Going Lucid, A YA Paranormal Read online

  Sabrina sat up on her bed to look at Malakha, who was now randomly browsing the internet.

  “How did you figure all that out?”

  “The horror movies do it all the time. And I read Dracula last year. That’s practically the reason they couldn’t catch him. The supernatural transcends science and religion,” Malakha said absently. Still feeling her best friend’s eyes on her she added, “Just because I occasionally dog religion and think science oversteps its bounds sometimes doesn’t mean I don’t study the stuff.”

  Sabrina was silent again, and Malakha started to turn to look at the girl to ask if it was so unbelievable that she actually knew about the very things she didn’t believe in. Before she could fully look at that girl though, there was a knock on their door.

  Malakha got up to answer it, rearing her head back when she saw Malak at the door.

  “Malak? What are you doing here?”

  “If you let me in before the nuns round the corner, I’ll tell you,” Malak whispered holding the girl’s kindle and his laptop.

  Malakha let him in, ignoring Sabrina’s surprised gasp as Malak walked into the room.

  “How did you get in here?” Sabrina asked.

  “Well after sneaking in here carrying Malakha while she was unconscious at two in the morning, doing it at eight o’clock without an unconscious body was relatively easy,” Malak said pulling the chair from Malakha’s desk and setting it between Malakha and Sabrina’s beds. He opened his laptop and as he logged on, his fingers having memorized where the letters for his password were, he grinned at Malakha and asked, “So am I on your radar now?”

  At first Malakha didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she remembered their conversation from earlier that day. To be honest, she wouldn’t have paid any attention to the fact that he wasn’t in his uniform if he hadn’t pointed it out to her. But since he had pointed it out to her, Malakha noticed that he was in sweat pants and a men’s tank, purposely trying to impress her with his admittedly muscular arms.

  Malakha scowled at him. “What do you expect me to do? Swoon and fall head over heels all of a sudden?”

  “I wouldn’t complain,” Malak said now looking at his computer screen, a smirk playing on his lips.

  Malakha didn’t reply, opting to turn the music up a little louder. The nuns might hear it a little through the doors if they passed, but they wouldn’t bother her about it, and they wouldn’t hear Malak’s voice through the door either.

  “Sorry. You’ve got nothing on Julius,” Malakha finally replied.

  Sabrina laughed at that and said, “Terrible isn’t it Malak? You’ve had no competition for all these months and then Malakha goes to hell and gets a crush on the first guy she meets.”

  “I don’t have a crush on him,” Malakha said glaring at Sabrina.

  “And I would like to change the subject so you all won’t be able to tell how totally jealous I am by the way I would like to respond to that,” Malak said tersely.

  Malakha rolled her eyes. And people said girls had mood swings…

  “You must have found something. Otherwise I don’t think you’d risk getting in trouble to come over here,” Sabrina said.

  Malak turned the computer to them and began.

  “I’ve been doing research about this since lunch and at first I didn’t find anything except the usual stuff about going to hell when you die, so I searched about people having experiences when they’re unconscious and you won’t believe what I found. It didn’t come up on the first couple of pages, but it’s the only thing similar to what you experienced,” Malak replied.

  “Great,” Malakha said. “So I’m crazy now?”

  “No. You know that prayer. The children’s one that they say on those old shows set in the nineteenth century?” Malak asked.

  “That one about going to sleep and hoping God keeps your soul safe for the night?” Malakha asked.

  “Yeah. But do you remember the rest?”

  Malakha shrugged and looked at Sabrina who said, “If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. What of it?”

  “There was a reason that prayer was written. In that prayer is the belief that the soul leaves the body while it rests, and God takes it for safe keeping.”

  “Okay,” Malakha said slowly. “What’s that got to do with me going to Hell?”

  “Well if you think of the body as a protective house for the soul, then naturally when the body is compromised, the soul is left vulnerable. Both times you went to Hell, you were high, not quite unconscious, but not completely conscious either.”

  Malakha blinked and sat down on her bed. “Okay. Confused much,” she said looking at Sabrina to see if she was as lost as she was.

  “No… I think I get it,” Sabrina said. “If you’re not unconscious, but not quite in a state of unconsciousness, why would your soul leave its body for safekeeping until you awoke? It would still be there right?”

  “Exactly,” Malak replied.

  “Still not getting this,” Malakha said.

  “What I’m saying is that states like that make your soul vulnerable,” Malak tried to explain.

  “Vulnerable to what?”

  “To being taken! By the Devil, Satan, Lucifer,” Malak said slowly as understanding began to dawn on Malakha.

  “Or devoured by a giant zombie eagle,” she said.

  “Yeah. Except I think you’re a special case,” Malak replied.

  “Special?”

  “Nothing took you. Nothing devoured your soul. Your soul actually left your body and went somewhere; somewhere where the soul is the body,” Malak said.

  “So you mean to tell me my soul went somewhere while I was high?”

  “Yeah… except you still had a connection to your physical body. That’s why the bruises appeared on your arms and why you could hear Sabrina calling you when she was trying to wake you up. If you hadn’t been connected, your body would have been a vegetable or something, essentially brain dead,” Malak explained.

  Malakha was silent, arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face. Finally she said, “This is crazy. This doesn’t make any sense at all. Is that all you can find.”

  “It’s the best I can come up with when a person says they went to Hell and hear voices,” Malak said.

  “Well what about the laughter. What’s that?”

  “You want my best guess based on what I’ve read?”

  “Can’t be any crazier than what you’ve already told me.”

  “You’re just really in tune to the sounds that naturally cross over through the cracks. Everyone hears stuff every now and then and dismiss it as nothing because we’ve been taught it’s crazy, but you’re more attuned to it, so you know you heard it. You know you’re not crazy even though everyone else might think you are.”

  “Why?”

  “Haven’t figured that out yet,” Malak admitted.

  “So people who are in the crazy house really aren’t crazy. They’re actually hearing stuff that slips between the cracks in the divide between here and Hell,” Malakha said dryly. “How long do you think it will be before I’m committed?”

  “You won’t get sent to the crazy house. People like you are the exception, not the norm,” Malak assured.

  “Maybe it has something to do with genetics or something,” Sabrina suggested suddenly. Her eyebrows were furrowed as she thought.

  “Genetics?” Malakha asked.

  “Yeah. You know a mutant gene or something,” Sabrina asked, unable to hide the grin on her face.

  “Stop watching X-men,” Malakha said throwing a pillow at the girl.

  Sabrina threw the pillow back on Malakha’s bed and said, “Seriously. What if it is genetics?”

  “Then we’ll never know.”

  “Why not? I think it’s something worth looking into,” Sabrina said.

  “Because I’m adopted and the records were closed and sealed off,” Malakha informed.

  Both Malak and Sabrina turned to
look at her.

  “You’re adopted?” they asked.

  “Yeah,” Malakha said slowly. She thought they knew this. “You’ve met my parents Sabrina. At the beginning of term last year when they helped me bring and move my stuff here? Why do you think I don’t look like them?”

  Sabrina blinked. “They were your parents.”

  “Who did you think they were?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought they were some people you knew,” Sabrina said.

  Malakha only laughed, mostly used to the reaction. People rarely connected her with the pale, blue-eyed, dirty blondes that were her parents, mostly because her skin looked more like coffee that was light on the cream with brown hair that was either in twists or a tight ponytail to contain her thick tresses.

  “That’s even more of an incentive to look into your genetics,” Malak said after getting over his surprise.

  “Why? To make sure I’m not some half breed between Heaven and Hell that can cross between the thresholds at will?” Malakha asked.

  “We at least shouldn’t dismiss it,” Sabrina said. “In the mean time, I think you should go to Hell again.”

  “Again? Why?” both Malak and Malakha replied, but for obviously different reasons.

  Malakha looked at Malak and shook her head. “Relax. I’m not that eager to see Julius again. He’s a bit of an ass no matter how handsome he may be.”

  “If you think that someone there is making this stuff happen at school then maybe Julius can help you stop whoever’s doing it before someone really gets hurt,” Sabrina added.

  “Two problems with that. One: We don’t have a supply of LSD on hand and quite honestly, while I was willing to chance it one more time, I would really not like to become addicted to drugs. Two: I’m not particularly eager to be forced to walk around naked again. I don’t know if Julius will be nice enough to let me wear his trench coat again.”

  “Well I know how to solve one of your problems,” Malak said and then added, “I think anyway.”

  “Which problem?”

  “You don’t need drugs to go back to Hell again. You can just try lucid dreaming.”

  ******

  Malakha yawned for the umpteenth time, cursing the fact that Malak had stayed so late the night before trying to explain to her the basics of lucid dreaming, a state of consciousness and unconsciousness that might be a way for her to cross back into Hell without the use of drugs. Still it didn’t solve her problem of always appearing there naked, but if Julius could give her a pocket knife that crossed over with her, then surely there was something that could cross between the worlds.

  “Maybe,” Sabrina said when they were dismissed as she packed her stuff, “maybe it has to be somehow connected to the spiritual for you to take it.”

  “Like?”

  “I don’t know, like a habit or something.”

  Malakha scoffed. “Yeah right. No way in the world you’re going to get me in one of those things.”

  “But it might be the only way for you to take something with you. Think about it. Habits are bestowed on nuns and the monks after they’re initiated as novitiates after months, sometimes even years of observing and participating in the community,” Sabrina said as Malakha slowly packed up her stuff.

  “Where did you learn that?” Malakha asked.

  “Wikipedia,” Sabrina replied. “If I had asked the nuns they would have thought I was interested in becoming a nun. Anyway, they don’t get it until that trial period is over and they’re given it in a special ceremony by a superior. That makes it something spiritual though, right? Something spiritual has to be able to cross over with you right?”

  “Somehow, I doubt a habit will work,” Malakha said heading out the class with Sabrina long after the rest of class had left.

  “Why?”

  “Just a feeling it won’t be that easy. Besides, I’d look ridiculous in a habit.”

  “No you wouldn’t,” Sabrina said rolling her eyes. “It’s at least worth a try.”

  “And where are we going to get a holy habit from?” Malakha said as she stopped to round on Sabrina expectantly.

  “The laundry. Where else?” Sabrina asked.

  ******

  “I look ridiculous in this,” Malakha said later, after she and Sabrina had found the laundry and snagged a habit.

  “It was the smallest one I could find,” Sabrina said with the veil in her hand. Malakha glared at her before the girl could even approach with it, and Sabrina raised her hands in a sign of surrender before throwing the veil onto the bed.

  “You don’t look that bad,” Malak said, but his laughter said otherwise.

  “This isn’t earning you any brownie points,” Malakha snapped.

  Malak stopped laughing and then after a pause said, “Wait. I have brownie points with you?”

  Malakha continued to glare at him causing Malak to say, “Fine. We’ll stop.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Sabrina said covering her mouth to muffle her snickers.

  “That’s it. Forget it. There’s got to be another way,” Malakha said beginning to take off the habit that she was wearing over her uniform. It was hot anyway.

  “No,” Sabrina said holding up her hand though she was still snickering. “No. Just try it. I’ll stop.”

  Malakha turned to look at Malak this time. “So how do I do this lucid dreaming thing?”

  “You’ve got to relax,” said Malak.

  “I am relaxed.”

  “No. I mean, relax like you’re about to go to sleep or something.”

  “You mean lay down?” Malakha asked.

  “If it helps,” Malak said shrugging.

  Malakha sighed in impatience as she laid herself down on her bed.

  “Now what?”

  “Just relax.”

  “I am relaxed.”

  “No I mean relax and be still like you’re about to go to sleep, but without going to sleep. What you want to do is trigger a REM cycle.”

  “A REM cycle?”

  “The cycle of sleep when dreams happen.”

  “But I don’t want to go to sleep.”

  “That’s why it’s called lucid dreaming. In a lucid dream you’re aware that you’re not in your normal reality which grants you more control over yourself and the dream. Maybe doing that will help you willingly cross the divide.”

  Malakha groaned and said, “You’ve got about five seconds to explain this to me in a better way or I’m going back to get tablets from Eliza’s boyfriend.”

  Sabrina sighed and said, “Maybe we can help her.”

  “How?”

  “We can be like a hypnotist. Being hypnotized is like a lucid dream isn’t it?” Sabrina asked.

  “Kind of… maybe,” Malak said. “But we don’t want to hypnotize her.”

  “I know. We’ll just help her relax,” Sabrina said pulling her desk chair to the side of Malakha’s bed.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Malak asked.

  “People do it on TV all the time. It can’t be that hard,” Sabrina said and then she lowered her voice down to a soothing whisper. “Okay Malakha. Let’s start with your breathing. Clear your head. Don’t think of anything that excites you or makes your heart race. Think soothing thoughts. Think of watching the sky or something.”

  “What am I? Four?” Malakha asked, finding Sabrina’s voice whispering in her ear more annoying than soothing.

  “I’m just trying to give you ideas because as far as I know, nothing you do is even hardly relaxing or not exciting,” Sabrina replied.

  Malakha sighed again, folding her hands over her stomach as she tried to come up with something on her own. Then that tune, the tune she had been trying to play at the piano a week ago, came into her head. She still didn’t know what it was called or who the composer was, and it was really beginning to irritate her. She’d need to spend some time to find it later. Maybe if she could remember the movies she had heard it on…

  “Do you have
your soothing thought?” Sabrina asked.

  This time her friend’s voice sounded soothing and Malakha nodded.

  “It’s not something that will put you to sleep, is it?” Sabrina asked.

  Malakha shook her head.

  “Good. Okay. Now focus on it. Go wherever it takes you. Ride it like… like you’re riding the waves on a lifesaver or something.”

  “Really,” Malakha heard Malak say to Sabrina, but it was starting to sound distant, kind of how Sabrina had sounded when she heard her in the back of her conscious back in Hell.

  “You try it,” Sabrina replied, still using a soothing whisper except her voice was more distant too.

  Malakha was again starting to feel like she wasn’t in control of her own body, her limbs frozen, but surprisingly, she didn’t feel trapped. In fact, she was beginning to feel like she was floating on air or better yet like she was drifting on the waves of a calm sea. Malak and Sabrina were still there, but their voices were distant and something, somewhere, had appeared behind them, appearing as a mirage probably would.

  Malakha began to drift past them, towards the mirage-like image that had appeared behind them. As she did so, the world Malak and Sabrina were still in began to become surreal and mirage-like, while the other world, Hell, began to solidify and stabilize. Then Malakha didn’t feel like she was drifting. Instead she was falling, but only a short distance. Still, she wasn’t prepared to land and stumbled, falling forward on her hands and knees.

  Malakha looked around, taking in the dilapidation, the bleak and dulls colors and outside the window, the continuous overcast. She was back in Hell.

  Chapter Nine

  Lucifer

  She was in a building; a large, dark, old building that looked like it needed to be condemned. Not only could she see outside through the window, but also through the holes in the ceiling. It was night in Hell too, but there were no stars as the sky was still covered by the perpetual overcast.

  Malakha shivered a little, rubbing her bare arms, absently noting that Sabrina had been wrong about the habit being able to cross over the invisible divide with her. She stood up, making sure to cross her arms over her chest as she wandered out the room and into the hall, cautious of where she stepped. The last thing she needed was to fall through the floor.