An, with an architect's instinct, tried to analyze the space.
He failed immediately. In this space, not even numbers could be trusted.
The café, if this was a café, was about 40 square meters. An estimated it by eye, a professional habit. Three wooden tables. A 3-meter-long bar. The ceiling was about 3.5 meters high—taller than the normal residential standard (2.8-3m). But the space felt much larger. The proportions were wrong. Or his eyes were.
He turned his head to the left. A painting on the wall—some blurry landscape. He counted the steps from his seat to the painting. Five steps. He turned back, looked down at his glass of water. Then looked back at the painting.
Six steps.
His heart beat faster. No. Impossible. He must have miscounted. He must have.
This space was playing tricks on his perception. It wasn't magic. There had to be a reason. Maybe the wall paint had a visual effect. Or the angle of the lighting. Or...
He stopped thinking. Because he knew he was lying to himself. This place was an insult to the Euclidean geometry he had trusted his entire life.
The man behind the bar—they called him the Station Master, for lack of a better name—was polishing a glass.
The movement was slow. Steady. The cloth glided over the glass surface in a circle. One circle. Two circles. Three circles.
An watched intently. Waiting.
The man placed the glass down on the counter.
An waited for the clink of glass on wood.
Silence.
As if the glass had been placed on an invisible surface, half a millimeter above the wood. Or had the sound been... swallowed?
An didn't know which was more terrifying.
The stillness here was not the absence of sound.
It was an entity. An invisible mass pressing on his eardrums, on his mind. The thick air carried a smell like... a dentist's office? Not quite. The smell of damp wood mixed with coffee. And something else. The smell of ozone after a thunderstorm. The smell of electricity. Of energy.
An took a deep breath. Tried to calm down.
He remembered the unfinished Azure Tower project on his desk. 68 floors. 124 load-bearing columns. Each column calculated with precision, down to the last ton of pressure. Logic. Mathematics. Physics.
Those things were still true somewhere out there. Beyond that old wooden door.
But in here?
In here, those laws no longer had meaning.
________________________
Khue, in contrast, observed the person. She tried to analyze the Station Master the way she analyzed suspects in case files.
Her Basic Psychology textbook said: A normal person blinks 15-20 times per minute. It's a natural reflex to keep the cornea moist.
Khue had been watching him for fifteen minutes—or so she thought, as no clock here was running.
He had not blinked once.
Nor had he breathed. His chest didn't rise and fall. There was no intermittent respiration like a normal person's. He... was not respiring.
She remembered a patient she had met at the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital during her internship. He suffered from Catatonic Schizophrenia. Sat still in one posture for hours. Unmoving. But his chest still fluttered. His eyes still blinked. Because he was still human.
The Station Master was not.
He was just... existing. Like an object placed in this space. A part of the scenery.
On the bar were three water glasses. A pitcher of water. A plate of Kinh Do biscuits—the kind in the blue tin she often saw at Saigon's sidewalk cafés.
When had those things appeared?
She didn't remember seeing them when she walked in. But now they were there. As if they had always been there.
Khue felt nauseous. Not a physical nausea. But a psychological nausea—the feeling when the brain recognizes something is completely wrong but cannot pinpoint exactly what is wrong.
This was not a normal business. There were no customers. No menu. No bill.
This was a place that had been set up. With a purpose.
But what purpose?
She glanced at An. He was staring at the wall painting, then looking away, then staring again. His face was pale. His hands gripped the edge of the table.
He was seeing something he couldn't explain.
Then she glanced at Son. He was trying to draw. But his hand was shaking. The lines were erratic. Not the style of an artist. More like a panicked child scribbling.
Three people. Three different reactions to the same phenomenon.
An tried to analyze—and failed.
Son tried to record—and failed.
And her? She was trying to understand. But there was no case study, no theory in her textbooks that prepared her for this.
________________________
Son was the one who felt the most uncomfortable. He wanted to break something.
Break this fucking silence. Break the glass on the counter. Break the wall. Anything. To make a sound. To prove he was still here.
But he didn't.
Because he was scared. A primal fear, like a child afraid of the dark. Afraid that if he made a noise, something would answer.
He tried to draw. It was what he did when he was stressed. Draw. Make a mark. Leave proof that he was here.
But his hand felt frozen. Fingers stiff. The pencil was as heavy as actual lead. The lines were ugly. Soulless.
He had once painted a 4-meter-high wall in three hours without his hand shaking at all. Had sprayed paint on the facade of an abandoned building in the dark, relying only on feel. Art flowed in his blood.
But in here?
In here, he was just a kid scribbling with a pencil.
That old guy behind the counter—Station Master or whatever—wasn't human.
Son was sure of it.
Not "he's a bit strange" kind of not human. But "he is not of the human species" kind.
Son had drawn hundreds of faces. He knew how light fell on flesh. Knew how shadows pooled in eye sockets. Knew how a real person moved—with weight, with inertia.
That man had none of those things.
He moved like a puppet controlled by invisible strings. Every movement was perfect. No waste. No hesitation.
Not alive.
Son put the pencil down. Looked at his sketchbook. What he had drawn was not the Station Master's face.
It was a shadow.
A gaunt shadow with two empty eyes.
Exactly like the number 04 he had unintentionally painted on the wall.
His hand trembled. He snapped the sketchbook shut. Shoved it in his pocket.
This place didn't allow a mark to be left.
________________________
They sat in silence like that for an indeterminable amount of time.
An counted the wood grains on the tabletop. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Start over. Nine. Ten. Eleven.
Khue stared at the water glass on the counter. The water was clear. No bubbles. As if the water wasn't real.
Son tapped his fingers on his thigh. There was no sound. The fabric of his pants didn't make a rustling noise. As if the sound was being sucked away before it could escape.
How long had it been?
Five minutes? An hour? A day?
No one knew.
The wall clock had two hands. Hour. Minute. No second hand.
The minute hand pointed to the three. It had been pointing to the three since they walked in. It was still pointing to the three.
Time didn't run here. It was frozen. Or it flowed by different rules they didn't understand.
Son spoke first. His voice was hoarse, like someone who hadn't spoken in a long time.
"You two... see anything weird?"
An turned. Frowned. "Weird how?"
"Everything. This place. Him." Son nodded toward the Station Master. "The way he... doesn't breathe."
Khue nodded slightly. "I noticed."
An was silent for a moment. Then said, "Not just that. The space here is... wrong, too. I counted the steps from my seat to the painting. First time, five steps. The next time, six."
"What the hell is this?" Son whispered.
No one answered.
Because no one knew the answer.
Finally, the Station Master stopped polishing the glass. The movement was sudden. No transition. He was polishing. Then he was not.
He set the glass down. Silent as always.
Then he turned. And looked directly at the three of them.
It was the first time he had truly looked at them.
The eyes were empty. No reflected light. No emotion. But they had weight. An invisible pressure settled on their shoulders.
An felt his breath catch.
Khue gripped the edge of her seat.
Son swallowed, his throat dry.
Without a word, the man placed three cups of coffee on the counter.
Steam rose from the black coffee. The smell of phin coffee, bitter, strong. Saigon style.
But none of the three dared to stand up and get them.
Then, he silently walked into a dark room behind the counter—a doorway that An swore had not existed before.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
He returned. Holding an object.
The 8mm film canister. Metal. Old.
The number "04" etched on the lid. In the amber light of the café, the number seemed deeper than the metal surface, as if it were carved from shadow.
The Station Master placed the film canister on the counter, right between the three coffee cups. The dry clack of metal on wood was the first loud sound they had heard since entering. It echoed abnormally in the stillness.
Then, he raised one finger and pointed to the wall clock.
All three followed his gaze. The minute hand was still motionless at the three. But as they watched, a small tick rang out—clear, sharp, painful. A blood-red second hand, one they were certain had not existed before, suddenly appeared—like a cut on skin—and began to move.
Tick.
A dry, echoing sound. The newly born second hand began to tick backwards.
Tick... tick... tick...
It was eroding their time.
They looked at the clock, then at the film canister on the table, then at each other. The false security of The Still Point had vanished. This was not a sanctuary.
This was the waiting room for an execution.