{-14 years-}
The cool autumn breeze came to lash against Luz's slender frame as she walked briskly down the pavement, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her jean shorts as her hood covered her head. Finding a stray pebble entertaining as it bounced against the cement and rebounded up against the tip of her white slip on shoe while she continued on her route home. Dusk beginning to fall around her seamlessly unannounced.
Her stomach growled, coming to be quickly unbothered by the bystander strangers that she wove around as she made sure to keep her head down while she kept moving toward the pathway that belonged to her street.
She's pushed suddenly by a middle aged man as she swooped around him, the contact effortlessly caused her to stumble a bit and falter her quick pace as she quickly disregarded him for being pushed towards an unfamiliar alley way.
Oddly enough, the universe sensed her general unnerve as she started to rapidly spin around on her worn heels to turn back onto the path when she suddenly found the first few droplets of rain moisten themselves against a purple cat ear, then another against her hood. The light sprinkle shifts to a downpour within a matter of minutes, and Luz doesn't think much of the matter apart from the inconvenience. Momentarily cursing the universe and it's obscure ways.
A voice stops her from walking out of the estranged darkened path.
It sounds from further down the alley. Without much context, the female voice sent a shiver tingling down her spine, it's a faint holler of her name.
It's too dark to really see down the narrow path, the only real light came from a flickering streetlamp above her as she barely made out the shape of power lines that ran between the two buildings on either side of her, mentally stalling at the same time as she stepped timidly forward.
"Who's there?" She questioned.
The only response was her name yelled again, it almost sounded as if it came from further away that time and it sends Luz sprinting at the thought that someone might need her help. Being the caring person that she was, she'd never turn away someone in need.
Splashing through half-filled puddles of murky rainwater and easily ruining the cleanliness of her shoes. Luz isn't sure who it might be, but the voice sounds familiar.
She slowly trots to a stop in exhaustion, easily managing to forget momentarily how out of shape she was. Incoherently mumbling something about her 'nerd legs' beneath her breath while she took a minute to heave fresh air back into her deprived lungs but not before she brought a hand up to wipe the ridiculous amount of sweat that collected on her brow from the laughable distance She stays hunched over and panting harshly for another minute, sucked in a breath and brought her eyes to the darkness, "Hello?" She tried again.
It's within a small glimmer of a streetlamp that Luz's stomach dropped. It's something that causes squinting to become a necessity, still unsure that her eyes weren't playing tricks on her, but despite how much Luz denied the vision, it's for certain that she easily spotted dyed green hair through the orange hued lamp. There is a figure towered over her, with a few more flickers from the streetlamp it's seen that the human-like figure had Amity in the air, against the wall with their hand scrunched in the collar of her shirt while it continued to hold her in place.
She looked to be squirming, – If not thrashing. – against the hold. Obviously uncomfortable, and attempting to shove her hands against the figure's hold.
"Amity!" Luz managed to call out, choking on a mortified scream, "Stop."
The human-shaped man darted it's eyes toward her, she noticed his unusually pale face.
If Luz thought it was a human at all before, she was beyond wrong. Dressed in black robes underneath a streetlamp as fierce red irises with blown pupils glare at her. It sent some kind of trance running through her entire subconscious in what was to be believed as trepidation. She stopped dead in her tracks, the pale ghostly face snarled wickedly at her, baring long pointed canines.
What the heck, are those— Fangs?
"Luz—"
"Amity. No! Stop!" Luz quickly rushed out. The Latina managed to conjure up the energy to run up to the figure in an attempt to shove against the monster's side while they cornered Amity further. It didn't budge them at all.
The action simply added to their aggravation further, without much warning they craned their attention to Luz and hissed sharply while she continued to fight against the enamored monster to free Amity from the life threatening position, "¡Déjala en paz!"
"Foolish child," It laughed sharply, almost devil like.
The sound went straight to her gut as it released its hold on Amity. The brown-rooted witch slid down the wall with a sharp whimper. Water continued to lash against Luz's head as the three of them stood inches from one another. She notes how the beast started to creep ever-so slightly toward her with an alarmingly wide toothy smile as it focused all of its attention on Luz and her frustration, "Didn't anyone ever teach you not to put your nose in other people's business?"
Amity reached limply out toward the monster, a fatal attempt to grab wantonly at the bottom of the black robe they wore, "Luz, no—"
"Run, just run," Luz responded quickly to her. The human let herself cut off the witch as her eyes flick back up to blood red ones, "Take me instead. Don't hurt her."
"Luz—" Amity called again, Luz blinks as the figure swept closer to her, effortlessly grabbed her by her collar and lifted her several inches within the air in almost a bone crushing grip. Luz assumes it could crush exactly that if it was put to the chance to. The fresh rain clawed its way into her hair already matted hair as her hood slid free with the sheer force.
"Run," Luz hollered.
"Luz—"
"No! Amity, run!"
Amity didn't say anything differently.
Instead, she repeated her name once again, the voice grew louder in volume as the beast exposed their fangs and let out an animistic growl in reply. It's a sharp sting, almost as if her throat was closing up within itself as what she believes is venom trickled its way into her bloodstream.
It stung, like a thousand bee stings mixed with the oversensitive feeling of burning one's own flesh on a hot stove top. All of her nerves screamed out in unrestrained agony as fangs pierced through her tan flesh. Seconds spawned dizziness upon her brain as her eyes slowly lulled shut without much conformation.
Patterned with the soft flutter of her weakened heart that struggled to consistently beat during this traumatic sensation. Letting her life slip into the monster's mouth. Her breath came pouring past her chapped lips in a slow drawled out pants. Without a questionable choice, Luz submitted to the monster.
Her last sight was of Amity, behind her eyelids, consisting of parted lips exhaling her name loudly. The scene around her came in slow moving frames. Unsure of what's real or hallucinatory. A shaky bloodcurdling scream emitted from the back of her throat.
As much trouble as it was to suppress it, the Latina couldn't help but to let out a panicked last resort distress call. It's not aimed at calling for help, but she couldn't help but feel the wantonly searing pain control her brain subconsciously.
It felt like a fire, her body. Crackled embers pressed against the bitten vein in her neck, almost the comparable feeling of hot coals dancing upon skin mercilessly made her feel that it was time.
There was no use to fight it. Luz couldn't win.
She could only hope that Amity would understand to run.
As soon as it became intolerable, the pain quickly diminished, and she felt the light from behind her closed eyelids fade to black whilst her heart slows to a stop.
Luz bolted awake in a panicked sweat, the blankets that hugged her half-dressed frame fell from her shoulders as she succumbed to the darkness of her bedroom walls. She guessed it was still night from the shadow of her personal belongings that echoed across the perimeter of her room. She reached over tentatively to the nightstand beside her bed to use a hand to fling her charger from her phone's battery port.
Lent back against the pillows of her twin bed seconds afterward, Luz squinted at the brightness of the device, without a thought, she brought a hand up to rub her weary eyes. The current time being projected to Luz along with her lock screen photo.
Amity and her as well as Eda and King.
She smiled softly at the warm faces that took up the entirety of the touch screen cradled tightly in her hands. Quietly, she moved a finger over the edge of King's skull covered face, containing wide and charming poison shaded eyes with a devilish glint hinting suspicion based upon his flared cocky nostrils upwardly turned at the grasp Eda had on his jawline. Armed folded, he looked sternly at the camera, she took another breath and bit her inner cheek, she internally debated with herself at how much of a comfort she should allow herself to feel at the sight of her friends.
She dearly missed them. The human world was not truly her home.
"Miss you bud," She murmured softly to the screen, she shifted her finger to brush over Eda's wide mane, "You too Owl Lady."
Amity's semi-pink face brought her back to attention, a nervous smile plastered over her lips as Luz herself held the camera above them. Capturing the four of them in frame as they hung out in the Owl House.
Luz remembered it well, all of the simple details that regarded taking the photo now. How it became necessary to pull Amity close because of her all-too nervous behavior and uncertainty to her cellphone.
'Come on, it's just a picture Amity. It's not scary, see? I'll show you.'
'Are you crazy?! You call that a camera from where you're from, human? It looks like it could eat us.'
'Oh my gosh, you're so dramatic Blight, it's not going to hurt you, see? The light just flashes when I press the button on the screen.'
Luz gave a loud sigh as the screen fell dark again, "I think I might miss you the most of all Blight."
Her head snapped up quickly, immediately craning her ear to the eerie silence, witnessing the abrupt disturbance of a branch snapping from outside her window. Effortlessly, it drew her attention full force back to reality.
She moved to sit up in bed, shifting around toward the window with her natural inquisitive intuition. The Latina remained quiet as she attempted to look out of her single window that gave an uninhibited view into their backyard, she found nothing out of the ordinary.
"It's probably fine," She coached herself quietly, her teeth caught her bottom lip as she blinked furiously at the yard. The panicked teen took a deep breath to try to settle her racing heart rate as she rubbed her eyes and scanned outside the window again, "See? Nothing. We should just go right back to sleep. Yep, sleep sounds totally great right about now."
Luz shook her head and twisted herself back around on the mattress, trying to position herself back against the hardened pillow beneath her head. She tugged the scattered blankets back over herself and inwardly sighed, "It was just a dream. Vampires don't exist. You've just got a crazy imagination Noceda."
Luz eventually let her eyes fall half lidded, quickly yawning in exhaustion. There's something that catches her hazy gaze. It forced her back awake. Almost rattling any sort of comfort she had just achieved in the past few moments before. She noticed a strange human-like figure that sparked her paranoia all over again. On the furthest wall, a silhouette that stays unmoving, almost like—
—they were watching her.
The thought alone makes all of the hair stand up on the back of Luz's neck, she raced up to the window once again to see the silhouette's owner quickly, unbothered to keep her strategic nature or maliciously tactful in her ways of spying on the stalker. The result was the same as before, the wind blew against the tree in the empty backyard swiftly. Nothing changed.
Luz let out a pained ridden groan of pure annoyance, rubbing her eyes and clearing her throat with her racing mind ticking away within her skull. She subconsciously denied the fact that she might be losing her mind. This wasn't the Boiling Isles, there was no such thing as bloodsucking beasts or— Truly anything supernatural at her knowledge. It was her own dimension, not some backwards fairy tale with animated houses, or Griffins with spider breath.
She abruptly squirmed back beneath her blankets further, recreating her comforting fetal position for the umpteenth time, Luz scanned the room for the shadow purposefully once again.
Goosebumps begin to spread across her arms as she stared hard at the furthest wall.
For a minute she's tempted to look out of her window once again, but decides not. Letting her mind wander down the rabbit hole of potentially being afraid to know if her superstition was correct.
The figure is gone.
She debates once again whether or not it even existed in the first place, but derides that she was in fact correct in seeing a human-like figure possibly watching her.
Stalking her purposefully.
Luz wanted to scream at the thought. Her lungs burned with how quickly she inhaled and exhaled, hyperventilating as a panic attack washed over her. Her skin starting to sweat as she continued clutching the blankets against herself, her grip is hard enough that she's almost nervous she might rip a hole in them with her nails.
Needless to say, she didn't find that sleep was her friend for the rest of that night.
"I swear to you, I'm not crazy. You've got to believe me."
Luz was now sat in the nurses office, on a caramel colored cot. She held a bag of almost melted ice over her forehead a women dressed in a white cardigan fiddled with a thermometer. The older woman brought the cool metal stick toward Luz's frenzied expression, the Latina took it unbothered underneath her tongue without question.
"Vampires?" The woman exclaimed, "There's no such thing… Apart from movies and those strange supernatural stories you hear. There's no such thing as vampires Miss Noceda, quite the preposterous statement."
"Look," Luz began to plead, her tone dropping several octaves as she lifted the ice pack from her forehead slightly to look at the nurse better as she stood transfixed on the temperature reader in her hands. "I know it totally sounds insane and completely fake. But I'm not crazy. I know someone was watching me last night. I—"
The thermometer beeped abruptly, cutting the rest of Luz's self-reserved monologue off. The women lent forward and pulled the warm object from Luz's mouth. She shucked the germ cover into the waste bin beside her desk. Unbothered to answer to Luz's inner struggles, "Well, you aren't running a fever. I'm afraid I can't let you go home."
Silence broke out, and Luz gave a small nod before parting her lips to speak. "—Do you think I'm crazy?" Luz stated, almost pleadingly.
The women latched the wooden medicine cabinet shut after tucking the thermometer away, "Do you want the honest truth or the sugarcoated one kid?"
Luz's face contorted into one of insecurity, "Honest? I'm not sure if I could handle anything any other way."
The nurse took a deep breath, coming to take a seat beside Luz as she reached a reassuring hand over to pat on the Latina's legging covered knee, "I don't believe what you're saying sweetheart."
"But—" Luz started to protest, only to be cut off by the nurse continuing.
"But that doesn't mean that it's not true."
"I see," She replied, exhaling glumly.
"But unfortunately, since this does count as a statement that could potentially endanger your life, I'll need to call your mother."
"No!" Luz shot out immediacy, alarming the women with the sudden protest, "I m-mean… No! Please, don't do that. My mom…" She frowns, "She wouldn't believe me either, probably would just want to send me to therapy or tell me to not be so childish anymore."
"Honey," The nurse interrupted, "If this is potentially a threat to your life, you mother should take it seriously."
"It is!" Luz replied quickly, "You've got to believe me, I'm in serious danger."
The period bell rings seconds later, the noise interrupted their conversation and made Luz panic further, somehow acting even more skittish and on edge as the schools nurse rises from the cot and moved to stretch a curtain around the bed, "I want you to take a nap, try and see if that'll help you at all."
"I don't—" Luz stammered out briefly before sighing deeply, "Alright."
"Mi hija, what is this news that I heard of you telling the school's nurse that you saw a vampire last night?"
Luz looked up from her graphic novel and pursed her lips as her mom held up her cellphone towards Luz's eyes, "Mom—"
"I already told you this. I've told you it once and I'll tell you again, you need to not imagine such heinous fantasy worlds. It'll affect your dreams. Maybe you need to stop reading those fantasy books?"
"Books?" Luz exclaimed quickly, "No! Mamá, I swear I'm serious. This has nothing to do with books, I saw what I saw."
She clicked her tongue, almost seeming annoyed and skeptical as she stared at Luz. The eldest Noceda brought a hand up to push her rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose as her opposite hand folded on her hip, "I don't know."
"Mom, you've got to believe me. Someone was actually watching me, I can totally prove it. It's not fair, I'm not lyin—"
"¡Suficiente!" Camila sternly cut her off, she sighed as she reached a hand up to rub her temple, "There's no such thing as vampires Luz, there wasn't in— Wherever you were, and there isn't now. You need to remember that."
"But mamá —"
"No. Enough Luz. You need to not worry about such foolish things. Nothing is going to hurt you. Relax."
Luz sighed, almost coming out defeated, "I know what I saw mom."
"It's your imagination Luz," she corrects.
"It's not!" Luz argued sternly, "I can't believe you don't believe me."
"Mi hija," Camila shook her head, "It's not that I don't believe you. You've just been always known to have such a wide imagination, you think of such weird things that don't even exist."
"But vampires exist mom, I saw one."
"You saw a shadow," Camila corrected, "It's not the same—"
"It doesn't matter!" Luz argued, "I could die and you're not even taking it seriously."
"You're not going to die, don't say such foolish things like that mi pequeña."
"It's not foolish!" Luz rose her voice, Camila's frown broadened.
"Enough," She clarified, "I don't want to hear another word about this vampire nonsense. You aren't going to die. If I hear a peep about this again I won't let you read those books anymore. I don't think they're doing anything good for your mind. I think they might be scaring you."
"They aren't scaring me mom," Luz said, "I just know deep down I saw something that wasn't a shadow. I don't understand why you don't believe me."
"Because mi hija," Camila sighed, "This isn't another dimension, I think your just confused. You're seeing things to make up for your boredom. And that's normal. I've always known you to want to pretend, but you need to grow up a little bit. There's no reason you need to go around spreading these incredulous ideas. Your going to frighten everyone."
"But mom, I thought you understood. I'm not like everyone. I don't want to fit in. I never had," Luz explained, "When I was in that other dimension I felt like I finally belonged somewhere, and to know that I can't be there anymore— With my friends…. hurts me quite frankly. You don't know what that's like. I loved being an outcast, and I know that I will never fit in. No matter how much people want me to. That just isn't me. You should stop expecting that from me. I'm a weirdo, and I'm not afraid to express it."
Silence broke between them, Camila's expression goes unchanged as Luz slowly trails off. Gathering the message that she must've gone on too long. Her mother breaks quiet, sighing loudly before clearing her throat.
"Dinner will be ready in an hour. I traded Isabelle's night shift this morning, so I'll be leaving in half an hour to go to the hospital."
"Okay," Luz murmured softly, staying silent for another minute, "What are we having?"
"Sancocho."
"Cool," Luz exhaled.
"If you knew what was good for you mighty beast, you'd be ever so foolish to attack!" Azura shouted, the mighty lava dragon breathed a long string of smoke from its nostrils as he flares them in the air with disposition.
"Azura! You cannot stop me in my mission, you are too late!"
The witch twirls her wand, bringing her opposite hand up to grasp along the rod, her determined eyes narrowed at the lava beast. Taking her time to study the degrading magma platform beneath her feet. It appeared that she'd be foolish to attack the beast in that current moment. One wrong move and it would become fatal for her life.
"Perhaps. But do you know what you will do once you succeed?" She stalled.
The lava figure paused in its gleeful state, studying the witch as she stood proudly, "Ever so inquiring Azura. Why, yes I have."
"May you enlighten me then?"
"I dream of getting out of this cave," The monster said, "You see, I've been trapped here for the past hundred years from a fatal curse. I cannot move from this cave… If I should. I would die."
Azura took a minute, and an idea sprang to her mind as the volcano appeared to vibrate once again, she only had seconds before the village would become plunged in hot fiery magma, "If I help you escape, will you not let the volcano erupt? You would be hurting hundreds of people."
"Why of course, I do not want to hurt those people Good Witch."
"Very well, I shall help free you—"
"Miss Noceda, I do not believe this is the time for reading books."
Luz's gaze snapped out from her book as she brought her eyes up to Mr. Nichols' lecture about the industrial revolution. A few kids snickered as she shook her head firstly and closed the book, tucking it back beneath her arm as he resumed teaching seconds later. Luz seemingly yawned softly in boredom as she set her eyes back onto the PowerPoint slide that covered the screen.
"Hey, Luz."
Calum. A kid from the grade above her, tapped her shoulder causing her to slowly turn around.
"What's with that guy staring at you?"
"Guy?" Luz questioned to the blonde boy, he gave a nod and pointed to the window in the corner, sure enough there was indeed a figure.
It looked to be a man dressed in full black attire stood on the walkway on the school's front lawn, unable to potentially see in due to the one-way glass. But still having managed to make the Latina uneasy. The figure was significantly paler, and upon glancing at them they visually straightened their back.
Students began to murmur softly to themselves, catching looks at Luz as she blinked silently. She could feel her stomach drop and all of the color drain from her face in despair.
"What was that?" Calum questioned.
Luz doesn't respond right away, deep in her thoughts as she panicked in silence.
"Luz?"
"What-AH," She jumped before sighing, "Sorry. What?"
"Who was that. Do you know?"
Luz blinked slowly at the boy, shaking her head in denial at his question.
In all honesty she wanted to say she genuinely did, but it didn't appear she knew what it was. She didn't want to say what she directly believed it to be, because she was already terrified.
Vampire.
Having her fear appear in the flesh sent something rattling through her spirit. It almost seemed that moment changed her life forever.
She knew she couldn't be who she was without being scared of whoever that figure might be.
'Oh, Eda… What would you do in my position?'