Selene Kalti adjusted her glasses on her nose and stared at her laptop screen. A half-page of typed words in beautifully justified Calibri stared back at her. Writer's block was the bane of her existence, and it had seemed to plague her since she began working on her masters thesis.
She spent most of her days at the library, comforted by thick silence and surrounded by books. Her thesis was titled Worship in Ancient Greece, and although Greek mythology had always fascinated her to the very core of her heart, she felt demotivated when she couldn't write smoothly. That's why she preferred the library – sometimes it inspired her, when nothing else could. Being in the presence of all that knowledge was often all that she needed to root herself out of a blank slate.
She closed her laptop and got up, heading over to the Greek Mythology section on the shelves. She ran her thumb over the spines of the books as she made her way down the narrow walkway between the shelves, and they crackled pleasingly as she did. She grabbed a book titled A Brief Study of Hell and opened it, leaning against the shelf. She almost didn't notice a towering figure enter the walkway after her, and now she was in his way.
'Excuse me,' a voice came from above her. Most interestingly, she couldn't place the accent at all. It was the first thing that came to mind as she looked up at the source of the voice.
She felt her footing falter, just a little bit.
Standing in front of her was a man of at least six feet three inches. His face was chiseled and angular, with high cheekbones, and dark lashes framing direct eyes. His nose was perfectly proportioned and straight, and he looked at her with just a little bit of a smirk on his lips, set neatly in the midst of dark stubble. He wore a leather jacket over a plain white collared shirt tucked into navy blue chinos, and matched his brown boots to a brown belt with a tree sigil branded onto it. His eyes as he looked expectantly at her were dazzling green, and his hair was as black as the darkest night, swept back off his forehead. Selene had never seen anyone look so beautiful but so deceptively menacing at the same time – there was something almost threatening that lay palpable in the air between them.
'Sorry,' she managed, flattening herself against the shelf. 'I didn't see you come in, there.'
He didn't move, and she felt incredibly stupid – flat against the shelf, book in hand. His eyes met hers, and she saw a dark glimmer of a smile cross his face.
Selene wasn't ugly. At twenty-six, she stood at a respectable 5'6", had wavy dark brown hair that fell right below her chest, and light brown eyes that often caught the light in an array of manners. Her features were not sharp - but a pert nose, a slightly-uneven-but-mildly-larger-than-regular lips, thick eyebrows, and one dimple on her left cheek – rendered her an attractive girl, by most standards. Even so, today in her VISIT CALIFORNIA! hoodie and her hair thrown up into a ponytail, she felt that she could never warrant the way this ethereal man was gazing at her.
Then it hit her. He was gazing at the book in her hands.
'Unusual choice,' he said aloud – his voice deep, and slathered with a tone that bridged sarcasm and interest.
'It's.. research,' Selene replied. She couldn't tear her eyes away from his face, no matter how rude she felt. He didn't even look like a regular man. He looked familiar – but familiar as in she felt as though she had seen his face in paintings, and sculptures. She wondered for a second which luxury brand he modeled for, and which would be lucky to have him.
He raised a dark eyebrow. 'On hell? I hear it's not so bad down there,' he continued in his unfamiliar accent.
Without another word, he brushed past Selene, and continued down the walkway in search of another book. She tried to stop herself, but the words came out unbridled.
'Are you looking for anything in particular? I've looked at most of these Greek Mythology books.'
He turned around and his green eyes met her brown ones, and she felt almost naked in the middle of the library.
'Thank you,' he murmured. 'But I daresay I may know these contents better than you.'
She went red, and nodded, stepping back down onto her feet and making her way out of the walkway. She returned to her table, clutching the book in her hands.
Selene had met many people in her life. Many strange people. Many alluring people. But in all her years, she had never met anyone like the man in the walkway. There was something otherworldly about him, of that – she felt sure, as silly as it was. And as she sat there, leafing through the book, trying her best to place the accent – Selene never saw him leave.
No one did.