Slowly, achingly, she made her way out of the greyness. She had a headache from hell, and she was beginning to feel nauseated as she lifted off layers of grogginess. By the time she was fully consciousness, she found herself heaving and retching, someone holding a bin in front of her. Her stomach finally stopped turning itself inside out, and she sat back carefully, taking short breaths through her nose.

"Feeling better?"

It was the nurse from before.

"Sort of."

"You were in a catatonic state. We were all worried about you, sweetie. We gave you lorazepam about an hour ago, and that's probably what brought you around-and made you throw up."

Claudia didn't respond. She wished she could be back in the greyness. At least there, she didn't have to think about the implications of what she had learned. Could it really be true?

"Have you… Have you been my nurse for a while?"

The woman nodded.

"Dr. Michener said I've been having delusions."

"Yes, you have."

"What happens? What do I look like?"

"You talk to yourself. We talk to you, but you never respond. You rarely become violent. Most of the time, you're just caught in your own world."

"Am I committed here? Can I leave?"

"You'll have to show your doctor that you're improving. At this point, you aren't committed."

The redhead nodded.

"Thank you."

"No problem. If you want to talk, I'll be around."


An hour or two later, Dr. Michener came in and the redhead had to suppress a shiver.

"Hello Miss Donovan. It's good to see you awake. " The man put a hand on her shoulder, and her skin seemed to crawl.

"I kept your treatment booked for today. That will be at 3pm."

"Oh." Claudia dug her nails into her palm, trying to stay calm. She knew she needed to act like she was getting better if she ever wanted to leave.

"You haven't been lucid for this amount of time in a very long while, Claudia."

"Yeah. I'm feeling really good," she lied.

"That's good. Let's hope you continue to make progress. Well, I've got other patients to see, so I'll see you at 3." The man left, and Claudia got up, grabbed a toothbrush and toothpaste from the counter, which seemed like they must be her own, and went down the hall to the bathroom. The worst part of the psych ward was not feeling like herself. If she couldn't get out right away, she would at least take good care of herself.


2:45pm rolled around, and an orderly came to take Claudia to the ECT treatment room. The redhead felt ill, and walked at a ridiculously slow pace.

"Come on, Claudia." The female orderly put a hand on her arm and pulled lightly.

"If you were about to get shocked, would you want to hurry up?"

The orderly didn't reply, but stopped pulling on her arm.

Once they finally arrived, Claudia climbed obediently into the bed. A nurse began sticking electrodes on Claudia's head, then put a blood pressure cuff and oxygen monitor on her. The young woman couldn't help but shake.

"It's going to be okay."

Claudia looked up at the nurse with the harshest glare she could muster.

The anesthesiologist had arrived and asked if Claudia was ready.

"I guess."

Maybe she really was crazy. Maybe the Warehouse and all of her adventures had just been delusions; maybe she had just been trying to cope. These thoughts drifted through her mind as a needle pierced the skin on one of her arms, and things began to go dark.


Where was she? She moved her mouth around, trying to grab at words.

"Hi Claudia. You just woke up from your ECT. Everything is okay."

"What? No…" Her mind was racing, but everything seemed jumbled and wrong. Something was wrong. This was wrong. This wasn't where she was suppose to be.

"I know you're a little confused right now. But it's going to be okay."

After a bit, Claudia was led back to her room by an orderly, and she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. She wasn't supposed to be here, she knew that much.

It took the confused redhead several hours to recall all that had happened. Once she had, she made her way to the art therapy and got a large piece of paper and a marker. She was going to figure this out. Uncapping the marker, she wrote "possibilities" in the middle of the paper, circling it. She drew a line coming out of the circle that led to another circle that said "I'm crazy." Then, she drew another line that led to a circle that said "Artifact weirdness." On the back of the paper, she wrote at the top, "plan." Below that, in bullet points, she wrote "Get the hell out of here. Look for weird/unusual items or people. See if the Warehouse is still there." Now that she had a plan, she went back to her room, folding the piece of paper and tucking it into her bra. She had to believe that an artifact was causing this sudden shift in reality. There was no way she was going to sit by and let her family and home be ripped away from her.


What do you guys think? Has Claudia been having delusions the whole time, is an artifact at play, or is it something else entirely? Stay tuned...