Summary: Ricky reflects on his relationship with both religion and Laz, his best friend. Little does he know that Laz embodies the very horrors he’s seeking.
Characters: Lazlo, Ricky.
Warnings: Fictional religion and discussions regarding losing faith, child-abuse and cult behaviours implied. Nothing is in great detail, and Ricky remains very unreliable in that he’s been indoctrinated since he was a young child ---- which may be a warning in itself, too.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve followed the Phixen faith.
After my dad lost my mom, he turned to Raku to feel better. He was never really religious before, but I guess I can’t blame him. I never knew her, but he always tells me how great a person she was. That she was kind and caring and would have been the best mother anybody could have hoped to have.
He also tells me that it’s my fault she’s gone, but that Raku’s teachings have given him the strength to forgive me. I guess it all works out in the end. My dad has found the fortitude to move on after her passing, and he’s also found it in his heart to be a good father too. I’m so lucky to be the son of such a generous person.
I’ve been to every service since I was old enough to walk. Every Wednesday, I head into a small, sweaty confession booth to talk to Raku. I tell Him everything I’ve done that week. All the temptations I’ve resisted. How hard I’ve been working. How good a son I’ve been pushing myself to be after my terrible sin. Some weeks are better than others. Sometimes, I achieve more at school, and I help more of my neighbours, and I get into less fights with my dad. But the fact is that I always try to be good. I hope Raku knows that. He should, if He supposedly knows everything.
'Supposedly’.
I shouldn’t talk like that. A lot of the fights I get into with my dad nowadays revolve around faith, and what’s okay to do and what isn’t. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more curious. My interests have expanded. I suddenly have questions that I didn’t before. My dad says that I’m straying, but I think I’m just growing up, and I think he hates that. I think there’s still a part of him that hates me for what I did, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t stop it.
Which only makes me feel even more distant, because if Raku’s teachings have really healed him, then why is he still punishing me? By the word of God Himself, he should feel drawn towards the light. “Vindication should not traverse the pure of heart” is what Raku tells his prophet Aldierno in 10:2. I think my dad still feels vindictive. I think he still hates me. He just won’t admit it. Which is a sin too, by definition, but whenever I raise this argument he holds my hand under hot water for a full minute, and that’s the end of that.
Maybe I am straying. Maybe I am being slowly consumed by darkness. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to be a truly good person.
That would explain why I’ve been ditching sermons to go urban exploring instead.
I know it’s wrong. Though ghosts are undoubtedly real ( or so the text says ), huros aren’t supposed to meddle with them. To attempt to bridge the gap between our world and the spirit realm is one of the greatest sins in the entire scripture ---- but according to my dad, I’m already a murderer, so technically speaking, I don’t have many ways to get worse.
I can’t explain what intrigues me about the spirit realm. I only know that when I lay awake at night and think about the presence of creatures that exist on a parallel plane, I feel scared out of my skin, but I also feel alive. Like I want to know more. Though me and my dad butt horns about it often, there’s nothing in the scripture that discourages the pursuit of knowledge. In fact, Raku Himself says that to know is to love, because knowing means that we understand more. It’s just unfortunate that the thing I want to know more about could potentially land me in serious trouble with the Church, and my commune.
I don’t think any of them know what I’m doing. Not yet. I still look devout. I still take care to show up to events and services whenever I’m being watched. I still go to church with my dad. I even still attend The Great Burn, even if it hurts me to watch. It’s not as if I hate religion now or anything. I just think there are things out there that I want to know, and maybe my beliefs don’t line up with what I truly think any more.
I don’t even really know what I think. I’ve never had to think for myself that much, and now that I’m on the cusp of adulthood, I feel stunted in a way that I shouldn’t. I think that’s what this is, this new-found interest in ghosts and all that weird stuff: I think it’s that I want to challenge myself. I’m constantly stuck between wanting to see something and never wanting the supernatural to show itself, because if it’s real and I see it then there’s no going back. I may be questioning my faith, but it’s also a safety net. An easy way to live my life. If I see something I can’t unsee, if I breach the veil between the living and the dead, where will I go from there? What will I think? And how can I continue to live with my dad being the way that he is when I know in my heart that it’s wrong? I think that’s what scares me the most: the idea that my dad isn’t actually as good a person as he seems.
Laz says that he’s projecting his insecurities onto me. I don’t know whether my dad’s actually unsure about anything, given his attitude, but Laz is certain. He says he feels lost and alone in the world, and that he’s using faith as a crutch because dealing with grief is hard. I used to tell him to stop being so cruel about him, but the more I think about it, the more I think that he hasn’t really dealt with my mom’s death at all. Maybe Laz is right, and maybe I know that, and that’s why I’m sticking with him whenever I can.
Laz is a bit of a weirdo. I met him when skipping one of my sermons. He was standing in the shade at the back of the church, still as the dead. It was as if he knew I was coming. His eyes never left me. When I asked what he was looking at, he said that he too was ditching, and asked if I wanted to hang out with him. I was scared of how easily he saw through me, and I guess that made me say yes. I didn’t want other people to see through me too ---- and I didn’t want him to tell anyone that he’d seen me out of the service just to spite me either.
I’m ultimately glad I hung out with him though. He’s probably the only person in my life right now that I actually trust. My dad’s kept me pretty closed off throughout my life. I’ve been so focused on my practises that I haven’t had much time to make friends, and I’m only really allowed to associate with members of the church. People my dad approves of. He would absolutely not approve of Laz. In fact, I get the feeling that he could probably kill me for hanging out with someone like him. He isn’t a bad person, but he isn’t a believer either, and my dad thinks the two are mutually exclusive. I know better though. I think Laz is good. He listens to me, and even though he’s a pretty lazy guy, he gives solid advice and speaks from the heart. He’s honest. And he’s entertaining my stupid ghost-hunting adventures despite being a sceptic. You can’t ask for a better sidekick than one who’ll follow you into the dark just for the hell of it.
He’s the entire reason I’m brave enough to be doing what I’m doing now: sitting awake writing in my journal while we’re bunked in The Crow Yard. It’s such a creepy place, and even in Raku’s stories it’s a place of great evil. It’s where really bad people are put to rest. Like, really bad people. The people of the district come together to make a scarecrow that embodies something they feared when they were alive, so that their spirits are too afraid to leave the grave and wander. It’s an old tradition, but as you can probably imagine, there’s a lot of folklore and myth surrounding this place. People are scared of it. They think it’s haunted. I do, too. I think if there’s any place that something evil could live, it’s here, and while it may not be brave enough to come out, that doesn’t mean it isn’t here. I’m scared out of my mind, much too scared to sleep, but I feel… excited. Like I’m actually doing something I want to do, even if part of me is telling me to run away.
Laz is snoring beside me. He looks so goofy tucked in a sleeping bag. He’s stupid tall, and so finding something for him to sleep in was next to impossible. Though he assured me he didn’t need anything, I still brought an old futon for him. His legs are poking out of the bottom. His pillow’s on the dirt. He sleeps as if he’s shacked up in his bedroom while I’m sitting here shaking like a leaf. I kinda wish I was as brave as him, but maybe it’s less about being brave and more about being stupid.
The sun will rise soon. I haven’t seen anything, but I feel it. In the air. Like electricity. Like something’s gonna jump out at me. Laz would laugh himself to death, even if it really was a ghost that attacked me. He’s just a jerk like that. But at least he’s here, which is more than can be said for my dad.
