She rises with the dawn. Her body is white, stained pink like a linen might be after being affixed to a clothesline in the early morning. All the light shines through her, and by extension towards me. Her body is a mixture of nebulous female fixtures, and as she walks towards me, her hair loses its feathers, which fall out onto the ground as her body becomes solid. She puts a hand around my head, and I recognize her cold eyes and warm face, the dark folds of her lips.

"Derrick," whispers a familiar voice. I wake up. You're there, and I'm clutching the stone under me. "Get up."

I bolt upright in bed. You're sitting on the edge, smiling. "Amy. You scared me."

"What, because I'm a ghost?" you ask, rolling your eyes.

"You're not a ghost," I say, willing the sentence into being. "Right?"

You shake your head gently. A subtler dawn is coming through the window, casting light onto a white landscape, full of snow. It makes whatever kind of fever dream I was having earlier look more like cat vomit than a real dawn. "You should have talked to Maris while you had the opportunity if she's experiencing something like this," you say. I haven't told you everything, but I've said enough. I give you a stiff nod that begins to pale as my poor jaws slacken out of a smile.

"We should probably worry about that later." Yeah, like I want to think about it. I keep thinking if I prod the situation too hard, you'll cave, like a spiderweb. The whole thing's being kept up by blind faith. "Hey, how much of my environment can you see?"

You raise an eyebrow. "None. What's up?"

"It snowed last night," I say. My voice cracks, because deep inside, I'm still twelve, waiting for the deer to take me out of the house. "You know. Christmas Eve."

"My family's been preparing all morning. Don't remind me." You chuckle to yourself. "They'll be in any minute. I think they've already begun to suspect something's wrong. I keep freaking out, thinking that they might send me somewhere, but I know they wouldn't. They're just too happy to have me back. Still, I just... I feel like I'm sick sometimes. Like I might throw up, but nothing's there. You?"

I blink bad memories out of my mind. "I have a very serious condition known as teen angst."

You laugh. It's the same pretty, birdlike noise I remember, a soft cooing that overwhelms all my senses at once. I think I might cry, but I don't. Maybe I can't. "Take me outside anyways."

I slip out of the house, past the smell of baking fruitcake through the exit downstairs that leads out under the patio. Our house overlooks the woods in such a fashion that we have two floors facing the declining side of a long slope, which makes one way a lot more painful than the other. It's not going places that's hard. It's the getting back.

"You really can't see anything," I say.

Your illusory form is standing next to mine. "No."

"Sky's blue," I start.

"Wow," you whistle. "No kidding."

We both laugh, and I shake my head and continue, "Big, skeletal trees everywhere. Tall as anything."

"Alright."

"And between them, a landscape on a soft decline. The whole world is silent, there's nothing out here but the two of us, and it feels like everything has been smothered to death."

"Macabre, but I can see it." You close your eyes. I can see the detail on your lashes. I'd never really noticed them while we were running for our lives, but now? I want to drink in every part of you I'd almost forgotten. It's too true to be a hallucination. "I'm in my room. It's the color of the sky, almost all the furniture is white, and none of it says anything about me. It's as boring as a room could get, save for stuffed animals. I keep them--"

"In the bookshelf, under the bed, and anywhere someone might think to sit," I finish.

"We told each other a lot, didn't we?" you ask, teasingly. "How are your Extras?"

"They're a mess. Most of them are honestly worse off than I am, I mean, aside from..." I trail off. "How are your normie friends? Beckett? Erica?"

"How do you think?" Your voice is that of a mourning dove, shot out of the sky. I cup Glimpe's eye, imagining a softness spreading across dimensions.

The last few weeks sit bitter in my mind. "Do they... discriminate against Extras in your world?" I ask.

"Hate us," you respond with a shrug. "Mainly behind our backs, which doesn't leave much room for friendships. Whatever! Use your imagination, Derrick."

"Do you think..." I pause, blushing at the compliment. You notice me run my hand through my hair, I'm sure of it from the way your mouth tilts upwards, your hollow eyes glittering with illusory light. I hold a hand to my face, trying to search for words amongst the snow. "I mean, I keep thinking, I'm seriously, seriously dangerous to myself and those around me, and I keep wondering... should they be afraid of us?"

With the kindness of a teacher talking to a small child, you say, "Of course not. Look, no one would ask to be like this, I mean, aside from someone with no real understanding of the consequences, but that doesn't mean... that doesn't mean we should be treated like second-class citizens. There's a huge range of symptoms for Extradom, a massive swathe of various ways it can manifest depending on quest, situation, everything. Doesn't lumping us into one category seem disingenuous to you?"

"A little," I say. "Most of the time I'm just trying to save myself."

"You don't have to feel bad about that," you insist.

"It's alright. I don't need to worry about anything now, since you're here."

Your misty hand draws close to mine and grabs it, but we fall through each other. You step back in the snow, your form flickering in the hand that holds Glimpe's Eye, and we watch each other from a slight distance, the way that two deer with no affiliation might hold each other in rival eyes before moving on. The ground is lacking in tracks, as my fox nose confirms, but all my externalities are numbed by snow. I can barely sense anything, and when you speak, the voice is lost to winter. The air around us sings with cold and you disappear like you're stepping through a doorway.

I toss my coat against the sofa on the lower floor as I enter the house, fingering Glimpe's Eye all the while. It won't be long before next contact, right? I'm counting down seconds, crossing off ways things could suddenly take a turn for the worse (because when don't they, in my crazy life?) and watching through windows like there's anything to see.

"Derrick," says my mother, behind me. The air is rich with mulling spices, the kind we used to give to 'neighbors' (what neighbors we had, out this far) when they came over around Christmas for the closest thing we did to carolling. I hadn't realized we'd make a batch this year, since I used to do most of the menial preparation tactics.

Enough of that. "What's up?" I ask. Too casual. Too colloquial. Yikes.

She folds her arms. "Put your coat away when you're done with hit. You're going to get snow all over the place."

"I love you, mom," I say, bitterly, as I go to hang my coat up from where it lies on the sofa. I shake it out deliberately, water rippling off its impermeable surface, and delicately drop it on the knob. "We wouldn't happen to be watching Christmas specials or anything fun tonight, would we? I figure we're too busy not talking to each other, but you know, what do I know?"

"The Rankin-Bass specials will be on at 8," she says. "Your father and I will be watching them."

"Without a kid? Seems a little weird."

She folds her arms tighter against her, trying to defend herself. Her long, straight ginger hair hangs in a ponytail like the ones you see in anime, the ones the caring mothers who die at the end have. Her face is stiff and slightly wrinkled, although I always found her a paragon of beauty as a child, and her form is slimmer than before I left or when I returned, though this is covered by a large wool jacket with a goofy reindeer lovingly embroidered into it. By 'covered', I mean draped across like a bad taxidermy. It's an ugly sweater, and she's lacking in whatever sentiment helps people pull it off.

"Well, see ya," My voice cracks on every word, but I escort myself back upstairs and into my room. For nostalgia's sake, I crack out a few old records (it's a Beatles day, for sure) and put them on low enough that it won't make the entire house vibrate. The record player's in sorry shape from when I first came home and used to go on outbursts every few days, but it functions, as do the records themselves, though each scratch is a little too literal for my tastes. I flip open one of my old handhelds and boot up a Sonic game I hadn't played since I was seven.

DERRICK!! reads the save file before me.

Finn was right about this.

After I save for the third time, I put the device down and stare up at the ceiling. I had endured longer silences than this for years, but now, here, everything is a little too quiet, too empty, and my stomach growls even though I have no desire to eat anything. Fox brain urges me towards the snow, away from the sounds of Eleanor Rigby, and fox brain can sit down and pop a few chill pills. I consider calling Mikayla. I wait for you. I text Mikayla and ask for the numbers of everyone else in the class, only to turn on Airplane Mode and delete the unsent message. Time passes at a glacial pace, with me staring, waiting, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders in the way animals must before storms drive them away from coastlines.

Deer pass at the windows, heading uphill. They flock around the house, heads lowered, their step thick with a grim, human kind of intent.

"Go away," I say to the window. I open it. "Go away! Jeez! Quest's over. Someone else took me. I don't know what you want, but I'm not biting unless it involves a way to predict Extradom or the secret to finding Amy. Wait, maybe I am biting. Do you want me to eat you? I will do it. I threatened once like five months ago, but here's Derrick with the follow through! Are we all in agreement? Nod if you agree."

So, no response to that. Somehow that's not surprising. I don't get a response from downstairs, either, thankfully, and as the sun sets, I put on my coat and run outside. Most of the deer are gone, but one of them looks right back at me, eyes wide with a big, soft sadness.

I've never liked being pitied. I swing a hand forwards, baring claws and teeth, and yell, "If you want something from me, just explain what--"

The deer does not budge. It looks down at the small flesh wound I've given it with something almost resembling shock. It then shakes its tail, looking towards its herd.

"I can't come with you, man. Not that I wouldn't enjoy a double dose of trauma on my hot mess sandwich, but I think we're going to hold the condiments for now." I shrug. "Plus, I'd be some kind of... extra freak anomaly. People don't get two quests."

The deer looks to its herd again then flicks its ears towards the window.

"I know I'm not a people."

The deer tilts its head like a dog.

"I mean, I'm kind of a person, right?" I ask.

It nods affirmatively.

"Sorry for hitting you by the way. I've got this anger thing I'm working on. Do you, uh, do you know about the Reema Spiral?"

So the deer does not know about my counselor's college dissertation, as established by a very sorry looking expression and another slight tilt of the head.

"Do you know why I was seeing Amy before I got Glimpe's Eye? Do you know how to turn this on and off?" I hold out the stone.

The deer sniffs the stone and licks it, once. It then backs away slowly, its big, sad eyes full of fear.

"That's helpful," I say. "Thanks, universe. The cross-dimensional communicator is probably dangerous. Never would have guessed. Now, can you--"

The deer leaps away into the woods, springing off to join the herd of magical deer who enjoy screwing with me and ruining its life, and I find myself shivering in the snow. I rub the deer spittle off of Glimpe's Eye with my coat, and I trudge back indoors, slowly, and find my parents watching the Rankin-Bass specials, as promised.

My mother's arm is around my father. There's no space between them, but there's an old armchair to the left of them that has been left suspiciously empty. I settle into it, feeling my cheeks flush, and sit with my arms folded.

Their faces are blue with television light. It reminds me of the sterile lights of the laboratory. The television set whines and is patched in the corner where someone put a hole through it. It reminds me of this summer. Their faces are too concerned to be worrying over the predetermined fate of Rudolph the Different-But-In-A-Conducive-To-Society-Way Reindeer. They are holding me in the corner of their eyes, me and my large teeth, disheveled hair, and terrible fashion choice.

A child sleeps between them on the floor, and I can almost see the Toll House cookies we used to make. I get up, suggesting, "Water," and walk to the fridge. I close my eyes and open it, finding two rolls of cookie dough and a carton of unopened egg nog. "Would you guys..." I pause. "Would you want to make cookies?"

The television flickers off.

My father and mother stand in the doorway.

"It's premade. They're not too tricky," I promise.

"There are Christmas cookie cutters in the pantry," My mother dives for them. "Let me just get them out."

"Can you close the deal with some sprinkles?" I ask, trying to smile without showing teeth.

My mother holds up her cookie cutters, which rest in an old tub decorated by my frantic crayon scrawl, and my father rustles a six-in-one pack of sprinkles. I set down the tubs and rummage for the tins, twitching slightly all the while. Anxiety, excitement, and a deluge of memories flood through me, clawing at my dopamine and adrenaline and just about anything that could ruin this moment for me. I try to settle my face, ignoring the dark-lined eyes I get a glimpse of in the windows.

You're not their son, whispers an old voice.

We make cookies in a little less than silence. I admire the ginger of my mother's hair, my father's sharp nose, their builds, and try to remind myself that I was born somewhere, came from something, before I emerged reinvented from the hells of the laboratory. I do not touch them once, and they keep a wide berth around my fingers, but my father's scars are healing up.

Animals sleep outside. I settle back into my bed a half hour after they take theirs-- never been downstairs after them, at least not after this, but someone has to take the cookies out of the oven. At least I can be trusted with something. I wait for you as I fall asleep, and I think I see you against one of the walls, as a reflection off our patio lights: you're with your family, singing hymns, and my head slumps a little further into the chair I'm sitting in the wrong way, so that the back supports my face.

The smell of cookies makes both sides of my brain buzz with excitement, but I just want to put the pan away to cool. I place it tenderly and fall asleep the second I hit my bed, the blankets like warm snow. I curl myself up in blankets and don't hate myself for the unnatural way my body spreads out, for once, for the way the beast child curls in the bed of my parents' dead son.

The next morning, there's cocoa and mulling spices at the doorstep, along with a little cookie decorated to look like Rudolph. What makes us different makes us special! reads a little inscription by my mom. It's too soon, but it's an attempt. I can respect that.

I pick up the cocoa, sip deeply, and descend the stairs.