Free Going Lucid by Holly Dae

sleep,” Julius said continuing to where the noise had come from.
    “That’s
stupid. What do you think this is? A TV show or something?”
    Julius
rounded on her, mouth in a fierce snarl as he closed the distance between them
so much that Malakha could feel his breath on her face. Before he could say
whatever it was he was going to say, the cry came again and this time something
dark in the sky flew towards them from the distance; something dark and large.
    “What
is that?” Malakha asked.
    “Move
out the way,” Julius said pushing her and himself aside as the thing, a big
ugly bird that looked like a zombie eagle, swooped down on them. Its talon
grazed Julius on the arm.
    “What
the hell?” Malakha asked.
    “Damn
it! I told you to get out of here,” Julius said standing up before grabbing her
hand and pulling her up also.
    “And I
told you. I don’t know how!” Malakha snapped as she felt the wind of the bird
turning around and coming back toward them.
    “Duck!” Julius said. He didn’t wait for her to decide to
obey him or not and pushed her forward so that she fell on the ground.
    Then he
jumped just as the bird pulled up to go back into the air. Malakha lifted her
head to see where he had gone and managed to make out his form on top of the
bird as it turned again to come for her.
    “Malakha,
stay down!”
    Malakha
tucked her head back down just in time to feel the tips of the bird’s talon’s
graze across her back. When she didn’t hear the bird coming back, she got up
and turned around to see where it had gone.
    The beast
was valiantly trying to throw Julius off his back. Julius on the other hand
wasn’t letting go and was pulling at feathers on the back of the bird’s neck.
Malakha didn’t know why, but Julius yanking the feathers disrupted the bird’s
flight, causing it to descend to the ground. It let out another cry, the same
one from before that sounded like something was dying except it was closer and
louder and hurt Malakha’s ears. She covered them as Julius continued to tug at
the feathers until finally the bird fell flat on its breasts, still crying out
loudly. If Malakha thought that the bird’s cries had been louder then, they
only seemed to get louder when Julius tugged on a feather so hard, he plucked
it out.
    With
that, the beast fell unconscious and Julius jumped off its back. Malakha
hesitantly approached him and the unconscious bird.
    “What
did you do to it?”
    Julius
didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “Are you always this hardheaded?”
    “Yes,”
Malakha admitted. “But this time not necessarily on purpose.”
    Julius
sighed, looking past Malakha and into the distance. Before she could follow his
gaze to see what he was looking at, he looked back at her and said, “We’ve got
to get you out of here.”
    Malakha
rolled her eyes. “I told you—“
    “I know
what you told me. And I’m going to try to help you,” Julius said. “Let’s assume
that this works the same way it would work if someone from Hell made a
connection through a crack in the divide. Technically, this is just a temporary
form for you. Your real body is back across the divide, so somewhere in that
head of yours, you should have some awareness of your world. Can you sense it?”
    Malakha
pressed her lips together and tried to tune out the noises of the wasteland.
There wasn’t much noise to begin with, only the soft whines of the bird. She
waited for a while, to see if she could sense anything happening in her world.
After a while she shook her head.
    “It’s
not working.”
    “Try
again. And find something to focus on and see if you hear background noise or
something.”
    Malakha
sighed. The only thing there was for her to focus on was Julius’ breathing.
Well there was also the bird’s whining, but it annoyed her and broke her focus
more than anything. As she focused on the soft barely perceptible sound of
Julius inhaling and exhaling she began to hear the background noise. It
reminded her