Sigsby, the Institute's director, and her staff are dedicated to extracting the special talents from the children - known as TPs (telepaths) and TKs (telekinetics). Luke befriends Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and (later) ten-year-old Avery Dixon and Helen Simms in the area known as Front Half. The Institute houses a number of other kidnapped children, each with special talents-telekinesis and telepathy. He wakes up in a room almost identical to his own at 'the Institute,' a facility located deep in the woods of Maine.

In suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder the parents of twelve-year-old genius and telekinetic Luke Ellis and kidnap him. A decorated former policeman, Jamieson takes a job working for the local Sheriff. By coincidence, en route, he gives up a seat on a plane and finds himself in the fictional small town of Du Pray, South Carolina. Tim Jamieson leaves his job in Florida and prepares to head to New York City. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents-telekinesis and telepathy-who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. The operation takes less than two minutes. In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV.

The institute stephen king