...The door chime rang out as I stepped inside, the purple and green neon flickered unevenly against the Memphis-patterned linoleum floor, casting shadows that danced where no light touched. The air reeked of ozone and nostalgia, sweet and rotten, like a childhood memory fermented into a scent too potent to bear but too compelling to ignore. My head buzzed faintly, my vision doubling for half a second before snapping back into place.

The store had all the usual trappings—rows of snacks, cold drink cases, and an ancient slushie machine humming in the corner. The linoleum underfoot sported one of those retro Memphis designs—squiggles and triangles in clashing, neon colors.

But the longer I stared, the more the patterns seemed to shift, like someone had hit shuffle on reality itself. Squiggles slithered, triangles twisted into shapes that hadn’t been invented yet. My stomach churned. I looked away fast, pretending it was just the Tosh messing with me.

“Nothing’s weird,” I muttered under my breath. “You’re just high. Or dead. Or both. It’s fine.”

And then I saw him.

Behind the counter, leaning casually with that same bored expression, was a face I knew all too well. Scott. The clerk from The Afterglow.

“Well, well. If it isn’t my favorite protagonist.” he drawled, like I’d just walked into my neighborhood corner store. “Fancy seeing you here, Lawrence. What’ll it be? Pack of smokes? Slushie? Existential crisis?”

My brain scrambled for something coherent, something that didn’t immediately out me as a high-functioning Tosh fiend. “What are you doing here?” I asked, pretending not to notice the floor beneath my boots shifting like a living thing.

Scott shrugged, popping a piece of gum into his mouth with practiced indifference. “Paying the bills. What else?” He chewed slowly, his jaw working in lazy rhythm, each bubble pop louder than it had any right to be in the unnervingly quiet store.

“You know you’ve been here before, Tracy. You’ll be here again.”

A chill crept up my spine. “I have zero clue what you’re going on about.”

Scott chuckled, the sound low and almost condescending. “You never do.”

“Right,” I muttered, feigning nonchalance as I veered sharply into an aisle, pretending I had some grand purpose for being there.

The shelves were stocked with the usual suspects: Honey Buns, Oreos, dried Shmeat Sticks. My eyes scanned lazily at first, just going through the motions of browsing. But as I moved further down the aisle, the selection started to change.

The snacks grew… stranger.

I picked up a small metallic bag with bold, glowing text that read: Vortexios. Beneath the name, the tagline declared proudly: “The 5oz Bag with the 10oz Crunch.”

Aggressive marketing for a snack, but it definitely got my attention.

I gave the bag a shake, expecting the usual rustle of chips, but the weight felt… off. Not heavy, but dense, like the bag was defying the laws of physics. Somehow, it packed ten ounces of chips into five ounces of space.

The faintest pull of gravity seemed to come from it, like a snack-sized singularity lurking inside.

I stared at the bag before putting it back, half wondering if opening it would turn me into the first person to die via potato chip paradox

Next, I found Fabio’s Negative-Calorie Pork Rinds, Fabio himself flexed on the packaging, looking like the lovechild of a Greek god and a protein shake, daring you to believe pork rinds could somehow defy physics and improve your cardio. The tagline read: “So light, they won’t weigh on your mind!” I flipped it over. Nothing about the ingredients, nutritional value, or even where it was made—just a reminder to “Enjoy Responsibly.”

Next, my eyes landed on a small, squat tin with bold lettering that screamed: Canned Instant Pot Roast—Self-Heating Dinner! The label practically begged me to trust it, promising “Perfect home-cooked flavor, every time!”

I flipped it over, finding a diagram that explained how to pull the tab to activate the heating element. The whole thing looked like it could double as a hand grenade in a pinch.

It didn’t sit right with me. Maybe it was the overly chipper branding or the idea of a home-cooked meal boiling itself alive in a tin can. Something about it just screamed, This will absolutely betray you.

I turned a corner and froze. There, at the edge of my vision, was a flash of auburn hair. My hair. I did a double take, but whatever I thought I saw was gone. Just an empty aisle stocked with something called Schrödinger’s Energy Bar – Is it a snack or a meal? Yes. I held it up to the flickering neon and shook my head. “Capitalism, you’ve done it again.”

By the time I reached the drink cooler, I was half convinced this store was fucking with me. But then I saw it.

The translucent can practically glowed under the flickering cooler light. A red liquid with glittery jelly bits swirled lazily inside, catching the light with every tiny movement. The cartoony label across the front read: Mellonhead Mellowjuice. A smiling watermelon with little legs waved at me, like we were old friends.

It looked like the kind of drink that screamed, Buy me if you hate your kidneys! Trendy, colorful, and probably packed with enough microplastics to launch an extinction-level event in some poor microworld. But what really got me wasn’t the glitter or the label—it was the tagline:

“Harvested from Free-Range Mellonheads.”

I stared at the can, my fingers tightening around the cool metal. “What the fuck is a Mellonhead?”

“Little sentient watermelons,” Scott’s voice drawled from behind me.

I spun around to see him still leaning against the counter, lazily popping his gum. He gestured toward the tallboy with a tilt of his head.

“Their flesh and jelly like organs, when blended up, makes that floaty little juice you’ve got in your hand. Smooth, sweet, and just intoxicating enough to mess with your head. Popular with travelers.”

I stared at him, then back at the can. “You’re telling me people are out here juicing sentient fruit?”

Scott shrugged. “they’re juicing everything else. Why stop there?”

I held the can up, squinting at the waving watermelon. Its cheery little face was starting to creep me out.

“Free-range, though?”

Scott shrugged, his voice was dripping with irony. “Well we’re not monsters.”

I rolled my eyes at Scott’s irony, craning my head back in a half-hearted attempt to keep them from rolling right out of their sockets. My gaze wandered to the next aisle, and that’s when I saw her.

A woman stood there, frozen in place, staring down the seemingly endless aisles. From one angle, the shelves stretched for miles; from another, they collapsed into the finite confines of a convenience store—just four or five aisles deep.

She had a bit of auburn hair tucked between her lips, her gaze locked somewhere between disoriented and laser-focused. A blue turtleneck, black beret, and… Marigold glasses.

What the fuck.

It was me.

The outfit was different, sure. But the same face, the same look of what the fuck is happening. For a second, I thought it was a mirror, but she didn’t move when I did. Nope. Not a mirror. Definitely not a mirror.

She clutched an atomizer in her hands, her fingers twitching slightly. I knew that look: Toshed out of her mind, balancing precariously on the razor’s edge between clarity and chaos.

She turned toward me, and our eyes locked for what felt like an eternity. Her expression mirrored mine—confusion, curiosity, unease.

Finally, she broke the silence. “Well, don’t just stand there gawking. Say something.”

“You first,” I shot back. “I don’t wanna step on my own punchline.”

She smirked, though there was a sharpness in her eyes that cut through the haze. “How pathetic are we?”

I tilted my head. “How’s that?”

“Getting blasted on expired drugs to avoid the big fucking problem.”

My chest tightened. “The problem?”

“The casino,” she said, gesturing vaguely with the atomizer like it was an extension of her hand. “Is it a death trap?”

I exhaled sharply, my grip tightening on the edge of the shelf. “You mean that coolant tank corpse with the permanent grin?”

Her brow furrowed, her expression shifting from confusion to alarm. “Jesus fuck. What?”

“They didn’t do that for you?”

“No,” she said slowly, disbelief creeping into her voice. “But one of them jumped out of an airlock with their leg still tethered to the ship. They found his frozen corpse, and he too had this… hysterical smile on his face.”

I shivered, the air suddenly colder around me.

She nodded grimly, her gaze distant. “Fuck me… Either way, what could’ve caused someone to go to that level of madness?”

“So, we’re chickening out then?” I asked, testing the waters, though I already knew the answer.

Her head snapped toward me, her jaw setting in a way I recognized all too well. “Fuck no. We’ve come too far for that.”

I smirked, raising an eyebrow. “Even farther than, ‘Hi, I’m Tracy Lawrence, I’m the girl your daughter experimented with in college’?”

She blinked, then grinned—my grin, sharp and unapologetic. “You’ve got to admit, the look on Varian’s Dad’s face was priceless.”

I snorted. “Yeah, it was. But yeah, much farther than moronic stunts like that.”

We both chuckled, eerily synchronized, before falling into silence again.

“Why are you even doing this?” Blue-Me asked, her tone suddenly heavy. “Do you really think the casino’s gonna fix anything? Give you answers?”

“And you’ve got it all figured out?” I shot back, narrowing my eyes.

“I’ve got enough figured out to know there’s no jackpot at the end of this. Just more questions.”

I rolled my eyes. “If this is some cosmic intervention, the universe could’ve picked a less annoying messenger.”

“Funny. I was just about to say the same thing about you.”

I turned away, grabbing a packet of something called Butterfinger BB’s off the shelf. Shaking the bag absently, she said, “You ever think maybe you’re chasing something that’s chasing you back?”

When I turned back to respond, she was gone.

No sound, no trace. Just the faint scent of my own perfume lingering in the aisle. It was like she’d never been there at all—except for the unsettling sense that she absolutely had.

Shaking off the weirdness, I made my way to the counter where Scott leaned lazily, popping his gum as usual. I placed the candy, the tallboy of sentient watermelon guts, and my Commonwealth I.D. in front of him, my eyes wandering to the seemingly infinite tobacco wall behind him.

It looked like a normal single shelf at first glance, but the longer you stared, the more it stretched on, flickering between timelines or dimensions or something.

Half the brands there shouldn’t have existed anymore. My gaze landed on a pack of Miami Lights, an old 20th-century brand that didn’t survive the Great Exodus. Were these guys seriously selling cigarettes that were decades—maybe even centuries—old?

“Miami Lights?” I asked, puzzled.

“Two packs for 1,000 credits,” Scott replied nonchalantly, scanning my items.

“No, I mean… I thought they discontinued those decades ago?”

“Tomorrow, today, decades ago… What’s the difference?” he said, his tone as cryptic as the infinite wall of smokes. “They’re here now and available for purchase, only at Omni-Stop.”

He gave me a sly look. “Now, will that be filterless or menthol?”

I raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Filterless. Why not.”

As he rang up my order, I pointed toward the hot food case at a stack of individually wrapped musubi labeled Galbi Shmeat Musubi. Perfectly marinated shmeat on rice, wrapped in seaweed. It sat next to something neon green and batter-fried, labeled Popcrn’ed Narbs—15 for 800 G//C.

“And, uh… I’ll take four of those musubi,” I added, eyeing the narbs warily but deciding against them.

Scott grabbed the musubi and tossed them into a paper bag branded with the green and purple Omni-Stop logo. He slid the bag across the counter with the cigarettes, tallboy, and candy, his gum popping audibly as he spoke.

“You know,” he said casually, “the Edge of Existence is sometimes known to find people before said people find it.”

I froze, staring at him like he had bubbles coming out of his ears—which, to be fair, he did, but that was definitely the Tosh talking. “What do you know about the casino at the Edge of Existence?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “I don’t know, Lawrence. I just work here.”

As if to punctuate his indifference, he pulled a slushie from the machine behind him. The cup swirled with a flavor that could only be visually described as the stars, the void, and a rich nebula, all in liquid form. “That’ll be 2,495 G//C,” Scott said, punctuating the total with an obnoxiously loud slurp from his slushie.

“Kobe!” I mockingly yelled, tossing the AR credits to the terminal with zero finesse. The scanner flashed green, confirming the payment as the credits vanished into the ether.

Scott arched an eyebrow, his expression somewhere between confused and unimpressed. “Do you even know who ‘Kobe’ was?”

I blinked, my high-ass brain struggling to process the question. “Kobe was a person?” I asked, completely clueless.

“Nevermind,” he said with a weary shake of his head, going back to his slushie, the straw making another obnoxious slurp. “Safe travels, Lawrence.”

I grabbed my bag and stumbled my way back out to the ship, the Omni-Stop’s flickering neon lights fading behind me.

“Welcome back, Tracy,” Gonzo greeted me with his usual flourish as I stepped into the lounge. His tone was chipper, maybe even a little smug—it always was after a flawless docking sequence.

“Thanks, Gonz~,” I replied, dropping my bag onto the holo pit table and fishing a joint out of my cigarette case.

I lit it with a practiced flick, inhaling deeply before exhaling a cloud that swirled lazily under the lounge’s ceiling display. “Take us out, would ya?”

“With pleasure,” Gonzo replied, the engines whirring to life as the ship smoothly lifted off.

I collapsed onto my cushions as Gonzo stretched into the surf lanes. With a sudden lurch forward, we hit cruising speed. The familiar streaks of passing stars painted the lounge ceiling, their glow washing over me in waves.

And just like that, we were back to surfing.