Jzt Stories

There was a door in Lin Alley that wasn’t there every day. Finn had seen it three times in his life—first when he was eight and running from his father’s belt, again at sixteen when his first love left him, and now, at twenty-four, with blood on his hands and a debt he couldn’t pay. It was a plain door, weathered oak with a tarnished brass knob, wedged between soot-stained bricks where no door should be. The last two times, he’d been too afraid to touch it. Tonight, he turned the handle. Beyond lay a dim café, steam curling from porcelain cups. A woman with silver-streaked hair sat at a corner table. “Took you long enough,” she said, sliding a cup toward him. The scent of bitter almonds and burnt sugar curled in the air. Finn’s voice cracked. “Where am I?” “The In-Between,” She said. “For those who aren’t ready to stay or brave enough to go back.” She nodded at his bleeding knuckles. “You could leave that behind. Walk through the back door, and none of it ever happened.” Finn thou...

The bell above the door chimed not the bright ding of ordinary cafés, but a slow, deep toll, like a funeral bell heard through the wind. Eli froze in the doorway. One moment he’d been fleeing the gunshot roar of collapsing skyscrapers, the next—this. A café lit by candlelight, its tables occupied by people who didn’t look up. A man in a dust-stricken pilot’s uniform nursed espresso. A woman in 1920s flapper gear tapped ashes into a saucer. "Ah you’re early" The bartender said while polishing a glass with his apron. Eli’s hands shook. "Where—when—is this?" "Between. For those who almost died, but didn’t. Yet." The bartender slid a steaming cup toward him. Eli recoiled—the liquid inside moved against the tilt of the cup. "The rules," said the bartender. "Drink, and you go back to your apocalypse. Leave it, and you stay here, forever unfinished." Outside, the warped glass showed his city frozen mid-ruin, flames caught like petals in am...

In the city of Lin, there was a shop that opened only when the moon drowned in clouds. Its sign read simply “Mending for the Misplaced” Lora found it the night her brother vanished. The tailor inside had needles made of obsidian and spools of thread that shimmered like trapped starlight. "I don’t sew fabric, I stitch fates." The tailor said. Lora dropped a bundle on the counter—her brother’s coat, torn where the Hollow Guard had dragged him away. "Bring him back." Lora demanded. The tailor’s smile was knife-sharp before saying, "I can’t unmake what’s been done. But I can sew you a path to him. But the price weighs heavy" Lora didn’t understand until the first stitch pierced her palm. With every pull of the thread, she felt lighter—her childhood laughter, her first kiss, the memory of her mother’s voice, all thinning like mist. By dawn, the coat was whole. By dawn, her brother stood in the doorway, confused but alive. And by dawn, Lora couldn’t rememb...