Light exploded outward when the mug touched Milo's lips.
Not gold.Not blue.Something colorless—pure, empty potential.
Milo didn't drink.
He didn't have time.
The café seized him.
His feet left the floor.The air vanished.His body dissolved into threads of white light.
"MILO!" Yara screamed, reaching for him—
But her hand passed straight through him.
He tried to speak, but his voice was gone.He tried to breathe, but he didn't have lungs.He tried to reach for Yara, but he didn't have hands.
He was unraveling.
Falling into the space between fate.
The café spoke inside his skull—a chorus of past Keepers, a whisper of ancient gears shifting.
YOU MUST DECIDE.
Threads of light swirled around him—each one a version of his life.
Milo graduating a different college.Milo never quitting the job he hated.Milo meeting someone else.Milo dying young.Milo becoming a father.Milo growing old.Milo never finding the café.Milo finding it sooner.Milo never finding Yara.
A thousand futures.A thousand losses.
"Milo!" Yara's voice echoed distantly, muffled through layers of fate.
He finally understood.
The drink didn't rewrite one thing.It rewrote everything.
To drink was to choose a universe.
To refuse was to choose the café.
The threads tightened around him.
He had to choose.
Stay and anchor the café.Or rewrite the world and lose it forever.
He looked down—
Faintly—so faintly—he saw Yara on her knees on the café floor, looking up at him with absolute terror in her eyes.
Not fear of the café.
Fear of losing him.
Milo reached out toward her—
And everything went white.