The Scream of A Thousand Libraries Chapter 53: Chapter 53: Book Fair (III).

Read chapter 53 of The Scream of A Thousand Libraries by Susangja on NovelPedia.

POV: RENATA SILVEIRA. The classroom was practically full. Not full in the traditional, chaotic sense of a school break, with bodies bumping into one another and voices competing for acoustic dominance, but filled with a human density that seemed to limit how much oxygen was available. Small groups were scattered like islands of anxiety in an ocean of gray concrete. Some were sitting on the cold floor, hugging their knees; others leaned against the peeling walls, their gaze lost somewhere on the moisture-stained ceiling. There were improvised chairs, dragged together to form several small clusters. The ambient sound was a low, fragmented, disconnected murmur. Urgent whispers, nervous laughs that died before finishing, and the irritating sound of sneaker soles squeaking against the floor. It felt like everyone there was engaged in a collective performance, desperately trying to pretend everything was normal while nervousness seeped through the cracks of their social masks. It felt like we were in a play, where we had to stay in character after an incident. And we were barely managing to fake it properly. Some people laughed too loudly, shrill laughter that sounded almost hysterical, clashing with the silent gravity of the moment. Others spoke too softly, barely moving their lips, as if they were afraid that raising their voices might attract some invisible entity. The balance was strange, fragile, like a violin string stretched to its limit, about to snap and whip the face of anyone nearby. I sat near the back wall, seeking solidity, something firm to lean on for a moment of relief. My eyes swept the perimeter, analyzing every face, every movement. The fingers of my right hand tapped rhythmically against the side of my thigh, a nervous tic, a silent drumbeat I only noticed once I was already halfway through the rhythm. I took a deep breath, smelling dust, cheap floor wax, and the metallic, sour odor of cold sweat. I breathed in again, trying to force air into lungs that felt like they had shrunk. People were still feeling sick. And that bothered me the most. It wasn’t something generalized, like a virus or mass food poisoning, it was visible and disturbingly specific. A girl sitting a few meters from me, near the erased blackboard that hadn’t been used in ages, was breathing far too fast. Her chest rose and fell at an accelerated pace. Her hands shook violently in her lap, fingers twisting as if she were trying to grab something invisible. A friend held her shoulders tightly, murmuring words of comfort that got lost in the ambient noise, but the friend’s expression wasn’t comforting; it contained terror. Farther to the right, a boy was leaning against an improvised desk. His face was pale, drained of all color, like melted wax. His eyes were glazed over, pupils dilated, fixed on an empty point in space, as if he were watching a horror movie that existed only in his mind. He was visibly struggling to stay conscious, his head lolling forward and being jerked back in rhythmic spasms. That wasn’t normal. Not like that. Not at a school book fair. The air in the room felt heavy, dense, almost liquid. It wasn’t hot, actually, there was a cold draft left over from the rain, which was now easing under the still-cloudy sky. I swallowed hard, my throat feeling raw. My mind, treacherous and tireless, returned to what had happened earlier, rewinding recent memories like an old tape. The fair. The book stalls. The opening moments of the event. And that’s when a thought hit me. ‘Helena must be out of her damn mind right now…’ After what happened in the library weeks ago, that supernatural mess, the supposed explosion, the sadness stamped on her face, the last thing she needed was another bizarre event to deal with. She seemed like a lightning rod for the absurd. I knew that look of hers all too well when things started going off the rails. The way her eyes darted from side to side, searching for escape routes, the way she lifted her chin, pret