(Warning: Purge Crimes and more Trauma)
The door was busted down before Luz suddenly rolled across the floor, the gun was knocked out of her hand and someone was was holding down!
"NO!" A voice said, making Luz open her eyes.
"Amity?" Luz said in surprise, seeing her head cut and broken arm were healed.
"Don't even think about doing something like that!" Amity shouted at her.
She didn't know what the gun did but Amity just had a bad feeling due to the shape of it.
"Amity, let me go. you don't know-" Luz's begging was cut off.
"That doesn't mean you can just take the easy way out! What would everyone that cares about you think if you kill yourself?!" Amity shouted in her face.
"The only people that know me are the ones that are hurt because of me!" Luz said, still crying. "I've done nothing but hurt people I hate, kill people that didn't deserve it, and ruin families that will never see those people again! Everyone I ever meet gets hurt! I nearly killed Eda, one of the few people that trusted me!"
"Luz, without you, my siblings would be dead!" Amity said, reminding her of last night. "I would literally have lost the only caring family I have if it wasn't for you! You saved them!"
Suddenly, Luz recalled what she did in the library but felt different about it. In that moment, she killed Otabin not out of her own enjoyment. She killed him to protect someone……..to protect Amity and her siblings. But still, Luz shook her head at the bad still outweighed the good.
"One good thing doesn't change the fact that I've killed dozens of people!" Luz said, looking away." "I've taken children from their parents! Robbed elderly people for their jewelry! I've beaten people half to death, broke their legs, and tossed their still breathing bodies into a lake!"
The Purge really did bring out the worse inside of Luz, making her a killer in every sense of the world. Even more than she originally thought from her justifications of being treated like an outsider.
"I…….I can't-" Luz was drowning herself in her own tears, nearly blinded by her sorrow. "I can't possibly be forgi-"
"Then live to repent!" Amity shouted, making Luz gasp as she looked her in the eyes. "Live to repent for everything you've done! Dying now when you've just started becoming a better person won't fix anything!"
Though Luz was nearly blinded by her own tears, she could see Amity was shedding tears of her own as her grip on Luz was shaking.
"Please... don't do something like what you were about to do. You're the first real friend I've had in years." Amity said, her tears falling on Luz. "I don't want to lose you."
""But……..what if I have an episode that hurts you like I just did Eda? I don't want anymore blood on my hands." Luz said.
"Luz... I know you won't hurt me, and even if you ever do, I know you didn't mean it." Amity said, moving off of Luz and sitting next to her.
Luz remained on the floor, looking up to the ceiling as she thought about everything Amity said to her.
"Can... can you give me a minute?" Luz asked, no longer desiring to kill herself. "I need to call my mom."
Amity nodded to this as she stood up.
"I can wait outside if you want but give me all your weapons first." Amity said, drawing a spell circle and summoning an abomination.
Luz stayed quiet as nodded to Amity's request, pulling her hunting knives, her machete, and uzi from her person before handing them to the abomination as Amity claimed the revolver from the floor. They both left the room and closed the door as Luz pulled herself up, wiping away her tears as she walking to her makeshift bed and pulling out her phone.
She scrolled do her mother's number and paused for a moment, worrying how she would react or how she would feel after not being contacted for so long.
'Hopefully the connection is strong.' Luz thought, calling the number and putting the phone to her ear.
"Hello?" Camila answered.
"Hello, mama……..es Luz." Luz said in Spanish to hide her nervousness.
"Ah, Luz, I was wondering when I'd hear from you next." Camila said, happy to hear from her daughter. "How's the place your in? Have you been doing good at giving up the Purge?"
"That's... why I'm calling." Luz said, speaking in English this time.
From the way Luz sounded, this sounded very serious and she sounded very shaken from this.
"Go on, I'm listening, Mija." Camila said.
"The person I'm staying with... I hurt them." Luz said, wiping away more tears as they began to fall. "They opened their arms to me and I almost strangled them after waking up from a nightmare! Ever since I gave up killing, I've been having these crazy hallucinations! Every time I turn around, I see a ghost of someone I've killed or I see myself covered in blood when I look in the mirror!"
"Luz, Luz, it's okay!" Camila said to her over the phone.
"No it's not! I want to change! I want to be a good person, a better person, but how am I gonna do that if I feel like I'm losing my mind?! If I keep having these flashes of what I did and who I killed?!" Luz asked, bursting into tears again as she fell to her knees.
Luz was practically sobbing again as her vision flashed and she saw the zombie corpses of everyone she killed around her! Groaning in pain as they glared at Luz, pointing to her and speaking horrible words!
"Freak! Monster! Murderer! Killer! Abomination!" They screamed at Luz, making her cover her other ear to drown them out out as she tried focusing on her mother's voice.
'Stop it! Stop it! Please just stop!' Luz mentally screamed, shaking her head with her eyes shut.
"LUZ!" A voice shouted, making Luz gasp as the zombie vanished.
"H-Huh?" Luz let out, looking for the source.
"Luz, listen to me. You ARE becoming better." Camila said sternly. "Because a month ago, my daughter wouldn't have cried over the bad things she did or over the people she's killed. You are feeling guilty, yes, but that just proves that you are becoming a better person. Tell me, did you mean to hurt this person taking care of you?"
"N-No. I would never want to hurt Eda. She took me in and let me stay after I told her everything." Luz said, wiping her eyes and nose.
"Then you are becoming better. Because you have someone you can deeply trust and would never want to hurt despite everything." Camila said in a motherly warmth. "You need to realize, just because you hurt someone, doesn't mean that you're a horrible person… it just means you're a person. You hurt others, you make mistakes, it's part of life."
"B-But-" Luz stuttered.
"But nothing. Making mistakes and growing from them, it makes you a human being. Just as imperfect as everyone else." Camila said.
"Even when you're a Purger?" Luz asked.
"Especially if you are a Purger. This will be a hard change, but I know you can do it, because you already are changing." Camila said, proud of her daughter.
"A-And if the flashbacks get worse?" Luz asked.
"Think of something or someone calming. To keep you grounded and to push the darkness away." Camila said in a soft voice. "You'll get passed this, I know you'll conquer your inner darkness."
"Okay but how can you be sure?" Luz asked.
"Because I know for a fact that you aren't the only one who's gone through this. Your father was the first." Camila said.
"Dad was?" Luz said in surprise. "He stopped Purging before me?"
"Yes, 10 years before you were born. If he could do it, so can you. I promise you, you will NEVER let your inner darkness win. And if you ever fall into the dark again, just remember... your name is "light" for a reason. Manny said that you were the light of his life on the day you were born." Camila said.
Luz closed her eyes new tears fell, feeling a large weight lift from her heart as nodded, despite the fact that Camila couldn't see it.
"Okay, I will, thanks mom... I love you." Luz said, smiling a bit.
"I love you too, Mija." Camila said before the call came to an end.
Luz sat in silence as dark thoughts were gone, her mind clear, and her sorrow was lighter than before as she wiped the last of her tears away.
Luz stood up and went to the door, feeling that opening it would be her true first step into starting anew.