Even though I don't want this knowledge, even though it should be lost by all rights, you need to know. I'm sorry for burdening you with this, but if someone out there can stop this, end it forever, then these words need to get out.

Three months ago, I got the first of the seven books. They arrived every other week, and it was my job to catalog them. I couldn't place the language, or exactly what kind of leather they were bound in, but they were beautiful. Real gold was inlaid upon the covers' images.

That was it, really, the images. The engravings begged me to run my fingers over them, and as I did, that's when I first felt the icy thing on my hand. The windows were open, and it was November, so I closed them and thought nothing of it. I put the book aside, with the other rare books, and made a note to call Riley about the text in the morning. He loved that sort of thing, but you knew that. I should have called you first.

When he finally came, he asked me why, exactly, the book had that unsettling stench of brine. I don't know how I missed it. I guess if you spend enough time around books, you stop noticing the odors. But it'll always stay with me, the way his hand started to shake, the way his skin turned sallow, the slight stutter in his speech as he looked at the words on the page.

“Where did they come from,” he managed to ask, his voice barely above a whisper. I looked and looked for the notes I made when the first book arrived, but they were gone. You have to understand, there were always just so many books floating in, so many little scarps of paper all over the place, keeping track of any one was just so hard. I remembered I had trouble pronouncing the name of the city, but couldn't remember its name to save my life.

I noticed Riley staring, wide eyed, at the words on the pages. What had to be letters were twisted, and there was no hint of a pattern. When I took my first look, I couldn't make out where words began or ended, couldn't guess at what was a phrase, or paragraph, or anything. I found him looking at those marks made so heavily on the thick parchment, and he abruptly began mouthing syllables I had no prayer of comprehending.

“Get me a pen, dammit,” he yelled suddenly, his trance-like stupor broken. I didn't know what to do. I just got the pen, and handed it to him. When he took it, when his hand touched mine, the same awful coldness came over me. “Paper, too” he added. He continued mouthing out the symbols on the page, but faster, with some alien sense of urgency.

When he began the transliteration, he said I needed to bring him the rest of the books. I didn't want to touch them again, not with this fit going on, but I was so scared. I didn't know what he'd do if I didn't bring them to him. I should have run, I don't know, hidden. I should have burned the things, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything but give him the books.

As I held all of the remaining six books, the iciness wrapped around my throat, clinging and almost begging me to let it out. It was telling me to take the books to Riley, who was done with the first one. I sat there, staring and shivering, as he finished the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh books. They weren't so lengthy, but the time to decipher the texts seemed to just go on. The waiting was agony.

Then, at last, on my desk were readable copies of the manuscripts. When it was completed, Riley got up out of the chair, started to walk away, and collapsed onto the floor. I went to see if he was all right, but his body was frozen solid. When he fell, parts of his face had snapped off in pieces, like crystal. I'm pretty sure I screamed.

But that's it. I won't believe that I was in control of myself afterwards. I don't want to believe that, because then I went to the transliterated copies of the strange tomes. I picked them up, and read the choked syllables aloud. The feeling of ice in my lungs was like daggers. I was being ripped apart inside by the cold, but it wouldn't let me stop. Page after page I read, watching myself distantly, pleading with my voice to silence itself.

Eventually, I woke up. I was alive, and the books were still there. Hesitantly, I picked one up, but it wasn't cold anymore. I opened it, and the awful characters inside were gone. They'd vanished. Riley's notes were nowhere to be seen. That's when I noticed I could see my breath inside the building, even with the windows closed. Even more bizarre, Riley's corpse was missing, though a path of crystalline crimson trailed from where it fell to the room's exit. I started to suffocate inside that arctic room.

I ran out, up the stairs, tripping in my panic, turning an ankle, but running nonetheless. I was gagged by my own breath and tears. There wasn't anywhere to go, though. The thick, blinding toxicity swarming outside the building was the only faint veil, the only mercy I seemed permitted. A nauseating stagnation permeated the air, which had become cold to the point of burning. The streets were silent. The briny stench was overwhelming.

Pulling my shirt over my mouth and nose in a vain effort to breath, my vision cleared only slightly, and I finally saw the devastation around me. Now you understand. It was my fault the buildings decayed overnight. I'm the reason the city's turned into a wasteland. I destroyed it all with my curiosity, my own words. That thing that got out, God forgive me, I don't think it will stop.

I'm sitting here, now, begging you. Find the words. There may be something there that can save us. And if not, then please, I've put two extra pills in this envelope for you. Mine will be working, soon. I can't stop it. All I can do is pray that the end is quick, one way or another.