Mr. Linden's Library: He had warned her about the book. Now it was too late.

He had warned her about the book. Now it was too late. It was on the very first page. In massive black letters. Beware. Beware. He'd done all he could. She never woke up. Her eyes stayed shut, clamped tightly together under the weight of the spell. She wasn’t going to wake up. Not now, not again. He knew this much. He couldn't help but feel satisfied. Liberated. That was a better word, more descriptive. He almost laughed. If anyone knew about words, it was him. He stood over her bed as the vines and plant-life growing from the book began to engulf her, really engulf her. Even if the idea of her demise was pleasing, he was glad she was in a state of slumber. Nothing was worse than being awake when it happened. He still remembered. He remembered screaming and shouting and seeing no response from his family. They looked right through him. He wasn’t real anymore. They’d be dead now, dead for hundreds of years. He wondered how his mother passed, how old his father lived to, who his sister had married. He’d never know. He didn’t really recall them now. He couldn’t think of their names. They were blurry, surrounded in a perpetual kind of fog in his mind. But he knew once they’d been blood. Even if his existence with them was wiped away. He watched as the girl’s arm slid into the book. A blinding light shown from the vines and flowers. It had started. She still didn’t wake up. But how could she? The book was being merciful. Even it knows that there’s nothing more painful than ceasing to exist. And it’s a different kind of pain. It’s the empty kind, the bleak kind. The kind that throws you into an abyss. He sometimes thinks he recollects what it was like to be tangible, to be a measurable form. He knew it was probably just his imagination, the book playing tricks on him. The book has a sense of humor. You could feel it laughing at you once you were inside. Once it had lured you into its prison. She’d know that laughter soon. He wondered how she’d react. The real curse of the book isn’t the book itself. It’s everyone else. Whoever reads the book is trapped, and the other poor soul is released. So the story never really gets told. It’s sort of just known, a little piece of it ingrained in everyone’s mind. No one really knows how it got there and no one will notice when it vanishes. She won’t even be free to be caged. Maybe he should burn the book. He’d considered it while he was waiting. He fantasized about going to a fireplace and destroying it forever. But what would happened to her? He cocked his head, almost her entire torso was sucked in. Her legs too. He wondered how she’d be described. Would they mention her hair? She had the most beautiful hair. He still knew how the book once described him. It had focused on his eyes. Every five pages, there had to be something about his eyes. But he himself had forgotten what color they really were long ago. Once the girl was gone, he’d cover this room in mirrors. He’d look at his eyes at least five times a day. He’d never forget again. The vines were wrapping around her shoulders. He was so close. He was so close to freedom. He smiled, for the first time in centuries. What would her title be? His was Prince of Water’s End. Children loved him once, he was every little girl’s first love and sparked the first hint of jealously in little boys. When the children got older, they looked back on him and smile. They’d say that they remembered reading him in school, and watching the cartoon adaption of his life on television. But he wasn’t really there. And when he was forgotten, no one would really take notice. The book pulled her closer, her neck contorting as it descended. She wouldn’t even be a memory anymore. She’d be nothing more than a silly fairy-tale. A character. She was still sleeping, he could hear her quite breaths become sharp. She was struggling. His stomach began to sink. Suddenly he wanted to stop it, stop all of this. But then he didn’t want to stop anything, he just wanted it to go faster. Then he wanted to close the book and decimate it and throw the tattered pages into the wind. Her head was gone now, all that remained was one eyes and a cheekbone. He let out a deep sigh. That’s when it happened. The eye opened. She was awake, vibrantly awake. The book had woken her up at the very last minute. He gasped and covered his mouth. That one eye could hold so much emotion. Horror. Confusion. Betrayed. The book lingered on her eyes, waiting a while before finally swallowing her and closing itself. He sank to his knees. That was the book’s way of punishing him. He stayed slumped on the floor for some time. Then he reached up. He wanted to see the title. She deserved that much.  He reached up and pulled the book from the bed. The title wasn’t written in any real language. She’d been written by Charles Perrault. And by The Brothers Grimm. And then later by Walt Disney. It fit her. And the book was laughing. “Sleeping Beauty.”