Chapter Ten: The Bones of Bonesburrough

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Luz groaned as she rubbed her head, slowly getting to her feet. Her eyes opened and she saw she had landed in the middle of...some kind of town.

She nearly stumbled right back onto the ground, and tried reaching for her staff to stabilize herself...but Stringbean wasn't there.

Luz gasped and tripped a little bit before finally standing up. "Stringbean? Stringbean?! Where are you, buddy?"

Luz began to wander about, feeling a sense of uncanniness...it was as if she knew this place, but something was off. She remembered that King recognized this place earlier. It was The Boiling Isles, just not her Boiling Isles.

The buildings around the town she landed all seemed quite familiar to Luz, but they looked...hollow. Each one was completely empty and some even had gaping amounts of destruction across it. The entire place was making Luz send shivers down her own spine.

This was Bonesburrough.

"S-Stringbean? C'mon, buddy, where are you?" Luz called out, now searching around a little more frantically. She was practically expecting a cackle to be heard behind her.

But then, she heard the rustling of paper. Luz gasped softly and quickly turned around only to see a familiar green orb underneath an old newspaper. She speed walked over and lifted up the newspaper, only to see her beloved Palisman underneath.

"Stringbean!" Luz exclaimed with a smile.

Stringbean's eyes widened and she quickly floated up to her owner, nuzzling her cheek and even gently curling around her head.

"Oh, I missed you too!" Luz said, gently scooping her Palisman into her hands from her head and hugging her. "It's so good to actually see some color around here too-"

But then, she stopped talking and a look of utter horror spread across her face. As she was talking to Stringbean, she had read the headline of the paper her little friend was hiding under.

'THE BONESBURROUGH TIMES: DAY OF UNITY TOMORROW!'

Luz instantly knew why the town was so colorless and empty. Her breath started to quicken as she took in every destroyed brick or gaping hole in the buildings. Her heart was beating so fast that it was starting to form a worrying rhythm.

Stringbean heard it and tried to nuzzle her owner's arm and cheek, trying to snap her out of it. But the snakeshifter's attempts went unnoticed.

Everything started coming back to her. All the horrible events on The Day of Unity, the painful feelings of her friends and those she considered family being physically drained, the near loss of King and her second home, everything started to come back.

'WE DON'T BELONG HERE...'

'If we're gonna play Owl House, we're gonna need an Owl House!!!'

'Luz...I'm so happy I had you as a big sister...'

Suddenly, Luz felt something grab her shoulder. Her eyes widened and she whipped around, raising Stringbean in her staff form like a baseball bat.

But, sure enough, it was none other than Marcy Wu and Mabel Pines.

"Whoa, whoa! Luz! It's okay!" Marcy cried. "It's just us! It's just us!"

Luz's breathing started to slow down and she slowly lowered her staff, looking at the two of them without saying a word.

"Luz...? Are you okay...? We've been looking for you for the past ten minutes." Mabel said.

"...no...no, I'm not okay." Luz said, almost rapidly shaking her head before she set Stringbean on her shoulder and then grabbed Marcy and Mabel's wrists. "We gotta go. NOW."

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