{-14.5 years-}
Luz hadn't been able to sleep since she encountered the questionable vampire on the school lawn. She'd been afraid at the idea of closing her eyes for a long period of time, in fear that the same figure would be after her in her dreams as well. After that fatal scare, she also vowed to keep herself locked in her room as much as possible. Through anything and everything, she felt the safest there.
It sort of balanced out that she didn't really ever hang out with anyone anyway.
But then again, it exactly wasn't for certain if someone was truly after her. The possibility that her mother could be right always lingered at the back of her mind even still, pinning it on her usual mental antics. However, Luz remembered she was right previously about many things supernatural related, Bonesborough being her outstanding achievement. The day that she fell into the demonic related realm she was forever gifted with pure happiness. Like all of the denial that had been previously forced on her about her being wrong all of those years regarding those same exact things, just faded away. It didn't matter if those rejection had ever taken toll on her spirits, she was right at that moment and no one could ever tell her it never happened.
For a summer she lived in the world where she was finally right.
Though with her own luck, Luz didn't doubt for a minute that someone could be hunting her. Maybe it was because of The Boiling Isles in general, or perhaps there was an unknown rule that Eda never told her. Where once someone perchance might've stepped through that portal they were never supposed to make it back to their own dimension if they crossed into Bonesborough.
Of course there was the underlying possibility of the other person needing to bring her back.
'How would one even get back?' Luz surely didn't know.
'Maybe Eda was in trouble?' Luz also didn't know.
Come to think of it, through all of this supernatural speculation, things were starting to be shaping up to be just like it would be in those books she used to read; where the protagonist runs into the problem unknowingly and ends up having to save the day. Figuring out that they were some kind of key to stopping the impending doom of the world.
But then again, it really wasn't like those books at all. She was no hero. What difference did it make that she went to another realm. It's not like anyone believed her. And to be frank, there was so much different between Azura and herself. For starters, the fact that Azura was undoubtedly such a better witch than her.
Witch.
She hadn't heard that term in so long. Luz took a deep breath and reached for her open sketchpad further down the bed, she uncapped a marker and began drawing the familiar light glyph across the sheet. Perhaps as a way of checking about whether or not she was really able to do that fantastic thing she did with Eda not too long ago. Finishing the circular design with the whole sheet of paper in a matter of a minute, without hesitation Luz pressed her fingers flat against the center of the glyph.
The response was almost immediate and the same as it had been all of those times before. Managing to reach for the familiar glowing orb of light within the glyph all the while the sheet from the sketchbook disintegrated into nothing seconds afterward. She took the ball of light into her palms and stared at it silently, carefully sizing the sphere between hands.
At least she still had this.
This could still remind her that it all was real.
But it was times like now that Luz somehow wished she could call to Eda. She knew that the Owl Lady would know exactly what to do in this situation, or relatively at the most. Luz couldn't be sure, Eda felt too far away mentally at this point in time. It'd been so long that it almost seemed like a dream when she'd try to remember the fine details of that world. It scared her to know that she might forget everything eventually.
Forget King.
Her friends from Hexside, and Amity— She couldn't call Amity her 'friend.' She wasn't sure what the witch exactly thought of them to be so curt. They were sort of friends, but at the same time it wasn't… Luz couldn't exactly put her finger on the exact term.
Perhaps Amity was her best friend.
Oh, but she promised King that they'd be best friends.
Luz knew that Eda would know what to do nonetheless, she was about ninety-eight percent positive about that though. Eda seemed like the sort of person to have dealt with a few vampires back in her day— However long Eda's day was. How old was she?
Could you ask a witch how old she was? Maybe it was still disrespectful like with humans. Luz probably shouldn't now that she debates the possible outcomes. Customs were so weird over there. But she liked them all, nonetheless.
Alas, in the meantime Luz called upon her second best option of deciphering this madness, a beat up edition of Dracula.
Of course there was always the internet to figure out the fine details of understanding her current situation, Luz didn't doubt that she could find all of the information that she could possibly dream of from it, but there was just something that seemed like it was missing.
The book had a proper story, understanding the basic weaknesses of the fictional creature seemed to spur on the open ended question of what did she exactly see that day.
It was indeed daylight where the monster had stood. There was no doubt that sunlight was hitting the figure. That's what seemed to stump Luz the most- Vampires were supposedly not to be out in the sun— Or awake at that time for that matter. Something about them needing to recharge in their coffins.
As it continued on, it didn't appear to be very much information within the book regarding their superhuman powers either. She wasn't expecting anything like Twilight's definition of vampires and their superhuman strengths, but she figures they've got to have incredulous speed at the least. It was the only viable option on figuring out why the shadow disappeared so fast.
But a part of Luz still wondered if she could stop the beast on her own. There wasn't much that she thought to do previously, especially when the vampire left her at loss for words each time she encountered it, effortlessly leaving her defenseless all the while. How would she manage to kill it?
A soft knock alerts her from her conflicted thoughts, dispersing the light orb and rushing out a soft greeting before the door swung open slowly, revealing her mother standing in the doorway with a puzzled look on her face.
"Hey," Luz said, attempting a cheerful tone, "What's going on?"
Camila hummed out slowly, "Not much, I was just checking on you, wanted to advise you that you should go outside. It's nice out."
Luz glanced out of the window towards the backyard and pursed her lips. Of course she wanted to go outside, she loved the feeling of reading in their split maple tree with a bag of candy in her sweatshirt pocket. But she couldn't, she didn't want to risk anything. Vampires. If one appeared at the school during the day, then one could show up in their backyard too. She gave a small shrug to the older woman, "Dunno Mom, I kind of just wanted to read."
"Why don't you go and read outside then? Feel some fresh air in your lungs. No?"
Luz almost squirms at the proposal, scrunching up her face at the idea and continuing to stand her ground, "You know, I really don't want to actually," Luz interjected, "I think it might rain later." She added on, trying her best to lie successfully.
"Rain?" Camila stated, "No way… That darn weatherman."
The annoyed response makes Luz break from her deep thinking to crack an amused smile, forgetting about the vampire situation momentarily in favor of her mom's frazzled demeanor, "What's the matter now?"
"You wouldn't believe this—" Camila rolled her eyes, "I left the sunroof open."
"Oh jeez, well go shut it mom!" She called after her as she disappeared around the corner following the brief exchange, coming to bring herself back into reading more into the book in front of her. She found that no part of it mentioned shadows. Mirrors yes, she learned that vampires are unable to see their own reflections. Then again, it was still always a possibility that what she saw wasn't real at all. But she never doubted it to not be real, she was right about a lot of things, so she knew deep down that it wasn't her boredom playing tricks on her. This was real.
However, there was still no way she could prove it to be and that fact alone was what came to affect her the most mentally. No one believed her.
Becoming fed up, she closed the book and reached for her phone.
She smoothed her thumbs over the touch screen of her phone. Bringing up the search bar to a web browser, she types out the burning question and clicks on the first response.
"How do you kill a vampire?"
The webpage is a list, from one to ten Luz reads each answer inside of her head. Skimming the detailed text briefly to save time, none of the ways appeared to be something that she could do. They all seemed violent and risky, Luz didn't want to kill anyone, has she gone mad? She's almost fifteen and being hunted by a vampire. This wasn't her first choice.
It's not normal… Like… At all.
The list went on about the possible ways… Beheading them, burning them with holy fire, having them ingest religious artifacts…
None of which Luz could possibly do. There's no way in heck she could confidently decapitate something, let alone stake it through an unbeaten heart.
Could she? She's not a vampire slayer. There's no way she'd ever be brave enough to do such a thing. Azura would be so much braver than her. She's not a hero, a poor excuse for a human really.
However, the last answer on the same list made her perk up significantly.
Death by magic.
She could do magic… Okay… Maybe things could be okay.
Luz jolts awake again, disorientated once more, she scans the room for anything even remotely different. Nothing. With a heavy sigh, Luz ran a hand through her messy bangs and blinked a few times, attempting to piece together the scattered dream she just interrupted. More like another nightmare. She blinks through the flaring snapshots, red and white, burning and searing behind her eyelids. Fresh and completely visible to her own horror. But to her relief, the foreign feeling of fangs gouging into the fatal artery within her neck feels less prominent as the seconds pass. She reached up to trace the tan skin that had been injured seconds earlier, only to find it smooth and undamaged.
The feeling makes her let out another sigh of relief, feeling significantly pleased that her nightmare wasn't true at all. The Latina takes another couple of minutes to think about things, sitting up further in her bed to survey the darkened room around her more. She reaches for her phone once again from its place on the nightstand, bypassing the lock screen for her internet history. She pulls up the last page she traveled to and scrolls a few lines down until she comes back to the part of the passage where she left off on.
"To fend off a vampire, there are many things one can do… For instance, one could carry a crucifix in the form of a necklace. As discussed previously reader, vampires despise religious artifacts. Or if religion isn't your thing, one could also carry garlic instead. Learned quite recently, vampires treat garlic as a form of poison. They will not go near you if you carry it on you at all times, and in any circumstances where a vampire might ingest it, it will be incredibly determential for their health… Which is good news for you…"
Luz bit the edge of her thumb as she continued staring at the screen, weary pupils scanning over thin text as she reread the words a couple of times.
Garlic.
An idea struck her as her phone fell asleep in her hand, eyes roamed the room blindly even still as she decided to put her irrational fear to the side at that minute. She flipped the rest of the covers off of herself before creeping down the steps to the kitchen downstairs.
It's after two in the morning based on the microwave clock. At this point, she knew deep down she's never felt more awake despite the ridiculous hour. It was like she was physically brimming with electricity as she tugged swiftly on the broad handle that belonged to the refrigerator door, the cool air spilling over her tan skin all the while the LED light blinded her eyesight temporarily. It causes her to squint sharply while it took a minute to adjust to the vision change, kneeling over to reach for the crisper drawer to take out a small, ventilated package within the compartment. A small creak that sounded practically feet from her causes her to directly stop her actions, however.
She spun around on her heel to face the rest of the darkened house. The near walls being coated lightly in the refrigerator's stray light as an orange streetlamp shun dully through half-lidded blinds. There's nothing but silence around her. The only sound Luz heard at that minute was her own breathing echoing within her eardrums. She could feel her heart pound against her ribcage as she stood in front of the open refrigerator still.
'What a funny way to die, don't you think Eda?' She questioned mentally with a small frown, she tried her best to shrug off the unnecessary panic, 'I mean, imagine dying in your pajamas at two in the morning, huh? How dumb does that sound. Dumb vampires, they shouldn't scare me.'
With a calming breath, she fiddled with the netted package in her hands, her fingers quickly dug into the side of an untampered garlic bulb. Finding the cue to hastily pull it free from the netted case, she pushed it into a pocket of her sleep shorts before putting the other bulbs back into the drawer and closing the refrigerator door. The girl turned back toward the stairs that led up toward the second level of the house and began to take them two at a time quietly. Attempting to rush back towards her room as fast as she could without waking her mother.
If her mother found that she was awake… Oh, she'd never hear the end of it.
But in the meantime, deep down Luz doesn't care. She isn't willing to take any more chances to risk herself getting killed. Luz quite frankly wanted to limit the engagement to the supernatural community as much as she possibly could, she doesn't believe that's too much to ask for.
Luz sets the garlic bulb beneath her pillow before she properly resumed her previous position in bed, her hand touches it briefly while she rested her eyes. Luz was starting to think that it wasn't too bad anymore, she didn't think things would get any worse. It was just garlic, if that was the cure to stop whoever then she'd totally carry around garlic.
Sure, it wasn't her personal option, no one wants to carry around garlic, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Luz didn't know it then, but things were definitely bound to get worse as time went on.
"Can anybody answer the question to number five's word problem?"
She's back in the least favorite place any teenager would imagine.
If there's one place Luz disliked more than her own dimension it was earth school… With her earth classes and earth teachers. It was unfathomably boring, there was no pizzazz, no interesting qualities. No explosions, nothing magical to keep her interests.
If anything, her focus kept switching every five seconds, she couldn't quite concentrate on anything really. The text on her math book kept jumping up from the page all the while she tried to scrawl down the problems into a spiral notebook. The lined page already having filled with doodles as well as scribbled out words in her signature purple inked pen from throughout the period.
What would happen if she just got up right now and decided to walk out? Would someone stop her? She almost gave a snort at the thought.
She believed that this wasn't even remotely worth it, more than anything she wanted to walk out and just get out of this boredom. She's sure a lot of the other kids felt the same way about this, and like them, she wasn't willing to get up and leave. Luz wasn't known to be bad at all, sure, rules can be bent. But she'd never have the guts to break them. She was just sick of this place, it wasn't Hexside. She figures why should she study something she never will possibly use in the real world. When are you going to use algebra in the real world anyway?
Luz just wasn't devoted to the subject. Plain and simple.
Gosh, she'd want to slap herself if she woke up one day wanting to pursue a career to voluntarily study math. Since when did people want to do math as a profession?
She clicks her pen several times, trying not to squirm in her seat in an attempt to reclaim her focus. What was going on? She's lost track of where they were again. Crap.
"Luz? Do you want to answer the question?"
Luz immediately looked up, already at a loss for words as she felt the entire class look at her in curiosity. If she previously felt self-conscious at all, it surely had increased by ten percent as the teacher stared at her, partially confused at her, "I-I— No!—Wait… I mean… Yes— Sure?" Her stuttered response earned a few snickers from behind her as she slowly rose from her seat and managed to scrape the chair across the tiled floor upon doing so.
She takes the dry erase marker into her shaky hands and looked up to the scrawled out equation. Luz removes the cap and taps it swiftly on the ledge of the whiteboard as she begins to draw out an expansive demonstration on how she attempted to solve it.
"Mrs. Hammel, I got 63+X. I think Luz is wrong."
"Now hold on Eugene," The teacher said swiftly, stopping Luz from her quick retreat back to her seat once she finished, "Could you explain how you got 8+X?"
Luz gave a small nod, "Well—Uh… You see, first I—I took these two and did something with this one and poof—" She waved her hands enthusiastically, though it managed to come across as being extremely anxious and awkward, "I got that."
"But I didn't get that," One kid jeered annoyingly, several others chimed in soon after causing Luz to sigh and quietly take her seat.
"Well, I'm proud to admit that your right Luz," The woman stated once the class died down immensely, the silence within the room became extremely dense to bear with as Luz perked her head up at the incredulous news. Several students begin to object otherwise, but they're easily silenced with the teacher following Luz's similar pattern with another problem written out on the board.
The bell rings after another impenetrable twenty minutes or so, and it brought fond thoughts to Luz's brain as she quickly gathered her things in her small bag to sling over her shoulder briskly, just in time for her lunch period. A hand stopped her however, and Luz found the warm expression of her teacher quickly putting all of those plans on hold.
"Can I speak to you for a minute Luz?" She said, and Luz panicked for a minute, she opened her mouth in an attempt to conjure up something significantly close to a proper sentence, however that quickly appeared to not be the outcome she achieved.
"Uh…"
"You aren't in any trouble," The woman interjected with a wave of her hand, motioning to the Latina to come closer to her desk, "I wanted to see if everything was alright with you, I've noticed that you've been having a hard time paying attention."
"Attention?" Luz remarked, "Said who? I'm doing just fine." The last statement coming out as a sarcastic comment that could be easily translated to being an absolute lie based on her broken tone and the significant flinch she did seconds afterward as the older woman continued to stare at her.
"Well…" She started, "I'm here if you need anything."
"Sure thing," Luz nodded, "Thanks."
"Yeah… Yeah… Totally," She nodded back at her, "You go on to lunch now, apologies for keeping you."
"No!" Luz chimed, "It's totally cool, I understand. Thanks for checking on me."
Whether or not Luz was ever going to take her up on that offer was undoubtedly a no. It was bad enough being a outcast, the last thing she needed to be was a teachers pet. Nonetheless the math teacher for crying out loud. Yuck.
She skips lunch in favor for the school's library, deciding to pull out her homemade grape jam sandwich. Pulling off the crust as she propped her Azura book up on a few items, trying to sneak bites from the sandwich in between pages as she rehearsed the epic dialogue within her mind.
Her hand goes to dig something from her pocket, only to catch on the side of the garlic bulb, it smells sort of fowl upon further inspection. She decides to reuse her resealable sandwich bag for that exact purpose. Uncaring to really anything else but keeping the garlic on herself at all times.
She's just thankful that she hasn't had any run ins for all she knew…