Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 417: The Mysterious Coffee

The moment Luca thought about something that was important to him, a black mug appeared in his hand. The liquid inside was still hot; he could easily see the steam coming off the top, but he didn’t know which space user that made him.

Turning around the cup, he looked for more clues. On the other side of the mug, the words ’cute but psycho’ were written on it in red with a big chef’s knife dripping in blood beside the words.

This was definitely not his style, nor could he picture Alicia liking a mug like that. In fact, Alicia hated anything and everything black. It was an almost weird obsession with her. If it wasn’t white or pink, she refused to have anything to do with it.

"Coffee?" muttered Alicia, finally lifting her head up as she delicately sniffed the air. It was like she hadn’t had coffee in a really long time, but that was impossible, right? Not if he had mugs of it in his space.

"Still steaming," replied Luca, absently. "Does that make me a refrigerator?"

"No," replied the woman, her eyes never leaving the cup in his hand. "That makes you even more special. Your space allows you to control time itself. Anything that you put in it, time will freeze until you take it out again."

"Is that a good thing?" asked Luca, looking down at the almost white liquid in the cup. Just looking at it, his teeth hurt like he already knew the taste.

"That’s amazing. It means that we will never run out of supplies again." The way Alicia’s eyes lit up with her explanation made Luca a bit uncomfortable. If he had had this space for four years, shouldn’t she know exactly what kind of space that he had?

Taking a sip of the steaming mixture, Luca couldn’t hold back his shudder. "It seems like your taste in coffee has changed drastically since the end of the world," he joked. His brain was telling him to hold out the cup for the person it was intended for, but his arm refused to move. "I still remember when you suffered through black coffee because you thought milk and sugar added too many calories. It’s nice that you are no longer like that."

Alicia’s face when tight as she forced out a smile. "Killing zombies lets you burn more calories than working out for an hour," she said flippantly, turning away from the coffee. "Besides, sugar is extremely rare nowadays, so it’s not like there is a lot of it in there."

Once again, Luca paused for a second before nodding his head. "A little more sugar never hurt anyone," he announced before putting the cup of coffee away.

If that cup was her definition of ’not a lot’, then either she became addicted to sugar in the four years that he had forgotten, or that coffee wasn’t hers.

Either way, he was going to keep his mouth shut until he knew what was going on.

"Now that we’ve established that I am a space user, how do I put all these boxes into my space?" While he had been thinking about coffee, the boxes in front of the homestead continued to grow. There were at least 100 10x10 boxes in front of him, and he could see the soldiers bringing even more.

And this was just the stuff inside the house. It wouldn’t surprise him if there were more in the barns he could see off in the distance. He might not know a lot about homesteading, but he had grown up in O City, he knew that most places like this had more chickens, ducks, and cows than you could shake a stick at.

He just didn’t know if they would be able to survive in his space.

"Wish them in," said Alicia flippantly, no longer paying him any mind. In fact, she was so focused on the boxes and supplies that she didn’t notice Luca stiffening at her words.

"You need to be careful what you wish for," he said softly under his breath, the words being pulled out of him. He could see a brief outline in his mind as he said those words. Trying to grasp the image, it slid through his fingers like smoke before he was snapped out of his thoughts.

"What did you say?" demanded Alicia, letting out a long sigh. How could she have forgotten just how annoying Luca was? And now that he had lost his memory, he was even more dependant on her.

"Nothing," smiled Luca brightly. Waving his hands, all the boxes in front of him disappeared.

Alicia and the soldiers stood there silently as they tried to process what they had seen. Alicia, herself, the strongest space user of the Sanctuary, might have been able to take half of them if her space was empty, but there was no way she could handle all of it.

Just how strong was Luca?

"Did I do something wrong?" asked Luca, his eyes taking in everyone’s expressions. He might have an ’awe shucks’ look on his face, but his brain was already cataloguing everyone’s response. They were looking at him like he was a monster, but why were they so surprised?

"Nope," smiled Alicia, giving her best fake smile. Luca remembered it well... it was the one she had given him and the rest of the guys when something didn’t go her way and she was pissed. "I had just forgotten how much you could hole. It always comes as a surprise. How are you feeling? If you feel full or like you are going to burst, it means that you are coming to the end of available space. You can take a break, and I’ll take the next load. Whatever I can’t handle, we’ll put in the jeeps."

Luca nodded his head with a bright smile, but inside, his head was spinning. He didn’t feel even remotely like she had described. In fact, he felt like he could easily store a lot more in his space. But he didn’t want to stand out.

Until he knew exactly what was going on, he was going to do his best to blend in. Hopefully, Max or Réne could fill in the missing blanks better. And hopefully, one of the guys could tell him just who the coffee belonged to.