Nora doesn’t respond. She can’t. In her mind, every mistake, every wrong decision, every dream she let die, parades one after another like a spectral procession. The weight is unbearable.

A distant message from her brother, as always. A visit to her old music teacher, a reminder of what could have been. The firing from the music store, the final nail in an invisible coffin.

A wasted life.

When she gets home, the walls feel tighter, the gravity more intense. She sits on the couch with a box of antidepressants in her hand. She looks at her phone. No one has called. No one will.

Life is just a series of paths she never took.

And then, it stops being one.

Darkness.

When she opens her eyes, the world is different. An infinite space of bookshelves stretches in all directions, beyond logic, beyond any imaginable architecture. The books align as if waiting to be chosen.

—Welcome to the Midnight Library, Nora —a voice says.

Mrs. Elm. Her childhood librarian. Just as she remembers her, with her wise gaze and soft hands resting on the cover of a book.

—Am I dead? —Nora asks.