*Note: This story was a request from a good friend of mine, user elena. Please note that while I did have fun writing this story, I don't plan on doing any more requests. I've got all my other stories to write and get out there, and I don't really want the stress of adding more to my list. I hope y'all understand, but please enjoy.

Chapter 1: My Stepmother, la Bruja

They say a lot of people's lives are far different from everyone else's, right? Well, mine couldn't possibly be any more different than it was when my dad married my stepmother, Oscura Amzy. And no, this isn't some tragic story of an abusive stepmother and a neglectful father, or a long story about how my life was completely normal before Dad married Oscura. This is far from what you're expecting. Bit of background for you: Birth mom disappeared when I was eight years old, presumed dead since then, dad gets depressed, meets a new woman ten years later, falls in love, they get married, everyone's happy. Well, I wasn't.

You see, my stepmother was weird. And I'm not saying that because I was mad that Dad completely forgot about Mom. I've passed that point in my life to be jealous or angry about that sort of thing, okay? I mean Oscura was weird with a capital CREEPY. She hardly had any other familial contact from her old village in Peru, if her name was even mentioned to anyone in her village, nobody would talk about her or consider her too scary to talk about, she collected blood samples from various different animals and kept them secret and away from my dad. Obviously not from me because I kept finding them around my house. However, the weirdest thing about her, I didn't even find out until she literally sent me into the past and to another dimension. Destination: An animated version of the Incan Empire with the most infamous emperor to exist.

Hi, my name is Zoe Rosades-Amzy, and let me tell you about how the weirdest summer and school semester of my life made me La Bruja Especial.

It was a month after school let out. I was officially a senior, which meant that I had a whole year left of that hellhole most famously known as high school, and I was about to turn 18. Things seemed pretty normal until my dad remarried my stepmom a few weeks later. They had been in a relationship for about a month before school let out, so it wasn't that big a deal to me that they got remarried, but I could tell as soon as she realized I was still living with my dad, my stepmother did not like me, and I didn't really trust her either.

One day in June, while I was listening to music in my room, looking at summer job opportunities in my local Indiana town, minding my own business, I got a weird text from my stepmother asking me to meet her in her room for a very important conversation. First off, I never gave her my number. Don't know how she got it, but I didn't really care. Secondly, I felt that it was weird that she actually wanted to talk to me. I thought maybe she wanted to finally have a decent conversation without the two of us yelling at each other. But I still had my suspicions about the whole thing. So, when I went to talk to her, I kept my phone on just in case things got crazy.

I went into Oscura's room where I found her sitting weirdly on the bed. As if she was waiting on me to enter. Yeah, this was already getting crazy, and I was right to feel skeptical about it.

"Okay, look, I know Dad wants us to get along, and I'm sure he fell for you for good reason," I began to say. "But, no offense, but I just don't think I really like you."

"Jealous that I'm taking your father's affection?" she asked me. "Or that I'm replacing your real mother?"

"No." I answered her. "You just give me bad vibes."

She kept looking at me with this weird, devious smile on her face. "Ya veo."

Oscura then stood up and walked over to her wardrobe and started looking for something in her drawers. This was getting weirder and weirder by the minute, but I had to keep a brave face on. There was no way I was going to let this psycho scare me off with whatever weirdness she was up to.

"Tell me, do you know what they call me in my old village?" she asked me.

"No?" I answered in confusion.

"I am La Bruja," she told me as she pulled a black stone amulet with purple feathers hanging off it and a jaguar engraved on it from a drawer. "The witch."

I gave a sarcastic scoff. "Yeah, and I'm the Tooth Fairy."

She expected me to believe that she was a witch? Yeah, she's crazy.

"Joke all you want, but my ancestors come from a mighty reign of powerful sorcerers and skilled alchemists." Oscura explained to me. "My abuela of many generations ago even once ruled over the Incan Empire, briefly."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked her with my arms folded.

"Because I think it'll suit you best to go there." my stepmother told me. "With you out of the way, and no child to inherit your father's fortune, I will take all his riches."

Oh, yeah, did I mention my father was rich? Yeah, he was the owner of many vineyards in Indiana, so that meant that we were pretty rich, and I had a bit of an inheritance from my dad in case something happened to him. He never told me what it was because he wanted it to be a surprise for when I was old enough to take over the family business. I guess Stepmom found out about the inheritance, assumed it was a large amount of money, and wanted to go all Flowers in the Attic just so she could have it all to herself.

"Okay, yeah." I said as I backed away slowly. "You are crazy."

"How so?" she asked me with a tilt of her head.

"This talk about you being La Bruja, empires that fell due to white people colonizing, and the fact that you just blurted out that you don't want me around?" I listed her weirdness to her face. "Yeah, starting to sound insane."

"You call this insane?!" Oscura cackled as she held out the amulet in front of me.

I watched in confusion and shock as the amulet started to glow a faint purple color while my stepmother chanted something in Spanish.

"Castiga a esta chica, envíala lejos.

Llévala al imperio y asegúrate de que se quede.

Hasta que se convierta en bruja,

regresará y se enfrentará a mí

para determinar su destino."

All of the sudden, a gust of wind blew into the room. And while I tried my best to stand my ground to avoid being knocked over, the floor beneath me just disappeared. I found myself holding onto the rim of a swirling, rainbow vortex. I couldn't tell where it was leading, and I didn't want to find out. I tried pulling myself up, but it was no use. Things got worse for me when Oscura kneeled down and started forcing me down into the vortex.

"There's no way Dad will let you get away with all this!" I shouted up at her.

A cruel and scary beyond all reason smile crept onto my stepmother's face. "I already have."

And with that, she pushed me in. I was sent down the vortex screaming my head off, my stepmother was an actual witch, and my dad was oblivious to all of it. I couldn't even think straight about what I could do to try to stop her from doing something worse to someone else, especially my dad, from everything that was happening. When the vortex finally had an ending opening out, I couldn't make out where I ended up, because as soon as I hit the ground, everything went black.