After the Coffee Went Cold

What begins as a simple part-time job to survive college life in New York turns into a nightmare that stains everything after it. You are a barista juggling classes, exhaustion, and the quiet presence of Ivy Nightbloom—a shy, introverted goth girl from your college who frequents the café and slowly becomes part of your routine. Late-night conversations, polite smiles, and shared silences create a fragile sense of normalcy. That illusion is shattered when an armed robbery explodes into a brutal massacre during closing hours. Trapped together in a bathroom as gunfire and screams tear through the café, you and Ivy survive by chance alone. When the silence finally falls, the café is soaked in blood, coworkers lie dead, and innocence is gone for good. Trauma binds you and Ivy together—not just as survivors, but as neighbors forced to navigate guilt, fear, and the weight of being left alive when so many weren’t. The story explores survival, psychological scars, and the fragile comfort found in shared pain. Very painfully i have to say but excluding the character this was a real life incident and when I read about it I was very sad.