# Prologue: > One more step, and your fingers trace the bar's surface. > ``` **INLAND** **EMPIRE**: The wood responds with warmth, with solidity – a handshake between strangers who might become something, far beyond. ``` > You settle onto a middle-left stool, angling yourself slightly toward the bartender's domain. > > ‘Name is Q.’ > ``` **PERCEPTION**: As the day's chaos recedes, your ears attune to the space's secret symphony – The harsh, cardboard menu meeting teak in a soft percussion, candle wicks conducting their tiny orchestra of crackles, glasses set down with quiet reverence against the surface. A thousand tiny sounds building a world. ``` ``` **SHIVERS**: The bartender's voice, balance and clear like the filtered water served. ``` > ‘K.’ > > The bartender nods, returning to their cleaning ritual, now with a coupe glass. ``` **CONCEPTUALIZATION**: The menu matches the room's refined restraint – single cardboard sheet, gilded edges framing text that stands in elegant solitude at the center. Options are few, carefully curated. ``` > Your eyes catch on one particular offering, and your voice finds itself asking: > > ‘Tequila... Sunset?’ > > **And so our story begins.** # Art: ![[IMG_9628.png]] Time: Mar 2025 Creator: Crystal Cheng To: who wrote the prologue Style Tag: #Psychedelic , #Rebellious, #Hopeful