This was NOT supposed to happen. no no no no no Raine thought as she sprinted down the corridor. This had never happened before. There were precautions. There were steps taken to prevent this from ever happening. But it had. Why?

Turning the corner she stopped abruptly. There, at the end of the hall, the last door on the left. Raine watched as a series of men and women in labcoats entered and left the room, hurried. A tall man saw her watching and motioned for her to come forward.

She began to open her mouth, and he held up his hand, silencing her. “It happened an hour ago. The vitals were perfect, breathing normal. And then he just.... woke up.” Raine sucked in air and covered her mouth with her hand. No one ever woke up. Ever. She smoothed her lab coat and strode into the room, biting back the fear that arose in her throat.

There, on the bed, sat a teen boy with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He stared at the wall, as doctors and scientists poked and prodded at his arms where a thick IV was implanted. Raine walked towards him, trying not to notice the vacant look in his once lively eyes.

“Ethan?”

The boy turned his head slowly, and mouthed the words i'm sorry.  Raine was shocked. Him? Sorry? He had no reason to be sorry. in fact, he had every reason in the world to be furious. What he was promised- security, peace, and safety- all that were ripped from him.

Ethan, and all the other residents of the North Haven Research Facility all possessed a chemical compound in their brain that allowed them to see different dimensions. It appears in the late teenage years, often similar to the signs of schizophrenia- paranoia, delusions of grandeur, hearing voices and hallucinations.

Raine had been the first to realize the difference between schizophrenics and dimensionalists (the name given to people like Ethan). Her younger sister claimed she could see different worlds, that she could hear the organisms in different dimensions speaking to her. she eventually was overwhelmed by the mental stimulation and died of an aneurysm.

Raine devoted her life to finding and helping people like her sister. She found that as the children got older, the voices and visions became stronger and impossible to handle. the human psyche was simply too weak to withhold the vast information the chemical compound released.

So a serum was created, to put the patients in a coma like state where their visions of different dimensions were isolated, essentially forcing them into their own minds for their own safety. So they lived in hospital beds, eyes darting back and forth underneath closed lids, living in a different world. Their minds were stable. In this, they were freed from their confusion of living in two worlds.

But somehow, ethan had woke up. Raine kneeled down and took the boys hands in her own. “Why are you sorry?” tears began streaming down his face. his voice was barely audible, yet Raine heard his quiet words. “I tried to stay... but they wouldn’t let me. There’s something they don’t want us to see.” He lifted his eyes to meet hers. “They know. They know about us.”

Raine stared at the boy. He looked petrified, his hands suddenly icy, his eyes filled with pain. His eyes searched her face as he mumbled something incoherently. A shiver ran up Raine’s spine. She stood up then, unwove the boy’s cold fingers from hers and strode out of the room, surprised at her own composure.

Once in her office, the tired, exasperated, and confused woman shrank down into her office chair and put her head on her desk. Think Raine. Think.

Mentally lining up her plan Raine breathed in and out slowly, composing herself. She stood up, and walked over to the full length mirror behind the door. A tall thin woman stood before her. Sleek black hair flowed down her waist. her eyes were deep brown with bags of sleepless nights beneath them. small thick glasses perched on her nose. Raine smoothed her labcoat and walked out the door to the elevator and went to the lab’s basement.

Once inside the musky warehouse like room, Raine went to a small office with old furniture and boxes of files stacked about. She walked towards the back of the room and opened a hatch in the floor. She climbed down carefully, silently cursing the business attire black heels she wore.

The room beneath the basement was even smaller than the room she had entered from. It was a concrete room, with files and paperwork pasted on the walls and thin lines of red string connecting different points on the wall display. Her fathers work. It was her father that inspired Raine to be a scientist. He had been a geneticist, and had an addiction to hallucinogenic drugs. He went insane after his daughter died and overdosed on DMT, convinced he could enter a different dimension that took his daughter.

Raine discovered her father’s small room 6 months after he died.

The tired scientist walked towards the center of the room and opened the silver briefcase that sat upon a small metal table. She uncapped the syringe that held a murky green liquid, rolled up her sleeve and plunged the needle into her vein.

Raine slumped to the floor and lay on the cold concrete, preparing herself for what she knew would come. With her father’s work and her discoveries about the hallucinogenic drug DMt, Raine had created a serum that would allow her to develop the dementionalist compound. She breathed in and out as her vision began to blur, knowing she could do this. She would find the others, find out who They are, and finally get some answers. Truthfully she had almost injected the serum many times before, her curiosity and pent up anger for her sister driving her to do it. She had been waiting for an excuse. This was as good as any.

Raines eyes closed and she hovered in a half conscious state, she felt like she was floating in a pool of warm water. Then, nothingness.

The tall wiry dark haired woman’s eyes snapped open and she gulped for air. A group of nurses and aides rushed towards her, holding her arms and legs to the gurney covered in a thin white sheet. She thrashed and screamed, still lost partially in her subconscious.

A doctor stood before her and scribbled on a chart.

Patient still appears to be in a psychotic state. Awoke from the psychosis induced coma ranting and screaming. Still violent. Will have to sedate.

Dr. Ethan Haven