After lessons, Lena stayed at school longer to print out the paper. The photocopier whined again and swallowed the paper, followed by the embarrassment of a blinking control. Before she could sigh, she heard a quiet whisper from under the tabletop: "Finally, someone sensible." She picked up the dropped pen, silver as a fish in the sun. "Don't squeeze it like that," he hissed, wriggling like a lizard out of his pocket. "I have a fine nib, seriously." Lena froze, then looked nervously around the empty corridor. "Are you just talking to me?" she asked, trying not to let the pen drop to the floor. "With you, with fate, and with that fatal photocopier that has the seal," the pen replied. The pen insisted on going to the library, where everything supposedly comes to life. Inside, it smelled of dust and ink, and the bookcases stood like sentinels. The Globe moved slowly, pointed to the Pacific and muttered: "The threat comes in waves." The atlas sighed with a papery sigh: "Page one hundred and twenty-three is missing." Lena pushed her hair back from her forehead, feeling a shiver under her skin. "Who is taking the page from the ocean and why?" she asked uncertainly. "The chronometer from the auditorium," the globe replied, turning hard like a planet in shackles. "It wants to silence us forever, before it strikes nineteen o'clock and Silence falls." The pen made a spring sound, as if it was gritting its teeth with fear. "We must find the page before the library lockdown comes and the blinds fall." They walked between the shelves, where the rules whispered "No noise" like a stern teacher. The chairs creaked nervously and the stapler clicked a marching rhythm, as if to encourage courage. "Left," he pointed to the globe, spinning the oceans like a steering wheel. At the end of the corridor, a cabinet with a milky window waited, locked with a shiny padlock. "I don't know how to break in," Lena said, feeling her heart drumming like a Friday bell. "It's not breaking in, it's negotiating," snorted the handle, then bent whimsically. The bookcase next to it grunted and slid out a narrow slat, hidden like a tongue of mystery. Lena pulled, and the padlock clicked like a yawn. Inside lay an old atlas with a tattered spine and a ragged edge. A pale, cool light oozed from a spot on the torn side. "It's a trace," whispered the atlas, shuddering thinly like parchment in the wind. The pen darkened and wrote in the margin itself, without her hand: "They're coming." The fluorescent lights flickered, and the heavy strike of a clock sounded in the distant auditorium. "Too late, the silencer is already waking up," sounded the metallic whisper of the fire speaker. Someone dragged the keys along the railing, and the library doors began to close. All the subjects held their breath, as if that was even possible. Then a new, unfamiliar ticking sounded right next to Lena's ear, getting closer and closer.