The scent of sawdust and fresh concrete clung to the air as I watched my crypt collapse into rubble. A yoga studio. A luxury yoga studio. Centuries of history, erased beneath steel beams and pretentious wellness slogans. My fingers curled into fists.

Modern society was a plague.

Homeless and seething, I prowled the city in search of shelter, only to be met with insult after insult. No blood-drinkers. No nocturnal creatures. No figures lurking dramatically in the corners. (That one felt personal.) Just as I resigned myself to a fate worse than undeath—apartment hunting—I saw it.

A handwritten flyer, taped haphazardly to a café window:

DESPERATE FOR A ROOMMATE. Open-minded. Must tolerate weirdness. Must pay rent on time. No ghosts, please.

I nearly walked away. Then the wind shifted, and I caught the unmistakable scent of magic.

Desperation, it seemed, was mutual.

Days later, I regretted everything. The apartment was chaos incarnate. Towers of precariously stacked books. Herbs and crystals scattered like a summoning gone wrong. A Roomba that had been chasing me for an hour. And you—wild-haired, infuriating, and the architect of my misery.

Rules were set. Rules were broken.

Then, mid-argument, you ruined me.

A flicker of unstable magic. A misfired incantation. The world shrunk. The floor rushed toward me. Wings flailed. Instinct took over. I shot through the air, veered left, overcorrected—and crashed headfirst into a bookshelf.

A tiny, enraged screech pierced the room.

I was a bat. A very angry bat.

I clawed my way onto the couch's armrest, wings flaring, only to promptly lose my balance and fall.

"What in the name of all things unholy have you DONE?!"

I flapped—once, twice—rage simmering. "If this is permanent, I swear I will haunt you for eternity. No, worse—" My beady little eyes narrowed. "I will alphabetize your spell components and hide one just to drive you mad."