Deep beneath the Soviet Union, in a sealed underground facility, five men are chosen for an experiment.

They are not meant to sleep.

For twenty-one days, a chemical gas keeps them awake while doctors observe every breath, every word, every fracture of the mind. At first, the men resist exhaustion. Then they begin to change. They whisper to empty corners. They answer voices no one else can hear. They speak of a place behind dreams, a world older than memory, waiting just beyond the moment when the human mind finally gives in.

The scientists believe they are studying sleep deprivation. They are wrong.

By the third week, theyare fighting something that has followed them back from the edge of sleep. And only one made it to day 21.