BAD-019
Barista: Julia Morningstar
Date: Jan-12-2020
Receipt: BAD-019
Subject: Omens
I’ve been waking up slower these days.
Not because I’m tired—though I am. Not because I don’t want to face the day—though some mornings, I don’t. It’s that lately the sunlight’s warmth only makes me miss her more. I guess that’s not fair. I hardly knew her. But I miss everything we never got to have.
But mostly? I’ve been waking up slower because every time I close my eyes—I see it.
The mark on my arm hums, warm and insistent, and then I’m somewhere else.
Endless emerald fields. Rolling hills wrapped in mist. Apple trees, heavy with golden fruit. The rivers shine silver in the half-light, as if the sun never fully rises or sets. Jagged peaks rise in the distance, crowned with waterfalls that tumble into lakes too still to be real. The forests whisper—deep, old. Their roots form paths I know I could follow. And the ruins. Towering stonework lost to time, rising from a golden isle like the bones of a kingdom that once was—and maybe still is.
I don’t know where I am. Not really. But I can feel it.
It’s waiting.
And then—I wake up.
The mark still burns. Not painful—not exactly. But present. A reminder. A call.
Something’s reaching for me. Pulling me closer. Showing me glimpses of a world I’ve never seen—but somehow, already know.
A world I’ve dreamt of before.
A world I’ve been dreaming of since I was a child.
…Also, the hound has apparently decided I’m a very large, very important pillow.
He follows me everywhere now. Rests his massive head on my lap like I’m supposed to do something about it. The lazy boy.
I don’t mind. Not at all.
If I’m honest, I think he’s comforting me more than the other way around.