She gazed at the graveyard, a place full of apparitions, lonesome, wandering without finding rest, seen only as deceitful demons by those who see them, never once spoken to, or even listened to; amongst all the sorrow, all the tears of a graveyard, the ghosts that haunt it, lurking in the cruel echoes of grief, are those that weep the most, feel the most remorse for every second they don't breathe, don't blink. They feel the most remorse because they are ignored, Ernsta supposed, because they wander, seeking rest. But never feel found. Never feel heard. She didn't know what she sought as she wandered still, beside that wall, so close to the place of such desolate tranquillity; but amongst that, there was still the distant, mocking laughter, the terrifying sound of rasping despair. Yet it was far away, separated by stone, just stone, just echoes. Perhaps, however, amongst the clouds, the very shade of greying hair and eyes that dulled slowly, amongst the fog and all the despairing cries of widows and mothers, perhaps they sought hope. Even distant. Hope. The library cried out in joy as she came closer and closer – closer – it called out to her with joy, eyes aglow with recognition, as if it had missed her. As if she'd been away for so long. It was almost too distant, mocking her from afar with a joke that she was at the end of; there was something about it that felt false, like a lie she wanted to believe that could never be quite real. There was something odd about it, something uncanny – but that was what made Ernsta go forward, moving toward that. She sought rest, and knew she'd never find any among the ink cages inside that door; but it was the silence that drew footsteps closer, the silence like that of a house where someone once lived, the silence of an abandoned place, a hollow place – people make stories, make something feel loved, fill it with noise and memories. With those forgotten, it's always hollow, silent. She'd never find rest among ink cages, simply armour for an army of some sort, one already lined up. Once so distant, the library was before her, with a single passing thought – it was as if the clocks sped forward, hands fleeing whatever the books were lined up to face; but though she glanced once more behind her, it wasn't there.

The door still lay before her, however, and though it felt more decayed, almost leaning on its hinges and creaking as she pried it open, everything seemed normal. Yet something was wrong. It was warning Ernsta not to open it with each creak and each murmur of dread – but she couldn't see. She didn't know why, but she could see nothing to fear. Then, suddenly, a cold, fierce wind pierced the air, slicing through the calm that had once let the tranquillity stay still, settled. Now, like everything else, it scattered once more as the shadow loomed closer, a shadow without a source, without something to cast it. There was a sinister echo of footfalls that rang out now as the wind died down and everything fell silent; but not the silence of serenity, but the silence of dread, waiting for the penny to drop, for some realisation to come and for either a relief to come, or great agony and anguish. And the wind, once keeping the air warm, had let it grow cold and dreary, hopeless almost. The door lay just slightly ajar, quivering with fear as the cruel echo of a warning unheard rang out silently. It only fell still as Ernsta opened it enough to step through, leaving it opened behind her, sighs moving through the room she entered; she gazed around, glancing behind her and to her side frantically as if there was something there. Something. But there was nothing – as her footsteps halted, she found herself facing the bookshelves. It watched her turn to them with intrigue, peering around the wood, blackened with mould and rot in each corner where dust gathered silently on cobwebs: they were empty. It was almost as if the army had left, chasing whatever there lay the shadow of, or perhaps running away in terror, leaving the stories forgotten, the cries unheard. Perhaps they had found what they feared, leaving the walls drowned in sorrowful decay, tears of cruel loneliness leaving the damp walls to be usurped by mould and rot and decay. Leaving them to wither. The rain cascaded outside, and it watched from far above as Ernsta stared out, almost in bewilderment – the weather had aged each bookshelf, each table leg, each book. It had left the sinister tranquillity to rot among every other moment that she had spent watching people come and go. Even the desk was beyond repair or replacement. Slowly, it saw as she turned her head, and then it saw the colour that was left drain away. Silence. Cruel, mocking silence. Part of the wall had turned to stone. It had never been there before, and somehow, she knew it would never be there. Silence fell across the dilapidated woe.

The wood, as it blackened with decay that crept with vines upwards, seeking something more, hunting its quarry with sinister intent, seemed to morph into stone bricks, jagged from age, yet it seemed to have just appeared – her mind began to race with questions, and the stone brick just stood before her, staring ahead with ominous silence as she backed away and looked to the bookshelves, now empty, every page gone, fled from something – Ernsta felt it looming ahead, its oppressive glower cruel and menacing, yet simply silent, not showing its face or speaking a word. Harmless, yet still so terrifying. After taking a step toward the desk, where the chair still was, she began to glance around, peering behind her, just out of the corner of her eye, as if there were something there, something watching as she looked under the chair at its wooden legs – they were always in the same place, yet there was the possibility, the freedom, to move them. There was always a chance if she wanted to, the option – yet both Ernsta and Lorelei had kept it in the same place; when Lorelei had been snatched from that chair, no longer the shift after Ernsta's in the comforting routine that had kept them both calm through each bomb, each soldier lost, each coworkers husband lost. Each person taken, never to be seen again, by those men in uniform. But now that chair was held to the ground by arms of stone, pale and hollow, as if it could be broken – Ernsta almost wished now she could move it, even slightly, but those tendrils of rock held it to the sorrowful decay that haunted her wherever she walked, lurking behind her, a shadow of sinister whispers. That grief would always lurk. And now she couldn't even distract herself from it.

"Hello?" She called out, the walls echoing back each word she said over and over with the lonesome sorrow increasing at each echo – each footstep was the same, morphing over the echoes into a cry of agonising loneliness and despair; it didn't have a single response. Yet a thousand voices shouted back in fear, and each one was more woebegone than the last. But it echoed searching for something. Someone. Someone to listen, perhaps. Still, it echoed, and still it found no one. Ernsta cried out again over the clamour of voices in the silence, desperation growing in her voice as she wondered where everyone had gone, and what had happened; moments passed and still that echo travelled through the room, through each corridor, slipping under doors to find someone to listen; someone to respond in the cruel silence. The emptiness. Once more she begged the hollow, cold tranquillity for a response, "Hello?", but it simply mocked her. It's strange; the more you hear the screams of agony of widows as their husbands perish, the more you beg for silence. The more you hear people dragged away, and their loved ones watch helplessly as another Jew, another victim is snatched away from them, the more the silence seems to scream in agony, as if its own mortality were forever before it, mocking it. Desperation crawled over her skin as she heard the final echoes of that cry in the silence. It had gone silent. A sense of dread could fester in the cracks and the crevices, the corners of the room, still with no movement but her sigh as she gazed toward the desk – the wood was blackened in places yet pale in others, and where it had begun to grow dreary and grey Ernsta looked closely, bewilderment creeping in, lurking at every thought; each moment let the roots of a dead plant grow. Or perhaps it was simply dying, constantly perishing at every moment, just one leaf away from rest. That dread grew. And grew. And grew. Until the shadows were too much to peer into, and she stared at the chair leg, clinging to the floor, yet trying to flee. It grew silent, and she let her footsteps go towards the door; they were slow, tentative, not wanting to disturb the serenity of it, to shatter the hopelessness elegantly cascading from the ceiling in dust and ash. There was a beauty to it, yet a dread lurked ominously as the door invited her.

It wasn't friendly – its call held not curiosity and fear but menace and threat, and a blade hovering just above, a tooth almost; many the colour of rot - it was a sense of insignificance, of hope lost among the fog and the trees, and found amongst the source of every thorn or flame, where the books have fled and there's silence. Every ink black whisper gone; an illusion shattered. It wasn't friendly – its jaws seemed soaked in blood and guilt, yet no remorse to show for it. It was what prey saw before it was ensnared and devoured, trying to flee; there was no light illuminating what wasn't there, and yet there was a sense of unknown sorrows. Maybe that was what made her take a step towards it. One by one. Each one increasing the pulse like a drumbeat, one that accompanied every other book or sound to battle against what she couldn't see. Something called her there almost like the wailing cry of a child, forgotten and lost, simply waiting for a single person to approach, to smile, before it was all a trap. Deceit seemed to linger in the air as the darkness itself flickered and she stared into it, dread setting roots in her mind, growing amongst the ashes of confusion and fear and sorrow. Something made her come here, perhaps just curiosity about the stone tendrils – it whispered even when nothing else spoke a word, and the splinters in the door loomed ahead. That eerie dread seemed to blossom for a moment – the door growing closer, jaws of death itself approaching, last words and last breaths with no one to hear them: they echoed relentlessly as it grew closer, Ernsta's footfalls slow and tentative, yet eager as a child before a library, the doors ready to welcome them. Before long she could simply see the door as she glanced back at it, teeth of wood now seeming to glimmer, while blackened, vile gums seemed to be lined with feathers of fallen crows. There was an eerie serenity to it – there were no stone bricks. It had almost stayed the same, yet it was as if something had left, and it was hollow. Hungry. Now she looked back, and it was as if gazing out of the jaws of a hellhound – and the walk to the door to the office at the very end of the corridor seemed very distant. Now that Ernsta looked, the walls were writhing, slithering, as if the viper were fleeing; the door stayed there, never further away, however. Always in the same place after each step she took.

Her pulse raising, she looked through the open door behind her, knowing that behind it the books had vanished, as if they had fled something, but not knowing what. The hand of her mother was almost there now, telling her everything was in her head, that none of it was really there, and she found herself reaching out to it, running down that corridor as the viper's scales sped past, further and further away until Ernsta could almost feel something watching – the more she felt there was something she needed that kind hand to help with, the more the door seemed to be in the exact same place; not a wandering corridor, not a pathway that led to a labyrinth, just a door, and the few steps it would take to get there and reach out. A few steps. Just that. And yet the cruelty of that kind hand, looming far above, began to show through as, catching her breath shortly before she once again fled toward the glowing hope of the apparition before her, running from something as she ran toward something else, haunted by that shadow that always lurked not so far behind. An empty promise lay there, a mere phantom of lassitude, and the hand held out was now gone, merely falling ashes of a hope, of an innocence before the sorrowful tears fell, and the chair was empty. Glancing back, Ernsta could see the door so quickly, and she began to back away from that door at the end – the lights were off where they had once shone through the bottom of the door. There was nothing to flee to. Yet there was something to flee from. As she left that oppressive shadow of the ceaseless march, unrelenting in each step's ability to seem so insignificant, she glimpsed a shape, before looking further. It was just the night air of the draught coming in making everything seem cold and dreary, surely. With that thought, she yelled out one last time "Hello?"

But the silence responded only with whispers as she paused, before opening the door, and taking a step outside.