Hello! Hi! Welcome back to my mind! Now begins the dark and depressing bits of the fic MWAHAHAHAHAHAH. *Cough* *Cough*... Well anyways! This chapter takes place a few days after the first one. I was originally going to have the prologue be AWHILE before this chapter in the timeline, but when I was writing I felt like this worked a bit better. Welp, I hope you enjoy this next chapter!
The sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow over the Owl House. Luz leaned against her window sill, her eyes scanning the twilight sky, a sense of calm washing over her. The last two days had been peaceful, a rarity in the Boiling Isles. There were no more killer breakfasts from Eda, she had gotten to spend time with Willow and Gus at the Grudgby match, studied with Amity at the library, had an amazing comedy night with King, and even tagged along with Eda and King on some of their errands. It was a surprisingly normal weekend, considering how it started. She yawned, deciding it was probably a good time to get into bed. She had classes tomorrow after all. However, as she was about to get into bed she stepped on something, it crinkled underneath her foot.
"Huh?" Luz thought, bending down to pick up what she stepped on.
It was her glyph notepad. Luz frowned, she hadn't drawn another glyph since the giant bird incident. She clenched her hands together, turning and throwing the notebook out the window. She stood there for a second with her hands still clenched. She wanted to punch something. After a minute she unclenched her hands and sighed. She crawled into bed, curling up and hugging herself. She didn't want to cry again, but she couldn't stop the tears from flowing.
Why did she feel like this?
Luz woke up the next morning to a gentle knocking on her door. She sat up groggily, her body fighting her as she did. She stared at her hands, still red from clenching together so hard as she cried the night before. She tried not to think about it as she wiped some dried tears off of her face.
"Come in." She choked out, trying to sound like her happy, optimistic self.
The door opened, and Eda entered, a concerned look on her face. She took a quick look at Luz and that seemed to make her even more concerned.
She took a seat in front of Luz and said, "Hey Kiddo? You okay? You have to leave to go to school soon, how come you're still in bed?
"Oh… I must've just overslept! I couldn't really sleep last night, I guess I was just too excited for classes again." Luz responded scratching her head. " Guess I should get up and head out then so I'm not late!"
Luz started to get out of bed but Eda grabbed her arm.
"Kiddo… Are you sure you're okay? You've been a bit off ever since the other day. You know you can talk to me… Right?" Eda said, staring at Luz with concern in her eyes.
Luz looked at Eda, trying her best to put on a fake smile. "Eda, really I'm okay! And duh I know I can talk to you, I would come to you if anything was actually bothering me."
Eda let go of Luz's arm, sighing, "Okay good, I just wanted to make sure." Eda stood up offering a hand to Luz, "Well let's go, I'll fly you over to Hexside so you're not late."
Luz took Eda's hand, getting out of bed. "Thanks, I'm just going to use the bathroom real quick and then we can go."
Eda nodded, rustling Luz's hair, turning around and leaving Luz alone in her room. Luz sighed, threw on her Hexside uniform, and then walked across the hall into the bathroom. A couple of minutes later, Luz headed down the stairs, ready for another day of classes. She quickly said goodbye to King, who was napping on the couch, gave Hooty a boop on the nose, and then left the Owl house with Eda and Owlbert, flying their way to Hexside.
The wind whipped past them as they flew over the sprawling landscape of the Boiling Isles, the sights and sounds of the magical realm stretching out before them. Before long, they arrived at Hexside, the towering spires of the castle-like building looming in the distance. Eda gracefully descended onto the school grounds, floating a few inches off the ground. Luz hopped off of the staff, landing on the ground with a soft thud.
"Thanks for the ride Eda, and you too Owlbert." She said, reaching her hand up to scratch Owlbert on the top of his head. Owlbert cooed, acknowledging Luz's thanks.
"Have a good day at school Luz. I'll come by and pick you up later and maybe we can head by one of your favorite shops on the way home?" Eda offered, a slight bit of concern still visible in her eyes.
"Thanks Eda, that sounds n-." Luz facepalmed. " Oh! I actually have plans with Willow and Gus after school today. Sorry Eda, I completely forgot!" Luz said, scratching her head.
"It's okay kiddo… Have a good day at school then!" Eda said, slowly levitating back into the air waving at Luz.
"Thanks Eda I will! Cya later!" Luz said, waving back.
Eda and Owlbert took off, vanishing over the horizon as Luz watched them from the grounds of Hexside. Letting her smile drop for a second, Luz sighed. She really didn't want to go to school today, but she was sure she would at least have a good time with her friends.
Quickly, she turned around, slapping her face and putting on a smile. "Today will be a great day of learning and friendship!" she said loudly, walking towards the front entrance of Hexside.
The rest of the day went as per usual. She had her usual classes, had lunch with Willow and Gus, and even got to see Amity at the school library for a little bit. It was honestly a pretty good day and she was already feeling a lot better. As she left her last class she bumped into someone outside the door.
"Hey! Watch where you're go-." Amity started, "Oh, Hi Luz!" She said blushing once she realized who she bumped into.
"Hi Amity! Didn't mean to bump ya like that." Luz laughed, a slight blush creeping onto her face as well.
"It's okay, I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going anyways." Amity responded, shuffling her books in her hands.
"Where are you going in such a rush anyways!" Luz questioned, raising an eyebrow..
"Oh, I have to go home. My Mother needs help with one of their "projects." Amity sighed.
"Oh…" Luz said, frowning. She knew that Amity didn't have a great relationship with her parents, they had talked about it before. In Luz's honest opinion, they were shitty parents. "Do you want me to walk you out? Give you some company before you have to go home? I'm heading that way anyway to meet Willow and Gus."
Amity smiled and slightly blushed at the offer. "That would be nice Luz, thank you."
Luz smiled back, and with that decided they started to walk towards the front doors of Hexside. They chatted about a couple of things; new books, how classes were today, their Good Witch Azura book club, and etc. As soon as they got outside, they spotted Gus sprinting towards them, waving his arms in the air. Amity and Luz looked at each other, concern raising in their eyes. They started to run towards him, meeting him at the bottom of the front steps.
"Gus? Is everything okay?" Luz asked, going to put a hand on her friend's shoulder.
However, her hand passed right through Gus, and as it did he started to speak. "It's Willow! She's hurt! We need to get help! We're in the woods behind the Grudgby Field. I don't know what happened to her! I was looking for her after classes since she said she would be here and I found her all bloody. I sent one of my clones to find you Luz, please come quick!"
Luz and Amity stared at the clone of Gus, and then at each other.
"Go Luz!" Amity said. "I'll go and find Principal Bump or one of the other professors and try and get some help!"
Luz nodded, started to freak out. "Thanks Amity."
She turned, staring at the clone. "Lead me to them."
The clone nodded and started to run towards the Grudgby field. Luz and Amity took one last look at each other and then ran in opposite directions. After a few minutes of running, the Gus clone disappeared into the bushes behind the Grudgby field. Luz followed after him, coming into an empty clearing. As she looked around, she heard a whooshing sound, and all of a sudden she could see Gus and Willow.
"GUS! WILLOW!" She shouted, sprinting over to them.
She crouched beside them, staring in horror at her friend. "Gus, is she alright? Amity is going to get help from the school."
"Luz! Thank Titan you're here. I'm not sure what happened! I tried to patch her up to the best of my ability. I just found her like this." Gus said, shaking as he was holding onto Willow's arm.
Luz looked at Willow, she was in really bad shape. There were multiple lacerations on her body, and she was bleeding pretty bad. Luz felt tears come to her eyes and she put her hand next to Willow's face. Her eyes opened at Luz's touch.
"Augustus? Luz?" Willow said, weakly. " Where are we?"
"Shhhhh Willow, It's all going to be okay." Luz said, crying now. "Just rest, help is on the wa-."
It took her a second but she had gotten a weird feeling in her gut after Willow spoke.
"Willow, what did you just say?" Luz asked.
Willow stared at Luz. "What do you mean?" She coughed out, confused.
"What did you call him?" Luz said, pointing at Gus.
"Augustus? What about him?" Willow responded, still confused.
Luz backed away slowly. Something was wrong here.
"Willow… You haven't called Gus his full name since we met. We've always called him Gus since then because he loved the human nickname so much." Luz said, her heart starting to beat heavily in her chest.
Willow and Gus looked at each other, and then all of a sudden Luz heard someone say…
"CUT!"
All of a sudden a ton of Coven Scouts popped up, surrounding Luz and her friends.
A man walked through the group, he was a thin, fairly tall witch with light skin, pointed ears, cornflower eyes, thick eyebrows, and curled, slicked-back teal hair. He has a long, teal prehensile tail with a tan fur tuft at the end.
"C'mon guys! That was terrible acting, how could you mess that up so bad? We almost had her!" He said, pointing at Willow and Gus.
Luz stared at him confused, but as soon as he said that, she heard a quick popping sound. As Luz looked back at Willow and Gus, she now saw 2 Coven Scouts. Luz gasped.
"This was a trap?" She thought to herself.
Slowly, she reached into her pockets, going for her glyphs to defend herself. However, she quickly realized that she had no glyphs on her. She had thrown her notepad out the window last night, and she hadn't drawn herself any new glyphs since then. She looked around, she was entirely surrounded. Even though some of the Coven Scouts were holding recording equipment? she knew she still had a very low chance to escape this. She was glyphless and alone to defend herself. Well not entirely glyphless…
As the Man continued to give "Notes'' to his Troupe of Scouts, Luz slowly started to draw a glyph with her foot. If she could set one off as a distraction, maybe she could escape and run back towards Hexside and get away. Luz had only let her eyes leave the Man for a second, but as soon as she looked back up he was there, only inches from her face.
"A-Ah-Ah." He mocked, "You have to act better than that to get the jump on me. "
And before Luz could do anything, her vision went black.
Hi! Isn't it crazy how fast things change? The angst has begun and I am going crazy about it! Well anyways, thank you so much for reading this chapter! If you have any ideas of how I can improve this fic, just leave a comment! If you love it so far, leave a Kudos! Next chapter coming soon to a mindscape near you!
(P.S. There is one red flag with Gus' clone that is supposed to allude to it not actually being Gus' illusion. If you can figure out what it is lmk!)