The rain had lightened to a glorified drizzle on my walk home, yet it was far from being any better than my morning commute. As a kid I thought that being able to see magical creatures would be a blessing. Fairies, unicorns, dragons, the whole sort. I always thought our own world was so boring from the get-go because we didn't have anything like that.

But, at Ping's instruction, I had to do my best to walk home as naturally and normal as possible, despite seeing gargoyles with shark heads and multiple arms, weird hairless dogs whose mouths really made up the entirety of their faces, and even someone who looked like they were wearing a large handle-bar mustache as a uni-brow. When I finally reached my apartment complex, it wasn't until I was slamming my door behind me, in my room, that I realized how little I was breathing on my way home.

"See, you did it! That wasn't so bad!" Ping said, appearing in a tiny puff of sparkling mint-green smoke. But their smug expression was soon overwritten with horror when my hand snatched them from the air by the close approximation of their neck.

I looked up from where I was kneeling on the floor and glared at them through tufts of messy hair. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW SCARY THAT WAS," I growled through gritted teeth.

"Yes, I do!" Ping said with an adorably high-pitched, yet choked, voice. "Now let go of me so I can explain!"

I squeezed a bit harder and then reluctantly let go of Ping, pushing myself up, only to let myself fall backwards into a sitting position against the door. "What is there to explain? You made it so I can see demons, and now they want to kill me! Seems pretty simple to me!"

"Daemons," Ping corrected, rubbing their neck with their paw.

"That's what I said!"

"They aren't going to notice you very easily normally! Not unless they get close like that scout, and especially not in large crowds," Ping said. "They can only really spot you easily if your latent magic is brought out by transformin-- whoa!" Ping dodged my fist as it shot out in a fast lunge, but I only found myself falling face-forward into the vinyl flooring.

"So you're saying I would have been fine if we hadn't transformed!" I snapped.

"No! He was going to spot us regardless! When a human's curse is freshly broken, it leaves behind this aura that we can see, it's like this sickly green air, I think... Oh! It looks like stink lines in a comic book!"

I pushed myself to my knees once more and glared at Ping. "You know what, I don't care! I didn't ask for this anyways and you're going to put me back to normal right away!"

"Yeah... about that..." Ping said, nervously tapping their paws together. I could feel the colour drain from my face.

"Oh my god you can't, can you," I whispered.

"W-well, I'm sure you won't want to once you hear me out what we're fighting for!"

"I don't care what you're fighting for!" I shouted. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm already fighting MIDDLE MANAGEMENT, and look how well that's going! Believe you me, I can hardly fight a bag of chips open!"

"But you fought off that scout well enough, I really think you can do this!" Ping said.

"And you said that was supposed to be easy!" I protested, standing up and brushing the dust off my knees. "Look, Pong--"

"--Ping."

"Whatever. I'm sure you've got some big, ambitious, noble cause in mind, but I can't help you. And even if I could, I don't want to be a hero! Find someone else." Taking my shoes off, I made my way towards the kitchen and opened the fridge, hoping I had some remotely healthy leftovers. I stared at the half-empty carton of almond milk, single egg left inside a package meant for a dozen, and the smattering of various different store-bought sauces that I tried, didn't like, but didn't have the heart to throw out.

"You don't understand!" Ping said, flying in front of me and prompting me to immediately close the fridge in their face. "The Daemon King is literally sapping this world of everything, magic, resources, whatever! And if we don't do something soon everything's going to die!"

"Why would the Demon King kill everything? Wouldn't that kill himself?" I said nonchalantly as I poked around the cupboard for a package of instant ramen. Damn, that fake shrimp flavour. Why did I buy this?!

"No! Well... I don't know? Maybe he doesn't know or care? But the point is, he's going to destroy everything and we have to stop him!"

"Yeah yeah, and I'm the chosen one or whatever. Look, get someone else, okay? I told you, no. I'm not going to be a hero and I don't want to."

"I CAN'T get anyone else!" Ping yelled, slapping the instant ramen out of my hand with a pathetically soft sound. "We can't fight on our own, and nobody in this gosh-darn city has any hope! Nobody except you!" The stupid cat-thing almost looked cute with its fur on-end, breathing heavily in anger. "Please... if you give me a chance, I'll make a magical disguise for your broken curse aura. I promise you, you'll do fine."

Only now did I notice a good-sized cut on Ping's upper shoulder. At a distance, through the all the fur and sparkles, it was hard to see, but now the gash of red was plain as day.

"Hey, what happened to yo--" I started to ask, but then at the door there was a knock.