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Escape from Andrea
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 25 2026
Pages: 132
Weight: 0.41
Height: 0.28 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Eighteen-year-old Andrea Refuge awakens in a surreal version of her Colorado hometown, Inception Heights, where winter and summer can exist inches apart, and the world responds to her emotions and concentration. Guided by her neuropsychiatrist, Philip Evilton, Andrea has been trying to understand and control this strange mental landscape. But something has changed: the world is beginning to act independently of her.
Then Andrea encounters the impossible-her older brother Jack.
Jack died at twelve years old. Yet the Jack standing before Andrea is eighteen, exactly the age he would have been had he survived. He can think independently, remembers his childhood, has a heartbeat, and can physically interact with Andrea. Neither Andrea nor Philip can explain what he is. Escape from Andrea
As Andrea and Jack investigate the past, they discover that Andrea's memories cannot be trusted. Their mother, Nancy, accuses Andrea of having murdered Jack, but Andrea realizes that she remembers being blamed for his death-not actually killing him. By examining the memory instead of accepting it, Andrea begins uncovering evidence that something has been manipulating what she believes about herself.
The mystery leads them to Fourth Rocky Mountain, where their father, Carson Refuge, discovered a strange organism known as the Mystic. When the organism touched Carson's injured hand, it healed him instantly. Carson eventually brought the material home, believing its regenerative abilities could save his family.
Carson first used the Mystic material to save Nancy from death. It worked, but what returned was not entirely the woman she had been.
Then Andrea discovers an even more devastating truth.
Before she was Andrea, she was a terminally ill little girl named Susan Refuge.
When conventional treatments failed, Carson used the same Mystic material on Susan. Susan survived, but whatever happened afterward transformed her into Andrea. Andrea is therefore forced to confront a terrifying question: is she Susan transformed, something that replaced Susan, or an entirely new person born from what happened to her?
At the same time, Jack faces the same identity crisis. He discovers that after his fatal fall, Andrea's grief caused the Mystic forces around her to engulf his body-and eighteen-year-old Jack opened his eyes. Andrea somehow did what even the Mystic had never accomplished normally: she brought back someone who had been dead for six years and restored him at the age he should have been. Escape from Andrea
That revelation tears the siblings apart. Jack remembers peace after death and realizes Andrea brought him back without giving him a choice. Andrea insists she couldn't simply allow her brother to remain dead. Jack points out the painful parallel: neither could their father. Their family's tragedy has been driven by people refusing to let the people they love die.
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