Book Drop

Night Watchman walking through a warehouse of palletized books. There are racks and racks of books. He walks his designated rounds, hitting the spots as required in the order they are prescribed. So many times he has told the bosses that the points should be randomly hit in any sequence, but they want them in a specified order and at a specified time. He is deep in the middle of the warehouse, traveling from twelve to fourteen, and he only hears his own footsteps.

A book falls far away from the way he just came, behind him. As the Night Watchman pauses, the echo of the falling book ricochets through the vast, shadowy expanse of the warehouse. He turns slowly, his heart pounding in his chest; the dim light now feels heavy and suffocating. There is no one else in the warehouse; his only companions are the countless books, their spines cracked and covers faded, wearing the dust of countless years.

Curiosity wrestles with unease as he approaches the spot where the book lay. Its pages are fanned out, the title obscured by darkness, but there is an eerie, almost familiar quality to it. Kneeling down, he reaches to pick it up, and as his hand brushes the cover, a chill runs down his spine. The air around him seems to drop in temperature, and a shiver creeps across his skin, as if the shadows have conspired to tighten around him.

Suddenly, the warehouse grows silent—too silent. The rhythmic tap-tap of his footsteps has vanished, replaced by a low, whispering murmur that seems to emanate from the very walls themselves. Goosebumps prick at his arms; it feels as if the books are watching him, their pages rustling in hushed conversation. He quickly flips the book over, its title revealing itself as “The Watchman.”

Before he can fully process it, ghostly figures begin to materialize around him—images of previous watchmen lost within the labyrinth of shelves, their faces pale and eyes hollow, eternally trapped in monotonous routines. They raise their hands, pointing towards the exit, as if to warn him of an unspeakable fate. The whispers crescendo into incoherent chaos, a cacophony of voices pleading and beckoning, drowning out his thoughts.

Panicking, he bolts from the gathering shadows, racing back through the aisles, but the layout of the warehouse has transformed—shelves stretch endlessly, twisting and turning in ways he cannot navigate. Each step feels heavier, the weight of countless stale stories pressing down on him. The exit becomes a distant memory, the once-familiar route twisted into a maze of despair.

Just when he thinks he might break free, he hears it again—the sound of fallen books, the fluttering of pages, as if the warehouse itself is alive and aware. A rush of cold sweeps through as he glances back, the figures now forming a line behind him, shadows of the bookish past who failed their duty.

Desperation fuels his flight, but before he can find solace, he trips, and the world around him fades into dark silence. The lights blink and extinguish, plunging him into a suffocating void.

In the morning, the warehouse is still, save for the solitary sound of a book dropping from a shelf, a new presence joining the ranks of lost watchmen, forever bound to the paths of the past. His footsteps now echo through the aisles of stories, a new line added to the endless tale of the Night Watchman. And in the fickle shadows, the whispers continue, urging the next unwitting guard to follow the same treacherous route he once knew.