There’s something powerful and amazing about thinking of all those books that lead protagonists to other worlds being like the pieces of jade that gift transmigrators with hidden spaces.
Someone "enlivened" all those books, turning them into micro-realities just big enough for a person to live out a whole life.
And some of the books have been left for so long–tattered and torn–that they have lost most of their power. They barely have enough strength left to exist. And that’s why most protagonists have a "system" setup that forces them to complete various tasks before they can live out the rest of their life.
The tasks gather energy that keep the reality from collapsing.
Sorting through the pile of books in their protective cases, Peregrine wondered if the transmigrated protagonists were really happy. If they grabbed the chance they had been given and enjoyed their lives. Whatever form those lives happened to take. Or if they failed to survive and their books were returned to the library, ready to be rechecked out by someone else.
Peregrine didn’t know how often books in the library had been returned. He didn’t work in the library.
He worked in a back office and sorted books that arrived in big crates.
He received a pile of protective cases that held books he had to look up in the database and sort by genre. He put them on the cart and someone came to take them away.
Some books were savagely beaten up. As though they’d been printed hundreds of years ago. And others were in pristine condition, recently printed and still active in bookstores. All books were "new," as in, Peregrine had never seen a repeat title.
He didn’t know where the books came from or who they were gathered by. He simply collected and classified them.
But he had an inkling. He’d figured things out.
He knew the secret of the books.
It’s why he’d broken the chain. Why he’d started stealing a book here or there and handed them out to random normal people.
He’d see someone that did a good deed and would drop a book near them. He’d walk through the hospital, listening to stories about the various patients. And he’d pass a book along.
He never forced anyone to enter a book. He simply left an option available. A last Hail Mary Pass for them to enjoy.
Because the world was ending. Or, not the world world, which would continue to spin around as uncaringly as always. But the human world.
The environments where a human could live were running out.
Within what should have been his lifetime, Peregrine knew that the human race was going to go extinct. Dying with most of the other mammals on the planet.
Everyone knew it.
It was all that anyone ever talked about, whether directly or indirectly. Conversations had begun to sound weird around him.
There were signs of quiet panic all over the place.
Those that were going to flame out early had mostly all disappeared.
There were only people like Peregrine left. Those that were patiently waiting for the environment to kill them. Everyone still living their lives as the livable world outside their Zone became smaller and smaller.
There would be years before the end of it all. They were able to continue living in their homes and there was plenty of time to make arrangements.
It was a slow-moving End of the World event.
With everything so clearly laid out, it hadn’t taken him long to begin looking at the books he sorted in a different way. And then he’d begun sneaking some out one by one.
He felt like a fairy. Dropping books here and there to give at least some people a chance at living a full life.
He thought that he might have saved thousands of people. (Feared that he had doomed thousands of people.)
