Alcohol.

Humans have been enjoying them since before they're called humans. Really, the first caveman enjoyed rotten, fermented fruit and got smashed on it with his lads. Many good and bad decisions have been made on it. Clans, Kingdoms, Empires, Civilizations, all risen and fallen. It had out-lived it all. Hell, it might out-live everyone. 

It's nature.

Chemical.

Modern and ancient alchemy.

Magic came real.

So, it's no surprise that The Walking Stick was full of patrons every night, especially this one.

At least, earlier it was.

It's now 2:50 A.M. It was Friday the Thirteenth; now, it's Saturday the Fourteenth. There was a special offer going on earlier. Half-off on any drink. Slasher, the owner called the deal—he thought he was clever referencing Jason Vorhees. But people came there not because of the to-die-for prices. 

It was because Henry Savoy, the bartender and owner of the Walking Stick, was a damn good mixer.

Truth be told, the name Walking Stick was not the original name of the bar. It was actually called Volatile Vic. Henry Savoy only changed it when a perfectly-abled man drank his specialty and said: "I might need a walking stick after a few of these."

That might tell you how good he is.

And he liked the ring of those words, so he stuck to it.

As I said, too, he was a good mixer. A bartender though?

Hell no.

A bartender is expected to chit-chat, he doesn't like it. Though, in some cases, he tolerates it.

Just like this time. 

Wally the Weirdo, a regular of his bar, was ranting again about government conspiracies. If you see him, you'd just know. From his stained polo with green alien heads logo on it, to the tacky khaki jean shorts and the matching bucket hat. All shouts the apparentness of his moniker.

Wally the Weirdo leaned in, his eyes wide with excitement. "You know, Henry, I've heard the government's been controlling the weather. Like, how else do you explain all this rain and sunshine going back and forth? It's damn suspicious, right?"

Henry, eyes still fixed on the clock, let out a tired sigh. "Are you talking about climate change?"

"YEAH! Climate change! It's all a cover-up! Something's not adding up, man."

Henry rubbed the bridge of his nose. He really needed it to be 3:00 AM already. There's a pint of cold ale waiting for him at the end of the shift. "You're completely off your rocker, Walt. That's your last call."

"C'mon, Henry, man, just one more?" Wally's voice turned pleading, a little desperate as he sloshed his drink on the counter.

Henry shot him a flat stare.

"I said last call, not a negotiation. And believe it or not, I've got better things to do than listen to you rant about the government messing with the weather. How is climate change even a conspiracy? It's stupid as shit."

The guy opened his mouth, probably to argue, but the crack of thunder, like a shotgun blast in the distance, cut him short. 

His lips hung there, caught between words that were never going to land right, and he blinked hard like he'd seen a ghost. 

The whole place shuddered, that low groan of old timber and worn-out bones, the walls creaking like a ship lost in a storm, and then the rain came down in sheets, hammering the windows so hard it was like the sky had split open and poured out its soul. They could feel it in their chest, the pulse of it, the way the air got thick and heavy, how everything started to smell like damp wood and spilled whiskey. 

And that was eerie.

Like a comedian, Henry didn't like spilling all his own material. It's a waste of a god damn profit.

A droplet is a penny.

Lightning flashed, quick and cruel, throwing jagged shadows over the cracked leather booths, the yellowed ceiling tiles, the wallpaper curling at the edges, holding on for dear life. The storm came out of nowhere, sudden and angry, a wild beast ripping through the quiet like it was hunting something, shaking the whole damn bar like it might tear it off its foundation and hurl it into the night. You could feel it in the bones of the place, in the uneasy glances that Henry and Wally the Weirdo threw at the windows—the way that the nutjob's hands gripped his drinks a little tighter, like he knew something bad was coming but couldn't do a damn thing about it.

He was a nervous wreck.

He always was.

Wally was a paranoid schizophrenic at best.

Wally clutched his drink tighter, eyes darting to the windows. "SEE?! See what I'm talking about? This ain't no coincidence!"

Henry smirked, his mood as horrible as the storm outside. "Perfect. Now nature's as pissed off as I am."

The thunder outside sounded like the universe was having a bad day, just like him. Well, start of a bad day or near the end of it. But Henry was always in one. He enjoyed making drinks, sure, but he didn't enjoy the selling part. The small talks, the orders, the drunks. You'd think they're hilarious, but most of them are maddening.

Worse, they're troublemakers.

All social drinkers, of course.

All the hilarious and good drunks get smashed on their own, in his opinion.

It's a shame, he thought.

He looked at the front door after, half-thinking about boarding it up, half-wondering if he should just let the wind blow this whole damn place into oblivion. One less dive to haunt. The idea had a certain charm to it, a kind of freedom in the destruction.

Thinking of it, though, felt like heresy of some sort. He loved this place, but sometimes, he just wanted everyone to disappear.

Not him though.

He was aware that there's nothing in death so exuberant that you'd want it fast.

But something caught his eye as he stared out into the storm.

The rain wasn't just falling anymore—it was swirling, twisting, moving in strange, hypnotic patterns. It was like the sky was drawing secrets in the air, old ones, forgotten ones. He blinked hard, rubbed his eyes, tried to focus, but the shapes just kept twisting, forming symbols, things he couldn't name but felt deep in his gut.

There was something in the air, too. Something that sounded like stray chants from an ancient and unfamiliar place. It sounded both like Latin and Japanese to him. If he could put it into words or imitate, he'd sound like Wally the Weirdo.

"This is getting gnarly, man—I'll tell you, I'm right," spoke Wally.

Henry squinted and squinted, and then—

BANG!

The world went white, an explosion of light so bright it swallowed everything whole, like the universe had just snapped its fingers and turned the lights out. For a second, maybe two, there was nothing. 

Just silence and darkness.

When Henry opened his eyes again, the bar was gone. 

No creaky stools, no flickering lights, no drunk Wally the Weirdo. 

Instead, he was lying on something soft. Grass, fresh and green, like the kind you'd see in a dream. The air smelled clean, untouched, like rain that hadn't yet fallen. Above him, the sky was this pale, washed-out blue, not quite real, and the clouds—if you could even call them that—were swirling just like the rain had been, shimmering faintly with something he couldn't put a name to.

Magic? Maybe.

It didn't feel right, but it didn't feel wrong either.

It took his eyes time to adjust to the whole thing.

"What the…" Henry rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off the haze, wondering if this was just some booze-fueled fever dream, one of those strange hallucinations that creep in after too many shots of cheap whiskey.

But this felt too real.

Too sharp.

"Where the fuck…"

Then he heard voices, but not the familiar grumbles of barflies complaining about their wives or their luck. No, these were whispers, urgent, serious, growing closer by the second. He turned his head, squinting into the distance, and there they were—a group of people hurrying toward him like they'd just stumbled onto the lost treasure of the gods. They wore brown robes like monks from an abbey.

Henry could half-see what their faces look like, but he didn't care about that because the next words out of them interrupted his train of thought.

"Is it him?" an old voice spoke, quaking and rough.

"The one from the prophecy?" A younger voice replied, gripping the pendant of his necklace.

"Gods above," muttered another, his face a mixture of awe and fear as he looked Henry up and down like he was some holy relic that had just fallen out of the sky. "IT IS HIM!"

Henry blinked, raised an eyebrow, and shook his head slowly. 

"Oh, hell no."

This was not his scene. He was a bartender, a guy who poured drinks and listened to people's problems with deaf ears, not some chosen hero in a fantasy novel. This whole thing smelled like trouble, and he'd had enough of that for one lifetime.

He pushed himself to his feet, brushing the grass off his jeans, feeling a thousand stares on him—even though there were just five.

"Look, motherfuckers, I don't know who you think I am, but unless you need someone to make a killer martini, I'm not your guy."

The young man's eyes lit up, filled with this absurd, misplaced hope. "What's... a martini? Is that… a dish? A potion, perhaps? MAGICK, mayhap?!"

Henry groaned, running a hand through his hair. He hated that word: mayhap.

Eugh.

"This is gonna be a long day."