Incoming Dartmouth freshman Melissa Hartman is a curiosity to the other first-year students on campus, but not simply because she seems to distract every man who catches sight of her; not simply because she unwittingly intimidates every woman she tries to talk to. She smiles easily enough… and yet she seems too focused. She is not care-free, not wide-eyed like her classmates. Indeed, Melissa Hartman is looking forward to starting over. She has spent the better part of her teenage years struggling to break free from a small town and an abusive father, and she hopes now to settle into a more normal existence. Unfortunately, her first week at college will be the hardest – and strangest – week she has ever known. Within days of arriving on campus, she and a small group of classmates will be tricked by the sociopathic Professor Carlisle into volunteering for a dangerous experiment, and they will be plunged into a world in which their very senses are changing, a world of neurological mayhem. In the space of less than 24 hours, Melissa and her new friends will have to learn to depend on each other for survival, and they will discover abilities locked inside their own heads that are both wonderful and terrifying. Dr. Nathan Kline might have warned them all, had he been there. An inmate at the state asylum in Massachusetts, Kline has been coping with the effects of Carlisle’s experiments for years. He and Carlisle were partners in a former life, but that was before Kline was subjected to the treatment; before he became afflicted with strange neuro-pathologies that were at once debilitating and incredibly powerful. Kline holds an entire list of people responsible for his incarceration, but ultimately the man he wants is Carlisle. So now he has been studying, learning, and practicing, and he will get himself released. Because all he needs is a few days of freedom. Just enough time to deal with those who are responsible. Then he will return to Dartmouth and take his final revenge. When he finally arrives in New Hampshire, however, Kline will be knocked off-course. He will encounter Melissa and her friends, and he will see that he is not the only one with this unique set of abilities and deficits. And all of them will realize that revenge is only the beginning.