Chapter 1.1 —
Derpy’s day began as most of them did: with his name being shouted from another room, a sharp sound that pierced through his fading dreams and forced him back into a world he wasn't quite ready to face.
“Derpy!”
He groaned into his pillow, the sound muffled by a case that hadn’t been washed in three weeks. His room was a graveyard of half-finished notebooks and empty soda cans, a cluttered, physical manifestation of a life that felt perpetually stuck in a loading screen.
“Derpy, I swear to God, if you’re still asleep and I have to come in there, I’m bringing the spray bottle!”
Rolling over to squint at the clock, he saw it was 10:17—a time that was, all things considered, a fair reason for the hostility. He dragged himself up with his hair standing in jagged peaks and stumbled into the hallway to find Jubilee already waiting, her arms crossed and her work boots laced tight as if she were prepared for a battle he hadn't yet joined; She was the kinetic energy of the apartment, the one who kept the gravity functioning while Derpy drifted aimlessly through the days.
Tracy was positioned behind her, leaning against the wall with a coffee mug held in both hands, watching the exchange with the detached, analytical interest of a scientist viewing a nature documentary.
“You said you’d run errands,” Jubilee said, her foot tapping a restless rhythm on the floorboards.
Derpy blinked, trying to clear the morning fog from his mind. “I said I’d help.”
“In this house, ‘help’ means ‘running errands,’” Jubilee corrected, reaching out to straighten his hoodie with a brief flash of sisterly care that she immediately buried under a practiced scowl. “You can’t just mope in the dark all day, Derp; it’s not good for the soul, and it certainly isn't good for the rent.”
Tracy sipped her coffee and added, “He’s doing that thing again, where he pretends words are mere suggestions rather than actual commitments.”
Derpy sighed, leaning his head against the doorframe as he surrendered to the inevitable. “Fine. What do you need?”
Jubilee shoved a long list into his hand that detailed groceries, cat food, and dog treats, ending with a specific demand for sealant. “The sink is leaking again,” she added, “and don’t get the cheap stuff this time because we need the industrial grade if it’s actually going to hold.” At the bottom, in her sharp, slanted handwriting, she had scribbled: Stop by that antique shop on Maple. Ask if they have any blank journals. The thick kind.
Derpy frowned at the last item. “Why do we need a thick journal?”
Jubilee’s expression softened for a microsecond before hardening again. “For your writing. You keep complaining you don’t like the feel of the keyboard lately, so maybe a pen will help you actually finish a sentence for once.”
Derpy folded the list with her handwriting on the inside. “Okay. Fair.”
He headed out into the biting morning air, feeling his phone buzz in his pocket with a notification from his former manager at the warehouse. Don’t bother coming in for your final check until Friday, Derpy. We’re busy with people who actually want to work.
He put his phone away. Three years at the warehouse, and he could still picture the overtime sheet passed down the line until it reached him. By the time he got it, everybody else had somewhere to be.
At the hardware store, the experience wasn't much better; the clerk, a guy he’d gone to school with named Miller, smirked as he rang up the sealant. “Still playing house with those two girls, Derpy? Must be nice having people to carry your weight while you float around.”
Refusing to look up, Derpy watched the red laser of the scanner dance rhythmically over the barcode. “It’s just a leak, Miller.”
“Everything’s a leak with you, man,” Miller laughed, tossing the heavy tube of sealant into a bag with a thud. “Your whole life’s just draining out onto the floor.”
Derpy took the bag. The tube knocked against his knee all the way to Maple.
Wedged between two glass storefronts, the antique shop still had its old wooden door. The back of his neck prickled as he reached for it.
Derpy hesitated for a moment, then pushed the door open to the sound of a silver chime that cut cleanly through the city noise. The air inside smelled of ancient paper and cold metal, laced with something faintly sweet that reminded him of crushed jasmine. It was a dim space, but not a creepy one; it felt quiet and insulated, as if the very walls were padded with secrets.
As he took a step inside, the bell chimed again despite him not touching the door, and he froze in place.
“Welcome,” a voice said.
When Derpy turned toward the counter, he found a girl who looked as if she had stepped directly out of a fever dream, wearing a red-and-gold outfit that flowed like liquid around a form that defied the mundane reality of the street outside. But it was her head that stopped his breath: two horns, dark and polished like obsidian, curved back from her temples, and they weren't a headband—they were rooted deeply in her skin.
Derpy’s brain scrambled for a logical explanation involving high-end prosthetics or a dedicated cosplayer, but the way the horns caught the dim light felt too organic, too heavy to be anything but real. She smiled at him then, a look that suggested she’d been waiting for him specifically.
“You’re late,” she said.
Derpy frowned, his social anxiety momentarily overruled by sheer confusion. “Late for what?”
“For destiny,” she replied, her voice holding a rhythmic quality that made his ears ring, “and for the change you’ve been praying for in the dark.”
Derpy stared, looking for hidden cameras or a prank, expecting Miller to walk out from the back and laugh at him again, but there was only the heavy quiet and the girl with the obsidian horns. He pointed at her head, his voice trembling slightly. “Are those… real?”
She looked genuinely offended by the question. “Obviously. Why would I ever choose to wear fake ones?”
“Okay,” he said slowly, trying to regain his footing. “Cool. I’m just here for a journal. My roommate sent me.”
Her smile widened, revealing teeth that were just a little too white and a little too perfect. “Oh, I have the perfect journal for a man who has nothing left to lose in this world.”
She reached under the counter and pulled out a book that was thick and bound in leather older than the building itself. There was no title or marking on the cover, just a smooth, dark surface that seemed to drink in the light of the room. Derpy’s fingers twitched with a physical pull toward it, a sensation like a hook sinking into his chest.
The moment she set the book on the counter, the shop felt heavier, the air growing thick and charged with static. Derpy swallowed hard, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. “How much?” he asked.
The girl tilted her head, her dark eyes tracking the pulse in his throat. “Not money,” she said. “Your currency is of no use where this is going.”
Derpy’s stomach dropped. “Of course not. Look, I don't want any trouble, I'll just—”
“I want a partner,” she said, leaning forward until the scent of jasmine grew overwhelming.
“…Like,” he said carefully, “a business partner? Because I'm not really good at… well, anything.”
She blinked, then laughed—a bright, sharp sound that felt wrong in the heavy silence. “No,” she said. “A bond. A tether between what you were and what you will become.”
Derpy took a step back, his hand reaching for the door handle, but the bell chimed and the lock clicked shut on its own before he could touch it. He turned back to the girl and saw that she wasn't smiling playfully anymore; her eyes were hungry, wide with an ancient, terrifying anticipation.
“Okay,” he whispered. “So, like… what exactly are you?”
“A gift,” she said, her voice echoing as if the shop had suddenly doubled in size. She reached under the counter again and produced two yellow bracelets that looked like cheap plastic, yet they hummed with a low-frequency vibration he could feel in his teeth.
She set them next to the book. “These go with it. You’re going to need them, just as you’re going to need everything else I give you.”
Derpy looked at the bracelets and then the book, thinking about the warehouse and Miller and the leak in the sink—the crushing feeling of being a ghost in his own life. He reached for the book, knowing he was an idiot, but for the first time in years, something was actually looking at him like he mattered.
The moment his fingers brushed the leather, a sudden heat licked up his arm—not the searing pain of a burn, but the startling jolt of an awakening, as if a limb that had been asleep for years was finally, painfully, regaining its circulation. He jerked his hand back, gasping for air.
The girl watched him, a look of triumph crossing her face. “Yes,” she whispered. “The spark is still there.”
Derpy’s heart wouldn't slow down as he looked at her, his mind reeling from the contact. “Okay,” he said, forcing a nervous, thin laugh. “So, funny story. I actually have to go feed my pets. Jubilee and Tracy will kill me if I’m late.”
The girl tilted her head, her horns casting long, sharp shadows against the back wall. “You have pets?”
Derpy nodded quickly, backing toward the locked door again. “Yeah. Two. They’re… weird. Very demanding. You wouldn't like them.”
The girl’s eyes lit up with a terrifying, golden intensity. “Oh,” she said, “I like weird things. They’re the only things that ever survive the crossing.”
Derpy’s stomach sank as the floor beneath him began to feel less like solid wood and more like the shifting surface of deep water.