Luz could have had a better day.
An objective truth that she would throw hands with anyone who ever dared to dispute.
But, to be fair, the day had started okay, maybe even considerably well.
She had made sure whatever homework was due three days ago was done, so no teacher would jump her when travelling home; her mom had slipped a little chocolate delicacy into her lunch bag, which she viciously devoured, and, miracle of miracles, the bus driver didn't smash the door in her face.
Like any other week.
It was actually halfway through the day that things plummeted downhill fast.
And not. One. Bit. Was her fault.
For who would fault those delivering clear justice?
Well, dirty justice if she spoke more plainly.
The lines of her sneaker's rubber soles, festering with dried streaks of dirt, alongside the small bits of brown still stuck beneath her fingernails even after scrubbing them raw in the bathroom for minutes, are a testament to that.
And honestly? Clara deserved worse.
Dumping a container of dirt on her head might appear a bit overkill, but that is what she gets for saying the clothes her mom had so graciously picked for Luz had a 'homeless person smell'. To her little gang of cronies' amusement.
"Well, how do you smell now, huh?" Luz muttered under her breath, hugging her backpack closer as she allowed the memory of Clara's shocked face soon to be covered in dirt to warm her insides.
Was such rightful retaliation not justice for the excessive insult?
The present teachers had disagreed. The lunch monitors had disagreed. The principal had disagreed so hard his bald head had nearly burst like a microwaved egg.
Perhaps she could have reacted less aggressively, could have tried to shrug it off like always. But today she didn't feel like it. Didn't want to be the usual half-measure kind of girl.
Go big or go home as the saying goes.
But home she did not go—even if her brain was gradually becoming oatmeal, with the only small miracle in the whole ordeal being that she got no suspension, nor any humiliating parent conference, just detention. Two weeks of it, sure, but still.
A decision that carried an odd finality even with its unimportance, like the fate that didn't exist ticking closer toward something. A defiled carcass nudged forward.
The halls were now oddly quiet, with only a few students wandering here and there, no one important to see the way her shoulders sagged in exhaustion, the slip in her pocket seemingly weighing her down even if it was naught but paper.
Outside, it didn't take a lot of searching to unfortunately locate her mom's car that was waiting by the curb. The familiar dent in the fender glinted under the late-afternoon sun, and swiftly reminded her that if she was here and not at that godforsaken hellhole she called work, then Carmila had been informed of her...transgression.
Fantastic.
Slightly speeding up, she quickly reached the old car, slung her backpack into the backseat, and followed, closing the door behind her once inside.
And in the sanctuary of her mom's car, she was quickly informed that—while Carmila was still stuck for a few more hours at work, Luz's phone and tablet better be deposited on the kitchen table by the time she got home. No negotiation, not even any real greeting.
Which, in Luz's humble opinion, was a punishment worse than death, but even that was nothing compared to being immobilized before the gut-wrenching shimmer of disappointment reflecting from her mother's gaze.
She didn't endeavor to offer any defense, her clothes feeling far too suffocating like a rugged cage, and too stiff like a burlap soaked in salt pressing against her skin, any retort dying in the acid on her tongue, making Luz hug her knees even tighter.
All her life, she had endured the oppressing sneers or pitting gazes of the people surrounding her. But when it came to her mother, the only one who always loved and cared for her, Luz could do nothing but desire to curl up in a dark spot and never arise again.
Because there was no sharper agony than disappointing the only person who still loves you.
The car hummed along the road as neither attempted to chat anymore, the town slipping by in streaks of brick and glass. Luz fiddled with her sleeves, twisting the fabric tight until the elastic dug into her wrists even harder, barely restraining her desire to tell Carmila why she did what she did, but knowing even at her age how bad Clara's words would hurt her mother more than they hurt Luz, like daggers to the one who tried her best to offer everything she could to her only child.
The silence stretched further the closer they got to their home, Luz's eyes dancing alongside passing structures and eventually drifting to the flock of birds splitting the sky far above. They moved in V patterns, gliding without a sound across the cosmos, soaring across their town with no interest in the mortal world below.
But as their house came into view, so did the flock suddenly shift in a frantic pattern, scattering apart in all directions before they could pass over her home, and as such forsaking her interest.
The drive itself had almost felt as if it stretched into forever, lasting for what felt like an eternity, but, at long last, they pulled into the driveway.
Before Carmila could even shift to park or muster another word, Luz launched herself out of the car, legs a blur of motion even if they ached and spasmed from the sudden effort placed on them. Nonetheless, she forces her body to run until the hardened cement under her feet gives way to slick grass, which is then replaced by the parquet of her porch.
Clutching the cold knob with quavering fingers, she flung the door wide open, shutting it with a surprisingly quiet thud not a second later without a care for how hard it banged.
By the time the first droplet breached the surface of the eyelids, streaking hot and traitorous down her cheek, she was already rushing up the stairs.
Her steps were frantic and uneven, banging against creaking stairs that, unbeknownst to Luz, carried her upward like a conveyor belt toward a new chapter in her life.
A meager action that will mark a radical change to her essence, setting the foundation for a new course in her life that will gradually mutate her very being, a change that will one day mourn the past where disappointing her mother was the epitome of her fears.
Perhaps, if it wasn't for the spindly fingers of shame and guilt pressing down her throat like serrated knives grinding at flesh, she could have been able to focus on her surroundings.
Her room quickly came into view, its door cracked open, allowing the faint scent of fabric softener to drift out from the pile of clean laundry Carmila had left folded on her computer chair this morning. Something she had not noticed in her sleepy state.
If only she had been more careful, paid more attention in her dazed state, then the incoming events that would befall her and her loved ones could have been abated.
Luz threw the door open before violently shutting it, sneakers she had forgotten to take off squeaking slightly against the floor, leaving a muddy trail behind the girl, but trails she cared not for in that moment, unable to see it.
The same way she didn't see the cheap carnival prize she had won for her father years ago, bright yellow paint flaking on its beak, the object somehow finding its way in the center of her room.
If tears hadn't blurred her eyesight, she wouldn't have stepped on the duck toy lying in the center of the room.
But those are just 'What Ifs' that are not worth considering, for history has never bowed before hypotheticals.
After all, one can never defy the path paved by TheHunter.
For that reason, in mere seconds of her foot stepping on the rubber toy, her line of vision shifted from the large window to the ground, colors bleeding into each other, and Luz could do nothing as her skull smashed against the corner of her desk.
They will be denied no longer.
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Fear of the dark.
The primeval inheritance.
A phobia passed along from their ancestors, terror born in the hearts of the first men that walked the earth and whispered across millennia until it became indistinguishable from the ordinary pulse of modern life.
From their very inception, the first splutter of awareness in their nascent ape brain, still crude and no better than a wet, polished piece of meat, declared one commandment above all else.
Banish the Night. Extinguish the dark, and drive away its touch influence from their homes and hearts, be it by fire or light.
Thus did man decree that the sane world of theirs shall remain forever untouched by the dark.
And so, to preserve their sanity, they lit torches, forged lamps, and built cities that bled radiance into the sky that made even the stars appear faint.
But this fear is an irrational misconception, a fallacy molded from nothing, and one they had no one but themself to blame for it.
No other shared their unreasonable terror regarding such a fundamental element of Creation. Animals lacking the cognitive depth to dwell on such dull concerns slept unbothered by its presence. And in another dimension so closely linked with their own, witches perceive darkness just as a natural element no different than light, the air they inhale, and the decaying Titan carcass beneath their feet.
It is this baseless supposition, born from the primordial crucible of fears that had plagued humanity since long before the first flame was set alight. An unfounded conviction that dictates that something sinister must lurk in the deepest depths of the dark, curling its figurative teeth at those who trek too far into the unknown.
Century upon century they have put that assumption to the test, peering beneath beds, splitting the darkness with pure light, and yet they still cling to this first inheritance. Never learning the ignorance of their puerile belief.
Never realizing that the things they fear exist at the borderland between light and darkness, in a place where neither one holds dominion.
Do you now begin to understand Luz Dolores?
Monsters concealing themselves behind the cover of darkness are nothing more than grotesque projections, mere vivid creations born of terror-soaked imaginations. Darkness has and will always be nothing more than a concept brought into existence by Life's azure pulse, a soft thing where no monstrosity beyond mortal comprehension would allow itself to dwell in.
Never in something so feeble, so natural, and so intimately woven into what they abhor the most.
Madness, however, is another matter entirely.