Chapter Text
Drip. Drip.
Drip.
Something was leaking slowly, and maybe it needed to be fixed. Maybe not. Luz couldn't find the energy to decide.
There was something cool against her back, and while that was welcome as opposed to the deep seeded heat in her body, it sent muffled alarms in her head.
Why, though? She was probably on the floor in her room, leaving the A.C on.
She listened once more, eyes still closed. She was too tired to open them just yet.
Drip. Drip.
Drip.
Since when did she have something dripping in her room? And where was she?
Luz thought long and hard about what she had done that day.
She went to school, nothing new there. Went home… wait. Did she go home?
No… she…
Luz gasped and her eyes blew open as she remembered.
She winced at the twinge of a headache still rolling with dull pain in the back of her skull.
The dripping wasn't from something leaking, it was from an I.V that was in her arm. She was in a dark room, laying on a metal table.
And she was most certainly not at home.
"¿Hola?" She cried out meekly, suddenly too cold.
She tried to sit up, and realised she wasn't just laying on the table, she was confined to it.
Panic was etching slowly into her mind. Something happened. She zoned out. Why had she zoned out!? She couldn't remember it, any of it! Why was she here? What happened?
"Hello!?" She tried again, a bit louder, tilting her head to the left to see if there was anything there.
She snapped her mouth shut the moment she found something, a tray. With medical supplies on it like in the movies.
Except this wasn't a movie.
And she knew how those ended. She didn't want to be in one.
Yet here she was.
"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh-" she breathed out, barely, mania setting in as she took in what was happening.
She was now hoping that no one heard her. She didn't want to find out what would happen if they came back.
Whoever 'They' were.
She assumed she was caught. By the masked guys, the elves. Someone. But how? She had been so careful!
Okay Luz, maybe not careful but as safe as possible!!!
Luz swallowed, and turned her head right. There were shelves of different potions, many glowing, some fizzing, others flat and shiny.
Her I.V was also here, slid innocently into her wrist and taped just like a normal one.
Except last time Luz checked, hospitals didn't fill the I.V bags with glowing green liquid.
Luz's panic bubbled to the surface all at once and she began to struggle, trying to get off the table. Away from this dark damp place. Away from the drip drip drip.
The metal holding her wrists and ankles down cut into her skin as she pulled up, and she hissed as it rubbed them raw and eventually drew scarlet.
That didn't stop her, though. In fact it just made her panic more and struggle harder, breath quickening the longer it didn't work.
Five minutes and the fight was replaced with absolute exhaustion. Her wrists were bleeding, a slow sluggish flow making the already uncomfortable cuffs sticky and warm. Her head hurt more than it had when she woke up, the dull ache forming a minor headache.
Terror still filled her and her heart was pounding against her chest, breath short and heavy as she fought off yet another panic attack, because look where that had gotten her. It was hard to calm down when you were forcefully exposed on a table, though, and the thought that anyone could walk in and she’d be helpless to their will haunted her like a ghost.
Luz tried to take in a few more of her surroundings, thinking that if- no don’t think like that- when she got out she’d know how to.
Of course this was easier said than done when you were pinned to a metal examination table.
The walls around her were not grey, but a very dull blue. The ceiling was white, she knew this because the longer she looked at it the worse her headache got. Luz think’s the floor is metal, but can’t be sure if it’s a trick of the light or not.
The best thing was when she checked her right once more (she didn’t want to think about what was on her left) next to the large shelf of unidentable potions was, indeed, a metal door.
Okay, if she does somehow move from this position, flank right immediately and don’ t stop.
Luz was now panicking less as she had distracted herself with the room and was lost in thought with her eyes closed as she considered how she could escape. There was no way for her to get home yet, as far as she knew. So leaving would mean once again running and hiding, and maybe having to escape this room all over again, if she even got a first chance.
The thought shattered as the heavy metal door that was hope swung open slowly and a man with average stature entered the room carrying a clipboard.
He wore rectangular glasses perched on the tip of a pointed nose, his hair was messy and brown, falling in front of his eyes and framing his face. Like most other creatures in this world his ears were pointed, an onyx earring on a short gold chain hanging from his left ear.
He was lanky and thin, the lab coat he wore more draped over him than being worn.
Luz’s heart began to beat faster as he took steps toward her, eyes on the clipboard as he scribbled something down and mumbled to himself.
Finally, he looked up at Luz.
His eyes were a chilling ice blue.
“ ¿¡Quién eres tú!? Let me go!” Luz shouted at him once their eyes met.
His eyes shot up in surprise, as if she’d just grown two heads.
“Subject can speak!” He said in absolute facinastion and Luz glared at him.
“I am not a subject! I’m Luz Noceda and I didn’t do anything wrong!” She said stubbornly.
He tilted his head, clearly confused. But instead of answering, he merely hummed in recognition.
Luz wasn’t sure if this meant keep talking or shut up.
He nodded back and tapped the pen on the clipboard. “So you're sentient then, hmm…” he looked up surprised once more, “Goodness me! Apologies, my name is Owen, Owen Flornwei.”
Luz gave him an unamused deadpan stare. “A Pleasure.”
Owen laughed, apparently not understanding sarcasm; either that or purposefully ignoring it.
He walked out of her view a minute and then appeared on her left, her gut squirming at the thought. He placed his clipboard down on the table and then walked around to her I.V, the glowing substance still dripping slowly into Luz’s veins.
“Hey? What is that stuff??” Luz asked cautiously, unsure how much information she could get out of this guy.
If he was worried about the fact her wrists were bloody and raw, he didn’t show it.
“Hmm? Oh, just a new drug, figured we’d test it before we used it on witches.” He said absentmindedly, walking towards the shelf with more unknown substances.
Luz’s breath hitched, she didn’t like the sound of that. “W- What does it do?”
His ear flicked, picking up and comparing a purple and blue bottle. “It’s intended to null pain. Now be quiet, you talk too much.”
Luz gulped. She suddenly hoped that whatever was in her veins did work, because she doesn’t like where this is going.
Strange how all her efforts were being turned against her.
She stayed silent and watched as the man busied around her. He eventually paused, and looked down at her raw wrists.
"Does that hurt?" He asked in a detached tone, flicking a pen in her direction with a click!
Luz was confused a moment because- now that he brought it up. No. No it didn't hurt. It was uncomfortable and weird feeling, but it didn't hurt.
She raised an eyebrow and looked at him. "Ah- no?"
He nodded and started muttering. "What to do, what to do…. Ah ha!"
Owen hastily placed the clipboard back on the table and paced over to the potion shelf, grabbing a fizzy gray bottle and a small pink vial.
He then walked over to Luz once more, placing the potions down carefully and reaching toward her wrist, beginning to fumble with the I.V taped there.
Luz's eyes widened a bit, a weird pressure on her wrist, worried.
"Uhmmm, what cha doing there Owen? Can I call you Owen? We're pals riggghhttt?" She laughed nervously, not sure what was going on.
"Prepping for testing. And don't put my name in your filthy mouth, human ." He spat, glaring at her and angrily yanking the I.V out the rest of the way.
She hissed at the slight sting it caused, wondering what that was. He obviously hated her… being a human? Was that not common here? Maybe.
She knew one thing for sure though: Owen was not her pal.
Luz quickly learned what tests were. And in her opinion, it was an inaccurate name.
After he finished fiddling about, he forced the contents of the pink potion vile down her throat. He then covered her mouth and pinched her nose, forcing her to swallow.
Luz coughed harshly and wheezed, the action choking her lungs.
She blinked through watery eyes as she cleared her throat of the last of it, and then lifted a hand to her chest.
Wait.
Luz went wide eyed and sat up, immediately looking around. He'd taken off her restraints! She could move!
Her hope was short lived as she tried to get down off the table though. Her legs felt like jelly and her head felt like someone was slowly filling it with fluff.
She managed to get down, forgetting about Owen watching in the corner curiously for the moment, and used the metal table to prop herself up.
Luz noticed an ache starting to spread through her chest, slowly.
"What the-" She looked down at her hands, which were now very shaky along with the rest of her.
She looked up at the supposed scientist.
"What did you do to me?" She asked slowly, having to think through the words, drawing a hand to her dizzying head.
Owen shrugged, and walked forward. "Just a simple poison. It obviously worked against moderate flesh wounds but I need to know about internal pain," he tapped his clipboard and announced it so calmly, "So far it's looking like not so much."
But the words made Luz's heart flutter, breathing becoming uneven.
"You poisoned me?" Her vision was starting to blur at the edges, the dull ache spreading and its origin become a sharp stabbing pain in her chest.
Owen hummed. "Precisely."
Luz could feel herself losing balance, and was a little surprised when a cold hand held her arm up to keep her from falling.
She looked left and found a slightly blurry Owen holding onto her arm, leading her away somewhere.
"Tsk tsk," He shook his head like a disapproving mother, "seems to be a dud hmm, we'll give it a bit more time, just in case. Here, there we go."
Luz looked ahead and realised with a slight gasp that the table she had been trapped on wasn't the only thing in the room. Down where her feet had been pointed, the wall she couldn't see, was a small indent in the wall with iron bars and a heavy lock.
"Let go!" She struggled, but she could feel her body betraying her and getting weaker by the second.
Tears sprang to her eyes, blurring her vision more. Her chest hurt . Like there was a fire inside of her.
"Let me go!!" She cried again, only being shoved further along, closer to the small confining space soon to be her cage, "¡Quiero ir a casa!"
Her cry fell on deaf ears as she was practically thrown into the confined space. Her vision blurred by tears and pain made it so that she more heard the heavy metal lock of the door shut than see it.
She could easily see the man named Owen walking away calmly without a care in the world.
"Hey!! Come back!" Luz yelled, and though it hurt to speak now, a desperation filled her chest and panic began to seep in for the second time since she'd awoken.
She heard the heavy metal door of the outside open and shut, and she knew she was alone.
She couldn't stop the panic attack that immediately clutched at her mind. Her chest burned and her limbs felt like they were being stabbed over and over and over .
Her heart squeezed as her breaths drew shallower, her mind looking for a way out only to find about a foot of space on every side and nothing more.
It was darker over here too, without the blinding medical light, and her own vision fading in and out didn't help.
Her chest heaved as she backed into a corner, minutely aware of the fact that she'd just become a test subject as whatever he had forced her to take got worse.
She was gasping, air leaving her lungs before it even got a chance to go in. Luz couldn't tell if it was because of the poison or the attack, but either way she was light headed and everything hurt .
It was like everything and nothing was happening all at once. She couldn't see properly, couldn't breathe. And yet every time she moved she felt her clothing claw at her skin, every pulse of her heart sending another wave of excruciating pain through her whole body, the stone floor was cold cold coldcoldcold-
The small human doubled over, trying to curl in and focus, breathe, make something feel better.
The world went dark the moment her head touched the ground.
"Mija?"
Luz blinked her eyes open to a strange white light.
"Are you okay Mija?"
She looked up, and found she was laying down on a couch, next to her mother.
"Mami!?" She asked wide eyed, sitting up, "Oh no no you can't be here! Mom you have to leave or he'll-"
She was crushed into a hug before she could finish, tears pricking her eyes.
"Luz, it's okay, you're okay, it was just a dream." She gently kissed the crown of Luz's head, a soft smile on her lips.
Luz shook her head though, "Mom no you don't understand there was this- this guy and witches! Or elves?? I'm not sure yet but there was potions and magic and we were in danger !" She didn't know why her mum was giggling. This was serious. They were in danger.
"Ah- Luz don't worry you're safe here," Camilla Noceda said as she patted Luz.
"...safe?" Luz asked, looking around with squinted eyes.
The light outside the window was white, no sky or city scape. Just white. A warm white that seemed to hold the house in a safe glow.
"You're safe. But… you have to wake up eventually, Mija."
Luz narrowed in on her mother again.
"Wake… up..?"
The world got fuzzy, and the warm glow darkened around her. A pain began blooming in her chest and the warmth drained from the environment.
"No! Nonono MOM COME BACK!" Luz reached out, tears flooding her vision, watching her mum fade just before she touched her.
She awoke with a sharp gasp, and then groaned as she came back to herself.
Her mouth felt like ash and tears were once again streaming down her cheeks, the only part of the dream that was real it seemed.
She didn't attempt to move, her heart beating in her chest matching the pounding headache building behind her eyes. Everything was out of focus and aching, every now and again a random sharp pang would shoot through her limbs or head. Her chest burned and there seemed to be an endless buzzing in her ears.
But the cold wasn't so bad. It felt kinda nice now. She couldn't help but close her eyes again and focusing on her cheek against the cold stone. It wasn't comfortable, but it was a distraction from the pain so she'd take it.
She did not know where Owen was or if he was still here, watching her. She didn't have the energy to find out.
So she stayed. And she breathed. And she waited.
She didn't know how long she laid there, letting her mind simply rest in the fog it created for itself, but it was definitely awhile because eventually the stone stopped being cool, and was just as warm as the rest of her.
Distantly she worried about fever and the such, but the thoughts quickly slipped as she winced at another sharp pain in her body.
Eventually, through the daze, she heard a door open. And then another. And she dimly realised someone was standing over her, Owen, Probably. They were speaking, and then they grabbed her arm. She struggled slightly, not wanting any more of this strange poison and not wanting anything else to happen for the day.
But she wasn't strong enough, and eventually the person got a grip on her, and she felt a sharp prick in her forearm.
She bit her lip, trying to stop the whimper that nearly escaped. Something clinked next to her and then the doors closed once more, and the cotton began to stuff into her head again as she fell asleep once for a second time.