Silvia has more of a lead on her. She can hear the man’s heavy footsteps behind them in hot pursuit. She may not be the most athletic person in the world, but the last thing she wants to be is a statistic in the newspapers.
They manage to get to about two blocks away from the center of town before Katya feels an iron grip on her lower arm. She turns around and it’s the man chasing them with his hand around her arm. She can hear his voice resonate through her head again, the feeling not too dissimilar to an oncoming migraine.
“Give it back to me,” he growls inside her skull, his face contorted into an expression of rage and frustration. She struggles and writhes against him with all her might, tears streaming down her face.
“Katya!” she can hear Silvia shout back, to which Katya turns around:
“No, don’t stop!” Katya yells back at her friend, “Just keep running!” Silvia looks back, confused, before finally nodding and turning around to take off running again.
After fighting against her attacker with growing futility, Katya finally just decides to lift her foot and bear down on where it’d hurt the most. As her foot comes down, though, something extraordinary happens: a flash of purple, flaming light envelopes her leg and causes her to strike with enough force to actually stagger the supernatural being back. The moment he lets go, she takes her opportunity to run as fast as she can in an effort to catch back up with Silvia. As they’re finally running together again, a bright orange light comes from an alleyway up ahead, along with an echoing voice:
“Quickly! In here! Before it’s too late!”
Katya comes to an abrupt stop in front of the alleyway and sees something that she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing: a glowing, golden, arched door that looks a little bit like a liquid mirror…at least, that was the closest thing she could think of. Silvia stops with her and shakes her arm.
“Are you crazy?!” Silvia yells, a look of visible fear and incredulity in her eyes, “You don’t know what could be beyond whatever that is! It could be a trap!” Katya looks back at her with an equally incredulous and fearful expression, pointing around them.
“Look around us…do you see anywhere else we can run?!” Katya yells back, “I don’t know about you, but I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth!” She grabs Silvia’s arm without saying anything more and starts barreling towards the glowing doorway. She can still hear the man chasing after them, quickly regaining speed.
“C’mon,” Katya says, to Silvia and partially herself, “Let’s go! We can do this! Just a bit further!” Katya makes the mistake of looking back and to her horror, the bastard was already there and he was already gaining on them again. With a terrified shriek, she faces forward and focuses on the path ahead. With all the adrenaline she can muster, she takes a clumsy leap forward into the door, with Silvia leaping in after her. They can both hear the screams of rage from the man behind them.
Katya is the first to tumble out of the door and onto red, carpeted floor. Silvia follows suit as she lands with a thud on top of Katya, who lets out a loud, strained noise with the added weight. Her chest feels like it’s been hit with a semi truck and her heart is pounding like a war drum.
“Oh, f—…ow,” Katya manages to wheeze out between coughs, “You could’ve warned me before crushing my goddamn lungs.” Silvia attempts to get up off of Katya with deep breaths, sighing and rolling her eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Silvia says with obvious sarcasm in her tone, “I wasn’t aware we were going to be chased by some weird, supernatural loan shark out for my friend’s hide.”
“Oh, screw you,” Katya replies with a heavy sigh, attempting to get up herself, “It’s not my fault you’re some kind of weird ‘chosen one’ for some crazy, freaking psychopath.” She can hear Silvia wheeze out bitter laughter.
“‘Chosen one,’ huh?” Silvia retorts, hands on her hips, “As if I’d ask for anything like that! You’re being really un-freaking-fair right now, you know that?”
“Ladies,” a stern, male voice cuts in, just as Katya gets up and opens her mouth again, “Ladies…fighting amongst yourselves is not going to help your situation.” Both Katya and Silvia turn around to see who was talking to them. The voice’s origin was something neither of them were expecting to see: a tall, humanoid, reptilian-looking being with bright, fiery feathers crowning his head, wreathing his neck and sticking out of what little showed of his chest. He wore long, red, velvet robes with flowing sleeves that exposed reptilian arms with gnarled knuckles and feathers on the upper part of his arms. He’s standing behind a desk with books and scrolls strewn across it, with one scroll in a clawed hand. Katya stares at him with wide eyes, completely gobsmacked.
“Wh…,” Katya tried to form words again, but failed spectacularly, reduced to only opening and closing her mouth repeatedly. The being in front of them could only smile.
“I know I look rather bizarre to the two of you,” he says gently.
“Uh…‘bizarre’ is kind of an understatement with you,” Silvia follows up, earning a soft chuckle from the creature.
“Considering the world you’re from, I can only imagine,” he replies with a bigger smile, exposing small, sharp teeth, “I am Librarian Pyre, the head…and currently only librarian, of the Infinite Library. You may simply refer to me as Pyre, though.”
Katya looks around them, brows furrowed in confusion, and discovers that, sure enough, she and Silvia are actually in a library. It’s a rather extravagant-looking one, too, with finely-crafted staircases made of polished, deep-colored wood and shelves upon shelves of books going all the way up to the ceiling. If she had to hazard a guess, she’d say the ceiling was about thirty to forty feet high, at least. Looking to her left, she sees a corridor of shelves that keeps going…and going…and going. Her eyes can’t seem to find an endpoint to it and the effort of trying to find one hurt her eyes.
Yep, that definitely looks infinite, she thinks to herself before averting her eyes, afraid she’s going to give herself a migraine from looking at it for too long. She instead turns her gaze towards the being standing in front of her.
“So…” Katya begins, slightly trailing off and shrugging casually, “Are you going to tell us what’s going on? Specifically about who the hell that freak was that was chasing us?” Katya points towards the mirror that they just came through to emphasize her point.
“Yeah…and how you even knew about us in the first place?” Silvia chimes in as well, stepping forward with a skeptical look in her eye. Pyre looks at the mirror and then looks down, sighing heavily.
“I’ll address how I know about the two of you first,” Pyre begins, “My creed is to collect knowledge and the history of the universe to fill the Infinite Library with…that includes recent events as well.” He walks over to one of the books on the desk.
“I’ve been keeping a close watch on the two of you ever since the…incident. This is the book I’ve been writing in.” He picks up the book and reaches over to Katya in order for her to have a look at it. She gingerly takes it into her hands, running her hands along the leather spine. When she opens it up, it’s filled with what she can only describe as chicken scratch, for lack of a better term. What she can make out from it are the words, “not contained within Ardent anymore,” “following these women for four months now,” “a potential connection to recent cult activity,” and “still no leads on who the purple-eyed man is working for.” She pulls herself away from the book, more than a little confused, and slowly gives it back to Pyre.
“This…wow,” Katya finally says, “I have…so many questions right now and I don’t even know where to start.” Pyre gives her a soft, reassuring smile as he turns his gaze elsewhere.
“I have a pot of tea heating up in the next room,” Pyre responds before turning back to Katya and Silvia, pointing towards a leather couch next to one of the bookshelves, “If you two would like to have a seat, I’ll be happy to fetch it and then come join you…” He turns away from the women and walks back towards the other room, moving with grace.
“After all,” he adds, “You’re probably going to have more questions than answers, by the time we’re done talking…”
Credits:
Created with images by Integral - "purple space color texture abstract Background,space color in galaxy in black" • Eli - "library at night" • kucheruk - "luxury car Interior - multimedia display, steering wheel, shift lever and dashboard. " • Christopher Boswell - "Lighthouse Beams Illumination Into Rain Storm Maritime Nautical" • Paulista - "falling star shining in starry and cloudy night sky, comet in a purple nebula" • Piman Khrutmuang - "Medical drip with hospital blurred background" • pairhandmade - "Man holding woman, patient, hand with a tube of medicine injection on a bed in a hospital" • Africa Studio - "Interior of teenage girl's room" • Frode - "street in the city" • littleny - "Storefronts from old New York City building exterior" • Creativa Images - "Dark bedroom with light on the skyscrapers" • Bruno Passigatti - "Dark City Alley at Night" • krsmanovic - "Small Balkan Town Street" • MiaStendal - "Dark room, a magical antique mirror. Night view of the room, fantasy. Dark abstract background with a mirror. Neon light, smoke, smog, magic dust." • Alena - "library with a wooden stairs" • Pixel-Shot - "Open old book with scrolls, feather and candles on wooden background, closeup"