ULTRA DELUSION GIRL

by cacacamilonn

Summary:

Luz had always been a bit of a loner. With things just going wrong with her life, she finds it difficult to keep going on the worser of days. Especially when some people aren't here to make it all better anymore.

Suddenly before class, Luz's life brightens when she meets a beautiful and elegant girl the same age as her. She is kind, patient, and she doesn't even laugh at her behind her back! Perhaps, Luz thinks, they can even become friends.

Too bad she's just a hallucination.

Chapter 1: Black Hole

The clouds seemed to part, and beams of beautiful, yellow sunlight shone through the windows with reckless abandon. Faintly, Luz thought she heard birds chirping in the distance, but that was impossible. The trees here were barren of winged animals, not since the school was insistent on getting rid of their nests. Teachers didn’t like bird droppings thrown around where it could hit anybody, and it does give extra work to the cleaners of the school, spread thin with the enormity of this place.

 

Still, she does not look up, that is not what made her look up. 

 

The smell of something elegant wafts through the air, hauntingly beautiful, almost dizzying that it sends Luz’s brain spinning, only for a moment. She catches it in the air, and it smells like…vanilla. Vanilla with something floral, an undertone of what might be a woody texture. 

 

“Hey,” says a voice, it is youthful, if ever so slightly deep. “Is the chair next to your’s empty?”

 

That is what makes Luz look up. No one acknowledges her, spare the moments of importance like presentations or group projects where it is necessary. She definitely is wearing a confused expression, looking up from where she was writing on her notebook.

 

She laughs. “Is this seat taken?”

 

The world seems to warp around her, her purple hair glistening in the sunlight that looked odd, as though she was a star of heavy mass, making everything in its orbit gravitate around her. Her eyes are yellow, almost catlike, and though she seems to be wearing a decent amount of makeup, her face underneath it all shines through regardless. Is this what people say when makeup is used to elevate the face, not hide it?

 

She’s….Luz is trapped like a planet towards its impending doom. The darkest spell of Hecate that almost cowed Luzura in the third book of her favourite series, before she undid the black hole spell and bested her darkest incantation.

 

“…Yeah,” Luz says at a loss for words. “Yeah no, It’s fine. You can sit here.”

 

And then she does, the scent of hers in the air as it flew past her into the seat next to her. Luz hopes she isn’t staring, god she hopes this purple haired girl doesn’t notice. 

 

She eyes her shirt, a collared top with little frills down the sides. She’s awfully pretty, her skirt brushing past her knees in a black and purple pattern that looked like argyle. Her purple hair is styled half up, the rest cut around her shoulders as brown hair peeked through the roots.

 

She looks over to Luz, almost as if discreetly, and their eyes meet. They look away, and god does Luz feel utterly embarrassed. Staring is rude, and all that.

 

The purple haired girl turns to her, a hand outstretched. “My name’s Amity. Amity Blight. What’s yours?” 

 

It is a little horrific, being this scared of such a pretty girl. She could hardly compare to her, to her beauty and the elegance in which she holds herself to, like it was imbedded into her bones and written in her flesh. God, hopefully not. That would be horrible. That’s likely not the case, no. That would suck for her, no doubt.

 

She turns to Amity, Amity Blight and tentatively shakes her hand. The world continues to warp ever so slightly around her, and when she looks down to watch her paler skin against Luz’s, her hand warps against Amity’s too. 

 

“I’m…Luz. Noceda.”

 

It feels like signing away something important, but the girl smiles, and with a free hand she tucks her hair back all sweetly, like a hidden secret, like it’s something to be a little nervous about.

 

“You can call me Amity,” she says. “It’s nice to meet you, Luz.”

 

And that was how Luz had met Amity. 

 

She was no fool, she noticed the way nobody noticed her, how the teacher barely registered her purple hair and yellow eyes, how her seat mates-or as close as seat mates could be, a only Amity sat beside her-ignored the purple haired girl, despite her obvious beauty. 

 

Luz noticed how the world warped and twisted around her, to the point she tried poking a pencil at Amity, just to see if it would bend a little. She laughed at her attempt, and a little awkwardly, Luz laughed quietly along. It did bend a little, a bit like light around a supermassive object.

 

Was she some sort of ultra realistic hallucination? Did she eat anything weird the previous night? Well, she’s been eating a lot of weird things over the course of the year; biting mushrooms, licking moss, stealing crystals, perhaps one of them did have a later lasting effect on her. She thought she threw up all the bad ones so far.

 

Was Amity some sort of secret goddess or fairy, hiding amongst humans to hide from the evil Fairy Queen? She shook her head and tried her best to focus on the teacher’s lecture, but the thought remained, still. 

 

It was such that she greeted Amity every day, in which she waved back amicably, black and sleek backpack held up by one of her shoulders as they sat beside each other, whispering pleasantries and the occasional deeper conversations that followed a week into this new routine.

 

She was definitely some hallucination. For the week they’ve known each other Amity had sat at her table with her, yet her food remained untouched. None of her classmates had even perceived her in the week she’s been sitting next to Luz; always smiling, and ever so slightly magnetizing the world to her like she was a large blot of ink in a typewritten paper.

 

If Luz was a letter, she would probably be an E. Or a Z. E for being one of the most common letters in the alphabet and Z because it reminded her of Azura. To be fair, a lot of things reminded her of Azura, in this case it reminded her too of other things. She asked Amity very quietly during a slow class, when the teacher had left them to their devices.

 

“I’d be an A,” she said. “Because A stands for Amity, obviously.”

 

“-Luz?” The teacher says into the class, and Luz is jolted awake from her daydreams and theories. 

 

she stands a little straighter, mild panic lacing her tone. “Uhm…what was the question again?”

 

“What are the minerals most found in Mercury,” she says, pointing at her presentation of all the planets in the solar system. “What are they?”

 

A bead of sweat dribbles down Luz’s throat. She tries to collect information, anything retained from the lecture or previous slides but it comes empty, memory falling through her fingers like water. She gulps, looks left and right, why can’t she remember?

 

“Well, um…”

 

She notices all eyes are on her, and on some occasion she doesn’t mind the stares, but today….They seem thick, like a blanket of heavy weight laid on top of her haphazardly. She can hardly breathe, and the longer she stands there the more she looks like a fool and-

 

“Olivines and Pyroxenes,” a voice cuts through the echo chamber of her mind. She looks left, and there is Amity, still warping the chair and table weirdly, like the moving picture of a storm.

 

She blinks in confusion, she is disorienting, but beautiful. Amity jabs her head in the direction of the teacher, who looks expectant for an answer, yet at the same time…Luz feels as though Ms Elbert expects the opposite. 

 

“Go on,” she whispers. It is rather loud, but no one bats an eye to her words. She smiles, like she’s letting Luz in on a secret. “It’s Olivines and Pyroxenes, the type high in Mg.”

 

She blinks back to the front of the room and says, almost hesitantly, “…Olivines and Pyroxenes…?”

 

The teacher blinks at her, and for a moment she thinks she was wrong. 

 

“….Yes. Yes, that is correct. Although the general consensus is iron, the scientific name of the minerals found within Mercury are indeed….”

 

Her words filter out once more, and as if having passed some sort of trial, she slumps in relief. She hasn’t embarrassed herself again in front of her classmates. A blonde at the front row stares at her, but then easily looks away. She releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding. 

 

She whispers faintly, confident that only Amity can hear it. “Thanks.”

 

“No problem,” she whispers back, then she stares ahead, pulling out a notebook and occasionally writing notes.

 

For a while, her heart calms. The storm that brews is quelled temporarily, but everlasting or otherwise, the peace is welcome. It is always welcome, because thoughts like that aren’t good, and they’re destructive. In The Good Witch Azura, the second book, Azura’s travelling companion Everest succumbs to the demons within in her, forcing a monster out of her that is banished forever with the power of embracing hugs and the Light. 

 

Luz continues the class calmly, a feeling of foreboding lingering in her chest, slightly overwhelmed by the calm that prances through her heart, looking out the window to see birds in another attempt to build nests by the few trees that are close to the window.

 

 

 

“Thanks for the save,” she tells Amity later. Both are by a vending machine, and while the soda machine has been broken for a while already, the multi-one next to it kinda works. In a roundabout way, one could order perfectly good coffee if they had the funds and considerable strength and wit, and while Luz may not be the strongest pencil in the case, she can certainly try to find away around that that doesn’t mean using pure strength to do so.

 

Amity continues to lean by the vending machine while Luz drinks a little bit of the coffee she had won in the difficult battle of forcing the machine to bend to her whims. She winces. The coffee tastes bitter, not exactly like how she expected it to taste. How do adults drink this kind of stuff, anyways?

 

Beside her, Amity looks at her nails, which glint in the sun. “It’s nothing, really. You looked like you needed the help.”

 

But you’re not even real, she doesn’t say, because she knows when to shut up, for the most part. Instead she takes another sip of the coffee, if not for the lack of anything to say. Amity looks at her almost appraisingly, yellow eyes like small topazes glinting in calculative exploration. 

 

“You don’t get a lot of help, don’t you?”

 

She laughs, then chokes on the coffee because she was midway through drinking it. “What?” She asks, voice a bit high pitched. “What made you-“ a cough, ”-think that?”

 

Amity rolls her eyes. “You don’t talk to anyone, obviously. It’s a little worrying, honestly.”

 

Indignation. “Why, think I can’t make friends if I wanted to, or something?”

 

“No, because you seem like the type of person to make friends rather easily.”

 

She goes silent. The words float through her mind, making her think. No, yes. When she was much younger, when they were still a family of three, Luz did have a few friends. She was weird and energetic and liked to dig in the trash, Dad liked to encourage her more sporty adventures, like her running off into the woods, but Mom was concerned, and preferred if she kept her running around to a minimum for a bit.

 

She was rather small back then, and pretty young, too. It wasn’t as though she isn’t a little small now, but she’s grown up a bit more. 14’s the perfect age to go exploring into the woods now!

 

Luz looks towards Amity, who wears a victorious grin, a bit like a cat who won a game of chase, or in this case having clocked the person you wanted to prove correct. “Got you.”

 

“C’mon!” She throws change at her, to which most hit it’s mark, but one lands in Amity’s hand, and so she throws it back at her. It misses, yet they laugh it off and find Luz’s coins together. Though the drink is a little lukewarm now, it tastes a little better.

 

Yes that was what having friends was like. What being a little more normal felt like. The coffee was still bitter, incredibly bitter, but yet it tasted just a little bit sweet. Amity looks a little put out after their tussle, she’s crouching still, probably looking for any more change. She does give the vibes of someone who doesn’t actively go out and exercise for fun.

 

14 is the perfect year to go out into her own. Luz’s face falls, just a bit.

 

Yes. She doesn’t think 14 is the year you should still be having imaginary friends like this. 

 

“What are you doing Amity? All my coins are here!”

 

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t know that for sure,” she says, ignoring Luz’s fake gasp, clutching her chest as though Amity had just insulted her mother. She gets up, triumphant with a shiny cent, indistinguishable with the rough, concrete floor then drops it in her hands. “You always have to double check.”

 

Idly she wonders if the mushroom she ate or something was a long lasting hallucinogenic.

 

 

 

She is standing outside the school. Mom said she was going to be late again.

 

Of course, she would never blame her mom for doing so, working at the vet takes up her attention, and it is only because of her job that Luz goes to school and eats three meals every day. 

 

It was in a message: Sorry mija, but I’ll be late today :( can you go home on your own first? You have the key still yes?

 

Of course she has the key. It was forged in their backyard by her and her dad, and by borrowing the mold that made it they made the key out of scrap bracelets and necklaces that Mom didn’t want anymore. To this day it remains in one of her bag pockets, and even with the size of the town, going home is no ordeal. Most days it’s even beautiful, a nice walk in between sitting down at a desk for several hours and some good exercise!

 

At least…that’s what dad…

 

She spots purple hair by the front of the gate. Only one person has purple hair in this school, and hallucination or not, she moves towards it, maneuvering past crowds of students and teachers alike. 

 

She leans against the school gate in an admiringly cool manner, faint wind blowing her hair ever so slightly. When she approaches, Amity notices, and smiles. It’s almost as though she was waiting for her to appear.

 

“Hey!” She says, getting up from where she was comfortably against the wall. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

 

She says this like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Luz almost feels jealous for the strength she holds herself with, strong and powerful where she herself feels to be otherwise. When Luz stops just in front of her, she walks a little closer and grabs her-

 

Her hand-

 

Amity grabs her hand, and she feels, she feels the warmth that a real person has that a hallucination, imaginations should not. 

 

She should not be feeling anything. Her hand should be phasing through, she should just be smiling, talking, things that weird figments of imagination tend to do because they aren’t real.

 

Luz shoves her hand away, moves back, and she cannot hide the shock and fear in her eyes. The wind feels a little colder, a little stronger when she moves away from her. Amity watches her, then looks at her own hand, her face is twisted in mild confusion, but it shouldn’t be, she can’t touch her. She doesn’t have any friends, she obviously isn’t real, if she was then somebody would’ve seen her. Somebody would see this beautiful stranger and their magnetizing energy next to her, some dadless, friendless, weird loser and they would question it.

 

She would’ve questioned it.

 

Luz has been standing in front of the school grounds, breathing heavily. Nobody notices her panic, other than a few girls who always seem to be watching her, making fun of her, watching her from the sidelines as she freaks out over nothing and nothing and nothing because Amity Blight isn’t real and if she is-

 

Why would she hang out with Luz? Why does she have purple hair and yellow eyes and this light-twisting aura of hers, that seems to call out to Luz like a song at the edge of a cliff?

 

She isn’t real because maybe, just maybe she’s a bit too perfect to be normal. To be real.

 

“I…” she says. It is spoken and it is not a whisper. “I have to go.”

 

She runs before Amity can say anything. The last thing she recognizes is her beautiful face twisted in concern, a hand outreached and the stars and their aftereffects surrounding her, bending her form in the light ever so slightly.

Chapter 2: Run For Cover

Summary:

Luz gets sick (metaphorically and literally)

Luz kind of regrets running.

 

She hides her head in her knees, groaning quietly at her own misery. Her knees scrape from where she tripped while running home, looking back and thinking she’s see her in the distance, the world warping around her. 

 

She holds herself closer against the front door, knees locked and her arms holding them in place. Her bag is next to her, a slightly worn item evidently repaired with love-the alright attempt of Azura’s hat that Luz did herself with her dad’s supervision-that slung beside her like it too was in a depressive funk.

 

Luz groans to herself. “Why am I such an idiot…” 

 

Her memories recall the expression Amity had, surprise and concern and care that surprised her, scared her perhaps. Was she real? Truly? Her breaths uneven, she tries to calm herself down to some attempt. 

 

The warmth of her hand, the softness in her smile…Was it really so fake that someone so perfect ever existed? An epitome of calm, cool, and classy? 

 

Of course it is, a crueler, pessimistic part of her told herself. Who’s this nice and perfect in the real world? Nobody even recognized her, remember? You’re going crazy from grief.

 

“But therapy is expensive…” she says to particularly nothing. “I can’t give mom more things to worry about. I know she isn’t taking it as well as she looks she-“ Luz sighs. “I don’t want to give her anymore problems. I don’t want to be a part of the problem at all…y’know?”

 

The pessimistic voice huffs, but it does not respond. It knows just as well as Luz herself that loss and mourning is costly illness, something they cannot afford right now, not when everything feels so precarious, like its being held by the strength of a horse string.

 

She stays there by the door, until mom locks then unlocks the door, surprised to find Luz sitting there still, most of the light gone with the sunset.

 

“Luz, why was the door still open?” She asks, and Luz looks away, too embarrassed to admit she forgot to lock the door in the midst of her crises. 

 

“I just…” She wrings her hands. “Forgot.”

 

“Forgot…”

 

Luz ignores her mother’s sharp stare, laughing slightly, trying not to give away the nervous pitch of it. “Y’know me! Always forgetful, heh.”

 

A warm hand cradles her cheek, and it is her mami, that expression of hers always so worrying with her, sometimes she doesn’t quite know what to do about her kindness. Her love. It should make sense; in all meaning and explanation, a mother should love and care for their child, and it is this philosophy that Camila Noceda takes her job as mother very seriously.

 

Luz looks at her mother in the eyes, something tender and so full of sadness against Luz’s averting ones.

 

“If anything bothers you at all, you know you can tell me right?” She moves her thumb over to caress her cheekbone, motherly affection thick in her voice. “I’ll always be there to help you. Even when I’m not always here, you’re not alone.”

 

Luz doesn’t know what to do with her love.

 

Every day she pretends not to hear her mom stifle cries deep in the night where she doesn’t think she can hear her. It is a mother’s duty to care for their child, but sometimes too much is too much, and when love is given to a now empty vessel, there is nowhere for that love to go other than to become sorrow.

 

She pulls the hand away from her cheek and hugs her. 

 

“Don’t worry, mom.” With every effort allowed to her, she tries to give her as much affection as physically possible, pulling her mom into a hug. “I’ll be fine, we’ll both be!” We’ll make it through,she doesn’t say. There is no need to dampen the mood any more than it has already.

 

Mom releases her, but not before ruffling her hair in sweet affection. Luz leans into the touch, mirroring with her a smile of her own.

 

She looks to Luz, and shakes her head fondly. “If you’re so fine, Luz, how about you help set the table while I cook up something for dinner, hm?”

 

“On it, Mami!” She says, already grabbing her bag and making for the dining table to set the plates. A bit away she hears her mom’s faint chuckling as she grabs the plates off the cabinet, setting them on the table under mats.

 

For now, she can think about school later. Today she can busy herself with chores and homework. She can think about Amity tomorrow.

 

But tomorrow comes faster than expected. Once dinner finishes and she’s cleaned the plates and table, once she’s finished bathing and drying her hair and brushing her teeth, the silence remains immutably now unbidden by the distractions of life. She spent the night not fitfully attempting to sleep pacing her room as quietly as she can, trying to figure out her next move.

 

She asked her mom at the dining table. “Uhm, mom. Has any of your patients eaten weird mushrooms and gotten sick out of them..?”

 

Mami looks to her, a questioning look as she pauses the spoonful of curry she was going to put in her mouth. “Yes, many animals who end up at the vet get sick from eating something. Why? Did a friend of yours…”

 

She looks away. “Well, um yeah, definitely. So how long does….let’s say, a mushroom trip take to wear off?”

 

“Luz Noceda, did you eat a shroom?”

 

“NO!” She says, wildly flapping her hands. “No! No, I didn’t! It just so happened that a …friend of mine ended up eating a mushroom she found in the forest and well, she’s been kind of having hallucinations?”

 

Camila Noceda looks serious now, dropping the spoon with finality to look at Luz, the mother’s keen eye on her expressions. “Luz, you know I deal with animals– while not dissimilar there are still differences in the human and animal brain and psyche. Should this…friend, of yours really be still going to school? What if she went to the doctor’s office?”

 

Luz knew she should’ve just told mom that she was the one who ate a weird mushroom and hallucinating weird things, but the ball rolled, and while she was pretty sure mom already knew she was talking about herself, dammit if she doesn’t stick to the bit for as long as humanely possible.

 

Three to six hours. 

 

The usual mushroom trip would’ve lasted around six hours or less, and though Luz did take a bite out of multiple random mushrooms found between trees–looking temptingly appetizing, which it shouldn’t have, yet it did–Luz knew that it wasn’t even that big of a bite.

 

She stops pacing. If that was the case, then by the next day the effects probably would’ve worn off by now. She takes to her phone, searching up the important questions like shroom after effects, side effects, what to do when you eat a mushroom….

 

Tactile Hallucinations. Hallucinations that affect the skin. The feeling of crawling up and down your skin, skin stretched uncomfortably across the forehead and body, the feeling of kisses and burning skin, even the feeling of organs moving around uncomfortably. It was possible that that was what she might’ve felt back then.

 

The hand that held her felt warm, it felt solid. Was that another tactile hallucination? Or was that….

 

And yet she knew deep inside her that it wasn’t right. It was wrong, and she was something else entirely, something that cannot be real because she cannot be human. 

 

And yet Amity’s hand grazed hers, in the flicker of a moment before it closed around her wrist, before she felt her stomach drop and before she could even conclude the touch of her hand. It felt like taking in the breeze of a flowery plain, dipping her hand into a pool of light, elation twisting through her veins and tainting her mind for the faintest of moments before it all came crashing down.

 

She drops her phone, letting the soft covers of her bed catch the device as she looks out the window. The moon shines through, unbidden.

 

A thought comes to her, clarity found in the middle of the night, unbidden.

 

She cannot stay friends with Amity Blight, she cannot continue to hallucinate a whole girl just to be her friend. She doesn’t need therapy to know that’s weird, and unhealthy, and impossible. Dad wouldn’t have wanted this. 

 

Luz doesn’t want to see her and be reminded that she isn’t real, because she isn’t, and she isn’t real and she is always alone, and nobody even likes her.

 

The thought glooms her expression, though it also gives finality. What kind of student appears in the middle of the school year, anyways? That only happens in fiction, as far as she’s aware.

 

To find a way to get rid of her, that is something she must find a way to accomplish. Luz needs to find a way to make her mind clearer, because she needs to stop seeing things that aren’t there.

 

She looks at her hands. It still feels a little warm. She still feels a little warm.

 

Is that normal?

 

 

 

Luz goes to school, regardless. Whether she does or doesn’t is not up to her, and again, she doesn’t like giving her mom anything else to worry about, not with certain things still fresh in her mother’s mind.

 

She coughs into her hand, the cold weather is truly killing her, right now. The warmth of her mom’s car is comforting, but the walk to the school gates is a Herculean feat when spring has just started, blooms barely awoken and barely buds, the cold air of the past winter crashing down in Connecticut to give it’s citizens cold breezes.

 

Push comes to shove, there was only one thing to be truly worried about right now. With clammy hands and an expression forged into calm apathy, she entered the school with a cautious mind, despite previous inhibition. Surely Amity Blight was not waiting for her at the front of the school, hoping to…what. Apologize? To make amends? To wonder after her reaction to her touch, to clear up a crossed boundary?

 

When she reaches the doors, only students mill about her, some lingering by the steps, a few by the door itself, but as far as Luz can tell, not a single strand nor head of purple shone through the blondes and blacks and browns.

 

Luz Noceda does not lower her guard. After all, there are plenty of places she can be in right now; for one, in the classroom.

 

Yet when she enters the class, a few of her classmates milling about and conversing with one another in silence, there is not the face nor the body of the girl who bends light around her.

 

The bell rings. The first class, technically homeroom, ends. Luz stands up to use the restroom, though the thoughts that well up within her twist and turn like a tidal wave.

 

“No, I do not miss her.”

 

She slaps herself in the privacy of the bathroom, the mirror reflecting her visage, twisted into what could be nervousness, a bit of paranoia. No one is there in the girl’s bathroom except her, because there are better things to be doing in between classes rather than going to the bathroom. 

 

Amity was not there the whole class. Though it was only technically homeroom, she did not appear, there at the very last second, nor well into the hour. Something within her stirs, because Amity usually isn’t late, in fact, in the week she’s known her Amity Blight just might be one of the most annoyingly punctual people she has ever seen.

 

She was always insisting Luz to hurry up, to get a move on, or else they’ll miss class. Luz would wave her off, thinking it must be some sort of internal alarm or paranoia telling her to check the time constantly, to have urgency. Doesn’t change the fact they leave earlier than what she would’ve liked, anyway. Class is always ten minutes more earlier than usual before. 

 

Luz stares at herself. She looks back, exactly as how she remembers herself to look like.

 

The lights continue to beam white light at her, casting her visage a slightly gaunt look, but that is how mirrors work, especially mirrors in school. Something about them makes you look less flattering than you usually do, and the stark light gives her an aura about her she isn’t sure she likes.

 

If you don’t miss her, her reflection seemed to say, then tell her so.

 

“…” She huffs. “Fine! Whatever!” 

 

Let Amity come! Whatever it is, Luz Noceda can do it! 

 

Though she’s never had to confront eventually meeting what she is still pretty sure is a hallucination, hallucination or not, she will talk to her, see what her big deal is, and hopefully-

 

“Luz!”

 

As if willed by the gods who heard her think loud in her head, there is Amity, purple hair perfectly styled in a headband, panting ever so slightly. She looks relieved to see her, and in the few seconds it takes for Luz to realizes that yes, that is in fact Amity Blight, she takes her hands in her own. It reminds her a bit of an anime scene.

 

Her eyes, yellow as always, gleam in concern. “Luz, are you okay? You ran out on me and I thought I did something wrong, and I was going to find you the following day but I kept thinking about it and thinking about, next thing I knew i overslept–!”

 

“Amity.” 

 

Luz lets go of her hands and takes her shoulders. It feels sturdy, fleshy and it feels like the fabric of her shirt, yet she does not falter. “Amity, you’re not real.”

 

Painfully confused, she almost tilts her head like a cat. “But- but Luz, I am.”

 

“No you aren’t!” Luz yells, and it is louder than what she would’ve liked, and for that Amity flinches. “You can’t be real! Can’t you just leave me alone?”

 

“Leave you alone?” Amity asks. “Why, are you, are you okay at home or—“

 

“It’s not that, and you know that.” Luz feels anger coursing through her veins. What she needs the least right now 

 

“Why? What did I do to you? If it was something i said or did wrong, I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt or scare you–“

 

“–You can’t be real! You know why I know?!” Luz gestures towards the empty halls. “The teacher hasn’t noticed you, none of our classmates even recognized your existence, we don’t even have that strict of a dress code here, but someone would’ve pulled you out of class or told you in it to remove the dye in your hair! So many more people would’ve loved to be friends you, you literally wouldn’t be friends with me–!”

 

“But I do!”

 

She refocus on the image of Amity, desperate eyes and a desperate plea, she steps forward, shouldering off her hands. “I do want to hang out with you! I think you’re so cool and creative, and I want get to know you better!”

 

“You don’t know that, you’re just saying that–“

 

“Luz Noceda, I want to be friends with you!”

 

Silence in the halls. Confusion, and an unknown feeling weighs on Luz, like a bird aimed to strike, her words hit true with a fluttering of wings. It is choking her heart, and it is ugly as it is sincere. By god she sounds so, so sincere.

 

“Give me one chance,” Amity says, as if having sensed vulnerability. “Let me prove it to you that we can be together, that you don’t have to say those things.”

 

“How will you prove that if you’re not even–“

 

“Isn’t that enough?” She asks. It almost sounds desperate, as though she was reaching for something that she knew was sturdy and strong. “Hallucination or not, aren’t I enough? Aren’t I enough for now? For you?”

 

Luz is struck with silence. 

 

Being enough for her, being enough for Luz Noceda, does anyone ever wish for such a thing? Her old friends fell by the wayside, conveniently moving schools to different places, this place without them felt empty, as though it was missing the particles in the air to make it a livable place to be in.

 

Amity catches her attention again, grasping onto her shirt, eyes wide though awfully sincere. “What can I do to prove it to you?” 

 

Luz’s eyes darken, just a bit.

 

“You wanna prove it to me?” 

 

Amity stood straighter. Luz had always thought she wasn’t the type to back out from a challenge.

 

“Then prove you exist.”

 

 

 

Luz goes home. School is as it always is, though there was an air of foreboding today that cannot be explained in any other way than dread. Amity took to the challenge with seriousness, and for the first time in their admittedly short time spent together, a little more than a week, they did not interact.

 

She left class to eat on her own, and Amity went off somewhere, eyeing her with steely resolve before disappearing to some other place, reappearing during classes. For the most part the two had shared classes, and in between them Luz indulged in faint whispers that only she could hear, notes passed between them that she wasn’t sure was as tangible as her own pen.

 

In a way, she spent most of class deep in thought, fingers twitching as if looking for something and eyes deep in focus. Luz thinks to the teacher, faintly jealous she at least was intangibly hidden from the view of others, free to think her thoughts with ease.

 

She goes home feeling that dread. It is like something is watching her, as the sun sets down, and Luz turns around multitudes of times thinking someone followed her home, and yet no one is there.

 

Luz feels it deep down in her heart; they are not the problem, but perhaps something deep in her soul, something waits, and waits, and waits. She doesn’t know what to do with it, the gnawing paranoia that something might go wrong– it always as something to do with Amity Blight, doesn’t it?

 

Her mom knows she’s walking home, she told Luz through text that she was going to leave the door open for her if she makes it home first in her joking manner. She feels too out of it to leave anything than a couple of thumbs up and heart emojis, stuffing it in her pocket so she can watch the road.

 

She goes home, drops her bag by the couch and gorges her stomach on Halloween candy. By the time her mom comes back, she’s swallowed a candy wrong, coughing a fit that has Camila Noceda running over to her, asking what’s wrong.

 

“Don’t worry–“ A cough, it doesn’t sound pleasant. “–I just, just swallowed something wrong. Can I have–“

 

Her mom gets her a glass of water, and despite the cool liquid soothing her mouth where the hard candy irritated it, she still coughs sometimes. It irritates her, but at least a lesson is learned: do Not eat candies in the night if you don’t want the consequences of an itchy throat and possibly tooth decay.

 

Lying in bed Luz thinks, because that fear follows her, and she wishes she knew how to turn that off.

 

Her eyes feel droopy. She thinks back to Amity, the desperation and the resolve in her eyes that seemed to stare into her soul. She agreed to it like a promise, like it was something she had to do, do or die. 

 

Hallucinations don’t even have thoughts, sentience of their own. Luz thinks this as she sleeps fitfully, still coughing from the sore throat. They’re based on the one with the illness, a fragment or symbolism of the brain that it uses to fight against you. That’s how hallucinations work, right? Right?

 

Give me a week, Amity said, and in her eyes held promise, promise that she will keep to her word. Give me a week—less than a week, maybe—and i’ll prove it to you, Luz.

 

Luz goes to school the next day, and the girl of purple hair and yellow eyes does not appear nor attend.

 

It is stressfull, in a way, waiting for something to happen. Her days seem colder, a bit like before, and the birds chirp and the people talk regardless, but there is something lonely in the atmosphere. Perhaps it is just her, who is lonely. That notion is not far from the norm.

 

She is wracked with a fever that grows only stronger throughout the week, until she is coughing a fit and her nose is running longer than she can drink water for. Concerned for her, her mother removes her from school on Friday, where she lies in bed and try to rest the best she can. Camila brings over-the-counter paracetamols that they have around the house for this express reason, and Luz does her best to sit up from her bed to take them at the prescribed times.

 

But Luz had always been a strong girl; and the fever fades as though it never existed. At the very least her mom is relieved at the strength regained, and Luz herself feels refreshed, as though she had just taken a very nice rest over the week. It is a good thing, it obviously is. It is.

 

When she goes to school, she expects nothing to come out of it. Yet she is nervous, as though there should be something to watch out for. What could it possibly be?

 

When Luz enters her classroom, chattering can be heard. She thinks very little of this, people tend to interact with their friends all the time. That is not what makes her pause at the doorway, eyes wide.

 

There is a small congregation of girls around the front of the classrooms, talking amicably. She recognizes the girls who stared at her a few days before, and between this small congregation–

 

Purple hair that glimmers ever so slightly in the light.

 

Only. Only the world does not bend around her, no. It looks like it’s embracing her, where the fluorescent light once warped around her like she was encased in a shield, if reflected off of her, it’s buzz catching between her strands, a brilliant shade that which hides her brown roots. She stands surrounded by people, real people, and then she turns, because Luz has been standing there for far too long, and her presence, once easily ignored, is lit up like a sign in the darkness. 

 

Amity sees her, yellow eyes that glint mischievously against her own brown ones, and she smiles.

 

“Luz!” Amity Blight says, waving at her. 

 

Luz does nothing but stand. Almost as if rooted to the ground, her lips unable to move.

 

When she makes no move to walk towards her, Amity walks to her instead, and looking at her and Amity, as though transfixed, they part like a sea, a girl even calling out her name– her name which shouldn’t be uttered by anyone else because she isn’t real, she isn’t real, she isn’t–

 

“Luz Noceda?” She asks, as though she does not know her name, as though Luz did not give it to her when she first appeared out of thin air.

 

She stares, stunned. “Amity Blight?”

 

A myriad of whispers that attempt to be quiet, but it is not quiet, because she can hear them talk, and they question the nature of their relationship. It is exactly as Luz thought it would be, if they were to see them interact. Two people who seemed to live in completely different lives, this magnetic girl and this lonely light.

 

“I…” She blinks, silence permeates through her mind. It is shocked and it is surprised, and most of all, “I–how? You, you…”

 

Amity Blight smiles victoriously, grabbing her shoulder and giving it a firm squeeze. Hallucinations only happen to the user, it is the fact that they affect the mental psyche of the one infected with such. Hallucinations are merely images projected behind the eyes, nothing can touch them, nothing can perceive them, simply mirages created by the brain.

 

Her face seems to satisfy Amity, and her laugh is melodic, smug, yet tinged with something else underneath. Relief, excitement, perhaps satisfaction. 

 

She sounds triumphant. “Am I real now, Luz?”

 

Luz looks away from her, and the girls look at her again, then look at Amity. One of them looks jealous, most look like a flavor of confused.

 

Sweat beads down her neck. 

 

“Yeah,” She whispers, because what else is there to say? “You really are real.”

Notes:

Lied when I said I didn't plan for anything in the fic enjoy the new tags 💥💥💥 that was technically the end of the prologue so get ready for arc one next time :D

Notes:

I posted this to pressure myself into actually updating wips. Try to expect an update every 1-2 weeks? School is busy but it is also boring (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡