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The blood drained from my face too.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The wall had been perfectly smooth before. I should know, I checked every inch of this place looking for a way out.
Nothing was there.
Nothing had been there.
Now there was.
Gaping like an open pit was a door.
And it was open.
2
MADDY
I opened my eyes and was surprised to find I wasn’t dead.
I should have been. A fall from a cliff like that would have killed anyone.
I bolted upright and sucked a deep lungful of oxygen into my starving lungs. I clutched a hand to my chest and panted.
Every day back home, I began with the same morning routine. It helped calm me, easing me into the day ahead. I shut my eyes and breathed in another deep breath. My chest expanded and shuddered as I let it out. I repeated the breath and this time it came out a little smoother and easier than the last.
Intense images of a minivan sailing over a cliff attempted to invade my thoughts but I wouldn’t let them. I saw another image. This one was a blinding white light. I floated out of my seat and…
I blocked it out.
I needed to calm down. Relax.
Another half a dozen breaths and I could breathe normally.
I kept my eyes shut and finally let those images come to me one by one.
Me and my friends were in a minivan, heading home after our crazy weekend of partying. We’d been celebrating Hazel’s final few days of freedom. In the morning, she would marry the dependable and reliable—but entirely uninteresting—Tom.
Alice was in the driver’s seat and accidentally took the minivan over the edge of a mountain and down into the ravine below.
We should have crashed. We should have died.
But then there was that bright white light…
My breath hitched in my throat again. I took a moment to take more calm, steadying breaths.
That light pinned the minivan in place. It seemed so unreal, like it couldn’t have happened and I’d imagined the whole thing.
But it had happened. I was sure of it.
Sitting on the backseat, my blanket had floated up and wrapped around my face. I might have been on the set of a cool Hollywood movie. And then…
Then the light tugged me viciously out of the minivan. I scrambled to grip hold of something but had no control over the movement of my arms and legs. I was a doll in someone else’s hands.
I recalled the terror of not wanting to leave the safe confines of the minivan or the reliable presence of my friends.
But what I wanted was no longer important. Only what the light wanted.
