Chapter Text
My name is Number five. That’s the name everyone has called me since I was born… however long ago. I didn’t like that name. It made me feel like an experiment, which I kind of was. I hated thinking about our kind as numbers, so we had come up with demon names for ourselves. My friends – or were they peers? I didn’t know – had dubbed me Vee, and I liked that much better. It made me feel like an actual person, somehow.
I was currently going through one of the most stressful moments of my life.
Actually, that’s not true. Even before me and some of my kind escaped from… him, every day was horrifying. Warden Wrath would check in on our cells every hour and test our abilities. I’m a basilisk, and we are supposed to be extinct. But Emperor Belos somehow brought some of us back to experiment on us, to see how we drained magic. I tried to show them, to stop the beatings and the zapping and… everything. But they wouldn’t get it. I could never make them stop. Sometimes, when I closed my eyes I could still see Wrath’s eyes staring down at me as he watched me drain another echo mouse, taking notes on his little clipboard.
I shuddered in the seat of a strange… moving monster. It did not seem dangerous now, but it had growled very ominously when the nice lady had turned a small key. I was wringing my hands, which were not scaly anymore and were way too soft. My legs dangled loosely beneath my waist, and I had to stop and stare at the things because legs were so weird. At least I had already been forced to turn into different kinds of witches back in the Conformatorium, so it wasn’t an entirely new experience, but still. I already missed my tail.
The nice lady in question was sitting to my left. Her skin was almost the same color as the one I adopted from that human girl, whose name, apparently, was Luz. Her eyes, which had looked at me with such open adoration before that I had to remind myself it wasn’t actually directed at me, were a deep shade of brown. She was looking toward the road, tapping her fingers rhythmically on the round wheel that controlled the car. There was music coming from somewhere around us, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It was… nice.
I didn’t mean to take that girl’s place; it just sort of happened. I saw her for a moment back in the demon realm, and she seemed to be surrounded by screaming people, so I took my chance to go through a strange door with an eye in the middle. Mostly I was just trying to get away from all the noise, but the weird stillness of the world I walked into was just as, if not more eerie. I had ended up in the human realm, somehow. When the woman found me, I panicked and took Luz’s form, who happened to be her daughter. I was lucky, really. She had offered to take me to something called a camp, claiming I’d make friends.
Now, I don’t usually trust people who aren’t my kind, because my entire life all I’ve known from witches and other demons was pain and misery. But the lady’s voice had been so gentle, and she had wrung her hands the same way I do when I get nervous, that it was hard to say no. Either way, it wasn’t like I could just go back to the demon realm. Belos was probably still looking for us. I hoped my friends made it to safety. Somehow, I doubted it…
The woman’s voice broke me out of those depressing thoughts and brought me back to the still-uncertain present.
“So, you excited for camp?” she asked a little hesitantly, her eyes glancing at me from the corner of her red-rimmed spectacles.
I tried coming up with a response that would sound… human? “Uh, I guess I’m kinda nervous,” I said, nodding. Yeah, that seemed believable. It was the truth after all, though not the full truth. “What… what will I do there?” I tried not to sound like an idiot, but if I was going to go through with this, I needed more information.
The woman scratched her chin as if in thought, giving me a small smile out of the corner of her mouth. My stomach fluttered with an emotion that was hard to place, but definitely pleasant. She snapped her fingers and reached over her seat to the back of the monster, returning to give me a pamphlet of sorts. It reminded me of the ones I’d seen littering the floors of the Conformatorium, Belos’ face staring menacingly out of them. This one was grey as opposed to yellow, with big bold letters on the front.
“Reality Check, summer camp,” I read aloud. I wondered if summer was anything like in the Boiling Isles but figured asking would blow my cover. “Think inside the box.”
“I know it sounds a little oppressive,” the woman – Mom, I reminded myself – said. “But the principal told me you do all kinds of fun activities, while also having a couple classes on real-life skills. So you won’t be completely bored, I think. He told me they assign you to a cabin. That could be like one of those fantasy books you read, right? Perry Johnson or something?”
I blinked; cursing this girl’s many interests as I tried to think of who this Perry Johnson could be. After a while of awkward silence, I simply nodded, offering her a weak smile. She must have seen right through me because her smile softened and she didn’t press the matter further.
I frowned and opened the pamphlet, glancing at Mom. “What kind of real-life skills?” I asked tentatively. Another genuine question, since the only ‘real-life skill’ I had ever been taught was ‘Obey’.
“Well, how to do taxes, how to apply for a job,” Mom listed them off on her right hand. “Those are important, mija. You know how much I adore your imagination, Luz, but you also have to be ready for this stuff, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, still uncertain about the whole thing.
Mom turned back to the road and we devolved back into silence while I read over the pamphlet. In it were a few activities listed with pictures to accompany them. One said ‘Learn to do your taxes and appease the IRS!’ with a picture of human children sitting in what I assumed was a classroom, their faces the unmistakable mask of boredom. That, at least, I could relate to.
Even in our horrible cells, the other basilisks and I could still find time to get bored in between all of Wrath’s visits. Number four – she told us to call her Ivy – had made up a game for us to play, where we would guess what number was on her mind. I felt a pang of guilt as I remembered the last time I’d seen her.
I shook my head, choosing to ignore the thoughts that ran unbidden through my head. My eyes scanned the rest of the page. Beneath the bored students’ photo was another of two kids helping each other climb a rope up a hill or something, their faces alight with joy. “Special team-building exercises!” I muttered.
Mom glanced over and smiled warmly again. “See, I’m sure you’ll meet lots of people like you,” she said, patting my hand.
“You really think I’ll make friends there?” I asked timidly, a small blush creeping up on my cheeks. I didn’t actually know if Luz ever had any friends but judging from what Mom was saying, she wasn’t the most popular. At least there was something else I could relate to… Maybe this wouldn’t be as hard as I thought.
She nodded. “I know you will. You light up every room you go in, Luz,” she said and chuckled softly to herself. “See what I did there?”
I grinned in response, unsure if this was an inside joke or I was just slow on the uptake. Thankfully, the woman didn’t question my hesitance. After exhausting all the interesting activities in the pamphlet and discarding it, I began looking out the window. It felt so strange to be able to see sunlight so openly bathing the countryside without bars to impede the view or a guard yelling at us to get back to ‘work’.
Outside, there were rolling hills of bright green, topped with strangely green trees on the horizon. As we sped by, I saw a few enclosures with strange-looking animals grazing the land. They had four legs, which wasn’t the weird part. They were completely black except for a few white spots on them, some of them sporting horns on their elongated heads. In between them, two smaller animals weaved and bobbed through the grass. The only part of them that was visible in the shrubbery was thick brown fur on their back.
Everything in the human realm seemed so peaceful and beautiful, and it took every bit of self-control I had not to ask Mom what any of these things were. As excited as I was, I was sure Luz at the very least knew what these creatures were called. Maybe they had a book on them at camp? Ivy had taught me to read basic common tongue, which seemed to also be the language humans spoke.
It all seemed too good to be true, but as each second passed and we got close to whatever this ‘Reality Check summer camp’ was, my spirits only rose. After the agonizingly long weeks my kind and I had endured running from Belos, maybe this was a fresh start.
The rest of the drive went by smoothly, with only a few comments from Mom about how much fun I would have at camp, and me responding with a stiff nod and a smile. The countryside gave way to a small forest path that led into a rather large wooden cabin with a grey flag on a metal pole. Mom turned off the car (she called it a car, and I’m trusting her to know its name) and we got out.
“Ready?” she asked, grabbing a small handbag and looping it over her head.
I nodded, taking a duffel bag Mom pointed at from the backseat. Apparently, she’d packed my – Luz’s – clothes ahead of time. “Ready.”
We made our way to the large cabin and opened the door. Inside was a waiting area with a desk in front of a door. The door itself had a sign on it that read ‘Head Counselor’. Behind the desk sat a young woman with platinum blonde hair and startlingly green eyes. She looked intimidating at first glance, but the bright smile she gave us lessened the striking features.
“Welcome to Reality Check,” she said cheerfully, her voice a little higher than I would have thought. “What can I do for you?”
Mom cleared her throat and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I had to suppress a sigh as the strange sensation took over my stomach once again. “My name is Camila Noceda,” she said, and it finally hit me that I hadn’t even known her name until now. “I came here to drop off my daughter, Luz. She’ll be staying here?” she phrased the last part as a question, as if unsure of her words.
The woman nodded enthusiastically and began tapping her fingers on something I couldn’t see from my side of the desk. She stared at a rectangle that was displaying all sorts of words in a sort of grid. I tried keeping up with her tapping but ended up shaking my head and waiting for a response.
“We do have her name here, Mrs. Noceda,” she chirped. “I’ll call Counselor Alan right away.” She pressed a button and gestured for us to take a seat by the desk. We noticed, for the first time, that two comfortable-looking seats were facing each other.
Mom and I walked over to them and took our place, looking at each other with equally awkward smiles. It was weird, having to say goodbye to a woman I’d known for a good three hours but knowing it should be more emotional than this. In reality, even in the short amount of time I’d spoken to her, I’d grown to like her, but I still felt like an intruder on a personal moment between a mother and a daughter who wasn’t even here.
A few seconds of silence later, the door behind the desk lady opened, and out walked a large man with dark skin in a white shirt and blue shorts. He had a kind smile on his face, the bottom half of which was covered in thick black hair that had small spots of grey peppered around it. His eyes were grey and seemed to hold a storm in them. It was quite distracting, but he soon spoke in a booming deep voice that reminded me eerily of Wrath’s.
“Welcome!” he exclaimed, opening his massive arms. “You must be Luz, your principal told me you’d be coming.” He turned to Mom and bowed his head slightly. “Mrs. Noceda, I’m glad you trust us with your daughter’s safety this summer, and I assure you she’ll be in the best hands.”
Camila Noceda blinked and stuttered, “Uh, thank you.”
Counselor Alan gestured to the door he had come in through. “Would you like to join me in my office so we may discuss the… finer details?” he asked, not unkindly.
“Would it be okay if I have a moment with my daughter?” she said, and the man nodded.
“Of course, I’ll be in there when you’re done.” He gestured to the door with his thumb over his shoulder and retreated through it.
Mom nodded and then turned to me. For my part, I had been doing my best impression of a statue, standing stock still as the man talked to us. She kneeled down in front of me and put a hand on my shoulder, her face contorted in a sad frown.
“Mija, I want you to know that I’m not doing this to change you,” she said, her voice croaky. “I love your creativity, and I hope you never stop loving those crazy fantasy worlds. But I worry about you sometimes. Your dad was the same way, always getting in trouble at school.” She smiled fondly, and I had to resist the urge to confess right then, because this was such a tender moment and my instinct was telling me I was not welcome here, no matter how similar I may look to the girl whose mother was almost crying in front of me.
“Mom,” I forced myself to say, trying to sound abashed instead of mortified. Maybe this hadn’t been the best idea…
“I know, I know,” she said, wiping away a tear. “I just love you so much. I promise to keep in touch, okay?”
She leaned forward and embraced me in a bone-crushing hug. It took me a moment to realize just what had happened. I’d never been hugged before, but I knew enough that I instinctively snaked my thin arms around the woman’s back and squeezed back, though not as tightly as her.
“I love you, Luz,” she whispered again, pressing a soft kiss to my cheek.
If I hadn’t been sure what I was doing was wrong before, I surely knew it after those four words. This woman was the kindest person I’d ever met, demon or not, and here I was, impersonating her daughter as a way to escape the Emperor. It was wrong; it was awful. So why did I feel so good? What right did I have to steal this girl’s identity? I was probably the worst human to have ever lived, and I wasn’t even human!
“I love you too, Mom,” I said, using another girl’s voice, another girl’s body, another girl’s life… This felt so good, so right. So why had Luz – the real Luz – ran from it? When she could have had everything I ever dreamed of, so close she could physically touch it. Maybe it was wrong, but even if it lasted a day, I wouldn’t trade this for the entire Boiling Isles.
Eventually, we broke apart. I didn’t trust myself to say anything else, so I just nodded and she did the same. While I stayed back, Mom went through the door and closed it behind her.
I stood there for a moment, the duffel bag with Luz’s clothes sitting beside my chair until the woman at the desk brought me out of my reverie.
“Luz, is it?”
I shook my head and stared at her. “Uh, yeah.”
She nodded and tapped a few more times on the desk. “You get Cabin 7,” she said brightly. “Just go through the door and walk straight down the path to the left. It’s the fourth one on the right, has a big 7 on it. You can’t miss it.”
I blinked, trying not to forget the instructions as I picked up my bag and took a tentative step toward the door.
“Um, thank you,” I said softly. It was probably too soft for her to hear, but I still made my way out of the cabin and began walking the path to my left.
It was flanked by wooden cabins much smaller than the first. They all looked the same, with a glass window on the front and a wood door. Some of the doors were open, and when I peered in I could see a couple of kids milling about them. One very tall boy with bright red hair and piercing blue eyes waved at me awkwardly from the porch of one of the first cabins, and I offered a wave back.
Finally, I reached Cabin 7. The window was open, and I could see someone standing on the other side of it. The sign on the door that held the number 7 was askew and seemed almost on the brink of falling off. I adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulders and heaved a deep breath. Slowly, I raised my hand and knocked on the door.
Several seconds passed, and I was beginning to think the people inside had already rejected me when the door swung open. On the other side stood a young girl with short brown hair, a small lock of it falling over her forehead. She wore a black dress over a mauve long-sleeved shirt with a small white bow below the neck. Her brown eyes, the same shade as mine and Mom’s, regarded me intensely, and I noticed she had black lines over them.
“Welcome to Cabin 7, newbie,” she exclaimed, her voice high and bright. As I took her in, I realized she looked like any other witch I’d ever seen, except her ears were round. If not for my bizarre circumstances, one might have assumed she belonged in the Abomination Coven. “Come in,” she added as she stepped back and let me through.
I walked forward, timidly looking around. The cabin was furnished with a few posters on the walls, two dressers on the far left wall with three large drawers each, and four beds spaced out on either corner of the large room. Three of the beds had their coverings spread out or crumpled, while a fourth closest to the door was neatly made.
On one of the beds sat a boy with long black hair that almost covered his eyes, to the point where I had to wonder if humans had some enhanced sight ability I was unaware of. He had skin a little darker than mine and wore a dark purple shirt and an orange beaded bracelet. There was another person on the bed opposite the boy’s. She had short brown hair and had spectacles like Mom’s, except these were rectangular. She wore a blue and white striped shirt. Her skin was very pale, and she had small freckles on her cheeks.
“Welcome to the best cabin at camp,” said the boy, raising a hand in salute. The other girl did the same. “Name’s Zach, by the way.”
“My name’s Sophia,” said the girl beside me, flashing a toothy grin, letting me see she had a gap in it. I hummed in acknowledgment. It suited her.
The other girl stood up and offered a formal hand for me to shake. I took it hesitantly, smiling awkwardly. “I’m Alex, and I go by they/them pronouns,” they said. “Hope you don’t mind that.” They narrowed their eyes at me.
I blinked, suddenly too aware of my own body, or rather, Luz’s body. “Uh, no, why would I?” I asked truthfully. Did humans have problems with those things? Should I have one? The tone they had used seemed to be almost threatening, so I opted for the truth.
Alex nodded. “Good,” they said, grinning. “Just making sure. You never know, right?”
Taken aback, I nodded as the other two chuckled. Sophia patted me on the back. “Alex, stop bothering our newbie,” she said, though I caught the teasing nature of her voice. Alex just shrugged noncommittally. She looked back at me and tilted her head. “What’s your name?”
“Ve – Luz,” I stuttered, cursing myself for the slip-up. I hadn’t lasted a single day…
“Veluz?” Sophia asked, raising a curious eyebrow.
I shook my head. “Just Luz. Luz Noceda,” I said.
Sophia waved her arms grandiosely around the cabin. “Well, Luz Noceda, welcome to Cabin 7,” she said. “I think we’re gonna be great friends!”
I stared back at the three people in the cabin, smiling awkwardly as they gave me the warmest welcome. If I was being honest, I was still too shaken up about the events of the day to really process much of what was going on as my three cabin-mates showed me around the room and offered me the empty bed.
Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I had initially thought it would. Maybe it would all work out. As I set down my bag by my new bed and organized my clothes in the dresser, I managed to smile about it all.