[ WP ] A day in a world where silence is treasured above all else .

She twisted the handle, and the gas burner let out the audible sound of ignition. She edged back, ever so slightly, that the sound was lost to the muffler around the burner, and all that escaped was the heat. The heat that rose to fill the balloon above her. It puffed up slowly, red and rosy, and was soon taken by the breeze of the tunnel. 
 
 Tyla was a young librarian in the Library of Endless Song. It was n't the name she would have chosen for it; if songs ever rang off the walls of the library or through the tunnels it was comprised of, they would have been muted promptly. Endless though, that fit perfectly. The small craft edged its way out of the tunnel into a more cavernous one with all the haste of a cloud. Every tunnel connected to another tunnel. Up and down, east and west, north and south they spanned, and sometimes other directions entirely. A three dimensional maze of bookshelves, dim lighting and muffled footsteps. Three dimensions at least, Tyla was n't so sure. She was always getting lost. Finding your way was n't so easy when gravity changed so regularly. 
 
 The craft tilted as what was left became down, and what was right became up. One hand kept the tome secure as the balloons bobbed about on their strings. She eased off the gas burner and allowed herself to drift gently downwards. 
 
 A huge LiberLiner floated past her tiny craft. Whereas hers had room only for her and a few books, a vessel such as that could carry more books than one person was likely to ever need. It surged silently skyward, its elliptical balloon and hefty cargo intended for some university near the surface no doubt. Tyla was headed deep down, to the core. 
 
 She left the craft hovering next to the dock, and stepped off. Her velvet slippers made no sound against the cotton of the deep red carpet. She carried hefty tome, in its black leather covering, past leagues of writing desks, desk lamps and lamplit faces buried deep into books of every shape, size and subject. Not one of their sleepy faces looked up as she slipped past in her dark ermine cloak; she may as well have been a shadow. 
 
 When she reached the correct row, she turned into it and followed the shelf along until she had reached the right section. It was important to have every book in exactly the right place. With the book tucked under one arm, she began climbing the ladder, counting the shelves as she went. When she reached the correct position on the shelf however, it seemed as though there was a problem. There was already a book there. 
 
 This book was not big and black, it was small and green and it had a golden woman on the spine. The books on either side were blue and red, but both were small with golden women on the spine. Tyla closed her eyes and tried her hardest not to sigh. This was a mistake she had made once before. The position was right, but she had the wrong floor. What she wanted was the floor directly above her. 
 
 She looked up, but that made her feel dizzy. Was it up, or was she looking down upon the floor the book was intended for? To reach it, she would have to climb up the ladder until she was halfway between the floors and flip round so that she could climb back down a few shelves. The thought alone set her mind spinning. 
 
 So she climbed. If she tried to flip too early, her feet would just find themselves back on her ladder, if she flipped too late then she'd go swing straight into the ladder on the other side. She had to wait for the exact moment her stomach turned to butterflies. 
 
 When she was ready, she held the book firmly under her arm, gripped the ladder rung tightly and jumped off with her feet. She spun slowly through the air, weightless, her cloak trailing behind her the way ink trails a pen. After what seemed like hours, she touched down. 
 
 ( It's 3:30am. I'll finish when I wake up if the responses are good. )
