They say when you pass by something every day, your mind stops noticing it. Your brain sorts it into a folder called "background noise"—a grey blur behind the motion of real life. That's how it was with the alley.
I passed it on my way to school every day for four years. Just a dumpster, a broken streetlight, the smell of cat piss and cigarette ash. The buildings on either side always looked abandoned. One had graffiti of a rat with a crown. The other was completely boarded up.
But on the Tuesday after my seventeenth birthday, something changed.
There was a door.
A glass one, with a faded decal: "Panel & Ink – Comics Since 1901." The lettering looked hand-painted, cracked by time. I stopped. My headphones were still playing, but I didn't hear the music anymore. Just this low thrum in my ears, like the world had stopped breathing for a moment.
I looked around. No one else noticed it. People walked past without a glance.
I pulled one earbud out.
Silence.
The city had a hum—cars, voices, birds, wind. But here? In front of that door? Nothing. Like I'd stepped into the pause between heartbeats.
I don't know why I opened the door.
The handle was cold. Older than it looked.
It clicked.
And the world changed.
The first thing I noticed was the smell.
Old paper. Ink. Mold. And beneath it, something metallic. Like blood left too long in water.
The second thing I noticed: the dust. Not normal dust. This moved in slow spirals, like ash caught in candlelight. It clung to the air, making everything look sepia-toned and still.
I stepped inside.
The lights were dim. Hanging bulbs buzzed above crooked bookshelves. Most of them were half-empty or crammed with yellowed, water-damaged comics. Spider-Man. Hellboy. Fables. But they looked wrong, like bootlegs, or dreams pretending to be real.
And in the center of the store, on a velvet-covered pedestal, was one book.
Wrapped in brown paper. Sealed with red wax.
I approached it slowly, like it might vanish if I blinked.
There was a tag tied to the twine:
"For Evan. Yours alone."
My throat tightened. I hadn't told anyone my name since yesterday. And even then, it was just the substitute teacher in homeroom.
I looked around.
The store was empty.
No clerk. No back room. Just rows and rows of dying comics and this single, perfect package in the center of it all.
I reached out, hesitated. My fingers hovered over the twine.
It twitched.
Like it wanted me to open it.
So I did.