Chapter One

	I had been stepping through my front door when I heard my mother's faint call. 
	"You forgot your medicine!"
	"Crap," I muttered, then hurried back inside, dropping my bag and rushing to the kitchen, where my pill sat evilly on the counter. The small orange perscription bottle next to it read "Zyprexa".
	I had been taking it for almost six years, but the hallucinations had been happening for over a year and a half. They started off small; I saw people I knew to exist only in my imagination standing in crowds, their garb outlandish and often accesorized with swords or high-tech laser weapons. And yet, no one else noticed, so I pretended I didn't either.
	Then they started speaking to me. They pleaded with me to help them, reminded me of the heroic deeds I had done in my imagination as if they were true. At first I ignored them, acted like they were not there, I could not see them. Then they got physical, I could feel them grabbing my arms, tugging on me when I tried to walk away. They spoke constantly, always there, always pleading for help. That was when I decided to tell my mother.
	I got a psychiatrist. It was more than six months before they diagnosed me with schizophrenia, and a month longer before they prescribed Zyprexa. Almost immediately the visitors from my imagination stopped visiting, and I felt an immense relief. There were side-effects, but they were miniscule, and seemed negligible compared to the ceasing of the hallucinations. Most days I did not feel them at all anyway.
	This was not one of those days. By the end of first period I was feeling unusually drowsy, my head getting achy. It's just the mediine, I assured myself, and tried to focus on the lecture. Two hours later I was only feeling worse. My head was foggy, and I could not concentrate. I tried to raise my hand, ask to be excused, but I could barely sit up, let alone raise an arm.
	I could feel the slightest sense of alarm somewhere in the thick mist of my thoughts. When I tried to speak to the person sitting next to me, who I could no recognize through my swimming vision, all that came out was gibberish. "I... nee ell. Ah cen see...." Nonsense syllables poured out of my mouth, so confused that I was sure even the clear-minded would not understand. 
	Slowly my vision darkened, but in my head the images I had so long been shoving back became clearer and clearer. I was not aware of my body as my brain shut down and I passed out onto the desk.

	#

	Almost a half hour later, Mr. Sullivan noticed [her] slumped forward on her desk. He was surprised; while she had never been the best student, she usually paid attention during lectures, and she had never fallen asleep like this.
	"Ms. [Surname]! This is not your bedroom, this is a classroom. Please pay attention; I'm not talking just to hear my own voice." She made no move or sound in response to his bark. A few students giggled quietly, and Sullivan's temper flared. He hated being interupted, and for something so petty as a tired student....
	"Miss [Surname]! Enough of this distraction." His voice rose as he marched down the aisle of desks to [her] seat. "I insist you wake up this instant! Why-" Sullivan stopped abruptly as a neighbor helpfully poked [her] in the side, and her relaxed body slid sideways in her seat, her face slack.
	"Holy shit!"
	Sullivan did not bother to admonish the colorful exclamation from his student; he was feeling rather similarly himself. "Call the nurse!" he instructed the class in general, not thinking that none of his students would know the number even if there had been a school nurse as Marcus High.
	He stood like a deer in headlights, unsure whether to sit [her] up before rushing to the phone. In the end he half-heartedly pushed her to a vertical position before scrambling to the ancient telephone on his desk. He dialed the main office, and quickly interupted the secretary during her greeting.
	"Call 9-1-1! I have an unconious student, yes, [name]. I don't know what's wrong with her, what do you think I am, a doctor? Just call an ambulance! Go!"
	Minutes later [her] mother had been notified and she had been rushed onto an ambulance. At the hospital she was placed in emergency care. When she arrived, [her] mother was nearly in tears.
	"Is she okay? How is she? Oh, God, what's happening?" she asked the doctor in [her] room, after asking a number of unhelpful nurses.
	"We don't know," he answered calmly, with only a little hint of worry in his voice. "I need to know: Does your daughter have any medical history of this sort of thing? Does she have any previous drug habits? Think, Mrs. [Surname]. Is there anything you can think of that may have caused this?"
	"She's schizophrenic," she answered immediately, wondering if that could be a possible cause. "She doesn't do drugs, or anything like that, they could interfere with her medications."
	"What medication is that? What's she taking?"
	"Uh, Zyprexa. Could that be what's doing this to her? Oh, baby!" She stroked her unconcious daughter's cheek. "My poor, sweet baby."
	She began to sob, and it was almost an hour later when a nurse approached her with a small clipboard.
	"What medications did you say she was taking? Prolixin, loxapine?"
	"No, Zyprexa," she repeated in a choked voice.
	"Zyprexa?" exclaimed one of the nurses. "Jesus! She could be hypoglycemic!"
	"What?" the doctor asked, clearly confused. "Hypoglycemic? Schizophrenia meds don't cause hypoglycemia!"
	"In Canada four kids died in hypoglycemic comas, they think Zyprexa may have caused diabetes in them. If this one's got diabetes, she's got low blood sugar and needs glucose. Fast! There could be brain damage!"
	"And what if she isn't hypo... whatever? What could happen to her?"
	The doctor ignored her. "Check her blood sugar!"
	Almost immediately a nurse who had been listening in replied, "She's low, too low! Someone set her up, she needs glucose."
	[Her] mother watched worriedly as they injected [her] with some solution, one to raise her daughter's blood sugar, apparently.
	"Will this make her okay?" she asked the doctor hopefully. "Will she wake up soon?"
	"It should make her alright, but she won't necessarily wake up right away. She was in her coma for almost an hour, and while we're sure there won't be any brain damage, it may be a day or more before she wakes up. Her brain has been through a lot of stress. But I assure you, she will be fine."
	"I hope so," [her] mother said to herself, and turned back to [her]. "Oh my baby, please wake up soon. Please."