Monday, 8:30 AM

Reaching over Alex hit the alarm to shut it off before it woke his parents. Today was the first day of his final semester of high school and he didn't want to be late. Glancing at his phone, Alex noticed he was running late for school. He hadn't slept well last night so it was not surprising that he overslept. His dreams had been a bit...bizarre. He suddenly realized why he was able to "turn off" his alarm before it went off. He had actually slept through it. Jumping out of bed, Alex rushed to complete his morning routine and get to school. He was in such a rush that he didn't even notice the new icon on his phone. Shoving the phone in his pocket, Alex rushed out the front door. He had barely locked it when he got the alert of the weather. Cursing under his breath, Alex wished he had gotten to bed at a more reasonable time.

Hoping in his car, Alex hit the start button and slammed the car into reverse. He pulled out of the driveway noticing that his parents had left for work. He wondered why they hadn't woken him up before they left as they usually did when he was running late. He also wondered why the streets were so empty at this time of day. Sure he was a bit late for class, but there was always somebody on the roads. Today, he didn't see a single car going in either direction. Thinking about it a moment, he couldn't remember there being any cars in his neighborhood either. At the time, he had just assumed that everyone was at work already. Then he remembered that the five houses immediately around his own never left as they all had retired people living in them. Pondering this further, Alex pulled up to a traffic light. Waiting for the light to change, Alex noticed that the traffic light seemed almost to be stuck. Then again, it seemed more and more that, with each passing second, light was simply never going to change. Alex stepped out of his car to get a look at the traffic light up close. The moment he broke contact with it, the care became just as artificial and fake as the traffic light seemed to be.

Alex did not notice this as he was staring intently at the traffic light. He walked closer and noticed as he came within 5 feet of being directly under it, the traffic light went from being a hanging toy to being a real traffic light. That really freaked him out. What freaked him out even more was the faintly glowing ring around the traffic light. It almost looked as though the air had been torn open light a piece of paper or clothe. The tear was far too high for him to actually reach it, but he knew that if he had reached it, he would be able to touch the functional traffic light. Backing away from the traffic light, Alex rushed back to his car and hopped into it. Since his back had been to the car the entire time, he never noticed the change in its realism. He punched the accelerator and sped the final few blocks to school. Whipping his car into a parking space, Alex got out, locked it, and headed into the building. He hoped he would not run into any teachers patrolling the halls.

His experience with the traffic light had left him so distraught that he had forgotten that he had yet to actually encounter any other people. Wandering the halls, Alex was in a daze. His morning was beginning to catch up with him. Sitting in a random desk in a random classroom, Alex had seen a single sentence written on the chalkboard. The sentence had been address to him specifically.

Alexander, you need to do some things before you can return to the world you know.

Now Alex was wandering the school trying to figure out what exactly those "things" were. And what was this about returning to his world? He turned a corner and stopped in his tracks. Directly in front of him a tear was blocking the hallway. The tear seemed to glow a slightly different color than the air around it. Much like the one revealing the traffic light, this one was barely visible at this distance. Alex figured this was as good a place as any to start his "quest" so he cautiously approached the rip in reality. As he came to within 5 feet of it, the tear opened like a iris on a camera. Inside, Alex could see students wandering about. Some were at their lockers. Others were chatting with each other as they waited for the bell to ring. Basically, the scene through the tear was of a typical American high school hallway, which clashed significantly with what could be around the tear and behind it. Alex walked to the left of the tear and noticed the view through the tear changed slightly.

The tear almost seemed to be some sort of odd doorway into some alternate reality or location. The fact that the other place matched the hallway he was standing in did in the slightest alter Alex's perception of the view through this other-worldly doorway. Stepping around the tear gingerly so as to not touch it, Alex found that it was two way...in the sense that it appeared to allow him to view things from both sides. Strangely, this side seemed to also show the same hallway he was in, but from the other direction. Alex stepped closer and noticed that he could hear things from the "other side" of the tear. He noticed that the sounds coming through the tear seemed to get louder as he got closer to it.