I hear the door to my bedroom slam open. I jump at the sound, but when I see that it’s Oliver who comes rushing in, I already know that he’s just going to tell me about some dumb problem that won’t do anything of importance but waste my time. Today is my day off from work, though. I’m tired and definitely not up for being ‘the chosen one’ or whatever right now.

“We have a problem,” he said, racing over to my desk and seizing my water bottle. “I’m going to need backup.” Yup. Exactly what I expected. I refuse to look up from my notebook.

“Your point is?” I’ve known him forever, so I can practically feel his frustration with me.

“Come on, Destiny, do I really need a point? The demons are back, and the microwave is on fire again!” He uses my first name, a sure sign that he isn’t in the mood for my excuses. Not like that will change my mind about helping him or anything.

“You know where the extinguisher is, Oliver, put it out yourself. And don’t call me Destiny!” Oliver snatches my notebook away from me and throws it to the floor. 

“Oh my gosh, you are the worst roommate ever! Would it kill you to help me with your stupid prophecies once and a while?” I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who wrote that I was, and I quote, ‘ready for a little more adventure in my life’ in my Twitter bio.”

“I think you know perfectly well that I didn’t mean that I wanted to fight literal monsters just to get a bowl of ramen!” I throw my arms out in front of me.

“Welcome to my world!” The door is flung open again and a huge creature bursts into the room, its eyes black as coal and the flaming horns on its head as sharp as daggers.

“I come for the one they call Destiny,” it says, its voice like gravel. “Her blood alone can bring order back to my chaotic realm!” I look to Oliver, expecting to see him cowering behind the nearest piece of furniture like he did during our last demon...incident. Instead, he rips off the top from the water bottle in his hands and throws the water from inside the bottle onto the demon’s horns.

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“Read the room, man! I’m trying to have a serious discussion here!” he shouts before turning back to face me. “Listen, I know that being the chosen one and having to save the world every other day is exhausting, but I’m done with you just dumping these quest things on me. We live with each other! We have to be a team!” The demon wails and shrieks as it turns to a pile of soggy ash behind him. I lean back in my chair.

“Look, I know I probably haven’t been pulling my weight around here lately, but I promise you, next time I’ll—wait, you knew those things could be defeated with water, why didn’t you just do that earlier?” Oliver puts a hand to his forehead.

“They destroyed the water lines. Ugh, that’s the third time this week some supernatural jerk has messed up our plumbing! Our landlord is going to kill me,” he says, suddenly sounding drained. He glares back at me. “This has to stop, I can’t keep living like this!”  I finally get up from my chair and pick up my notebook from the floor. 

“Hey, I don’t want to live like this either! It’s not like I chose to be the one responsible for the problems of demons or faeries or...whatever it was that came in through our heating vents last Tuesday.” Oliver takes a deep breath.

“Listen, Grace. You might not have the choice to turn your back to these problems, but I do. Right now, I could pack up my things, find another apartment, and be completely free from all of this. But I don’t. I want to help you. That’s the difference between you and me. I'm here because I choose to be, but you will always have to be the hero. You will always be Destiny no matter what name you choose to go by. I don’t want to do this, but if you don’t start helping me out a little, I’m not going to stay here anymore” I chew on my lip for a second, staring at the floor. Then I look back up at him.

“Okay!” He blinks, looking confused.

“That’s it? ‘Okay?’ No ‘I’m sorry?’ No promising to offer more help in the future?” I cross my arms and flop back down onto my chair.

“Oh, please. You give me some sort of ‘I do all the work around here, why can’t you just step up and take some responsibility’ speech every other week. I think we both know you don’t have the guts to leave. There’ll just be some huge, apocalyptic, threat-to-the-very-existence-of-the-world-as-we-know-it issue in the next few days that your moral compass will force you to resolve so that humanity isn’t wiped off the face of the earth. I know I usually try to give you some idea that I care about what you’re saying, but it’s been a long week. I just thought I’d save us both some time.” Oliver looks like he’s about to say something, but instead, he just shakes his head and walks out of the room. Wow, I think, returning to my latest journal entry. He sure can be pretentious sometimes.