House of the Cursed

Arrival

As she continued to run, Luz found the trees to be endless. They continued to rush right past her as she raced away from the life she once knew. For Luz, life had never been normal but that was mainly because she was the type to make it strange and exciting. Even if she wanted something fantastical to come into her life, she was starting to regret that wish as it had been granted to her in the most horrifying way possible. The words of her distressed mother were still loud and clear in her memories.

"Monstro!" her mother had yelled.

Luz was aware of a few things that night she had run off and escaped, scared of the very change that had come into her life. Her mother had seen her and believed her to be a monster, Luz didn't blame her. When she managed to get a look at herself, Luz considered herself to be a monster too. The last thing she remembered being her mother calling out to her before she started to make her race into the woods.

"Luz! Luz! Donde estas?! Where are you, mija?!" calling out to Luz in a desperate hope she'd find her, that she'd come home.

Luz wasn't bound to, not when she feared what her mother would say if she found out she had been the monster that she had seen and tried to run away from.

Even as she had returned to her normal form Luz sat down inside an abandoned home left completely empty, needing to find cover to wait out the rain. There she thought about what she would do out on her own and with nowhere to go. At least, not in her world. As the rain continued to pelt the roof and patter on Luz could hear something flying around within the house. Curious to see this bird, Luz followed the sound and found a small owl unlike any she had seen before. The particular owl she was seeing was smaller, a distinctly sharp silhouette, and there was even intelligence to the eyes.

"Hey little guy, are you lost?" Luz asked, trying to reach out.

The owl didn't avoid Luz's touch but he did hop away like he was ready to lead the way and in fact, there was a door Luz was lead through covered in unique symbols with a large eye heavily prominent in the center.

Making it out to the other side, Luz was in a forest again and it was still raining but she looked around shocked and wondering where the house she had taken shelter in was. The door she had gone through was now closed up and nowhere to be seen, so Luz pulled up her hoodie and held it as close to her head as she could to make up for how torn up it was. Her hope lied with the owl who had lead her into the new world.

After a bit more of running through the rain, Luz saw another house. One much older than anything she had seen. Seeming to be made of stone and glass stained windows fitting of an age gone by or of a Fantasy story The owl simply flew in through one of the open windows.

Seeing no other refuge in sight, Luz knocked on the door only to be met with a high pitched screechy voice.

"What's the password?"

The demand seemed to come from the owl style knocker itself, another surprise for Luz who felt a fear response kick in. With a shriek, she reached over to what seemed to be a handy pole preparing to swing it over at the living knocker who seemed to be quite aware of Luz's intention given he widened his eyes and opened up his beak to shriek only for the door to be opened by a pale-skinned woman with a mane of grey hair in a red dress. Her yellow eyes looking at Luz with scrutiny.

"Kid, what are you doing out here? You're lucky it's not boiling rain out today." Eda said.

Taking a closer look, Eda realized it was a human who had made her way to her home and with her talisman making his way back to her staff Eda realized what she had on her hands. Eda took Luz's pole away from her before grabbing Luz herself by the ear.