Death ain't all it's cracked up to be. Heaven, hell, or haunting. Those were the options, right?

Wrong.

For a time she drifted in the void, but on some level she was aware of her existence, which led her to believe that she was wrong and that there really was an afterlife. That both scared and exhilarated her. Scared her because she might wind up in hell, and exhilarated her because she was naturally curious, and she was voyaging into the final Great Unknown. People guessed after what lied beyond the threshold of death, but no one knew. She was about to find out, and that was cool.

When she reached the afterlife, it looked a lot like the house in Royal Woods. Smelled like it, too. Bitter disappointment crashed over her.

Siblings came and went. She did things. Wrote poems, crawled into the vents to be alone, laid in bed and imagined what dying was like. Lincoln was there, but while it looked like Lincoln, she knew it was actually Luan. "Wanna hear a joke?"

"No."

Lucy didn't hear the joke, but Lincoln-Luan slapped his-her knee and laughed. They had dinner. She sat in bed, feeling out of place and as if she didn't belong. She mused that everyone in her family was fighting to stand out, but by doing so, fell deeper into a pit of gray meaningless. What did it all matter? There was no point. No point in the arguments, no point in the wars and the rants she read on message boards. We all die someday, and life goes on. In fifty short years, everything that you think is so vitally important becomes ancient history. Stand out, blend in, it's all the same, because no one lives forever. Sure, people still read Dickins and Chaucer, but give it another five hundred years, or a thousand, and even they will fade.

Everything does eventually: Even the mightiest mountains erode over time, and become fields, and those fields stand for ten thousand years before a flood comes along and turns them into an ocean. Ten thousand years after that, the water drains and it goes back to being a field, or maybe a beach, or some other damn thing.

All of these things we make such a business of...what do they matter in the long run? Oh, lovely, slavery is over and gay people can get married. Awesome, until you realize that there will always be a minority, an oppressed class, a group everyone else spits on and reviles. Yesterday it was blacks, today it's transpeople, in ninety years it'll be people from District A, and fifty thousand years from now it'll be people who were born with two eyes instead of six. One thing men are good at is finding reasons to hate each other.

Hell. I'm in hell.

She despaired, but something happened then: A light fell from the sky, bright and warm. She squinted into it, and saw the face of God coming down to meet her, and God looked a lot like Leni. She didn't understand. Nothing made sense. But did it ever?

When God spoke, Lucy came awake with a gasp. Bright white light filled the world, and her mind was stuffed with warm wool. She turned left, the right. People were around her, their faces blurry and grotesque.

"It's okay, Lucy," one of the things said slowly, drunkenly, its arm reaching out to her. "You're in the hospital."

Lucy pulled away and screamed. More things came into view, one of them holding a needle. "This will help calm you down."

The needle sank into her arm, and the world slowly swam away. She closed her eyes, but did not lose consciousness. She heard people talking, machines beeping, a telephone ringing. For a time, she let her mind wander, but she felt the presence of demons close by, and retreated back into her head. She was safe. She was in the hospital. She was drugged up, that was all.

She dropped off, and when she woke again, she was in a spacious room with wood paneled walls. To her right, a window looked out into the night. She was woozy and her mouth was dry. She coughed, and to her left, something moved, startling her.

"Lucy?"

It was her mother, her face a mask of concern. She was sitting in a chair. She got up. "Oh, Lucy, honey."

Lucy watched blearily as her mother came to her and sat on the bed, her lips trembling and her eyes welling with tears. "Baby," she said, and touched her cheek.

Where was she again? She looked around. Oh, the hospital. Why? She couldn't remember. Something to do with Lincoln. He was telling bad jokes again and...

...and what?

"Honey, how do you feel?"

Lucy blinked. Her vision was still distorted. "Funny," she finally said.

"They gave you a sedative. You woke up and started screaming."

She tried to remember waking up and screaming, but couldn't. She did, however, remember a needle.

"What happened?"

Mom's face screwed up in an expression of misery. "Don't worry, sweetie. Just focus on getting better."

"Okay," Lucy said, and flopped back against the pillow. Getting better sounded nice. She didn't like feeling this way.

She slept, and soon warm sunlight fell through the window, warming her skin. She stirred and came groggily awake. For a minute, she didn't know where she was, then memeories came flooding back. Her mother crying by her bedside, a horrible creature stabbing her with a needle, demons...

...cutting her wrists.

She looked at her hands. White gauze was wrapped around each slash mark. She looked around the room, and noticed something: There were no machines. In hospital rooms, you saw all kinds of things: Heart moniters, IV stands, a million other pieces of equipment she couldn't name.

"I see you're awake," a voice said, and Lucy started. A nurse stood by the doorway. "How do you feel?"

"A little groggy," Lucy said, "where am I?"

"Saint Bernard's," the nurse said.

She and the nurse talked for a minute, Lucy's mind tuning out. She was still drugged. Ugh.

"Knock, knock."

Lucy looked up. A tall, bald man with glasses was coming into the room. He wore a white lab coat and pale gray pants. "I'm Dr. Fred Manwaring," he said, "and you must be Lucy Loud."

"Yeah," she said, "I guess."

"How are you feeling this morning?"

"Loopy."

"Ah. That's the sedative we gave you last night. It'll wear off in time. "Do you know why you're here?"

Lucy nodded. "Yeah."

She knew all too well.