The Closing Time Anomaly

For Leo, the midnight grind at a 24-hour coffee shop was supposed to be a mind-numbing escape. But at 8:57 PM, the first of them arrives. The man who tastes death in his coffee. The woman who whispers to the walls. They are the heralds of the 9:03 Anomaly—a moment when the shop glitches out of reality. They give him a brass key to a door that shouldn't exist, warning him that the shop is about to turn inside out. Now, Leo isn't just serving coffee; he's the last line of defense against whatever is knocking from the other side.