One morning in early October a lorry arrived at my estate, and a pair of stout workers began unloading a number of boxes onto my doorstep. This was Dr. Hugo’s vast and sprawling library, to be incorporated into my own prominent collection of textbooks, research papers and scientific documents.


    Upon viewing the sheer amount of material to be unpacked and sorted – the fruits of a lifetime of academia – I began to realize the enormity of the task ahead of me. How well-read was she! And how fortunate was I to be named the inheritor of this grand archive! I found it necessary to convert my guest bedroom into a secondary library, and installed several new bookcases to eventually house the collection.


    One evening, as I shuffled lethargically through the many boxes containing Hugo’s library – rudely packaged with little thought or organization thanks to a disinterested and near illiterate executor who cared not for the Professor or her legacy – I recalled, in one of the Professor’s recent letters, a marked excitement for having procured, by happenstance, a number of ancient texts from a foreign merchant.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Most had proven fake, or copies of already well known and documented tomes, but one, she was certain after a preliminary examination, was an authentic specimen previously unknown to the community, and of some promise, although she’d deemed further research necessary.


    The mystery of this unknown specimen dangled before me as one might bait a fish or deep sea creature, and my curiosity was vigorously roused, as a leviathan rising from some colourless, unfathomable depth. I hoped the book might prove an antidote to the boredom and indifference that had thus far plagued my banal and pallid existence.


    Thus, with little hesitation, I decided to prioritize this text over all others, and set about at once to excavate the rumoured tome from the collection that now threatened to subsume my house.