Elena bolted upright in bed, her spine snapping straight as a gasp tore from her lungs. The air in her small apartment felt thick, cloying, and far too still. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird, each thud echoing the rhythmic thrum she had felt in that alleyway.
She was safe. She was home. The familiar scent of stale coffee and laundry detergent should have comforted her, but her skin still crawled with the memory of that unnatural, static chill.
She clutched the duvet to her chest, her knuckles white. Her breath came in jagged, shallow hitches—heavy panting that sounded loud in the silence of the morning. Every time she closed her eyes, she didn't see the man who had attacked her; he had been erased so thoroughly her mind struggled to even recall his face. Instead, she saw her.
She saw the porcelain-perfect skin. The eyes that held the weight of a thousand dying suns behind a mask of youthful innocence. The way the girl had tilted her head, asking if she had "seen anything" with a voice that sounded like wind chimes over a grave.
Elena's hands began to shake uncontrollably. It wasn't just the fear of death that haunted her—it was the fear of the impossible. She had watched a human being unspool into mist. She had witnessed a child treat a murder like a mundane chore.
Yesterday had been too much for her to handle. It was a jagged tear in the fabric of her life that she couldn't stitch back together. The world looked the same through her window—the sun was rising, the birds were chirping—but Elena knew the truth now. The world was a stage, and something terrifyingly powerful was walking among the actors, bored and looking for a reason to snap her fingers.
"Elena? The milk is scorching. Focus, or we're going to have a line of very angry commuters."
The voice was sharp, cutting through the fog of Elena's memory like a scalpel. She jolted, the steam wand screeching against the metal pitcher in her hand. A cloud of burnt, sour-smelling foam hissed upward, coating her knuckles in a stinging heat she barely felt.
Her manager, Sarah, was leaning against the pastry case, her arms crossed tightly over her crisp white apron. Sarah was a woman who prided herself on efficiency; she moved with a brisk, no-nonsense energy that usually made the cafe run like a well-oiled machine. But today, Sarah's eyes—narrowed and observant—were fixed on Elena with a look that was less about the burnt milk and more about the girl holding the pitcher.
"I... I'm sorry, Sarah," Elena whispered, her voice sounding thin and brittle. "I just... I didn't sleep much. Bad dreams."
Sarah sighed, her expression softening just a fraction, though her professional edge remained. She stepped closer, lowering her voice so the customers wouldn't overhear. "You look like you've seen a ghost, El. Your hands are shaking so hard you're going to drop the next portafilter. If you're sick, go home. If you're not, get your head in the game."
Get your head in the game.
The word game sent a physical jolt through Elena's spine. It was the same word the girl in the alley had used. To Sarah, a "game" was a busy morning shift at a coffee shop. To that thing in the alley, a "game" was the life and death of every person in the city.
"I'm fine. Really," Elena lied, her heart thundering against her ribs. She turned back to the espresso machine, her movements jerky and robotic.
She tried to lose herself in the rhythm: Grind. Tamp. Pull. Steam. But every time the bell above the door chimed—a bright, cheerful ding—Elena's breath hitched. She found herself scanning the crown, her eyes darting toward every petite frame, every flash of a skirt, searching for that poreless, marble-white skin and that terrifyingly innocent smile.
after few hours, the pressure had developed into a physical weight in her chest. She reached for a glass bottle of vanilla syrup, but her fingers felt numb, like they didn't belong to her body. The bottle slipped, tumbling through the air in slow motion before shattering against the tile floor.
The sound wasn't just a crash. To Elena's traumatized ears, it sounded like the sickening thrum of the man's molecules unravelling. It sounded like the universe being torn apart.
"Elena!" Sarah shouted over the noise of the cafe, but Elena was already moving.
She bolted for the back room, her boots slipping on the sticky syrup. She slammed the door behind her and leaned against the industrial refrigerator, the cold metal biting into her back. She slid down to the floor, clutching her knees to her chest, gasping for air that wouldn't come.
She realized then that the "normal" world was gone. Sarah's world—of schedules, burnt milk, and shattered bottles—was a lie. The real world was an alleyway where a girl could erase you with a wink.
The heavy door to the back room creaked as Elena pushed it open, her breath still coming in ragged, uneven bursts. She had hoped the solitude of the storage closet would act as a shield, a place where the laws of physics still applied. But as she stepped back into the main cafe, the air didn't feel cooler; it felt charged, as if a thunderstorm were contained within the four walls of the shop.
Her eyes drifted toward the counter, and her heart didn't just skip—it stopped.
There, perched on a stool with her legs swinging playfully, was the girl. She looked identical to the nightmare in the alley, from the pristine fabric of her clothes to the terrifyingly perfect stillness of her posture. She was leaning over the counter, chatting with Sarah with a familiar, easy warmth that made Elena's stomach turn.
"Oh, Elena! There you are," Sarah called out, her voice bright and entirely unsuspecting. She reached out and affectionately ruffled the girl's hair—the same hair Elena had seen illuminated by the flickering streetlamp as a man was unmade.
"Elena, meet my sister I talked to you about," Sarah continued, beaming with a pride that felt like a death sentence. "The one from the USA. She just flew in this morning to surprise me."
The girl turned. She offered a small, polite wave, her eyes locking onto Elena's with a predatory intelligence that was hidden behind a mask of youthful joy.
"Hi, Elena-san," the girl chirped.
Elena couldn't speak. Her whole body began to tremble, a fine, violent shaking that started in her knees and raced up to her jaw. The steam from the espresso machine, the clinking of spoons, the chatter of customers—it all faded into a dull, distant roar. All she could see was the "sister" who shouldn't exist, a being who had rewritten reality so thoroughly that she was now woven into the very fabric of Sarah's life.
"Elena? What's up?" Sarah asked, her smile faltering as she looked at her employee's ghost-white face.
No response came. Elena's throat felt as though it had been seared shut. She wanted to scream, to grab Sarah and run, to tell her that this wasn't her sister—it was a monster that played with stars like marbles. But the words were trapped behind a wall of pure, paralyzing shock.
"Elena? Hey, I'm talking to you," Sarah asked again, her voice sharpening with genuine concern.
Elena just stood there, her eyes wide and unfocused, her breath hitching in a way that signaled a total mental collapse. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, until the "normal" world of the cafe felt like it was cracking down the middle.
Sarah looked down at her younger sister, then back at the trembling woman across the counter. Her eyes clouded with a sudden, protective suspicion.
"Did you do anything to her?" Sarah asked, her tone dropping into a low, wary protective growl.