Casey woke up like she always did: reluctantly, and to darkness. Not the comforting, familiar darkness of night, but the heavy, artificial gloom enforced by her blackout curtains. Sunlight, she knew, was blazing away outside, mocking her inverted schedule. Her phone alarm shrieked its insistent digital birdsong – a cruel joke she’d set months ago and never bothered to change. 4:17 PM. Time to rejoin the land of the living, or at least, the land of the pre-work shuffling dead.

  She slapped blindly at the phone, silencing the cheerful chirping. For a moment, she lay there, suspended between sleep and wakefulness, the events of the previous night (or was it this morning?) surfacing like debris after a flood. The diner. The low hum. Sal’s snoring. The man… the strange, coat-wearing man with the ordinary brown eyes and the unsettlingly knowing smile. Almost time. The jukebox screaming static and opera. The walk home, heart hammering. The… button.

  Casey sat bolt upright, throwing off the worn quilt. Her eyes immediately shot to the window. She scrambled out of bed, stumbling over a discarded sneaker, and yanked the blackout curtains aside with unnecessary force.

  Bright, late afternoon sunlight flooded the small studio apartment, making her wince and throw a hand up to shield her eyes. Dust motes, previously invisible, danced in the golden shafts of light. Her gaze fixed on the button mobile hanging serenely in the window.

  It looked… normal. Just a cascade of colourful buttons, swaying gently in the slight draft from the ill-fitting window frame. Reds, blues, greens, yellows, whites. Plastic and pearly finishes glinting innocently. She peered closer, scanning the strands until she found it – the small, ruby-red button nestled amongst a cluster of navy blues and pearly whites. It looked like just another button. Smooth, cool, decidedly non-pulsing.

  Had she imagined it? The warmth of the twenty-dollar bill, too? The dead streetlamp? The jukebox? It all felt hazy now, tinged with the surreal quality of a particularly vivid dream brought on by too much caffeine and too little sleep. Exhaustion played tricks. Stress manifested in weird ways. She’d read articles about it online during slow moments at the diner – sensory distortions, minor hallucinations, heightened anxiety. Perfectly explainable. Probably.

  She sighed, running a hand through her tangled mass of red hair. Okay. Rule number one of the graveyard shift: don't trust anything you think you saw between 3 AM and sunrise. Rule number two: coffee.

  She shuffled into the tiny kitchenette, flicking on the electric kettle. While it hissed and rumbled towards a boil, she leaned against the counter, surveying her domain. Third-floor walk-up, smells of the laundromat perpetually wafting up, view of a brick wall and a fire escape. It wasn't glamorous, but it was hers. Rent paid, mostly on time, thanks to generous weirdos and the breakfast rush crowd.

  The kettle clicked off. She made instant coffee – the cheap stuff – in a chipped mug that declared ‘World’s Okayest Waitress’. Taking a scalding sip, she let the bitter heat jolt her further into wakefulness. Normalcy. Routine. That was the antidote to… whatever last night was.

  First on the agenda: laundry. Living above the machines had its perks, namely proximity and the occasional free dryer cycle if Mrs. Petrov, the owner, was feeling generous. Casey gathered her small pile of clothes – mostly black leggings, worn band t-shirts, and her spare Blue Moon uniforms – stuffed them into a faded pillowcase, and grabbed her detergent.

  Downstairs, the laundromat was steamy and smelled intensely of floral fabric softener. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, echoing the diner’s ambiance in a slightly cleaner, soapier key. A few patrons were scattered amongst the rows of churning machines – a young mother wrestling with a mountain of tiny socks, an elderly man meticulously folding towels. Mrs. Petrov, a stout woman with suspiciously black hair and eyes that missed nothing, sat perched on a stool behind the counter, engrossed in a tabloid magazine.

  "Casey, darling," Mrs. Petrov greeted without looking up. "Late start today, no?"

  "Living the dream, Mrs. P," Casey replied, heading for an empty machine. "One dirty sock at a time."

  She loaded the washer, poured in the blue goo, and slotted her quarters. As the machine shuddered to life, filling with water, she felt a strange prickle on the back of her neck, similar to how she’d felt when the stranger watched her at the diner. She glanced around. The young mother was focused on her phone. The old man was still folding. Mrs. Petrov was now frowning at a picture of a celebrity’s cellulite. No one was paying her any attention. Shaking her head, Casey chalked it up to residual paranoia.

  She sat on one of the hard plastic chairs, pulling a dog-eared fantasy novel from her bag – something involving dragons and political intrigue she’d picked up from the library. She tried to immerse herself in the world of warring kingdoms and ancient prophecies, but her mind kept drifting. Patterns of stillness. Almost time. The discordant shriek of the jukebox.

  She found herself staring at the churning washing machine, the colourful swirl of her clothes behind the glass portal oddly hypnotic. Suddenly, the machine gave a violent shudder, much harder than usual, accompanied by a loud clank. Then, it just… stopped. Mid-cycle. The drum ceased its rotation, the water sloshed silently inside. The digital display went blank.

  "Oh, for crying out loud," Casey muttered, getting up. She jiggled the door. Locked tight. She pressed the power button. Nothing. Checked the plug – firmly in the socket.

  "Machine number three dead again, Mrs. Petrov," she called out.

  Mrs. Petrov sighed dramatically, slapping her magazine down. "Is always number three! That machine, is cursed, I tell you." She bustled over, peered at the lifeless display, and gave the side of the washer a solid whack with the palm of her hand. Nothing. "Is breaker, maybe."

  She disappeared into the small back office. Casey waited, tapping her foot. The young mother glanced over sympathetically. "That one ate my quarters last week," she offered.

  Mrs. Petrov returned, shaking her head. "Breaker is fine. Machine… is dead. Kaput." She frowned at Casey. "That's strange. Was working fine this morning." She squinted. "Maybe too many clothes?"

  Casey gestured at the half-filled drum. "It’s barely full. Same amount I always put in."

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  Mrs. Petrov shrugged, a gesture that encompassed faulty machinery, cosmic misfortune, and possibly Casey's own bad luck. "Okay, okay. Put the clothes in number five. This cycle is on me. But number three… is dead until repairman comes."

  Grumbling under her breath about cursed appliances, Casey transferred her dripping clothes to the neighbouring machine, which thankfully started without incident. As she sat back down, she couldn't shake the feeling. Is always number three? Mrs. Petrov had said it was working fine this morning. It only died after Casey put her clothes in. Coincidence? Probably. Machines break. Especially old, overworked laundromat machines. But it was another item on the growing list of Things That Went Weird Around Casey.

  Laundry finally done and folded (still damp, because Mrs. Petrov’s free cycle apparently didn’t include sufficient drying time), Casey headed out for her other major pre-work errand: the library. It was her sanctuary, a quiet place filled with endless stories far more interesting than her own life. The musty smell of old paper and binding glue was strangely comforting.

  The library was moderately busy, students hunched over laptops, seniors browse the large-print section. Casey nodded a silent greeting to Ms. Evans, the stern-but-kind head librarian who knew her by name, and made a beeline for the fantasy and sci-fi shelves. She ran her fingers along the spines, searching for her next escape. She picked out a thick tome promising intergalactic warfare and another featuring snarky urban fairies.

  As she carried her selections towards the self-checkout kiosks, she passed a display table near the entrance: "Local Folklore and Unexplained Phenomena." A small collection of books, pamphlets, and photocopied articles. Usually, she ignored these, finding them less interesting than fictional magic. But today, a particular pamphlet caught her eye. It was cheaply printed, slightly faded, with a hand-drawn logo of a stylized blue moon. The title read: "Ley Lines and Energy Vortices of Our City: A Beginner's Guide."

  Casey paused. Blue Moon. Like the diner. Probably just a coincidence. Still… She picked it up. The paper felt oddly thick, textured. She flipped through the few pages. Crude maps, rambling text about converging energies, historical anecdotes about strange occurrences, areas known for electrical disturbances…

  "Finding anything interesting, Casey?" Ms. Evans appeared beside her, startling her.

  "Oh! Uh, just Browsing," Casey stammered, quickly putting the pamphlet back down. "Folklore stuff. Not really my thing."

  Ms. Evans peered at the display through her spectacles. "Ah, yes. Mr. Abernathy drops those off periodically. Quite the enthusiast, though perhaps a bit… eccentric. Talks about resonant frequencies and earth energies." She lowered her voice slightly. "Claims the library itself is built on a minor convergence point. Says it's why the Wi-Fi is so temperamental."

  Casey forced a laugh. "Right. Explains everything." She clutched her chosen novels tighter. "Well, just checking these out."

  She hurried to the self-checkout, eager to leave. As she scanned the first book, the machine beeped normally. But when she scanned the second, the screen flickered violently, displaying a jumble of random characters – hieroglyphs mixed with binary code and what looked suspiciously like wingdings – before freezing completely. The red scanner light went dark.

  "Are you kidding me?" Casey muttered under her breath.

  "Trouble, dear?" Ms. Evans called from the main desk.

  "Uh, kiosk froze," Casey called back, trying to keep the rising panic out of her voice. First the washer, now this.

  "Oh, bother, that one’s been acting up all week," Ms. Evans sighed, coming over. "Let me just check you out manually."

  All week. Okay. So it wasn't just her. See? Rational explanations. Faulty tech. Temperamental Wi-Fi maybe amplified by eccentric Mr. Abernathy's imaginary energy vortex. Nothing to do with her. She took a deep breath as Ms. Evans efficiently checked out her books using the main computer. Normalcy restored.

  Walking home as the afternoon sun dipped lower, painting the clouds orange and purple, Casey felt a little calmer. She had her books, clean-ish laundry, and a growing list of perfectly mundane reasons for the weirdness. Bad wiring, old machines, faulty tech, tiredness. Everything accounted for.

  Back in her apartment, she dumped the library books on the table, the top one sliding off and hitting the floor with a smack. As she bent to pick it up, her eyes landed on the button mobile again, now silhouetted against the vibrant sunset. Nothing pulsed. Nothing glowed. Just buttons on a string. She decided to call Gus before getting ready for work, just to casually mention the jukebox. Maybe he’d had other complaints.

  She found the diner’s number scrawled on a takeout menu stuck to her fridge. It rang twice before Gus picked up, his voice gruff. "Blue Moon."

  "Hey, Gus, it's Casey."

  "Yeah? What's up? You gonna be late?"

  "No, no, shift doesn't start for hours. I was just wondering… did anyone else mention the jukebox acting weird last night? Around, like, 4 AM?"

  There was a pause. "Weird how?" Gus asked, suspicion creeping into his tone. "Skipping again?"

  "No, it was… more than skipping. It made this horrible noise, like static and opera and a dying cat all mixed together, and the lights flickered like crazy."

  Another pause, longer this time. "Static and opera?" Gus repeated slowly. "Casey, you been hitting the cooking sherry back there?"

  "No! I'm serious. Sal heard it too! He said it does it every few weeks."

  "Sal says a lotta things," Gus grunted. "Especially after midnight. Look, the thing's old, okay? Sometimes it makes funny noises. Power surges, whatever. Long as it still plays 'Hound Dog' when I kick it right, I ain't paying nobody to look at it. Don't worry about it. See you at eleven." He hung up before she could reply.

  Casey stared at her phone. Sometimes it makes funny noises. Not exactly a confirmation of demonic possession, but not a flat denial either. And Gus hadn't seemed surprised by the flickering lights, just the type of noise. Still… inconclusive. Frustratingly so.

  She showered, the hot water sluicing away some of the lingering tension. As she towelled off her ridiculously long hair, she caught her reflection in the fogged-up bathroom mirror. The mismatched eyes stared back – one blue, one red. They looked the same as always. Just eyes. Unique, sure, but nothing… magical.

  She got dressed in her uniform, the pale blue polyester feeling depressingly familiar. Pinned the 'CASEY' name tag on straight. Braided her hair tightly, trying to impose order on the fiery chaos. Grabbed her backpack, keys, phone. Ready for another night.

  As she reached for the door, her gaze swept across the room one last time. Her eyes snagged on the small table by the window. The library books were there, her sunglasses, a stray coffee mug. And something else.

  Lying beside the library books, almost hidden in the shadow cast by the lamp, was a single, dark feather. It was long, sleek, and impossibly black, absorbing the light rather than reflecting it. It hadn't been there before. She hadn't opened the window. No birds had flown in. It was just… there.

  Casey approached it slowly, hesitantly. Where had it come from? Had it been stuck to her backpack? Fallen from her hair? It didn't look like a pigeon feather, or a sparrow feather, or any common city bird feather she'd ever seen. It looked like a raven's feather, but bigger, darker, with an almost oily sheen.

  She reached out a finger, hovering just above it. It felt like the air around the feather was humming, vibrating with a low, almost inaudible energy. The same feeling she’d gotten briefly from the twenty-dollar bill, but stronger.

  Almost time.

  The stranger's words echoed in her mind, suddenly feeling less like a cryptic remark and more like a promise. Or a threat.

  Heart pounding, Casey snatched her hand back. This? This was harder to explain away. A dead washing machine, a frozen library kiosk, a glitchy jukebox – those were explainable. But a large, impossible raven feather appearing out of nowhere in her triple-locked apartment? Maybe… maybe she wasn’t just tired.

  Clutching her keys, she stared at the feather, then bolted out the door, locking the three deadbolts behind her with trembling hands. She needed to get to work. To the familiar, greasy, fluorescent-lit reality of The Blue Moon Diner. Because suddenly, reality didn't feel quite so reliable anymore. And the night ahead felt longer, and much, much darker.