When you're extremely sleep deprived and fighting a giant creature made of nightmares bent on killing you, you often find yourself contemplating what in the name of coffee brought you to this point. For me it was my zombie friend, some sentient eggs, and my ability to not die a slow and horrible death.

Let's go back to the beginning. I had just clocked into my shift at The Magical Bean, and I was already hating the world and myself. Staying up till 3:00 A.M procrastinating on your science project does that to you. I looked up from my phone as a new customer walked in- and I immediately wanted to go to the back and scream profanity in Slerkin. The customer was a unicorn girl who looked to be about 14-15. She had chunky gold highlights in her otherwise brown hair, which looked awful against the cherry red halter top and neon green shorts she was wearing. I forced the bile in my throat down and managed to choke out a "Hello, what can I get you today?" The girl looked at the menu in disdain for a moment, then turned to me.

"I'll have a decaf mermaid tail mocha whip with almond milk, caramel drizzle, extra ice, and cookie crumble on top." It took all my self-control not to reach across the counter and strangle that little brat, but I reigned myself in and simply muttered a 'Yaskiding uniherg' under my breath. Cursing in Slerkin was a safe bet since I was the only one in this dimension that knew the language.

"Your name?" Creine (my undead coworker and friend) asked her as she rolled her eyes. Creine, being the polite pushover that he was, didn't do a thing and merely let her be a brat.

"Quvenzhane. And you better not mess up my order, because I'm a regular here." Of course someone like her would have the most extra, hard-to-spell name out there. I was so done with this that I just wrote "Vsco girl" on the cup and gave it to Creine to make. I hate entitled little children like her. Like, I'm not some coffee god who can just summon the most complicated and beautiful coffee orders ever. I'm just a 21 year old college student who learned how to make coffee from a Binging with Babish video (subscribe to him) and got this job to pay the bills. I continued taking orders, yearning for the half-hour of freedom I got every day at lunch. A tall man in a dark blue suit came up and ordered an iced Americano. As I was taking his order, I couldn't help but notice that there was something off with him. It could have been his pale white skin, or his jet black hair and maroon eyes, but on the whole he just gave off a dangerous vibe. So I gently slipped one hand under the tall counter to rest on my dagger.

"Your name, sir?" The man wasn't looking at me at all, instead he was glaring at something behind me. I followed the man's piercing gaze, my grip on the dagger tightening as I turned around ready to fight. But there wasn't anyone dangerous there, just Creine making the Vsco girl's needlessly complicated order. I furrowed my brow slightly, but relaxed and let go of the dagger as I turned back to the man. "Um, sir? Sir?" I cautiously asked, waving a hand in front of his face. The strange man startled and turned back to me.

"Apologies. My name-" his voice became deep and menacing- "is your death". At this point, I was kind of rattled, so I did what I did best: used terrible humor TO DEFEAT THE HUNS- No. Sorry. What I MEANT to say is that I used terrible humor to not show my true emotions.

"Okay, Mr. Your Death. Your order will be out shortly." I slowly turned away and dumped some crushed ice into a cup along with a squirt of sweet syrup. How people could drink this sugar-filled crap was beyond me- but I didn't get paid to question people's decisions. I made my way over to the coffee dispenser and pressed the green button, watching as the dark, steaming liquid trickled into the waiting cup. I was pretty annoyed, because usually Creine would be here making the coffee while I took the next customer's order. Then it occured to me that I hadn't heard Creine's endearing banter for the past 3 minutes. I quickly turned around, spilling kind-of hot coffee on myself but not really feeling it. Instead, in that moment, all I felt was pure, white-hot, blinding rage. Because there was Creine, choking as the man was strangling him from across the counter.