I had been poring over dusty tomes and brittle scrolls for two hours straight, my brain slowly leaking out of my ears from the sheer volume of apocalyptic information when something caught my eye—something absurdly out of place.
A thin book. Like, magazine-thin. Practically a pamphlet in the grand sea of encyclopedias.
I squinted. "What's this? A glorified essay?" I muttered, plucking it off the shelf like it might evaporate from sheer inferiority.
The cover felt like old beast hide—cracked, leathery, probably shed from something extinct or cursed. Golden letters gleamed faintly on the front:
Evolution of Stragglers: A Theory
By: K.P.
No frills. No publisher stamp. Just twenty-something pages and an ominous title. Suspiciously thin for a topic that's literally world-ending.
