Jann_Tidus

Valen is seventeen, broke, and utterly alone.
After his parents' death, he drops out of school and sinks into quiet despair, surviving in the shadows of a forgotten city. One day, in a haze of grief, desperation, and a dangerously strong brew of coffee and... something else, he collapses—only to awaken in a world eerily similar to his own, but twisted, empty, and wrong.

Somehow, the coffee gave him a doorway.

Now able to travel between two worlds, Valen discovers his strange brew does more than just keep him awake—it changes reality. With nothing left to lose, he begins selling coffee from his rundown home, attracting customers who want more than caffeine... and drawing the attention of things not entirely human.

To survive, Valen must uncover the secret behind his cursed drink, the eerie world it connects to, and the cost of staying awake too long.

BREW

He pressed his walkie-talkie, voice low.

"Everyone stay silent. Camouflage. Do not draw attention.

We may be near a terrifying Nightmare. Let it pass."

The patrol team stopped cold, breath frozen. They were near the Red Line—a known unstable boundary. Countless unidentified nightmare entities crossed it regularly, but what they were sensing now… was new.

What disturbed Alex most wasn't the presence.

It was what the radar showed next:

The entity stopped at a specific location—hovering there like it was searching—then abruptly disappeared.

The exact coordinates the patrol was preparing to enter.

If it vanished without triggering escape patterns, that meant one of two things:

Or something more terrifying had just crossed over.

After listing the effects of each brew, the exhausted Valen decided it was time to rest.

How would he return to reality?

He sat in the dim room, staring into the now-empty cup.

"How did I cross over in the first place? What did the first and second times have in common?"

He tried to recall the sequence of events.

"The first time… I drank the coffee. The second… I was just tired. There's no clear connection. So how the hell did I cross over?"

"Last time, I came back when someone knocked on my door.

Does that mean I need some kind of outside interference to return?

But how would I make that happen from here?"

Realizing that external help was impossible from inside the dream realm, he shifted his focus.

Instead of thinking about how he returned, he began analyzing what happened before each crossing.

A list of theories formed in his mind:

Theory 1: Brewing as Ritual

The idea that brewing coffee might act as a ritual—a gateway between worlds.

But oddly consistent with everything that had happened.

Theory 2: Anomaly-Linked Ingredients

Maybe using ingredients affected by anomalies allowed the transition.

He dismissed this one—during his first crossover, as far as he knew he had no such ingredients.

Theory 3: Emotional State

The first crossover happened during a full emotional collapse.

The second? When he longed for rest—when he mentally wished to escape the world.

The desire to leave.

To test it, he brewed a Normal Brew again—just enough, not too bitter—and then sat quietly.

He focused his emotions, intensifying the longing to escape, to run away from reality, to be anywhere but here.

The environment noise slowly cameback.

He looked around—the familiar sounds of his decaying neighborhood returned.

People shouting. Dogs barking. Garbage burning somewhere nearby.

And to his surprise—it was already 10:00 AM.

"...I did it," he whispered. "I succeeded."

He scribbled notes furiously into the back of his notebook:

Return Trigger Hypothesis:

1st Return – Unknown external trigger (knocking)

2nd Return – Self-induced emotional resonance; intent to escape

With that, Valen finally allowed himself to rest.

He hadn't truly slept in over 24 hours.

His body slumped to the floor beside the coffee setup.

he let himself fall asleep without fear.

The trigger