The receipt machine chattered quietly behind the counter. A mundane sound. Innocent, almost soothing. Until it kept printing. And didn't stop.
Vahn glanced up from the register where he was scanning a glowing bag of "Soul Popcorn" for a six-armed demigod. The receipt was now ten feet long—and still going. The words on it weren't ink, but molten gold, and they glowed with divine authority.
The demigod blinked. "Uh... is that for me?"
Vahn tore the receipt, and the moment he touched it, a ripple surged through reality. Time slowed. Sound faded. Color bled into white.
"One transaction opens another. One debt replaces a thousand. One price... demands you."
He was no longer in the store.
He stood in a realm of white and static. Floating receipts circled around him like paper spirits. And in the center, bound by threads of light, was another version of himself. Older. Harsher. With eyes like cracked glass.
"This is your till," the older Vahn growled. "And you've been overdrafting the rules."
Vahn took a step forward, his hand instinctively reaching for the barcode scanner. "You're me."
"I was. Before I broke the one rule that actually mattered." The copy raised a single finger. "Never. Give. Credit."
Suddenly, hundreds of beings began screaming behind glass panels—souls who'd tried to walk out of the store without paying. Their agony echoed through this ghost-register dimension.
And Vahn realized something: The store didn't just operate between dimensions. It judged them.
Back in reality, the receipt disintegrated in his hand. The demigod looked at him, confused. "You okay, man? You blanked out."
Vahn's eyes were still glowing faint gold.
"I'm fine," he lied. But his hand wouldn't stop shaking.