This chapter is dedicated to Meghana_violet (AKA: Miss Norah)

[For best experience possible, play youtube video and turn on sound whilst reading]

§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§

Athazagoraphobia ~ Fear of being forgotten

It had happened before.

The first time it was in a ball pit.

The second was at Walmart.

The third, however, was a completely different country.

Miss Norah was used to being ignored - she actually preferred it. There was a time that she used to be the centre of attention, the class clown if you will, but then she discovered books. She discovered her love for books. She discovered fandoms and the life of a bibliophile.

Since then she became quiet. Not introverted; just quiet. She had friends although they decreased in numbers over the years the books she read told her that it was natural. They whispered the secrets of the world into her ears, prophesying of the future, of first love, of death, of loneliness. For some reason, as she grew older, Miss Norah found it increasingly difficult to separate herself from books. They were everywhere and the more she read the more distant she became from the outside world. She became quieter and quite until she was just the girl at the back of the class with her nose buried in a book. Over time people started to walk right past her as if she didn't exist. She knew that they weren't ignoring her it's just the more she attached herself to the worlds within the stories, the less attached she felt to the one she resided in. It hurt but it didn't hurt as much as the fourth time her parents ignored her. The fourth time they forgot about her. They fourth time that they had not since come back.

Miss Norah couldn't quite remember when the books started whispering. She imagined it was about the time her parent's forgot her in another country. They were forgetful you see - an early onset of Alzheimer's. It led to complications when Miss Norah was younger, prominently quite a few hungry nights, but it only grew worse as she got older. It grew worse and worse until-

Miss Norah snaps the autobiography closed before wiping a tear from her eye. She hated writing about the past but it was the only thing keeping her sane in the Wan Shi Tong's library. Every day she sat down to write about her life but she could never finish. She could never write down the words that she was forgotten in the largest library in the World and had since been trapped for more than a millennium.

Sighing with bitterness, Miss Norah dusts off the same skirt she and worn since she was abandoned all the aeons ago. She hadn't aged, hadn't slept, hadn't eaten since the fateful day and the only thing keeping her company was the countless amount of books and her fear of being forgotten which compelled her to write down her story every single day. Oh, and she couldn't forget about the Bookworm. The beast that fed on the books at night, swallowing knowledge indiscriminately whether they be about the history of robotics or tomes of magic which had kept her alive so far.

Each book whispered to her as the days gave way to night for there was no other way to tell the time in the labyrinth of information. The whispers which once comforted her when her problems were as trivial as being ignored now saved her night by night from the Bookworm who had since hunted her down for her human flesh. Without the whispers, Miss Norah wouldn't know what to do. Without them, she was sure to have succumbed to either death by Bookworm or insanity from athazagoraphobia.

Right.

Right.

Left.

She could hear the growing voices of the books vibrate within her skull, advising her on the path to evade the mutual predator. Miss Norah had only seen the beast once a few thousand years ago but that once was already once too many.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Miss Norah quickened her pace as she could feel the ground beneath her shake. She knew she had to get to higher ground. The Bookworm always liked to feed on the lower levels but that was precisely where the best books we're hidden. It always was a race against time. A race to retrieve books from the lower level before the Bookworm stirred yet balancing time to rewrite her autobiography to maintain sanity. She couldn't be forgotten yet she couldn't allow the lives of the books to be forgotten to the pits of a stomach either.

Up.

Right.

Left.

Working her way into a jog, Miss Norah grimaced as a book fell off of a shelf in response to a crash on the lower levels. She knew she would have to ignore it if she wanted to survive but knowing that didn't make it any easier.

Right.

HELP!

Right.

Miss Norah winced as the screams of the book thundered through her mind.

Right.

Left/Right.

HELP!

Miss Norah paused. She just took four rights leading her back to where she started. Leading her back to the screaming book that had fallen off the shelf. Did it - did it just deceive her?

Left/Right.

HELP!

Right/Left.

Squeezing her head with both palms, Miss Norah couldn't understand what was happening. The signals were being mixed up in her head and she had a feeling it was due to the lone book.

Another crash, nearer this time, made up Miss Norah's mind. She quickly dashed towards the screaming book but froze as she picked it up. Normally she didn't have biases but this wasn't an ordinary book. It was a Necronomicon. She could feel it's laughter in her skull, pounding as it's malice filled her. She couldn't move under it's malicious gravity and from the corner of her eye she spotted the Bookworm.

Within a blink, the Bookworm was upon her, pages stuck within its teeth as its jaw widened to swallow Miss Norah whole. With no regret, Miss Norah threw the Necronomicon into the maw of the beast and sprinted in the opposite direction. She ran as fast as she could but she couldn't escape the beast's tail and was lashed towards the central walkway.

Hanging onto the barrier for dear life, Miss Norah watched as the Bookworm slithered closer and knew she had to make a choice. It was either die now her take her chances at the bottom where nobody had ever been. The Bookworm spread its jaws once more but just as it lunged towards Miss Norah, she made a choice.

She let go.