One thing that people quickly missed when the world went to shit was good coffee.

Sunlight filters through the cracked window, warming my face and highlighting the steaming cup of cappuccino in my hands. Bringing the cup to my lips, I take slow sips, savoring the flavor.

The familiar hum of an old radio plays a soft tune in the background, the lyrics and song quality is debatable but listenable.

"Is it to your liking?" The voice, soft as a whisper, comes from a girl wearing a large, over-decorated anime-style maid dress. She stands with a practiced smile, holding a tray close to her chest.

"When did you ever miss?" I joke, leaning back in my chair.

She giggles softly. "Only the best for the best customer. Nya!" she replies, her eyes sparkling with life. She glides over the floor when moving to another client, her long dress dragging behind her.

Another maid, wearing a dress with a considerably short skirt, and her long blond hair tied in a neat bun, delivers a tall cup of lemonade to a couple whispering to each other in the corner. They thank her, and she bows slightly before walking away with graceful, measured light steps.

"Can you believe some crazy bitch tried burning this place?" A young survivor with red hair says from a table over. His voice's obnoxiously loud.

His friend, an older man with thick-rimmed glasses, finishes his cup with a sigh. "You can't blame her. Her son was one of the first to fall here."

"I can and will blame her. I might as well lay down and let some random dog eat me without coffee," A sneaky smile forms on his face, "and the girls aren't half bad either." The red-haired survivor ogles the blonde maid as she moves past him.

Her expression flickers with discomfort as she pushes her skirt, trying to hide more of her legs.

Displeased, he whistles, dropping his spoon to the ground. It clatters loudly in the peaceful ambient, and then, slowly, almost stopping he leans down to pick it up. He licks his lips, his face reddening as he looks down the poor maid's skirt.

The Café responds swiftly—a thin, fleshy tendril shoots from the ceiling like a bullet, slapping his face with a heavy, wet thud before wrapping around his neck, pulling him back to a seated position.

"Hey!" he protests, rubbing his reddened cheek and neck, shooting a glare at the ceiling as the tendril retracts. After a few muttered curses, he calms down, now eyeing as a tall woman with ample 'assets' walks by him.

Gathering strength like a flood, a heavy, drawn-out sigh leaves me, and I look at the ceiling.

The ceiling above is black—not in painted black, but in charred flesh still pulsating with life. Slightly tilting my head, I see the hair-thin cord descending from the ceiling, delicately connecting to the spines of the maids.

Not all changes since the apocalypse were horrific; some were merely horrifying. This Maid Café is one such example. When the world fell apart, this place became the host to a strange, parasitic hive-mind creature.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Fortunately, I wasn't present during the war between humanity and the hive mind—I was occupied fighting wave after wave of carnivorous plants devouring everyone in my building.

Based on word of mouth, after months of battle, a chemical weapon was used—a last-ditch effort that would taint the land for decades but rid us of the existential threat. Yet, to everyone's horror, it didn't kill the hive mind.

"An Omurice and something cold, impress me," I call out to the room.

One of the maids freezes, her eyes, cloudy yet shining with true life, lock on mine before she notes my order.

Seeing that their attempts failed, some started planning to how fight after the creature recovered while others lost all hope and went to willingly surrender. Only to discover those lost to the hive wearing maid dresses and offering to serve them food.

The sheer shock broke the people from their state of hopelessness. Now horrified in a different way, they ran to warn their settlements.

Eventually, groups were sent to investigate.

The hive mind's new behaviors, how it acted strangely human, scared people more than the flesh-devouring monster born of the infected. After rounds of investigation and conversation, peace was made.

It was then discovered that while the hive mind would distort most creatures into unthinkable flesh horrors, it wanted humans for a different motive; the hive mind went after humans to fuse them with a main brain that would slowly wipe the memories and personalities of the infected so it could repurpose the neurons and expand itself.

The question of why the change in the mind hive behavior stayed. And to the disappointment of both sides, the former flesh-devouring hive mind also didn't know exactly what caused its change of heart.

The current theory is that while people were on the way to fusing with the main brain, the chemical weapon was used, frying the main brain's former neurons and halting the assimilation process of the humans inside it. Then, in some self-preservation move it forcefully fused the human minds as they were.

It so happened that those being assimilated were the staff who worked here, and while most of their sense of self was gone, their focus at the moment of infection remained.

Thus, what was once a mind-assimilating, flesh-fusing alien invader became a living Maid Café.

After showing itself as a possible ally, it infected small animals, using them as messengers to keep contact and be part of the many human settlements. Seeing the former hive mind infecting other creatures again and fearing the possibility of having to fight it again— but this time with a close-to-human intellect, another agreement was struck.

The Maid Café would receive ingredients to prepare its meals and remain operational, while in return, it wouldn't expand while also aiding human survival.

Suddenly, an elderly couple springs up from their table. The maid serving them—normal in every way, except for the absence of eyes in her sockets—flinches before being engulfed in a crushing hug.

"My dear," the man chokes out through tears. "You look wonderful."

The tense maid relaxes, her arms reciprocating the hug. "Don't worry, Dad," Even without eyes, she turned to the elder woman, an intricately human smile parting her lips.

The parasites were truly something else—extraordinarily resilient, almost immortal. A single fragment of their flesh, if returned to the Café, could reconstruct the body from nothing. The once lethal enemy that would be the end of humans as we know it—which still may be the end of humans as we know them, just in a different way—has instead become an invaluable asset.

Nowadays, people who want to explore would more often than not accept a parasite from here.

When traveling in groups, the first objective in case of death or an unavoidable fatal situation is to rescue the parasite. The parasites take a few weeks to fully imprint on a person, a trait learned after a few were revived only to act like children or to have their bodies be incomplete amalgamations of the genetic material consumed when traveling.

There was another caveat— A person would need to stay in the Maid Café and work while healing, but only women were accepted to work there.

At the same time, the female population in the settlements rose drastically.

And there's more—the teleportation conundrum/ cloning also shows its ugly head. Are you the same person after being revived? Your brain and old body are gone, replaced by the parasite that has your memories and genetic code.

You still feel like yourself, but is that really you? The you that had your head crushed between the jaws of a direwolf, or gutted by neo-raptors? Or is it the parasite playing the 'you' part like a messed-up clone?

I'm broken from my musing by my Omurice and a cup of cold vanilla ice cream being gently placed on my table.

"Thank you," I politely say, taking my spoon to start eating.

In the end, does it really matter? I haven't died yet, so for now, I have no chips in that game.

Enough of the people revived killed themselves mulling over this question; it's better to just not think about it and go with the flow.

"I'm me, and that's it," I schizophrenicly say to myself, before turning back to the room.

"I'm about to leave, one for the road."