Lost Story/The Library/Eternal Story ~*Part Two*~

Rick and Allie where companions for a long time. They knew each other as well as they knew themselves. Occasionally, they would bump into someone else. Typically they would part ways after a little while, and Rick and Allie would only have each other as company again. Though once they ran into a melancholy Jew who had lived during the renaissance who stayed with them quite some time.

Rick was also Allie's first romance, and most likely her only. Rick said it was his first as well, but Allie didn't believe him. He knew too much. He swore he got it all from a countless number of romance novels he had read.

"Right, and what is a boy your age doing reading romances why he could be reading action novels?" is what Allie wanted to know.

Rick had no answer to that, so he shrugged his shoulders and kissed her.

There was also a phase where they searched for a way out, it was right after Rick had kissed Allie for the first time. They had fun doing that, though mostly it was depressing. This was also the cause of their worst argument. Rick wanted to end the search much sooner than Allie did. He thought it was futile to continue searching, and that they should just settle for the existence they now had. Allie hadn't been there as long as Rick. Not having been down that road before she wasn't yet ready to give up all hope. The argument ended with Rick storming off. All the cried. It had felt so strange to have all the right emotions and to have her shoulders heave and her breath to come in short gasps, but for no tears to come. Rick eventually came back and while that wasn't their last fight, Allie never cried again at the end of one.

All that aside, they spent most of their time doing what anybody does in a library. They looked at books and read them.

Most of the time they would have competitions, to see who could pick out the best book, who could read through a stack of books the quickest, and many more. They would find books about famous people or about people they knew, read them, and wonder at being able to read the future of their friends and family. Allie once found a book about her best friend and it was both odd and interesting to find herself in the book as well. She put it back on the shelf when it mentioned her disappearance. All the while, she continued her look for the bookcase that would hold her last name.

"Want to find your own book, mm," Rick asked one time.

"What?" Allie asked. At the moment she was rather distracted. She and Rick lay on the floor, his arms were wrapped around her. It wasn't the most comfortable position but there were no beds, and it was better than standing up.

"Find your own book," Rick repeated. "You keep wanted to find the bookcase that 'as your last name."

"Oh," Allie said, "it isn't to find my own book. My mother's."

"Why your mum's?"

Allie related the story about her mother's disappearance. "Somewhat of a moot point," Allie said once she had told the story, "but I would like to know what happened to her."

Rick thought a moment. "Some thing as 'appened to you."

"Why do you think that?"

"From the way you talk about 'er, she doesn't seem the type to just take off. With this there is no choice. You're walking in a library, the poof, you're in this place. You're mum was in a library when she disappeared."

That hadn't occurred to Allie. "You're probably right," she said. She found she liked that prospect. She could find her mother's book, and with it probably find where he mother was in this huge library. They could be together again, forever perhaps in this suspended existence. Just Allie, her mother, Rick, and any other poor sap desperate for the company.

Allie snuggled up closer to Rick, feeling genuinely happy for the first time in a fairly long time.

***

As it happens, all good things must come to an end, and it got to the point in Allie's and Rick's relationship where the decided it was best if they left each other. They had been with each other for longer than humans were meant to. It wasn't that they constantly argued, or hated each other, they simply weren't fond of each other any more. They could never think of anything to say, they never felt like playing the reading games they use to, they felt nothing when they kissed. Hating each other would have been preferable. That was salvageable. it meant they still had feelings for each other. No, they were simply dead to each other. They said their last good byes and parted ways.

There was a small feeling of dissatisfaction for Allie after this happened. This was more due to her long for for what she and Rich use to have more than the fact he was gone. Parting ways simply affirmed the fact that what they once shared was no more.

Her search for her mother's book seemed to go much quicker. Without someone there to talk to there didn't seem much point in reading random books or play the reading games. A few times she would run into someone else, but they never remained companions for long.

Then Allie found the bookcase that bore her last name. Feeling real excitement, she rushed through the bindings on the books, looking for the one that said Prelesky; June. She found it. She took in a sharp breath, her finger resting on the binding of the book. Slowly, Allie drew the book from its place.

The book looked much liker her mother. Not too tall, but a comfortable thickness. It was bound in a green/yellow fabric. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, All opened the book.

At the top of the first page there was a note which said, "See Stewert; June." Allie had seen this before. It happened when the person the book was about used to have a different name. The events which happened to that person while they had their other name, would be somewhere else in a different book.

All read her mother's story, the story she had wanted to know for so long. Suddenly she let out a cry of pain and the book tumbled from her hands. She stood there for the longest time, clutching herself as if she would fall apart. Eventually she bent over and picked up the book. She slid it back to its spot. Turned out her mother wasn't there. June had abandoned her family, her life, and committed suicide. Simple as that. Allie didn't spend much time mourning her mother. Having existed for so long had left all of Allie's emotions dulled, and there was no point in feeling sad over the loss of what she never had.

'What now?' Allie thought to herself. Dimly she remember what Rick had said once, "Want to find your own book, mm."

Allie thought , 'Why not?' She was already in the right place for it. She went back to the beginning of the bookcase, now looking for Prelesky; Allie. She found it and began to read.

It first Allie read slowly, unsure of what to make of her own life. Then as she continued, she couldn't read fast enough. She stumbled over the words in the desperate need to choke them down. Her eyes darted across the page feverishly searching for the answer. The book knew her so much better than Allie did herself. She was fascinated by the telling of her story more than any other. The book reawakened the old feelings and emotions that Allie thought she had lost. She relived her life over again, hanging on to every word for dear life. Then she got to the part where she ended up in the library, and she once again felt her life turn dull and pointless. She reached the moment when she read her own story, and her passion flared up one last time, before it dimmed to a grey forever as she reached the end of what had happened to her, and came to what was happening to her right them. Still she kept on reading, and reading, and reading and reading, and reading. Even though the book only repeated its self, still she kept on reading, and reading, and reading, and reading.....