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Chapter One
Noah
Whoever said it's lonely at the top never met Sage Montgomery, never experienced her dedication to camping out at the peak of success.
It had been five years, seven months, and twenty days since I started publishing my mermaid webcomic on Inkmic, and during every single second, she defended her multiple positions on the site’s leaderboard. Hell or high water, the woman didn’t miss a chapter. Her fans didn’t, either. They flocked to every new release, drowning her with sugary praises, lengthy comments, and unfortunately, well-earned votes.
Sage's domination couldn't be rivaled. Many have tried and all failed.
Until last month.
I'd posted a plot twist chapter, killed off a character no one had expected to die, which opened the floodgates. The feedback made my phone stall from all the notifications. My comic jumped over a hundred spots on the chart, skyrocketing me into the top five. For a split second, I nearly broke Sage's eight-month streak of being number one.
No one had ever gotten that close, not that quickly. As icing on the cake, my chapter had garnered the attention of the one artist everyone on the website wanted to come back from hiatus, the one artist who could give Sage a real run for her money.
kraken: this is a nice change from what's usually in the top five.
I know she'd seen it. Everyone saw kraken's comments. He got enough likes to be at the top of anything he commented on, and this week, he was on top of my work. I was a nice change.
The external validation from a fellow artist fueled my weekend of moving. Despite Florida's sickening humidity, I sang as I moved up and down the rickety staircase that led to my new apartment. I'd been working on not needing pats on the back since starting therapy in college, but every exercise I'd practiced melted away. Being patted on the back by fifty thousand people was enough to make anyone forget they're not supposed to be worried about others' opinions.
"Wait, if you're so great, why are you working for her? And moving into an apartment that smells like a college student's first attempt at smoking weed?" Liana's questions were a record scratch. My sister stood in the doorway of the stuffy living room I'd share with my best friend from university, Amaya.
Liana's gray pinstripe skirt and white blouse were the excuse she'd used to not unpack my kitchen supplies. She didn't even take off her black heels, shifting her weight from one side to the next every other second.
Liana was too uptight to relax on the sofa, not since Amaya told her it was thrifted. Thrift store finds were always infested with bed bugs or lice, according to my sister. Bonus points for both.
Amaya and I spent the afternoon carting my boxes of art supplies and hand-me-down clothes into my room, while Liana spent it complaining about my decision to move out of Mom's place in exchange for the smallest room in a two-bedroom apartment on the not-so-impressive side of town.
Sure, there wasn't a fancy gate at the front of the apartment complex, or a beautifully tiled pool to host parties around, but there was charm in the three, centered arches and the hole in the hallway wall from a drunken game of shot put. I was sure the mysteriously stained carpets would give me more inspiration than Mom's sparkling hardwood floors ever could.
"I'm not working for her." I grabbed a box cutter and sliced open my living room decorations. "I'm working with her. We're both… head artists."
The title felt like shaved ice on my tongue, melting as soon as it established contact. I kept thinking this was a dream, kept wondering how my comic helped me get an interview at Harpy Comics. I'd signed a contract to be a head artist at the comic company I used to spend all my allowance reading. My angsty, lesbian mermaids helped me afford to move out on my own for the first time since graduating.
"I'll have you know that no college student's smoking what I got." Amaya lowered one of my boxes onto the kitchen table. She was a short girl with a curly pixie cut that framed her round face. The fading honey blonde in her hair making her brown skin appear warmer. Like in university, Amaya dressed as if she existed in a cyberpunk fantasy. Today, she wore a neon yellow, asymmetrical top and slouchy black cargos. The apartment was full of science fiction costumes she'd designed over the years. Amaya's uncle ran a practical effects and costuming company, and she worked for him whenever he had the budget for an extra hand. Any extra supplies post project, she got to keep and mold into a killer wardrobe.
"I only buy the best." Amaya smiled sweetly. "Are you interested in a sample?"
Liana scoffed, unimpressed. "No, thanks. I have a job."
Amaya shrugged. "So do I."
"Really?"
I turned away to hide my laugh with a dry cough.
My sister was never convinced anyone who didn't have an advanced degree and position in some sort of STEM field had a "real" job. Like our parents, she worked in the science field—Liana's specialty was bacteriology. I didn't understand much more than she'd probably be one of the first to know if there was a bacteria-caused zombie apocalypse on the horizon. When I joked about it, she called me predictable and boring, and that was as far as we'd gotten in the conversation. That was why she was as clueless about art as I was about bacteria.
"I still don't understand how one becomes a head artist when all you've done since graduating is post doodles online." Liana's eyebrows arched down, disturbing her otherwise flawless face. She twisted her goddess locs into a bun as she watched me unload my stash of blankets.
I tried not to take the doodle comment personally—I'd spent over a decade trying to get my family to take me seriously. They've never discouraged me from pursuing art. Mom and Dad loved the idea of having an artist in the family, but they didn't think it'd breed any tangible success. My parents didn't think my work would make it off my childhood bedroom walls, didn't think I'd ever make more than the few hundred dollars I'd been bringing in from my freelance work post-graduation. Their support was laced with an unspoken agreement that they'd have to financially provide for me.
"I don't post doodles," I said calmly. "At least, not all the time. I post fully colored chapters with an intense amount of depth and detail. That's just the art. I always write my stories–"
"Did you hear that?" Liana interrupted, turning her gaze toward the stairs.
"That your rideshare?" Amaya crossed her fingers.
