Hampton seemed like any ordinary small town, a small town that Emily did not want to move to. She was leaving her friends she’d had all her life, leaving everything that she knew and moving to a new town, a new house, a new life. Emily was scared to death that she would not have anyone to sit with at lunch or she would not know how to make friends. These ideas soon took the backseat to the twisted reality she was about to encounter.

Nevertheless, Emily was so desperate to make new friends. She strained to make conversation with anyone that would listen. But why wasn’t anyone listening? Why did she just receive glares and one-word answers? Was it so difficult for people to respond? So Emily stopped talking to everyone. Maybe her silence would be more effective in catching people’s attention. At volleyball practice a few weeks into school, she overheard some teammates disapproving her so-called snottiness.

"Snotty? You guys think I am snotty? I have desperately been trying to make some connection, some common ground, with you guys. I talk, you don’t listen, and I am tired of talking to myself. So, because I do not say anything, I am snobby. I am so glad my family moved me to this piece-of-shit town."

"Hey. Once and outsider, always an outsider, so stop trying."

These words were bittersweet to Emily. While she finally got an explanation, did she really look forward to being an outsider, forever? Definitely not. Although discouraged, she knew there had to be someone better than that, something better than this in this town.
 
 

"Hey, are you new here?"

"Yes I am. I’m Emily. It is nice to meet you…….."

"Caitlin."

"So someone is finally acknowledging my existence. Oh, and I see you are a cheerleader. No offense, but your kind is not my favorite here. Hope your intentions are not to pick on the new girl."

"Not at all. Actually, I hate my kind, too. My mother is living vicariously through me since she was never a cheerleader and she always wanted to be one. So, I am giving it a whirl this year, and next year the squad can have one more bitch."

With this said, Emily knew she had made a friend. Caitlin was not exactly the most outgoing energetic person, and she definitely took her time learning to trust Emily with friendship. However, the two were eventually inseparable and found themselves in a situation that would soon dramatically change their lives. Hampton is definitely not an ordinary town.

Emily and Caitlin often escaped from the harshness of Hampton life to a park on the edge of town. Here the two could talk without being scrutinized or analyzed by their peers.

The park also happened to be located on the Liones River. This river used to be a major pollution outlet. Parts of the river run through heavily industrialized cities, and the factories used to dump toxic materials into the river. However, the Reformed Pollution Act of 1975 banned all forms of such dumping. So, the river was on its way to being restored to its natural condition: pollution free and full of river life. While the pollution ‘supposedly’ stopped, attention was diverted from restoration ideas to others and the project was left abandoned for 10 years. In 1985, committees were organized, drudging began, and other restoration projects were organized.

Unfortunately, the water still isn’t clean. Why? The water is still unbelievably murky. The stench is almost unbearable, dead fish line the shore, and people are not allowed to swim in the water. Nevertheless, people still walk the shoreline looking for perfectly smooth skipping stones and the few, small, unbroken shells that line the shore.

One day, Emily and Caitlin decided to stroll the beach and look for skipping stones. Everyone is allowed to revisit his childhood sometime, right? The two exchanged stories about their futures, latest crushes, and embarrassing moments. While Caitlin was still talking and skipping rocks, Emily had wandered a bit further down the beach and was staring at something very unusual, something she had never seen before.

"Caitlin. Come here a minute and take a look at this."

"Em, what is that?"

The two girls stared at the rusted, cylinder shaped object with a peeling label on one side.

"Do you think it is safe to pick up? I want to know what this is."

"Em, be careful. We have no idea what that is."

Emily reached down and picked up the object. She rolled it in her hand so the side with the label was showing. Most of the lettering at worn off, but the words Arcom Labs were visible. Each end of the cylinder pinched inward to another mini cylinder. Emily now rotated the object to look at each of the tube.

"Ouch! There are two sticky things sticking out of this end. Do you think I will be ok?"

"Have you had a tetanus shot recently?"

"Yes, I stepped on a rusted nail about a month ago and I had to get one."

"You should be alright, Em. Just be careful with it."

"This is really weird. There is nothing else lying on this beach, and we find a tube that says Arcom Labs. What is Arcom Labs? Do they do biological research? What if there is biological material in this tube! We should turn this in!"

"Emily, calm down. You are overreacting. Let’s just go home now. I am sure there is nothing to worry about."

The girls left the park, but Emily could not stop thinking about what she had found. She had slipped the tube into her pocket and was going to keep it to see if she could find out what it was. If the tube was in the Liones River, shouldn’t there be an Arcom Labs located somewhere on the river? If so, why were they throwing materials into the river, and what exactly did these materials contain? She decided that maybe she was overreacting and put the idea to rest, for now.

Emily was exhausted from the fresh air that day. She fell into a deep sleep. Later in the night however, she began having strange dreams, nightmares. All the images were distorted and she did not know exactly what she was seeing. But there was a point in her nightmare she realized that whatever was happening was not real and she wanted to wake up. She began running, talking to herself, "Emily it is a nightmare…wake up! Wake up!" At the point she can acknowledge what is happening is not real, she can snap herself out of a dream. But she was trying, and she couldn’t. Something was pulling at her, pulling her backwards. She tried to sit up in bed, but there was an invisible force holding her down. She tried to scream out, but her jaw was locked shut. Finally, she opened her eyes, and sat up in bed, sweating. She could not believe what had just happened. Why could she not pull herself out of this nightmare? To reassure herself that she was now back to reality and awake, she called for her mother. "Mmmmmmm!" Nothing came out! She then try to move her body out of bed, but she suddenly felt drugged, tired. The invisible force then pulled her back down, to her bed and another place.

Now, she could make out a definite place. Emily still knew that what was happening was not real, or was it? She was in at a party, but she was still drugged, still paralyzed, and not able to talk. She pulled herself into the room and grabbed onto the first person she saw. She could feel her eyes rolling back into her head, and she desperately fought to regain complete consciousness. "They……….druggggged………..me. Help……..me." She was able to make out the words, but it took a great effort just to slur or mumble these words. She collapsed on the floor and people just went about socializing like she wasn’t there. She finally was able to pull herself up, and moved to another person, then the next, and she became more and more frantic as she tried to convince her peers that someone had drugged her. But to them, she was just another drunk girl. She needed help. She needed to be saved because they were coming after her. She did not know exactly who they were, but she believed that Arcom Labs had something to do with it. She finally drug herself out of the party realizing no one was coming to her rescue, and she immediately stumbled into a new environment. She was at school, and there were many people in the hallway. She kept telling people she needed help, but no one would listen. This situation kept repeating itself, except she always stumbled into a new location. She left one ‘world’ and went to the next.

When Emily woke in the morning, she felt emotionally drained and not altogether certain about what happened. What, about last night, was real? She first decided it was a nightmare, but her body ached, like she had run a marathon during the night. Nothing could have been real. She tried to convince herself this. The whole idea was extremely unrealistic, but she felt so strange. She told Caitlin about the night’s escapade, but Caitlin responded with, "You’re paranoid."

When Emily left school, felt uneasy. She glanced in her review mirror at the car behind her. The school she went to was small, and she recognized most cars. She had never seen this one before, and it had no plates. Knowing that she was feeling a little more paranoid than usual, she went an extra block past her house to see if the car would follow. It did. She finally pulled into her driveway, and the blue sedan approached her house, slowed down, but then kept going. Emily sat in her car until it had passed and she could not make out the driver. "Alright, Emily, you are being way too paranoid. This person is obviously lost. Forget about it."

Emily had the same type of nightmares, night after night. She would start out with a bad dream, try to wake up, think that she was awake, but be sucked back into the torturous slumber. She tried to call out in the night, but could only make mumbling sounds. She tried to get out of bed, but felt like she was strapped in place. She then began wandering down endless hallways, endless scenes, and never receive the help or the sympathy she was begging for. Everything tied back to Arcom Labs. They were after her, but she did not know what they wanted. She never saw them, but she knew they were there.

Days and weeks of this paranoia persisted. The episodes became less and less, but Caitlin showed little sympathy, and simply thought Emily’s stories were for pure entertainment. And entertaining they were. But it was all a puzzle to Emily.

One day, Emily was watering the flowers for her neighbor who was out of town. She was constantly analyzing what was happening to her, and she was convinced that someone was out to get her. There was either something in that tube that they wanted, or they were going to make sure no one else found out about it. Emily reached down to fill the watering can, and caught a glimpse of something familiar out of the corner of her eye. A silver tube, and familiar silver tube, was connecting the cable wires against the house. She reached down, ever so slowly, and discovered that Arcom Labs was the name on the label. "What a freaking moron! I’ve been so paranoid about some connector thingy?!" A wave of relief came over her as she realized she invented the whole story, the nightmares, the car following her, the uneasiness in her head. It was all fictitious.

Then she woke up. Or so she thought.