The school was three stories split into two wings, there was a large gap in the middle for the theater, cafeteria, and outer courtyard. This meant that, while the bottom floor was rather contiguous, meaning you could get from one side to the other by just picking a direction and walking, the upper floors were mainly just two L shaped hallways that met in the middle where the—handicap only—elevator was situated. This had caused Ryan to hesitate at choosing the stairway as a destination, as that meant that, even if they were able to escape the stairwell unscathed (which they thankfully were) he still felt they were rather boxed in with only having one way to go.

  Still, he trusted the decision of his PerSpectives and led the Physics teacher up the stairs. The PerSpectives had mapped out a route to the third floor, but didn’t have any real time data due to the drone leading his group of friends to a safe location. Luckily the information it had gathered during its initial scans of the building was still accurate; the third floor was a ghost town. He had been expecting to hear distant cries or skittering sounds and was almost made uneasy by the absolute quiet around them.

  As they stepped out of the stairwell the world hiccupped, the ceiling lurched upward, and the walls bowed out and in as if they were breathing. The floor felt somewhat sticky and had a give to it when they stepped down as if it were made of something organic. The entire space had a sour, coppery smell to it that made him want to gag. Ryan wasn’t sure if whatever was “pinging” him was able to tell if he was up or down, but he sure hoped it thought like Khan in the old Star Trek movie, which was to say, two dimensionally.

  There was another one of those weird markings on the minimap in the room the PerSpectives had set as his final waypoint. He tried, again, to examine it, but his eyes just wanted to look anywhere else, and he started to get one of those headaches like when he tried to forcefully cross his eyes. He decided that maybe if he investigated in person, it would be different. When they got to where the minimap claimed the door should be they were faced with what looked like folds of skin.

  “Is this supposed to be a venous valve or something?” Mike wondered, feeling the surface. As he touched it the layers parted abruptly. They quietly entered the room, which was surprisingly normal, set up in the standard way, thirty chairs set up in rows facing a smart board.

  “You know,” Mr. Fritzinski said after the door had closed. “We’re supposed to be so far advanced from our primitive past, but for some reason, despite what irrevocable changes this great American Experiment goes through, we still can’t get past our industrial era schooling system.” He flicked on the Mag light he’d brought with him and started shining it about the room.

  “What?” Ryan asked, confused. It had been years since he’d learned about the Industrial Era and had only really formed a vague notion of what it was at the time.

  “Nothing, never mind.” They both moved further into the classroom. The chairs had been shoved aside near the smartboard and on the floor, something had been drawn in a red substance that was so dark that it looked almost black under the flashlight. “This looks vaguely Hebraic,” he mused, tracing out the lines. “In fact, I think I know what this says.” Ryan still couldn’t bring himself to look at it, but now that he was standing in front of it, he felt a reaction from the orb in his pocket, and it was not a pleasant one. It was almost as if it was having an emotional reaction, and that emotion was bleeding into him.

  “I-It’s uh,” he stammered. “It’s wrong. We should erase it, Mr. Fritzinski.” He’d never felt the orb react this way, as if it were simultaneously intimately connected with and repulsed by whatever that writing was.

  “Mike,” Mr. Fritzinski corrected. “And I think you’re right, this looks like it is referencing the Qliphoth.” Ryan frowned at the strange word.

  “I’ve heard that term before,” he said, remembering the system message. “Helios?”

  “Qliphoth is Hebraic meaning shell or husk. It is a Kabbalistic term referring to the inverted Sephiroth,” the AI spoke through the frequency device. “The symbol written on the ground does indeed resemble the sixth Qliphothic layer: Thagirion.” While “Mike” was nodding Ryan was shaking his head.

  “I have hardly any idea of what any of that means,” Ryan said.

  “Hm, from our one study session together, I was under the impression you had read Dr. Neuman’s work on the Deep Astral,” Mike said.

  “I…” Ryan threw his eyes to the side, “…haven’t finished it yet.

  “It’s a mark of corruption,” Mr. Fritzinski explained. “The lower layers of the Astral are known as the Qliphoth, and they are a corruption of the higher realms known as the Sephiroth. They are where souls with the highest karmic debt sink and are where the creatures of nightmare are born. This must be what Henry was doing when I saw him wandering the halls earlier.”

  “Who? What?” Ryan asked.

  “Akh, sorry, Mr. Clark, the IT guy. I think he was writing these symbols all over the school, so that they could look for, well, look for you Ryan. I’m not sure why it would use this particular symbol of the Qliphoth though, it generally represents the inversion of the Tree of Life. I don’t think whatever was controlling Henry—Mr. Clark—knew what it was doing. I’m willing to bet it didn’t even intend to create this Emergence Zone.” Mike tapped his chin and started pacing, then turned towards Ryan. He opened his mouth, then closed it, choosing not to say what he was thinking. Ryan didn’t want to press him.

  “So how do we undo it?” he asked, instead.

  “Like I said, there is no known instance of an Emergence Zone ending in anything other than disaster for those involved,” Ryan’s shoulders slumped, but the physics teacher wasn’t finished. “However,” he said, and Ryan perked up, “there were theories.” Ryan’s eyebrows rose in anticipation. “It isn’t entirely known how they were formed in the first place, but the good Doctor Neuman posited that it had to do with an unusual interaction involving a distorted Locus, and that if it could be repaired before the ‘Inverted Reality’ were to collapse, the Emergence Zone would dissolve back into reality. The problem was, no one with the ability to astral project was ever caught up in one, and the Ministry never figured out how to forcibly enter an Astral Node.”

  “Geeze, you really are a teacher,” Ryan said. “Am I really supposed to take your class next year?”

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  “Physics is fun!” Mr. Fritzinski insisted.

  “So, I just have to go through the Astral Gate and repair the Locus,” Ryan had not meant to say that part out loud and winced when he saw the excited look on the teacher’s face, who was now nodding excitedly.

  “I knew it! The Sifting Corporation doesn’t play around when choosing to intervene,” he said. Ryan filed that sentence away as something to seriously consider when his life wasn’t in imminent danger. “So, I’m guessing it has been preparing you for Astral Projection?”

  “Something like that,” Ryan chose to not fully commit to an answer to that one.

  “Well, if you can astral project, and have a strong enough Soul Tether, you may be able to get into the Rift and repair the Locus.”

  “We need to get my friends up here,” Ryan decided. “But first, let’s scramble these symbols,” he turned towards the dark wavy runes. They started rubbing at it with their shoes and the substance it was drawn in started to flake away as if it were made of dried blood. As the symbol was broken up Ryan felt the intensity of the Concentrated Firmament in his pocket subside, and it felt like a tension that had been around him since the Emergence Zone had formed was suddenly let go. It was almost a deafening silence at this point. At least, it was for a moment. The symbol on the ground must have been acting like a bubble and removing it must have created a zone of decreased pressure. The door folded aside like flesh and the surfaces of the room transformed into the same fleshy substance from the hallway.

  “Aitherios,” Helios spoke inside Ryan’s headset, presumably not to alarm the teacher. “I have collected enough data from the rate of distortions and Qliphothic elements to determine the rate of destabilization of Inverted Reality. Assuming no further action, this space will implode in approximately three hours and thirty-seven minutes.”

  “What? That’s too soon,” Ryan whispered.

  “It appears that disturbing the mark of corruption has acted as a stabilizing factor and increased the timeline I had initially calculated.”

  “You already had a timeframe calculated and didn’t tell me?” Ryan hissed, taking a step back as a globule of mucous dripped slowly down above him.

  “I had not collected enough datapoints to make an accurate estimate.” Large purple vein like tubes started to jut out from the ground and pulsate as if they were arterial in nature.

  “It’s like we’re inside of some giant creature,” Mr. Fritzinski had wandered over to a wall, ignoring Ryan for once and reached out to touch the surface. It recoiled at his touch, and then they were surrounded by a deafening rumble as everything shook. Where the Symbol had been a thin yellow membrane had formed, and while they were being beaten down by the sound the floor lurched, sending them tumbling onto the membrane, which gave under their combined weight, spilling them down onto the second floor, right on top of an unlikely group of students.

  “What the hell Donovan?” a familiarly unwelcome voice complained as Ryan let out a pathetic groan.

  “Jeremy?” he croaked, confused.

  “Get off me,” came the answer. Ryan rolled over, off the pile of annoyed Jeremy.

  “Ryan!” both Lisa and Derek shouted simultaneously, pulling him up and into a group hug. Now he was really confused. He glanced over their shoulders and saw they were again in a normal looking classroom, no sign of the distortions he had started to become accustomed to. Even the ceiling had reverted to the normal square tiles he was used to. There was a small pill shaped object softly glowing an incandescent hue to illuminate the room. Curled up against one of the walls sat a girl that looked vaguely familiar, though she had her hands around her legs and head down, slowly rocking herself, so it was hard to tell. Mr. Fritzinski rushed over to her side to check on her. His PerSpectives popped up a message.

  Task Update: Revert Reality

  Secondary Objective: Find Your Friends Complete!

  “What is happening right now?” Ryan’s muffled voice came from inside their shoulders.

  “I was sort’ve hoping you could tell us,” Derek said as the group disengaged.

  “Why would Ryan know anything about this madness?” Jeremy scoffed. Ryan glanced at Mr. Fritzinski, who gave no indication he knew anything. He really wasn’t going to rat him out. Still, there was a look on Lisa’s face that mirrored Jeremy’s question, perhaps with more of a “what did you do” vibe than the “no way you could have anything to do with it,” tone Jeremy had used. Ryan didn’t think now was the time for any more secrets.

  “Ok, so,” he took a deep breath. “You know how you showed me some tricks for densification last night?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly.

  “Well, it turns out you’re a really good teacher!” He paused to see if that would earn him any points, but her face told him it did not. “Ok, well there was this thing, I found out about yesterday, after school.”

  “This thing,” Derek mocked, shaking his head. “We found the beginnings of an Astral Tear!”

  “You, what?!” Lisa shouted while Jeremy let out an “oooooh” sound of someone finally getting something.

  “That’s what you two were talking about in the hallway,” Jeremy said.

  “What, you skulking around spying on us now?” Derek turned, jabbing a finger at the larger kid.

  “Not just skulking,” Ryan said. “Remember that smart paper he ‘gave’ me the other day? He had it loaded with spyware.” Derek’s face started to turn red, but Lisa wasn’t about to let this conversation get any more side-tracked.

  “Boys! You can have a pissing contest when we aren’t in a life-or-death situation.” She turned to Ryan. “Let me see if I can extrapolate what you’re afraid to tell me. You two found a tear, decided not to do the sensible thing and call the Ministry,” even Lisa was reluctant to share Ryan’s secrets with Jeremy and the physics teacher who was with Ryan for some reason, “I can guess what reasoning Derek probably used to convince you to do what you did next. After you learned a few tips from me you went straight home and tried projecting through the tear, found you were in way over your head, and left without repairing the Locus. The Ministry detected the fomenting rip in the fabric of reality and sent a team out to repair it and used their yearly testing as a cover story.”

  “Actually,” Ryan corrected sheepishly, as if contradicting her would raise her ire. “I did manage to repair it. I confirmed the proto-gate was closed just before the power went out. I think the Ministry sent their team here to figure out who I am.”

  “That’s why you were so nervous. And why you two idiots were being so evasive with me,” Lisa slapped herself on the forehead. “I’m so stupid.”

  “No, you’re not,” Ryan said. “We were being stupid.”

  “Hey,” Derek interjected. “Speak for yourself. Our plan was awesome and definitely worked.”

  “No, Derek, it wasn’t. And didn’t. I really was in over my head, and I’m pretty sure the creature I encountered on the other side reopened the gate to find me.” Ryan expected stunned silence, which is what he got from Lisa and Derek, but the moment he thought he would have to elaborate was suddenly ripped away as he was lifted bodily up by Jeremy, jacket and shirt bunched up in his meaty fists as he slammed Ryan against the wall.