Jasper blinked. He hadn’t even realized there was a bell above the door.

  A gust of wind came with it—dry, carrying the faint smell of ozone and scorched metal. The man who stepped inside was tall and painfully thin, with the wiry build of a starving wolf. His skin was dusky bronze, his face angular, sharp—cheekbones high and eyes set deep, glinting like cold glass under his heavy brow. His dark hair was shaved close on the sides, longer in the back, tied with a strip of red cloth. He moved like a jackal—quick, alert, and just barely on the edge of hostile.

  His coat was a patchwork of weathered fabric and stitched-up tears, the kind of garment worn by someone who slept under open skies more often than roofs. Slung across his back was a short, curved sword in a cracked leather sheath, the hilt shaped like a fang.

  The man stopped two steps into the bar and scanned the room with the intense wariness of someone used to being ambushed. His eyes flicked to the ever-burning hearth, the black-ice wall, the scatter of mismatched chairs, and then settled on Jasper behind the bar.

  His brows drew down.

  He pointed a claw-thin finger. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Jasper set down his drink and straightened, feeling the familiar instinct rise—keep calm, make contact, and take control of the room.

  “I think,” he said slowly, “I’m the bartender.”

  The stranger’s head tilted. “Where’s Barlik?”

  “On vacation,” Jasper said. “Seventeen-month leave. Signed off by the Council or whatever passes for one around here.”

  The man blinked. “He left? Just like that?”

  “Apparently it’s been in the works for years.”

  “Void take him,” the stranger muttered, more stunned than angry. “Never thought he’d actually pull it off.”

  He took a step closer to the bar, then glanced around sharply again. “What about the servers? The bouncer? Where the hell is everyone?”

  Jasper shrugged. “Haven’t seen anyone else. Just me so far.”

  The man gave him a long, measuring look, eyes narrowing further. “You sure you’re the bartender?”

  “As sure as I can be,” Jasper said. “The bar… more or less said so.”

  That got a short, humourless laugh. The man dropped into one of the closer chairs—one with low, angled legs and a high back, like it had been grown rather than built—and stretched his limbs with a sigh.

  “Well. Shit.” He shook his head. “Alright then, bartender. Pour me something

  The jackal-faced man moved to the bar with the graceful indifference of someone who'd seen every kind of madness and decided to make peace with it. He dragged the tall chair closer, spun it around, and sat with his arms crossed over the backrest.

  “Name’s Corvash,” he said, not looking at Jasper as he spoke. “Don’t ask what it means. I don’t remember anymore.”

  Jasper gave a small nod. “Alright, Corvash. What’ll it be?”

  “Green-beetle spirit.” Jasper raised an eyebrow. “Sorry?”

  Corvash finally looked up at him with the exasperated patience of someone who'd just realized the cook was new. “Green-beetle. Spirit. Comes out neon, kicks like a mule, smells like burnt basil.”

  Jasper turned, eyes scanning the array of dusty, strangely labelled bottles on the shelves behind him. “Maybe one of these—?”

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “No, no,” Corvash cut in. “Rough from the tap, rookie. Always from the taps. I never saw Barlik pour a damn thing from those bottles.

  Jasper blinked, then slowly turned back to the bar and let his fingers drift across the row of taps. He felt a faint tingle—like static on old speakers—and stopped when one handle felt a bit stickier, a little warm and oddly textured. Almost like chitin.

  He pulled it.

  The liquid that poured into the heavy green-glass mug shimmered with an unnatural glow. Viscous, sharp-smelling, and definitely green. He slid it over.

  Corvash grunted his approval and took a long, fearless sip. Then another.

  Jasper leaned on the counter. “So... the bar. What is this place? Is it like a—” He hesitated, searching for the right word. “A neutral zone? A transport hub? A crossroad?”

  Corvash didn’t look up. He just raised one hand to silence him.

  “Let me drink. I’ve got my own shit to deal with.”

  Jasper straightened a bit. “Sorry. Just trying to understand—”

  “There’s a demon invasion on my continent.” The words dropped with the weight of stone. Corvash still didn’t meet his eyes. He just took another long pull of the beetle-spirit. “Whole southern half’s gone. Smoke, ash, and screaming. They’re pushing toward the capital. My home. My people.”

  Jasper stared. “A demon... invasion.”

  Corvash nodded slowly, then finally looked at him again, eyes dull but hard.

  “Whatever it is you think this place is, forget it. This bar is a breath between drowning and more drowning. And right now, I need that breath. So unless you’ve got a war table or a miracle behind that counter, pour and let me sit in peace.”

  Jasper swallowed, nodded once, and quietly poured himself another glass of golden sesame shochu. He said nothing more.

  Jasper filled Corvash’s drink again without a word. The green beetle spirit hissed slightly as it hit the inside of the mug. The jackal-faced man gave a grunt of thanks and took another deep sip. Time passed quietly. The bar remained empty, save for the soft hum of the taps and the low crackle of the ever-burning fire.

  The second refill followed. Then a third.

  Jasper found himself watching Corvash, studying the way his angular, fur-dusted fingers wrapped around the glass, how his yellow eyes stared into nothing as if watching memories crawl up from the liquid.

  Finally, with a long, heavy sigh, Corvash stood. He rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck with a crack, and slid the empty mug back across the bar.

  “Time to go,” he muttered. “Back to the fight.”

  Jasper’s brow furrowed. “But…why?” The question came out more pleading than he meant. “Why don’t you just... stay? If your world’s burning, why throw yourself back into it? This place…” he gestured vaguely around, “—it’s safe. At least for now.”

  Corvash’s eyes met his. Sad. Tired. But not without warmth.

  “Don’t you have family? Friends?” Corvash replied. “Someone you’d miss... or who’d miss you?”

  Corvash exhaled slowly, the breath rumbling low in his chest. “I don’t fight for me. Or not only. I fight for my clan. My people. My world.” He looked toward the door, then back at Jasper. “Not everybody can just vanish into the bar at the edge of everything and play bartender.”

  He adjusted his cloak and added, “Besides... it doesn’t work. Not forever. After a while, different for each of us, the bar starts to push back. The fire at the hearth gets too hot. The black ice over there starts to burn cold into your bones. The drinks? They lose their taste. Go sour. Bad, even.”

  Jasper frowned. “But... why?”

  “The bar knows,” Corvash said simply. “You’re meant to pass through. You stay too long, it makes sure you know you’re unwelcome.”

  Jasper felt a chill crawl up the back of his neck. “So eventually, you have to leave. Or risk...?”

  “Risk never being let back in,” Corvash finished. “And for some of us... that’s death.”

  Jasper nodded slowly, letting it all sink in. “And when you go... you exit back to the exact same door you came through?”

  Corvash gave a small nod. “Always. Doesn’t matter if it’s been minutes or days. The moment you step back through, it’s where you left it.”

  A pause. Then Jasper leaned in a little, voice low. “But... is it possible to pick another place? To choose another world? A different door?”

  Corvash chuckled, a low rasping sound. “I’ve seen it done. Only a few times. Old wizards that claimed absolute control of space aligned mana. Alien beings that think sideways. One of ’em was a mantis-shaped thing that claimed to dream in geometry.”

  “Dream in... geometry?”

  “Yup. Told me it mastered dream-rendering. Another had done an apprenticeship with the monks of the Traveling Void. Real disciplined types. Could walk through a tear in the sky and not even wrinkle their robes.”

  Jasper blinked. “So, what, that’s what I’d need? One of those?”

  Corvash gave him a dry look. “Do you, Jasper—the suddenly inter-dimensional bartender—happen to fulfill any of those requirements?”

  Jasper hesitated. “No.”

  “Right,” Corvash muttered. He adjusted his belt, checked the short sword strapped across his back, and walked to the front door. “Me neither.”

  “Ah—forgot to pay you,” he said, fishing into a small leather pouch. He pulled out two thick silver coins and laid them on the counter with a soft clink.

  Jasper stared at them. “I don’t even know what the drinks cost... How did Barlik handle payment?”

  Corvash shrugged. “He just took metal. Coins, mostly. Didn’t care where they were from. Said the bar liked it. The heavier, the better.”

  He gave a lopsided smile. “But he wasn’t a stickler. If someone had no metal on them, he never made a scene. Sometimes he asked for a story. Or a joke. Or nothing at all.”

  Jasper looked down at the silver pieces, then up at the jackal-man again. “That’s... kind of beautiful.”

  Corvash nodded once. “It’s a bar. First and last stop for some people. You got to make space for that.” He turned back to the door. Opened it.

  He opened the door, paused just long enough for a last glance over his shoulder, and stepped out into the grey dessert beyond.

  The bar was quiet again.

  Jasper leaned back, poured himself another glass of golden sesame shochu, and stared at the door for a long time. The flame crackled softly to his right. The chill of the ice alcove pressed quietly from the left.

  The bar had quieted, the strange echoes of Corvash’s parting words still hanging in the air like smoke. Jasper sat in silence for a long moment, the weight of it all pressing down—not heavy, exactly, but strange. Thick. Like the gravity here bent in a slightly different way.

  He looked at the glass in his hand—empty again—and set it aside.

  “Enough,” he mumbled. “If I don’t sleep, I’ll start pouring for ghosts.”

  His legs felt heavier than usual as he stepped away from the bar, toward the door Barley had said he could use for sleeping quarters. This time it opened with no resistance, as if the bar itself agreed it was time to call it a night.

  The room was simple but comfortable. A low bed with an overstuffed mattress, thick blankets that smelled faintly of cedar and lavender, a wardrobe carved with symbols he didn’t recognize, and a low table with a glass lamp filled with soft blue flame. A basin in the corner shimmered with clean water, and a towel hung neatly folded beside it.

  He collapsed onto the bed without changing clothes, boots still on, head swimming with beetle spirit and cosmic thoughts. His last groggy words were, “This day lasted a year…”

  Then the world went quiet.