Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

Look What the Cat Dragged In

"Ugh, not again!" Luz cried. She ducked behind a stall as some people walked by, but that didn't stop them from giving her some odd lucks as they walked by. She had... 'borrowed' (oh, who was she kidding, she DEFINITELY stole it) a cloak to hide her torn clothes, but, weirdly enough, no one else was wearing a cloak, so if anything, she was standing out even more. Everyone else was wearing muted brown and mostly plain clothes, like some bad medieval era show.

Luz stared at them, and the nearly completely wooden town around them. They ogled at her right back, and Luz ducked back into the empty stall, where she had suddenly and violently woken up, nearly causing her a heart attack as she wondered just where she was. It wasn't at home, in bed, definitely, but somewhere new and unnerving and, if she was going to be completely honest, kind of boring, at least compared to the demon realm.

But still, it wasn't home, so whatever. "So I'm not in the human realm," Luz mused to herself. "And I'm not in the demon realm... and I DEFINITELY didn't go through any doors, so where am I?!"

No one answered. At least it wasn't completely new territory. Luz knew she had ended up in some sort of market, just like in the demon realm. However, due the utter horror of ended up in a completely new world, again, after everything that had happened... Luz just needed to sit down for a while.

Her mind kept going back and forth. If she had managed to navigate one alternate universe, she could navigate another. But after all of that? How was this fair?

Besides it just... it didn't make sense. How could this have happened anyway?

At first, Luz thought she would just sit there forever, feeling her disappointment and horror press in on her like a horrible weight, but also, that got boring quick. So soon, Luz was standing up despite the heaviness on her shoulders, and ignoring the stares she was getting from the people in the other stalls. Most of them were pretending to ignore her, but only half of them were doing a good job at it. Luz didn't look at them, stepping out into the market.

And then quickly stepping back into her stall. She wanted to try something first.

Sitting down again (now with a purpose), Luz took her pointer finger and sketched out a glyph she knew well. The plant glyph, and she hoped that it was innocuous enough not to get noticed. But when she slapped it, nothing happened.

Luz sighed. Not the demon realm then...although she never really suspected it was to begin with. But it also proved another thing: Luz was back at square one: no magic.

-

"Hello!" Luz said happily, smiling at the woman in the plain brown dress that passed her. The woman took one look at her strange cloak and frowned, turning away. Luz pretty much expected that, but it still hurt. She didn't really like the cloak either, but it was beginning to grown on her! Not that she had much choice, but still...

"Hi!" Luz called out, waving, and the man pushing the wheel barrel full of vegetables gave a very confused and small wave back. Luz smiled; he was nice.

"Hey the-oh," Luz started calling out to another person, a person wearing all black and pulling a bag behind him, but she quickly stopped herself when she saw that the bag he had was a body bag, and that everyone else was giving him a wide berth as he walked out of town. He gave her a withering glance as he passed back, making her regret calling out to him even more.

Luz didn't stop calling out to people after that, but she was a lot more careful with who she said 'hi' to.

-

After touring the town twice (it was really, really small), Luz got bored of that, and started interacting with some of the local kids she had seen before. They had never heard of hopscotch before, so she taught them some of it, and in return, they taught her their version. Luz didn't tell them, but her version was far more interesting than theirs, and the human version of hopscotch wasn't really that good, at least, not like the demon version.