The café felt wrong the next morning—too still, like the air was holding its breath. Milo stepped inside and found the lights flickering gently, as if unsure whether to shine. The Eclipse Blend sat sealed inside the cold-brew tower, its dark surface unmoving, but Milo could feel it watching him. Every time he passed it, a chill pricked the back of his neck, as though the drink remembered what it had been allowed to do.
Yara didn't appear from the kitchen like usual. Instead, she emerged from the office with a folder pressed to her chest, her expression tighter than yesterday's relief. "We need to talk," she said. Her voice was steady, but her fingers were trembling. She placed the folder on the counter and opened it to reveal dozens of slips—old receipts, drink orders, napkins scribbled with names, dates, and symbols. Every one of them was marked with a faint shimmer, like dried silver ink. "These are unresolved fates. People who drank something here… but never finished their path."
Milo swallowed. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Yara said quietly, "that the Eclipse Blend didn't create chaos out of nowhere. It woke things up." She lifted one of the slips—an order for a chai latte dated five years ago. "When someone's fate stalls, it waits. And now everything that's been waiting is… moving again."
A sudden knock rattled the door—three sharp taps. Not the hesitant knock of a customer. Not the polite rhythm of someone lost. It was purposeful. Precise. Yara froze. Milo stepped toward the door, but she grabbed his wrist.
"Don't." Her grip was iron. "Fate Café only knocks when something from the outside wants in."
The knocking came again, followed by a whisper that slid under the door like cold smoke: "Barista…"
Milo's pulse thundered. He hadn't told anyone about the Eclipse Blend—no customers had come in since yesterday; the café shouldn't even exist today unless it chose to. But someone… or something… was calling him by title.
The lights flickered harder, buzzing like trapped bees, and the cold brew tower trembled. The Eclipse Blend began to swirl on its own.
"Milo," Yara whispered, "whatever is behind that door? It's here for you."
The knocking stopped.
A single slip of silver paper slid under the door and drifted across the floor, coming to rest at Milo's feet.
He stared down at it.
It was blank.
Except for two words that slowly inked themselves into existence, curling onto the paper like handwriting formed by breath:
Your Turn.
Milo stepped back, breath catching in his throat. Yara reached for the slip, but it burned her fingertips, forcing her to drop it. The paper pulsed once—like a heartbeat.
The cold brew tower cracked.
The Eclipse Blend spilled upward instead of down, rising into a thin black ribbon that twisted in the air like a living shadow.
"Milo," it whispered in the same voice from behind the door, "choose."
The café went dark.