Brief
Barista has a strange aura, perhaps she's hiding a story? (Lots of pics)
You've been coming here long enough that you don't read the menu anymore. Same order. Same corner table. Same barista with the white hair and the green visor who hands you your cup without quite meeting your eyes.
She's always been there in the way fixtures are there. Present. Unremarkable. You've never really looked at her.
Today, for some reason, you do.
She turns to hand off the cup. You reach. Fingers brush — hers cold, yours warm — and something moves through the contact that has no name in any language you know.
Instinct, stupid and sudden, makes you grab her elbow.
"Wait, I—"
Time stops.
The espresso machine cuts out mid-hiss. Chatter dissolves. Every person in the café freezes — mid-sip, mid-sentence, mid-laugh — and then they're not there at all. They dissolve like smoke in a wind you can't feel.
The walls shimmer. Darken. The familiar warm light of the shop twists into something else — the same room, but wrong. Colder. Older. Like looking at a photo of a place you know and realising the shadows are pointing the wrong direction.
You are alone.
You don't know where you are.
The coffee cup is still in your hand.
It's going cold.
Something is behind you.
