c h a p t e r  t w o .

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                The next day, Tuesday, was one of Wendy's usual days off. She spent the day sleeping, making food that she didn’t really feel like eating, and watching season two of Stranger Things. As much as she enjoyed the show, she couldn’t help but think about how much more interesting it would be to watch the series with someone else. Someone else to discuss the content with. Someone else to share emotions with. Amber hadn’t come home yet, which was typical. She often stayed over at her friends’ places.              

                The next morning was overcast, much to Wendy’s dismay. She had already had a “bleh” sort of night, and now it was a bleh sort of morning.

                She had dreamt of a very large house, nearly a mansion, nestled amongst the trees in a forest far, far away. It was a cozy house, made up of brick and wood and a grand fireplace in the living room.

                It was a beautiful house, but it was not a home. In fact, the inside of the house was entirely empty. No people. No furniture. No decorations. There wasn’t even a coffee machine on the counter in the kitchen.

                Upon waking, Wendy immediately wrote a note to remind herself to look up the significance of seeing such a house in one's dreams.

                She made herself a cup of standard drip-coffee as she pondered things.

                Amber still hadn’t come home yet, which was still typical. She often stayed over at her friends’ places for days or even a week at a time. Probably, Wendy suspected, she found her own roommate to be rather ‘boring.’

                Leaning against the counter with her arms crossed, Wendy shook her head. It was rude to think that way.

                Oh well.

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By the time she arrived at The Roost, Wendy was fifteen minutes early for work and entirely out of breath. She had rode as fast as she could in hopes to avoid the rain, which ended up being in vain as the sky decided to downpour when she was just a few blocks away from the café.

Figured. Everything seemed off about that day.

                The oddest part was when she reached out to open the door and she realized that it was locked.

                ...Locked? What? Dozens of thoughts swarmed her mind. Why is it locked?  I’ve never missed a day of work. I’ve never called in sick. I’ve never had to ask for days off, even that one morning where I had stayed up way too late the previous night binge-watching the entire Over the Garden Wall series. Why am I locked out?

                Finally coming to her senses, Wendy looked up and realized that the twinkly ‘open’ sign wasn’t lit up. She glanced at her watch; it was 7AM. Exactly fifteen minutes before she was supposed to clock in for the day.

                Mr. Cho opened the café every day, at 7AM, but he was usually there much earlier than that. Some days, when Wendy arrived to work early, she would sneak in after he had left the entrance door unlocked and would find some way to startle the café owner as he counted money behind the counter. Sometimes, she would get him to jump and literally drop whatever he was doing. She stopped doing that, though, after she once caused him to drop and shatter a cup. He had angrily walked away muttering something about someone being fired so Wendy decided not to do that ever again, although it had been fun up to that point.

                So why isn’t he here? Did his alarm not go off? Did he have an accident? Did he decide not to open the café today? Or did he