Luke's Diner: Thursday Morning, 8/5
Francine was not the type of waitress who sneaked samples on the job.
More often than, say, once a week. Shut up. Look, the baked goods case had Nanaimo Bars in it. Who on earth could blame her for reaching for one, after she'd finished writing it down on the specials menu?
The multiverse, apparently, because the moment she lifted off the glass top and snagged one, Francine felt something very, very wrong, and it wasn't guilt. (She'd been planning to pay for it, after all. And have the carrots with her lunch instead of the double-baked cheesy potatoes.)
Guilt didn't feel like cold, cold air rushing past her, or look like a jagged, impossible rip through the air, like someone blonde and angry had taken a knife to a canvas, except it wasn't, it was just air and on the other side was... something else. A pulsing, sucking darkness that pulled her in without a chance to even finish her scream before everything went black.
A pulsing, sucking, hungry darkness, since it also grabbed a counter stool, the rest of the Nanaimo Bars, and half the specials board before it closed in on itself and disappeared.
Spec
Beef bri
Double-baked chee
Buttered car
Nanaim
Luke's was open, but there wasn't a waitress to be seen, and the counter was a bit of a mess.
More often than, say, once a week. Shut up. Look, the baked goods case had Nanaimo Bars in it. Who on earth could blame her for reaching for one, after she'd finished writing it down on the specials menu?
The multiverse, apparently, because the moment she lifted off the glass top and snagged one, Francine felt something very, very wrong, and it wasn't guilt. (She'd been planning to pay for it, after all. And have the carrots with her lunch instead of the double-baked cheesy potatoes.)
Guilt didn't feel like cold, cold air rushing past her, or look like a jagged, impossible rip through the air, like someone blonde and angry had taken a knife to a canvas, except it wasn't, it was just air and on the other side was... something else. A pulsing, sucking darkness that pulled her in without a chance to even finish her scream before everything went black.
A pulsing, sucking, hungry darkness, since it also grabbed a counter stool, the rest of the Nanaimo Bars, and half the specials board before it closed in on itself and disappeared.
Spec
Beef bri
Double-baked chee
Buttered car
Nanaim
Luke's was open, but there wasn't a waitress to be seen, and the counter was a bit of a mess.