9. Lust I slammed the transom shut against that voice, bumped along the ceiling, refusing to look down. I would never go back. My energy powered me up, and up, and up. I’d escaped! As if rejecting such a dangerous thought the ceiling became the floor; spinning round to right me; crouching on the splintery…

8. Deceit Well, there went Chase’s credibility. We piled up at the inner door like fire victims outside a mislabeled “Exit”. I could feel what the others were thinking. They suspected Chase of holding the sides of the doorway to prevent them from escaping; I knew he was clinging for dear life; to keep himself…

7. Avarice We six students sat looking at each other in a small, windowless room whose moisture and heat ratio was visibly rising. Steam poured off our clothes like smoke and “makeup melt” was becoming a distinct and worrisome possibility. Outside drizzled the global warming version ofwinter; a cold and sooty rain. It was the…

6. Microsleeping The “student health center” turned out to be a once-charming Victorian house surmounted by a widow’s walk and a cupola, a building whose whimsical architecture failed to destigmatize its obvious purpose. It sat alone like a spider at the center of a web of ramps and walkways, so if you were headed down…

5. Limbo Everyone was strangely uncooperative. Aleksa refused the sheet I wanted to hang in our window and promised to order curtains that matched the bedspreads; while campus security gave me a card with a series of phone numbers to call in case Bex threatened me. Seeing him hanging around was not enough. They also…

4. Telephoto Those days were busy, settling in. Dr. Corso had left me a lot of reading about psychology in general and out-of-body travel in particular. I had an “advisor” appointment with him and was supposed to make another for an “exam”. I didn’t like any of the psychology books – they utterly failed to…

3. STALKER Fairytales are for kids. I thought I already knew that but it seems I could use a refresher course. The buildings depicted on the Cadensis brochure did exist but I would not be resident in any of them. Instead I was introduced to an ugly eight-story concrete box where I was assigned a…