Story/Novel Title: The Library of Lost Souls
Genre: Fantasy Romance / Mystery
Author: PARK JIAN (ME)
SYNOPSIS:
Every soul gets a book in the hidden library — a record of their life, written page by page as they live it. Firasha Astor never meant to find the place. But once she steps through its walls, she finds something no one is supposed to see: an unfinished book, belonging to a boy who is still alive.
Javiar Liam doesn’t know his story is running out of pages. Firasha does. And the only way to save him is to break a rule older than the library itself — because in this world, nothing is rewritten for free.
A story about grief, second chances, and the terrifying cost of loving someone you might not be able to save.
CHARACTER PROFILES
Firasha Astor | FL
Basic Information
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Firasha Astor |
| Nickname | Fira |
| Age | 19 |
| Date of Birth | March 3rd |
| Pronouns | She/Her |
| Sexuality | Straight |
| Nationality | Ashwickian (from the coastal town of Ashwick) |
Appearance
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Hair Colour | Dark brown, almost black, usually tied back messily |
| Eye Colour | Deep amber |
| Height | 5’4″ |
| Weight | Slim, light-footed build |
| Distinguishing Features | A thin scar above her left eyebrow from childhood; fingers often smell faintly of candle wax and old paper; wears her late mother’s ring on a chain, hidden under her collar |
Personality
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Introvert or Extrovert | Introvert leaning ambivert — quiet around strangers, sharp-tongued once she trusts you |
| Best Traits | Loyal, quick-thinking, deeply empathetic |
| Worst Traits | Stubborn, hides her own pain, refuses to ask for help even when she’s drowning |
| MBTI Type | INFJ |
Backstory :
Her mother died when Firasha was twelve, in a way that was never fully explained to her. That loss is why she touches her mother’s ring without noticing when she’s afraid — and why the idea of losing someone else, someone she could maybe save this time, terrifies her more than anything else in the story.
Javiar Liam | ML
Basic Information
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Javiar Liam |
| Nickname | Jav |
| Age | 20 |
| Date of Birth | October 9th |
| Pronouns | He/Him |
| Sexuality | Straight |
| Nationality | Ashwickian |
Appearance
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Hair Colour | Dark brown, always messy |
| Eye Colour | Warm hazel |
| Height | 5’11” |
| Weight | Lean, athletic build |
| Distinguishing Features | A small scar on his left knee from falling out of a tree as a kid; calloused hands from woodworking; always smells faintly of cedar and rain |
Personality
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Introvert or Extrovert | Extrovert — warm, makes friends easily, fills silence without trying |
| Best Traits | Kind, quick to laugh, fiercely loyal to the people he loves |
| Worst Traits | Uses jokes to dodge serious conversations, dismisses his own pain to protect others, avoids thinking about the future |
| MBTI Type | ENFP |
Backstory :
He lost his father young too, though he never talks about it. Woodworking became the thing that kept his hands busy so his mind didn’t have to sit still. He has no idea his time is limited — which is exactly what makes him dangerous to fall for.
CHAPTER
ONE
The Book That Wasn’t Finished
Firasha Astor had a rule: never follow strange things into strange places. She’d made that rule the night her mother didn’t come home, seven years ago, and she had kept it without breaking it once.
She broke it on a Tuesday, in the rain, for a wall.
The bricks beside the old bookstore on Larkin Street split open like a curtain pulled back. No sound. No warning. Just a gap where solid stone should have been, dark and waiting. She stood there a full minute, certain her eyes were playing tricks on her, that the streetlight was bending strangely through the rain. It wasn’t a trick. The dark past that opening smelled like old paper and melted candle wax, and something about that smell reached into her chest and pulled, gently, the way a hand pulls a child toward a doorway they were told never to open.
She should have walked home. She should have told herself it was a broken drainpipe and nothing more. Instead, she stepped through, because some part of her — the part that still reached for her mother some mornings before remembering — needed to know what waited on the other side of things that weren’t supposed to exist.
Inside, the air was warm and still, the kind of stillness that settles after everyone in a room has stopped breathing at once. Shelves rose higher than she could see, packed tight with books that carried no titles on their spines. Candles floated near the ceiling with no flame beneath them, just a soft gold light that pulsed slowly, like something breathing.
She reached for the nearest book without thinking. The second her fingers touched the cover, a name rose up in her mind, clear as a voice speaking directly into her ear. A woman’s name. Someone who had died forty years ago in a house by the sea.
Firasha pulled her hand back so fast the book nearly slipped from the shelf.
“Every soul gets a book,” a voice said behind her.
She spun around. No one there. Just rows of shelves and dust falling slow through the gold light, unhurried, like it had nowhere else to be.
“You’re not supposed to be here yet,” the voice said again, quieter now, almost sad. “But you are. So look. That’s what the library wants.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She didn’t know if it wanted her to run or stay.
She stayed. Her hand drifted up to her collar without her noticing, pressing the small ring hidden underneath it — a habit from childhood, from every moment she’d ever been afraid.
She walked deeper into the shelves, letting her fingers hover near the spines, feeling something like static jump between her skin and the covers. Rows and rows of lives. Rows of endings. She didn’t understand any of it, but her feet kept moving anyway, past shelf after shelf, until she stopped in front of one book near the very back, sitting apart from the others, tilted forward like it wanted to fall into her hands.
She picked it up.
The cover was warm. Not candle-warm — skin-warm, like it had just been held by someone alive.
A name in soft silver letters: Javiar Liam.
She opened it before she could stop herself.
The first pages were full — a childhood by a river, a mother’s laugh, a scar on his left knee from falling out of a tree at nine. Firasha read fast, hungry, the way you read a letter from someone you already love without knowing why. Then the words began to thin. Sentences broke off mid-line. Whole pages sat blank, waiting for ink that hadn’t come yet.
She turned to the last written page.
One line.
He does not know how little time is left.
She stared at it until the letters blurred together. Her hands had gone cold.
“That book shouldn’t be open,” the voice said, sharper now. “Not while he’s still breathing.”
“He’s alive?” The word cracked in her throat.
“For now.”
Footsteps echoed from the front of the library — real ones, boots against stone, unhurried, someone who had no idea they weren’t supposed to be there.
Firasha’s whole body went still. She looked down at the name in her hands, then up, toward the sound, her mind already racing through excuses she didn’t have time to build.
A boy came around the corner of the shelf, brushing rain out of his dark hair, laughing quietly at something on his phone before he noticed her standing there. Ordinary. Warm-eyed. Alive in every way a person could possibly be alive.
He looked up. His laugh faded into a small, confused smile.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know anyone else came here.”
Her fingers tightened around the book behind her back, hiding it before she’d even decided to.
“I was just leaving,” she said — a lie, fast and easy, the kind she was already good at telling herself long before she’d learned to tell them to anyone else.
He tilted his head, studying her the way people study something they can’t quite place. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Close enough, she thought.
“Just tired,” she said instead. “Long day.”
“Yeah,” he said, laughing a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “Tell me about it. I only came in because the door was open and it looked warmer than the rain.” He stepped closer, hand out. “I’m Javiar, by the way.”
She already knew.
She shook his hand anyway, because pretending was easier than explaining, and because some small, foolish part of her wanted to hold onto this ordinary moment — his hand warm against hers, rain still caught in his hair — for just a second longer than it should have lasted.
“Firasha,” she said.
He smiled like her name was something worth hearing twice.
She smiled back, and hated herself a little for how easy it was, standing three feet away from a boy whose story was already running out of pages — and saying nothing at all.
Would she find the courage to tell him the truth before his book ran out of room to write it?
