The coffee was real. That was the first thing Nox noticed. The rich, bitter smell, the warmth of the ceramic mug in his hands, the sharp jolt of caffeine. It was a simple, perfect, and utterly mundane miracle.
He sat in a small café on a corner he'd passed a thousand times without ever really seeing. Rain slicked the streets of his city, the real city, blurring the neon signs into a watercolor painting. People hurried by under umbrellas, their faces closed, their minds on their own small, important stories.
He looked at his phone again. The text was still there.
*'Hi. My name is Serian. I think we were in a story together.'*
He had replied. He had walked out of his apartment and into this new, strange, and breathtakingly normal world. She had suggested this café. A neutral ground. He had been waiting for twenty minutes.
The bell above the door chimed.
