Hi, my name is Sam Shadow. Some of you may remember me from that incident I had with a character called 'Midnight' some years back. She wanted to take over our realm of reality by possessing 31st October. That's right Halloween. Making it more than just a piece of harmless fun.

Anyway, I managed to stop her and save a girl called Lois. You can read the whole thing in my account entitled A Girl Called 5am, Bit of a long story where the title came from. It's all in the account, which my friend Alice White will post on her Tumblr blog.

So, why am I writing to you again. Well, I'm a librarian now! I know, me, who would have thought it.

You may be wondering how that happened? Well, let me give you the backstory.

Lois, Amber, she is my other bestie, and me did really well at our high school exams and managed to secure a place at a university. That one itself was a huge achievement. Lois chose to study psychology, Amber medicine, personally I think she thought it was going to be like Greys Anatomy. Myself, English literature.

We were all in the university library heads down making our various notes when I felt something tap against my foot! I looked down and saw that it was a grey sphere. It was a bit bigger than a baseball. But the strange thing is, it seemed to be propelled by its own traction and kept gently rocking back and forth tapping itself against me.

I thought at first that it might have been a toy. Some students here are still in their childhood, I swear.

I reached down to retrieve the ball and once I had it in my hand the texture felt like it was made of clay. Then, I noticed something even stranger. My name was engraved over the entire surface of the sphere.

There was a large 'Sam Shadow' carved around the whole circumference with small 'Sam Shadows' filling in all the empty spaces. I showed it to the other two.

"Well that's weird!" Exclaimed Lois.

"Where did it come from?" Asked Amber.

"I don't know." I replied at the same time looking around me to see if anyone might be playing some kind of joke.

I couldn't concentrate on my studies now that I had this in my hand. I had to find out where it came from. Maybe if I took it to the art department at the university, the lecturer might remember who made clay globes. Just as I was going to pick it up, the clay ball began to vibrate in my hand.

I immediately dropped the ball back on my table and scrapped my chair back away from it. Lois, Amber and now university librarian was all looking at me.

"Is there a problem Miss Shadow?" The librarian enquired.

"No sir." I quickly grabbed the vibrating ball off the table, threw it into my bag and left the library with Lois and Amber right behind me.

Once outside, I ran across the road to the park opposite the library and taking my bag off my shoulder, I threw it onto the lawn. Shaking, I watched as the clay ball wriggled out from underneath my books and rolled out onto the lawn.

Both Lois and Amber were now beside me starring opened mouth as the ball started to unscrew itself. First, the top half rotated clockwise. Second, the bottom half rotated anti-clockwise.

"It's a mini Martian!" Shouted Amber, who remembered seeing something similar in War of the Worlds.

Once both halves had separated it was clear to see that we were not being invaded by creatures from Mars, instead what was inside was a rolled up piece of paper tied with a red ribbon. Slowly, I bent down to pick it up. Holding the scroll in my hand, Lois and Amber came to my side and were equally as curious as me to see what was written on it.

As soon as I pulled at the ribbon, the scroll unfolded. Written in the most beautiful script it read:

To Sam Shadow.
You are invited to attend the midnight appearance of the Unseen Library. Please come to No Place Street.

That was it. Nothing else. I turned the scroll over in my hand to see if there was anything else written, but no that was it!

Lois picked up the two halves of the clay ball and looked inside to see if I might have missed something. They were empty.

All three of us looked at each other. "What do you make of that?" Asked Amber.

"Well, it's obviously a well designed marketing ploy for a new night club. Sounds intriguing." Said Lois taking the scroll from my hand and reading it herself.

"How come no one else got one?" Asked Amber. And she had a good point. A marketing strategy this sophisticated would have been all over the socials.

"How come it's only her!" Amber pointed at me quite put out. "It's like that train journey all over again. She gets the invite!"

"Only because you pressed the app on my phone!" I remind her.

"I'm glad she did." Said Lois. "Otherwise I'd still be stuck on that train and no doubt a ghost by now like the others!"

"Yeah, maybe this is a call for help. Someone has heard how I rescued Lois and pleaded for me to do the same for them. I'm going!"

And with my best flounce I dramatically headed to the Halls of Residence to get ready.

To be continued...

© Alice White