The sensation of falling stopped.
Not gradually. Just stopped. Like someone hit pause on gravity itself.
I floated.
That's the only word for it. My consciousness hung suspended in the air above Java Junction like a balloon someone forgot to tie down. No body. No weight. Just awareness drifting through space that felt both familiar and completely alien.
The coffee shop spread out below me in colors too bright to be real. The warm browns of the wooden tables had been cranked up to amber. The cream walls glowed ivory. Even the stainless steel espresso machine gleamed with metallic perfection that looked CGI-rendered.
Everything was sharp. Too sharp. Like someone had taken reality and applied every Instagram filter simultaneously.
My perspective drifted lower without my input, pulled by invisible strings toward a corner booth. I could see the back of someone's head. White hair catching the overhead lights.
Oh.
Oh no.
That was me.
My stomach, wherever the hell it currently existed, dropped into my nonexistent feet.
I was watching myself. Past tense me. Memory me. The me who had no idea his entire world was about to detonate in his face.
I tried to look away. Couldn't. My perspective locked onto the scene like a camera on rails, following a predetermined path.
The booth came into sharper focus. Jake sat across from past-me, leaning so far forward his chest practically touched the table. His leg bounced with enough energy to power a small city. That nervous habit he'd had since freshman year, back when we first met in remedial math.
Three girls occupied the remaining seats.
The one on the left commanded immediate attention. Chloe. Had to be. Her spine formed a perfect vertical line, shoulders back, chin elevated just enough to broadcast authority without tipping into arrogance. Chestnut hair pulled into a ponytail. Wire-rimmed glasses perched on a sharp nose, magnifying gray eyes that moved across her laptop screen.
Madison sprawled in the seat beside her, the physical embodiment of could not give less of a fuck. Her shoulders curved forward in a slouch that would've made my old foster mom Mrs. Peterson launch into a twenty-minute lecture about posture and self-respect. Dark hair with purple highlights fell across her face. She wore fingerless gloves. In Valoria. During the summer.
The third girl, Bree, occupied the space between presence and absence. Small frame tucked into the corner of the booth like she was trying to take up as little room as possible. Blonde hair in loose waves that caught the light when she moved. Her eyes stayed unfocused, staring at something past the physical world. Every few seconds she'd shiver. Just a small tremor through her shoulders.
Background patrons filled the café. Their features blurred into flesh-colored smudges. No eyes. No mouths. Just vague suggestions of human forms moving through space. The barista behind the counter had a face like someone had run it through Photoshop's blur filter set to maximum.
The espresso machine's hum pulsed with rhythmic regularity. Thump-hum. Thump-hum. Like a heartbeat translated through metal and steam.
Jake's mouth moved. Sound arrived a half-second later, slightly out of sync.
"So you're saying this place is actually haunted? Like for-real haunted, not just creepy-abandoned-building haunted?"
Chloe's fingers stopped typing. She rotated the laptop to face the group.
"The electromagnetic field readings are off the charts. We're talking fluctuations of forty to sixty milligauss in areas with zero electrical infrastructure."
Madison didn't look up from her screen. "Could be geological. Underground water, mineral deposits, tectonic stress."
"Could be." Chloe's tone suggested she thought no such thing. "Except the temperature variations don't correlate with any natural phenomenon. We're seeing localized drops of fifteen to twenty degrees Fahrenheit in spaces smaller than three cubic feet."
Bree shivered again. Her unfocused eyes drifted toward the window.
"The veil is thin there. I can feel it even from here. All that pain. All that fear. It's soaked into the foundations."
Madison's fingers paused on her trackpad.
"You're feeling it from six miles away."
"Spiritual sensitivity doesn't respect distance." Bree's voice floated soft and distant. "Trauma echoes. The stronger the emotion, the farther it travels."
Oh my god, I thought from my floating vantage point. She actually believes this shit.
Except the thought carried new weight. Because I was currently experiencing a metaphysical flashback induced by temporal ink and phoenix feathers while a woman with magic eyes watched my unconscious body.
So maybe Bree's cosmic vibration detector wasn't the craziest thing happening today.
The door chimed.
Past-me walked in.
I watched myself scan the café with the practiced eye of someone who'd learned to assess exits and potential problems before choosing a seat. Old habit from too many foster homes where knowing the fastest escape route was survival 101.
My past self wore the same clothes I'd woken up in. Faded band t-shirt. Work jacket with paint stains. Jeans that had seen better days but still had a few good months left.
Jake's face lit up like someone had flipped a switch. He half-stood, waving with the enthusiasm of someone flagging down a rescue helicopter.
"Rome! Over here!"
Past-me's expression cycled through surprise, resignation, and the specific brand of exhaustion that comes from knowing your friend is about to drag you into something stupid. I slid into the booth beside Jake.
"This better be good. I've got a shift in four hours."
"It's better than good. It's legendary." Jake gestured to the girls with the flourish of a game show host revealing prizes. "Rome, meet the Spectral Seekers. Chloe, team leader and paranormal researcher. Madison, tech specialist. Bree, sensitive and spiritual consultant."
Chloe extended a hand across the table. Her grip, when past-me shook it, looked firm enough to crack walnuts.
"Jake's told us about your interest in unexplained phenomena."
"Has he now."
"Don't give me that." Jake's leg bounced faster. "You're always watching those ghost hunting shows. You literally own three different EMF readers."
"I own one EMF reader and it's for checking electrical wiring at job sites." Past-me's voice carried the patience of someone explaining this for the fifteenth time. "The other two were broken when I found them and I was gonna fix them for parts."
"But you didn't." Jake leaned in. "Because maybe part of you wanted to believe."
Jesus Christ, I thought. I sound like such an asshole.
Chloe rotated her laptop again. A satellite image filled the screen. Abandoned industrial buildings forming a compound near the river. Rust-red roofs. Broken windows like missing teeth.
"Blackwood Meatpacking Plant. Operational from 1947 to 1983. Shut down after a series of accidents ranging from mechanical failures to full-scale disasters." Her finger traced the largest structure. "Seventeen confirmed deaths on-site. Dozens more injuries. The final incident involved a refrigeration system malfunction that trapped eight workers in a freezer unit for fourteen hours before anyone noticed."
Madison's fingers moved across her keyboard. A new window popped up. Newspaper clippings. Black and white photos of covered gurneys being wheeled from buildings.
"Official cause of closure was health code violations and OSHA complaints. But the timing's interesting. The place was profitable right up until it wasn't. Then they shut down literally overnight. Locked the gates and walked away."
Bree's shiver intensified. She wrapped her arms around herself like the café's air conditioning had kicked into overdrive.
"They left the dead behind. Not the bodies. The impressions. Residual energy from violent death doesn't just fade. It accumulates. Compounds. Becomes something aware."
Past-me leaned forward to look at the screen. His obsidian necklace swung free from his shirt.
Bree stopped shivering.
"Oh." The single syllable carried weight. "That's beautiful. What is it?"
I watched myself tuck it back under my shirt. Reflexive. Like covering a scar.
"Nothing. Just something I've always had."
Bree's gaze followed the necklace even after it disappeared. A small smile curved her lips.
"It feels protective. Like it's keeping something out." She tilted her head. "Or maybe keeping something in. Either way, it suits you. I should get one."
The words landed different from my floating perspective. Not innocent curiosity. A preview. Foreshadowing delivered with perfect dramatic irony by someone who had no idea what she was admiring.
You don't want what's under this rock, I thought at her. Trust me. You really, really don't.
Chloe cleared her throat. "The spiritual activity has been escalating. Three separate teams have attempted investigations in the past year. All three abandoned their equipment and fled before completing even preliminary sweeps."
"Fled from what?" Past-me's skepticism bled through every word.
"Overwhelming sense of dread. Physical nausea. One investigator reported feeling hands around his throat despite being completely alone."
Chloe's expression didn't change. Just reciting facts. "We believe the combination of residual trauma and the building's deteriorating structure has created ideal conditions for manifestation."
Jake's leg bounced fast enough to register on seismographs.
"So we go in. Document everything. Maybe finally get proof that there's something beyond the material world." His eyes found mine. Past-me's. Whatever. "Come on. You know you're curious."
I watched myself run a hand through my hair. The universal gesture of I'm about to do something stupid and I know it.
The café's background hum shifted. Dropped an octave. The thump-hum of the espresso machine slowed, became a funeral march tempo.
"Fine." Past-me's voice sounded like defeat. "But you're buying me breakfast for a month."
Jake pumped his fist. Chloe's lips curved into something adjacent to satisfaction. Madison's fingers paused on her keyboard for half a second before resuming their rhythm. Bree's smile widened.
They stood. Gathered laptops and bags. Made plans to meet at the location after sunset when the spiritual energy would be strongest.
The scene began to deteriorate.
Background patrons dissolved into static. The warm amber walls faded to gray. Sound became muffled, like someone had wrapped the entire café in cotton.
I tried to pull back. Couldn't move. My perspective remained locked on the booth as my past self stood and turned toward the exit.
The window caught his reflection.
For one frame. A single frozen moment. The reflection's eyes glowed violet.
Not the warm hazel I'd seen in mirrors my entire life. Pure electric purple. The same shade as Amelia's technique. The same color as the energy I didn't know I possessed.
Then the café exploded into a million fragments of corrupted memory. Color drained away. Sound collapsed into white noise. My perspective tumbled through darkness that felt both infinite and claustrophobic.
I fell between moments, suspended in the static-filled void between one memory and the next, waiting for the inevitable crash landing into whatever hell waited in that warehouse.