"Rooby's. Literally HELL!"

There's a place here, in this toxic wasteland of a timeline - a strange, liminal space in town - called "Rooby's". You'd think it's supposed to be called "Ruby's" or something, but we'll get to that.

I swear I've never been here before, but my subconscious makes no such promises. What a deeply unsettling feeling to have about a restaurant...

That said, as ███████, █████, and I approached it, we got the vibes of one of those "retro restaurant" places you can sometimes see in human movies, with a few interesting differences. It even had a flickering neon sign outside.

 

The inside was even more like a retro restaurant...

Black-and-white checkerboard tile floors. Red, circular-seat bar stools. All tables and seats are located by the windows, and the seats are those couches with a white stripe in the middle. One of the tables is on fire, and nobody is alarmed by this. 

Even if it's daytime outside, once you enter the restaurant and look out the windows, it's instantly evening - in fact, if you open the door to go outside, it'll still be evening. Interesting way to set the atmosphere. Not sure how this works or why, but I'll accept this.

As the guys found somewhere to sit, I went to see if I could order something. The menu was hard to read; it had a picture of what appeared to be a poorly printed cup of coffee under the label of "COOBFFOOBOOB", with a label underneath the cup of coffee, that read "OOBXTROOB SOOBGOOBR: -$0.30". 

As I ordered a cup of "coobffooboob", I was asked for my name, to write it on the cup. "Dorian", I said. I'd later find out that the label on the cup said "Doobrooboobn", making that my name in the local dialect, apparently. Must mean that this place is actually called "Ray's".

I expected a simple cup of coffee, really. I sat down next to the guys, I took a sip of this coffee, and I felt like my whole body was full of white-noise TV static for about 5 minutes. I suppose I can't expect much better coffee in a timeline that's centered around radiation, but I went up to the barista to ask about what's inside the coffee, and instead of telling me anything, the barista's eyes started oozing out the same kind of static. Third time I see this happen to an entity in this timeline. Not sure what that means yet. I apologized and sat down with the guys.

I noticed that there was a small basket of what appeared to be exactly 3 tiny breadsticks, on the table. As I took one, another appeared in its place. The guys took a few, too. Infinite breadsticks for no extra cost. Incredible deal, but I'm not sure how good that is for business, though, how bad can it be compared to the "SOOBGOOBR" priced at "-$0.30"

I keep watching the table that's been on fire the entire time. I watch a local entity sit down by that very table, saying "sooboobp, noob spooboobn, plooboobsoob". My fucking head is spinning at this point, yet, something about this entire experience is kind of funny to me. The guys make a joke about the soup never getting cold that way, so everybody's a winner. They're honestly not wrong.

I look at the menu that has materialized in front of me, and it's page after page of nothing but "CHOOBOOBSOOB". The picture, price, and description for each entry is identical, so I just point at one of them as I mention this to ███████, and the menu disappears as soon as my finger touches the surface of the page. The sound of a car crash can be heard, yet, no car is visible outside. Sounds of glass breaking can be heard, yet, once more, no such thing can be seen. Similarly intense sounds can be heard without anything visibly happening that could cause them. This goes on for 3 minutes.

Once the sounds have stopped, a block of cheese appears in front of me on the table, with what looks like a birthday card next to it - completely blank on the outside. I open the card, and inside is only ":)".

I put $15 inside as a tip, and the card disappears, yet... the ":)" remains somehow, hovering in mid-air, slowly turning into a ":D"; I assume the tip was appreciated. After 5 minutes, instead of fading away, the ":D" disappears very suddenly with a loud noise that I can only describe as "static noise but intensely bass-boosted".

The longer I remain here, the more alarmed I am. The cheese, however, was good. The guys and I quietly discussed what we should do next, mainly regarding resource gathering. 

Feels like time moves a lot slower here...

This timeline is like a very lucid fever dream thus far. My consciousness remains somehow hazy, yet, I am fully aware of the absurdity of everything going on around me. I may need to get some rest soon.

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