Free Going Lucid by Holly Dae Page A

a little of being in the farmer’s market back home. It was very
loud, but after many visits she had learned to ignore it, made it part of the
scenery and atmosphere that she could overlook because it just was. Then she
heard Sabrina’s voice.
    “Malakha! Malakha! Malak, she’s not waking up. I knew
we shouldn’t have let her take that stupid drug!”
    “Sabrina?”
Malakha muttered trying to focus even more on the voice.
    “Who?” Julius asked.
    Malakha
didn’t answer him, only focused even more on the voice until it became clearer
and sounded less dreamy. In the process, Julius’ voice, which had been clear at
first, began to muffle and sound surreal. Then the world began to blur again,
and Malakha saw her own world beginning to appear on top of Hell until finally,
her world took over completely and she was back in the van, blinking wearily at
Sabrina and Malak, both of whom had been trying to shake her awake.
    Sabrina
wrapped her arms around her and let out a sigh of relief.
    “Thank
God you’re okay,” she said and then pulled away. “What happened?”
    Malakha
blinked, looking at herself to find that she was back in her school uniform,
and Julius’ trench coat was gone. She then looked back up at Malak and Sabrina
    “I went
to Hell.”
    Malak
and Sabrina both reared back like they had been slapped.
    “Say
that again?” Malak asked.
    “I went
to Hell,” Malakha repeated, not quite able to believe it herself.
    “Hell?”
Sabrina asked slowly. “Malakha, you don’t believe there’s a Hell.”
    “No,”
Malakha said. “I said I don’t believe it’s a place you go when you die. I
didn’t die. I went to Hell.”
    Malakha
then looked at her right hand, which was clutching something smooth and cool.
She held out her fist to Malak and Sabrina and then opened it to reveal the silver
pocketknife Julius had given her, the knife that hadn’t been in her hand when
she first went under.
    “What’s
that?” Malak asked.
    “I
brought it with me from Hell,” Malakha replied.
    All three
of them were silent, not knowing what to say as they stared at the only proof
Malakha had that she had indeed traveled to another world and hadn’t had some
strange dream.
    Finally,
it was Malak who said, “Well this gives entirely new meaning to going to Hell
and back.”

 

Chapter Seven
    Sadist

 
    Malakha
was really going to have to take some time out of her schedule to call her
grandfather so that she could beg and plead to him to convince her parents that
she didn’t need these “confessions” sessions. At this point, nothing anyone
said was going to make her believe in any kind of religion or God for that
matter. Couldn’t she still be a good person without all that? Regardless, she
wasn’t being as difficult with the priest today, settling on short simple answers
so that they would move along through the session.
    “Tell
me Malakha, is there a particular reason why you feel so strongly against
religion? An event in your past that may have skewed your
perception?”
    Malakha
rolled her eyes at that. Why couldn’t people just understand that there wasn’t
a reason that she didn’t believe in any of this stuff? There was no trauma that
made her a cynic or a disbeliever in the good of the world and God’s grace or
whatever they wanted her to believe. She just didn’t. But they would never
accept that answer. There had to be a reason.
    “Malakha.”
    Malakha
groaned and shifted in her chair. “I keep telling you! I keep telling everyone!
Nothing traumatic happened to me in my past! I was never lacking love or care
or the things I needed. No one ever tried to hurt me. The most traumatic thing
that ever happened to me was Eliza attacking me yesterday, which has done
nothing to change my stance any further to the left or right on what I believe
in by the way. I just don’t believe in any of it!”
    Malakha
exhaled sharply before sitting back in her chair. She hadn’t meant to explode
like that, but she