I sat in the corner nook of the cafe and opened my laptop to Google. What did I even want to type?

“Coffee?” The waitress walked up to the table with a fresh pot of brew. I grabbed one of the empty mugs on the table and held it up for her.

“Thank you.” I said smelling the delightfully earthy scent of the liquid as she filled my cup.

A gloved hand extended the second cup toward her. I looked over quickly. I had sat here alone yet in the once empty seat before me appeared a cloaked figure.

I stared as she filled the stranger’s cup and left. Though it was morning, I couldn’t see his face under the hood. It was like infinite darkness.

The fact that the waitress that walked me in when I said table for one didn’t even bat an eyelash at his sudden appearance was also concerning to me.

He perched his cup between his fingers and gazed back at me.

“The question you want to ask cannot be answered on that contraption.” He blew the steam from his coffee and continued when I said nothing.

“I am unimaginably old. Older than you can fathom. I was even there before the Universe.”

I laughed at the idea. No one could live that long. Though the strange shit that has been happening to me recently had me hooked to his words.

“What do you mean?” I asked gripping my coffee tighter.

“Let me show you.”

The figure leaned forward and placed an icy hand on mine. In that instant, it felt like I was falling backwards at lightning speed. Like the feeling you get when you fall in a dream and wake up because the end of your fall is the cold hard ground.

Except this wasn’t the ground it was complete and utter darkness. Darkness that dragged on for infinite miles save for one spot of light.