Chapter 1
Thinking about it now, maybe the snake was maybe a bit much. Luz Noceda thought to herself, somewhat dazedly as she observed the situation she was in.
All around her, the 50 or so Satanic Cultist masquerading as staff members of Camp Reality Check were chanting in an unknown language. She was kind of impress by the way their chant hadn’t even waver once, but another part of her shush that part, as they shouldn’t be giving praise to people who had massacre all the camper, who were teen like her, as sacrifice in a ritual most likely design to summon a demon from Hell.
Meanwhile, here she was, tied up on an altar, not even able to move a finger, her mouth tape shut to not let her vomit up all the human blood the Cultist had force her to drink as part of the ritual. The stench and coppery taste wasn’t going to leave her mind if she were to somehow made it out of this situation, that was for sure. Nor the fact that this was the blood of all the friend she had made back when Camp was still Camp.
Camp Reality Check. It was supposed to help her fit in with society. And in the beginning, it did. Sure the lesson can be a bit boring, but the actual counselor was good at their job, and they had even helped her open up a bit to all her peer there, and she had made a lot of friend. She also may have had a bit of a crush on a fellow Camper named Masha, the enby teen smile had held a certain alluring quality to them.
Of course, all those memories were marred by the fact that recently, she and all the other kid had been drugged, kidnapped, and then brought here to this unfamiliar location. Then she had been force to witness all her friend being murdered, their throat slit, and their blood drain into a bucket that she was forced to drink from.
And now here she was, tied up on an altar, mouth taped shut to prevent her from vomiting all the blood back up, and around her, the Satanist were chanting in what to her knowledge and observation, not Latin.
Then, the symbol painted on the wall with the blood of the adult staffs at the start of the ritual began glowing crimson. The color was exuding hatred and something even more profound than hatred, if that was the right word to describe those feeling.
Two thoughts ran through Luz’s mind right there and then.
Huh, I guess there is magic in the world after all.
Oh, no! The ritual is actually working!
Before she could properly panic, the chanting suddenly stop, and the Leader of the Cult, whose robe was the color of blood in contrast with his follower who wore black, step out from his position at the head of the Circle and come to Luz side.
After a moment of him staring intensely at her, he promptly rip out the tape sealing her mouth shut.
Before she could ask a question, or vomited up all the blood; either or she didn’t know, he shoved a vial filled with some kind of dark blue fluid down her throat.
It kind of taste like candied apple in a way. Luz thought with a bit of confusion as the liquid in the vial slowly drain down into her gullet.
After the last drop had disappeared, her stomach seems to settle down, and she doesn’t have the urge to vomit anymore.
Seemingly satisfied with her consumption of the mysterious liquid, the leader of the Cult taped her mouth shut once more, after which he step back.
The chanting started again, and the symbols began to glow even brighter than before, bringing with it more hatred, as well as hunger, desire, and what she could call damaged light. Accompanying the glow was music, the kind of which she swore that she had heard somewhere before, but she can’t place it.
It was catchy as fuck, though.
She didn’t know for how long the cult chant, but when it seems to reach a crescendo, and the glow has reached its zenith, the cult abruptly stops once again.
Then the leader of the cult come forward again, this time with another vial in his hand. The liquid in it was of a sparkling gold, reminding her of Comforting Time, Smell of Happiness, and a little bit Taste of Sadness.
That made Luz even more freak out, as liquid shouldn’t be eliciting feeling like that by just their mere presence.
She had read enough SCP file to know that when something like this happen, it usually leads to bad things happening to the viewer.
Like the last time, he rip out the tape. This time, however, she struggles, trying not to let the golden liquid flow down her throat.
She didn’t struggle for long, as two more members of the cults came and pry open her mouth, and then she was drinking the liquid.
It didn’t taste like anything. Luz thought as the two other member go back to where they were, while the leader seal her mouth shut again.
But this time, he didn’t go back to his previous position.
Instead, he stood there beside her, as he continues to chant under his breath, while all around them, the other cult member began to move in what could be call a rhythmic dance pattern.
This spectacle go on for what felt like an hour before the leader raises his hand, and then they all stop.
Then he reaches out and peel the tape from her mouth.
Then, in a surprising move, he cut the rope tying her to the altar, allowing her to sit up.
Blinking in confusion, Luz can’t help but ask, “why did you do that?”
“... I can not explain to you, child.” The leader spoke with a calm tone, a gentle smile on his face.
Suddenly, every member of the cult brought out a knife. Then in unison, they stab themselves in the heart.
Despite the injury however, they didn’t fall over dead. They continue to stand there, but now with blood began to trickling out from the wound.
“...what?” Luz asks in a small voice, her heart thundering in her chest at the sight.
“You will understand, in time.” The cult leader spoke again, his voice now even more gentle.
Then he raises his own knife and plunge it directly into his heart.
“For now, good luck.” The man whisper out, before everyone suddenly drop to the floor.
“..., what just happen?” Luz ask the now seemingly empty room, her voice surprisingly steady for someone who had just witness a mass suicide.
As if to answer her question, the corpse of all the cultist suddenly jerk, their body contorting into complicated shape, their skin tearing open, their bones protruding from every possible angle, even their organ stretch out to make geometric shape in the air.
Then, the glowing symbol on the wall began to flash like the light of a fire alarm, and then what seem like all the blood from every corpse in the room pool out and slam into the symbols, obscuring them for a moment, before all the blood seem to be slowly absorbed by the symbol, turning them into a color so dark, she can’t even see the texture of the wall.
After what seem like the last drop of blood had disappeared, the air was filled with a humming sound that seem to grow louder as the symbols began to expand and filled the entire room with the color of darkness.
When everything has been cover, the humming seemingly reach its crescendo, and then, between one blink and the next, the room wasn’t there anymore.
Instead, all around her, for miles upon miles, there was a lot of, … red.
All around her, from the ground, to the grass, to the sky, to the cloud, to the dirt and to the occasional tree somewhere in the background, all of it was seemingly tinted by some shade of red.
There was other color too, but the theme of everything was still red, and it is kinda creeping her out.
“Where am I?”
“You are in Hell, kid.”
Spinning around so quick that she thought she had snapped her own spine, she comes face to face with the voice behind her.
“...are you some kind of Owl Lady?” was her only response upon seeing the… woman like thing before her.
“Huh, you are the first human to ask me that instead of just screaming and running in fear.” The Owl Lady in question answer her with a tone that said she was feeling confused.
In the intervening silence, Luz has to take a couple of blink to get her eyes adjusted to all the surrounding red.
Then she got a proper look at the woman.
First the woman in question has long dark gray hair, which seem to be elongated feather, 6 eyes arrange in a symmetrical fashion across her face. The eyes have black sclera and a yellow pupil that glow like the sun. The woman face was like that of an owl cross with a human, and her mouth have what seem to be a peak protruding from the middle of her mouth. Of minor notice was her skin, which is an ivory color.
There are fangs protruding from her mouth, and they look sharp, Luz quietly noted distractedly, a brief chill crawl down her spine as she tried not to imagine what those could do to her.
Next, she seems to be naked at first glance, but a closer look reveal all over her slender body, and partially around her face, there was what look like two different kinds of feather coating that cover her. Also of note was a pair of gray owl-like wings protruding from her back. Her torso, shoulders, arms, which she got 4, and hands are covered in bony looking spikes that seem to jutted out from under her skin. Her feet are covered in light gray fur with a set of talons, that look wickedly sharp. Furthermore, her hands are monstrous-looking, with long yellow claws that seem to be designed to tear through anything.
And finally, what seem to be the woman most striking feature, was her height.
Luz wasn’t sure if her guess was correct, but based on her current height, this woman has to be like 3 time as tall as her. Maybe a little bit bigger too.
Luz Noceda take all these details in between one blink and the next, before her brain properly register what the Owl Lady had just said before.
“Wait, did you just say we are in Hell?”
“Well, well, well, I guess you weren’t totally distracted by the sight of me after all.” The Owl Lady spoke with a smile on her face, which show a disconcertingly high number of interlocking shark like teeth, with some fangs that protrude out to break up the uniform look.
Then, with a swiftness that belied her size, the woman lean down and with two of her four hands, she picks up Luz by her armpits and held her up to her face like one would do with a cat, her smile never leaving her face.
“Now my question for you, Human, is how did you get here?”
“Uh, what are you going to do if I don’t want to tell you?” It was probably not a good thing to ask that to a demon from Hell, but considering what she had gone through, Luz could probably be forgiven for not thinking thing through.
“...well, I’m kinda hungry right now, and you are small enough to be quite a snack.” The threat was punctuated by the Owl Lady opening her mouth wide enough to engulf Luz’s head whole, and in the process reveal that she has more than two row of shark like teeth in the back of her mouth. One of those rows of teeth look like it belong to a crocodile.
“If I tell you, what guarantee I would have that you wouldn’t eat me anyway?”
Why are we doing this, one part of her mind screamed at her in fear.
I guess my level of fuck to give just ran out with the mass suicide pal, another part of her mind answer with a degree of snark newly found in her soul.
Yeah, I might need some therapy if I survive this, Luz thought to herself as her two inner voice started shouting at each other.
“...well, you really don’t,” the Owl Lady grinned while tilting her head at an angle that were she a normal human, it would have meant her death, but on this demon woman it just heightens her creepiness level, “but you are already in Hell, and if I just left you here, some other demons are going to snap you up, and believe me, what they would do to you” here the demon woman take a sniff of Luz’s hair, and with a fork tongue darting out from her mouth, she licked Luz’s cheek, “considering by your smell and taste that you are a virgin, you’ll wish that I had eaten you, girl.”
“So, tell Auntie Eda how you got into Hell while still being alive, and if your story are interesting enough, I might consider letting you go back to the living world.”
At the end of her sentence, Eda’s face has moved considerably closer to Luz’s own, and Luz can see her own reflection in one of the other woman 6 eyes. Her reflection surprise her with how, … done with life, she looks.
Taking a lungful of air that smell vaguely of rotten egg, Luz look straight into Eda’s 6 eyes and answer with as much confidence as she could.
“...okay, I’ll answer your question. And if you decided to eat me, just please, make it quick.”
Then she dived into the story of how she got into Hell.
All told, the story only took like 5 minutes, and when she was done, Eda the Owl Lady was having a somewhat complicated expression on her face, like she was having a debate in her own head.
“So, …?” Luz asks leadingly, as the wait was setting her nerves on fire, and she reason that if the demon woman was going to eat her by now, she would have already done it.
She could just be acting this way to either lull you into a false sense of security, or to make you even more afraid, her thought process unhelpfully whisper, she probably could smell the fear from you, and it might make you appear more appetizing.
Quiet unhelpful brain, she thought/snarked back to her inner voice, I don’t need your panic right now.
“...that’s peculiar,” Eda finally spoke after what seem like a minute of just looking at her, the demon woman voice carry a touch of wariness, “wait a moment now.”
With that Eda set Luz down, and then she appeared to dig into her hair, muttering a mile a minute as she seems to pull out several pieces of jewelry, and then just as quickly she put those back into her hair, before she pulls out what seem to be an armband with an orange diamond shape crystal embedded on it.
“Let’s see if my suspicions are correct.” Eda said to herself as she put on the armband before she seems to rub the crystal on it for a bit.
The crystal glow after what seem like a minute of the Owl Lady rubbing at it, and then from the crystal a beam of light shot out, creating what Luz could only describe as a pentagon shape portal that was the height of Eda.
On the other side of the portal, past the cover of the night, Luz could see the shape of her home.
“Well, there’s your home, right?”
“...uh yes.” Luz answers with a trace of trepidation in her voice, now extremely nervous that a demon now know where she lives.
“Well, go on then, see if you could make it pass.”
“Why wouldn’t I be able to make it pass?” Luz was afraid of what she is going to hear.
“From what you tell me about those cultists, and the ritual they perform, and from what I can see inside of you, I got a suspicion that you won’t be able to make it past this.” Eda face was devoid of emotion now, but the way she looks at Luz doesn’t inspire much confidence in the young girl. “Go on, see if you can make it pass the portal.”
Swallowing the lump of anxiety in her throat, Luz takes a hesitant step toward the portal.
Then, when her hand reaches out to push through the portal, a jolt run through her hand, forcing her to jump back. An involuntary cry left her lips as the shock pass through her.
“Hurts a lot, huh?” Eda was now crouching down beside her, the demon woman voice touch with something Luz would describe as concern.
“Yeah, why can’t I go through this? Did you-,” the last part of Luz’s retort die in her throat.
It was not good to go accusing your current benefactor of foul play when they were three time your size after all.
Judging by the way Eda eyebrow was raised, the woman had heard the implied accusation anyway.
“...usually you would be right to suspect foul play, but I can assure you, I did not do anything to impede your return to the living world.” The face Eda was making look like it was meant to be reassuring, but Luz doesn’t know for sure, due to the fact that she didn’t have experience with reading a demon face until now.
“That…doesn’t actually reassure me very much, you know.”
“How about this. Why don’t I go get your mom, and we’ll see if she can get you out.”
Blinking rapidly at what the demon woman just suggest, Luz takes a quick look between Eda, and then her home.
“I… don’t think that would be such a good idea, my mom might have a heart attack by the sight of you.”
“Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head over it, we demons can disguise ourselves to blend in with human, no sweat.”
With that sentence finished, a whirlwind of what looks to be golden orange fire swirled up around the demon woman, before it shrink down to reveal Eda now human form.
Now Eda was in the form of a fairly tall human woman, with all of her extra bit seemingly vanish, and in the place of her feather cover body was a sleeveless, two-toned maroon dress, gray-brown tights, and a pair of maroon high-heeled ankle boots.
With that transformation done, Eda level a beaming smile at Luz before she step through the portal.
With a gesture of her hands, the portal seemingly shrinks down to Eda current size and follow her.
Meanwhile, Luz could only stand there, her living self stuck in Hell, while a demon woman was her seemingly only hope of getting back home.
She wanted to pray, for anyone really, but she doesn't think it would be appropriate given her current condition, and she doesn’t know if it’s going to help.
After what seem like an hour to her anxiety ridden mind, but probably closer to a minute, Eda come to the front door of her home, and knocked on the door three times.
They stood there in silence for a minute, before the door open and her mom step out from behind the door, only to gasp in surprise.
“Hey mom, I’m back.”