Six Months Later
The routine had become second nature to Kyon. Wake up at 6:30 AM to the sound of the facility's gentle chimes. Breakfast at 7:00 - always the same bland oatmeal and orange juice that tasted like it had been filtered through cardboard. Group therapy at 9:00, where he sat in a circle with other "patients" and pretended to care about their progress. Individual therapy with Dr. Martinez at 11:00, where he fed her carefully constructed lies about his "improving mental state."
Kyon had learned to play the game. He took his medications without complaint, participated in the art therapy sessions, even smiled at the appropriate moments during recreational activities. To everyone at Riverside Psychiatric Facility, he was a model patient - a young man slowly recovering from a traumatic psychotic break, making steady progress toward eventual reintegration into society.
But beneath the facade, something darker was growing.
The facility itself was a maze of interconnected buildings, each designed with the same suffocating attention to "patient safety." Every corner was rounded, every surface soft, every potential weapon removed or secured. The windows were reinforced with wire mesh that cast diamond-shaped shadows across the floors. The doors locked from the outside, and the staff carried key cards that beeped with electronic authority.
Kyon had mapped every inch of it during his months of "recovery." He knew which orderlies were lazy, which nurses were sympathetic, which doctors were overworked and distracted. He knew the shift changes, the blind spots in the security cameras, the maintenance schedules that left certain areas temporarily unmonitored.
Most importantly, he knew about the basement.
The basement wasn't supposed to exist, at least not in any official capacity. It was the facility's dirty secret - a place where they kept the patients who couldn't be helped, couldn't be fixed, couldn't be released back into the world. The ones who had crossed lines that couldn't be uncrossed.
Kyon had first discovered it during one of his carefully orchestrated "wandering episodes." He had convinced the staff that he sometimes experienced mild confusion as a side effect of his medication, which gave him the perfect excuse to end up in places he wasn't supposed to be. During one such episode, he had followed a maintenance worker through a door marked "Authorized Personnel Only" and found himself in a narrow corridor that led to a freight elevator.
The elevator only went down.
He hadn't been able to explore further that day - the maintenance worker had quickly escorted him back to the main floor - but the discovery had planted a seed in his mind. If there were patients hidden in the basement, patients who had been forgotten by the outside world, then perhaps there were also methods being used on them that weren't part of the standard treatment protocols.
Methods that might help him return to the OtherSide.
Today, Kyon was going to find out.
The opportunity came during the afternoon recreation period. Most of the patients were in the common room, shuffling around with vacant expressions or staring at the muted television that played an endless loop of nature documentaries. Kyon had volunteered to help the janitor, Marcus, clean the supply closets - a job that took him to various parts of the facility and gave him a legitimate reason to be in restricted areas.
Marcus was a good man, probably in his fifties, with kind eyes and a gentle demeanor that made him popular with the patients. He treated everyone with dignity, never talked down to them, and often slipped extra snacks to those who were having particularly bad days. Under different circumstances, Kyon might have genuinely liked him.
"You're a good kid, Kyon," Marcus said as they worked together to reorganize a storage room near the administrative offices. "I can tell you're really trying to get better."
"Thank you, Marcus," Kyon replied, maintaining his carefully practiced tone of humble gratitude. "I just want to move forward with my life, you know? Put the past behind me."
Marcus nodded approvingly. "That's the right attitude. Dr. Martinez says you're making real progress. Might even be ready for a step-down program in another year or two."
A step-down program. Kyon almost laughed. As if he would ever be ready to rejoin normal society. As if he would ever want to. The normal world had taken everything from him - his sister, his parents, his childhood, his innocence. The normal world had left him broken and bleeding, and then had locked him away when he finally broke completely.
No, Kyon had no interest in returning to the normal world. He had much more important business to attend to.
"Marcus," Kyon said, affecting a tone of casual curiosity, "I've been having these dreams lately. Dreams about... underground places. Dark corridors and locked doors. My therapist says it might be my subconscious trying to process feelings of being trapped, but I can't shake the feeling that there's something more to it."
Marcus paused in his work, his expression growing slightly uncomfortable. "Dreams can be tricky things, son. Sometimes they're just our minds sorting through the day's experiences."
"But what if they're not?" Kyon pressed. "What if they're memories? I know I've been here for three years, but there are gaps in my recollection. Periods where the medication was... different. Stronger. What if I went places during those times that I can't consciously remember?"
The janitor's discomfort was now obvious. He avoided Kyon's eyes, focusing intently on arranging bottles of cleaning solution. "I think you should talk to Dr. Martinez about this," he said finally. "She's the one who would know about your treatment history."
"I have talked to her," Kyon lied smoothly. "She says there are indeed some gaps in my records. Periods where I was participating in experimental treatments that aren't part of the standard protocol anymore. She suggested I might try to explore the facility more thoroughly, to see if anything triggers those lost memories."
It was a carefully constructed lie, designed to exploit Marcus's good nature and his respect for medical authority. Kyon could see the internal struggle playing out on the man's face - the desire to help a patient in need warring with his awareness that he was being manipulated.
"I don't know, Kyon," Marcus said slowly. "There are places in this facility that patients aren't supposed to access. For good reasons."
"I understand that," Kyon said, allowing a note of desperation to enter his voice. "But Marcus, I can't shake the feeling that there's something down there. Something important. Something that might help me understand what happened to me during those lost months."
Marcus set down the bottle he was holding and turned to face Kyon directly. For a moment, Kyon thought he had pushed too hard, that the janitor was going to refuse and report the conversation to Dr. Martinez. But then Marcus sighed, the sound of a man who had seen too much suffering and couldn't bear to cause more.
"There is a basement level," he said quietly. "Sub-basement, actually. It's where they keep the... the patients who can't be helped by conventional means. The ones who are too dangerous for the regular population."
"Dangerous how?"
"Some of them are violent. Others are just... broken in ways that can't be fixed. And a few..." Marcus paused, searching for the right words. "A few of them claim to see things that aren't there. Not hallucinations, exactly, but... connections. To places that shouldn't exist."
Kyon's pulse quickened. "What kind of places?"
"I don't know the details," Marcus said. "And I don't want to know. But I've heard the staff talking. There are patients down there who insist they can travel to other dimensions, other worlds. Some of them have been there for decades, insisting that their consciousness exists in multiple realities simultaneously."
"Have you ever seen them?"
Marcus nodded reluctantly. "Once. I was asked to help move some equipment down there, and I saw... things that I still have nightmares about. Patients who looked like they were dying, but their bodies wouldn't let them. Patients who spoke in languages that didn't exist, who drew pictures of places that hurt to look at."
"I need to see them," Kyon said, no longer bothering to hide his urgency. "Marcus, I think I might be one of them. I think that's where I belong."
The janitor stared at him for a long moment, and Kyon could see the exact moment when Marcus realized what he was dealing with. Not a confused patient seeking answers, but a predator who had been carefully stalking his prey.
"I can't do that," Marcus said, backing toward the door. "I won't do that. Whatever you're planning, Kyon, it's not going to help you. It's only going to make things worse."
But Kyon was already moving. Three years of forced physical therapy and carefully hidden exercises had kept him in better shape than anyone realized. He caught Marcus before the man could reach the door, clamping a hand over his mouth and driving him to the ground.
"I'm sorry," Kyon whispered, and he genuinely meant it. "I really am. But I need to get down there, and you're the only one who can help me."
Marcus struggled, but Kyon was stronger and more desperate. He held the janitor down until the man's struggles grew weaker, until his eyes rolled back and his body went limp. Not dead - Kyon had been careful about that - but unconscious.
Kyon quickly searched Marcus's pockets, finding the key card he needed. He dragged the unconscious man into the supply closet and arranged him in a position that would make it look like he had simply fallen asleep on the job. With any luck, it would be hours before anyone found him.
The freight elevator was exactly where Kyon remembered it. He used Marcus's key card to access it, then pressed the single button marked "SB" - sub-basement. The elevator descended with a mechanical whine that seemed to go on forever.
When the doors finally opened, Kyon stepped into a nightmare.
The sub-basement was nothing like the carefully sanitized upper levels of the facility. Here, the walls were bare concrete, stained with substances that Kyon didn't want to identify. The fluorescent lights flickered intermittently, casting shifting shadows that made everything look distorted and wrong. The air was thick with the smell of disinfectant and something else - something organic and unpleasant.
The corridor stretched ahead of him, lined with heavy metal doors that had small windows set at eye level. Each door was marked with a number and a colored tag - red for violent, yellow for unstable, and black for what Kyon could only assume were the worst cases.
He started with the red doors, peering through the windows at the patients inside. Most were exactly what he expected - violent individuals who had been sedated into catatonic states, their bodies kept alive by machines while their minds were held in chemical suspension. But as he moved deeper into the basement, the patients began to change.
Behind door 23, a woman in her forties sat perfectly still in the center of her cell, her eyes wide and unblinking. She hadn't moved when Kyon looked through the window, but somehow he knew she was aware of his presence. Her lips moved constantly, forming words that made no sound, and her hands traced patterns in the air that seemed to follow some incomprehensible logic.
Behind door 31, a teenage boy lay on his bed with his eyes closed, but his body was convulsing in ways that suggested he was experiencing something far more intense than sleep. His medical chart, visible through the window, showed brain activity that was off the charts - as if his mind was processing information at a rate that should have been impossible.
But it was door 37 that made Kyon stop and stare.
The patient inside was a girl, maybe sixteen, with long dark hair that had been cut raggedly short. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, and when she saw Kyon's face in the window, she smiled. Not the vacant smile of someone heavily medicated, but the knowing smile of someone who had been expecting him.
She stood and walked to the door, pressing her palm against the glass. When she spoke, her voice was muffled by the barrier between them, but Kyon could still make out the words.
"You're him, aren't you?" she said. "The one who was supposed to take the child's place."
Kyon's blood ran cold. "How do you know about that?"
"Because I was there," she replied. "Not physically, but... connected. We're all connected, those of us who have touched the OtherSide. We share the same wounds, the same hunger."
"What's your name?"
"Maya," she said. "Maya Reeves. I've been here for five years, ever since I tried to burn down my school to create a doorway back to the OtherSide. They think I'm delusional, but you know better, don't you?"
Kyon nodded, his mind racing. Here was proof that the OtherSide was real, that others had experienced it, that he wasn't the only one who had been marked by it. But more than that, Maya seemed to understand something about his situation that even he didn't fully grasp.
"The child is dying," Maya continued. "The one at the Heart of the OtherSide. Without you there to take his place, he's been forced to maintain the prison on his own. But he's not strong enough anymore. The OtherSide is beginning to collapse."
"Good," Kyon said. "Let it collapse. Let all of them die."
Maya's smile widened. "That's what I thought you'd say. That's what we all thought you'd say. But you don't understand what that means, do you? If the OtherSide collapses completely, if that child finally dies, then all of us who have been touched by it will die too. Our consciousness, our souls, our very existence is tied to that place now."
The implications hit Kyon like a physical blow. "You're saying that if I don't go back..."
"We all die," Maya finished. "Every child who ever touched the OtherSide, everyone who ever formed a connection to it. We're all part of the same network now, all dependent on the same source."
Kyon felt something cold and painful building in his chest. "Then I have to go back. I have to save the child."
"Or," Maya said, her voice dropping to a whisper, "you could do something else. Something that none of us have ever tried before."
"What?"
"You could replace the child not as a prisoner, but as a ruler. You could take control of the OtherSide, reshape it according to your will. Make it into something that serves you instead of trapping you."
The idea was seductive, and Kyon could feel it taking root in his mind. Not salvation, but conquest. Not rescue, but dominion. It was exactly what the darker part of him had been yearning for - the power to make others suffer as he had suffered.
"How?" he asked.
Maya's smile became predatory. "There are others like us scattered throughout this facility. Others who have touched the OtherSide and been marked by it. If we could gather them together, if we could combine our connections, we might be able to create a bridge strong enough to not just return to the OtherSide, but to bring it here."
"Bring it here?"
"Merge the two realities. Make the OtherSide into an overlay on the real world. Everyone who has ever abandoned an imaginary friend, everyone who has ever forgotten a childhood dream, everyone who has ever been responsible for creating the pain that feeds the OtherSide - they would all be forced to face what they've done."
Kyon stared at Maya through the reinforced glass, seeing not just a fellow patient but a kindred spirit. Someone who understood that the world deserved to suffer for what it had done to them.
"What do you need me to do?"
"First, you need to find the others. I can give you a list of names, room numbers. Some of them don't even know what they are yet - they think they're just mentally ill. But you can awaken them, help them remember."
"And then?"
"Then we perform the ritual. There's a place in this facility, a room that exists between dimensions. The staff doesn't know about it - they built this place on top of a natural weak point between worlds. If we can gather there during the convergence, we can tear the barrier completely."
"What convergence?"
Maya's expression grew distant, as if she were listening to voices that only she could hear. "It's starting now. Can't you feel it? The headaches, the weakness, the sense that part of you is dying?"
And suddenly, Kyon could feel it. A sharp, stabbing pain behind his eyes, as if something vital was being slowly torn away from him. He staggered, pressing his hand against the wall for support.
"What's happening to me?"
"Your connection to the OtherSide is being severed," Maya explained. "The child can't maintain the bridge anymore. But don't worry - the pain means you're still connected. It means there's still time."
The pain intensified, and Kyon felt his vision blur. For a moment, he thought he could see through different eyes, could feel himself lying on a bed of crystallized tears while his body slowly withered away. The sensation was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.
"I have to go," he gasped. "I have to get back to my room before someone realizes I'm missing."
Maya nodded. "Find the others. Wake them up. And remember - the convergence is coming whether we're ready or not. The only question is whether we'll be strong enough to survive it."
Kyon stumbled back to the elevator, his head pounding with each step. The ride up felt like an eternity, and by the time he reached the main floor, he was barely conscious. He managed to make it back to his room just as the evening medication rounds were beginning.
The nurse who administered his pills noticed his pale complexion and shaking hands. "Are you feeling alright, Kyon?"
"Just a headache," he managed to say. "It's been a long day."
She made a note in his chart and moved on to the next patient. Kyon collapsed onto his bed, the pain in his head now so intense that he could barely think. But beneath the agony, something else was stirring. A sense of purpose, of destiny, of power waiting to be claimed.
He had found his allies. He had found his path. And soon, very soon, he would find his revenge.
The OtherSide was calling to him again, but this time, he would answer as a conqueror rather than a victim. And when he was done, everyone who had ever abandoned a dream, forgotten a friend, or destroyed a child's innocence would know exactly what they had created.
The convergence was coming. And Kyon intended to be ready for it.