Chapter Text
Mountain dew red. That’s it… Thought Jeremy. He faced his squip, face ripe with satisfaction. “Green mountain dew activates you, red turns you off!”
Jeremy’s squip smiled. “Why do you think we had it discontinued? To get rid of me now, you’d need a time machine to the 1990s!”
“Or a friend who’s so old school he buys 90s soft drinks from the back room at Spenser’s Gifts!” countered Jeremy.
The squip gasped, but Jeremy realized it was fake. His squip crossed his arms, smiling even wider. “Too bad you don’t have one of those… Anymore.”
Jeremy’s eyes widened as he realized his squip was right. He had ditched Michael. He called his best friend since kindergarten a loser. What have I done? he thought. Jeremy pulled out his phone, desperately hoping it wasn’t too late. “Michael, call Michael! Ca-”
Before Jeremy could finish, the squip grabbed his shoulder. “I can’t let you do that Jeremy.”
Jeremy was horrified as the phone slipped from his hands, and he found that he couldn’t move. He could hear the squip laughing. Jeremy tried to turn his head, but it was no use. Before he knew it, the squip was standing in front of him, and got close to face.
“I’m going to improve your life Jeremy, even if I have to take over the entire student body to do it!” With that, the squip picked up Jeremy like he was a rag doll, and threw him.
Jeremy landed with a thud in front of the stage door. Everything hurt, and even though the squip’s hold on him was momentarily gone, Jeremy didn’t have the energy to move. Suddenly, the stage door opened, and Jeremy could see someone standing there. The stage lights shining through the door prevented him from seeing who it was, but then he heard a familiar voice.
“Michael makes an entrance!”
“Michael?” said Jeremy, sitting up. You’re… You’re here!”
Michael smiled and helped Jeremy to his feet. “I was just in the audience thinking, this is pretty good for a school play, and then I was like, THIS IS WAY TOO GOOD FOR A SCHOOL PLAY! They’ve all been squipped right?”
Jeremy nodded, and then looked confused. “Wait, you came to see me in the play?”
“Yep,” said Michael. “I even brought my own refreshments!” With that, Michael pulled a bottle of mountain dew red out of his coat pocket.
Jeremy gasped “Oh my gosh, you actually have it! I… Can’t believe it!” Jeremy reached for the bottle, but his squip held him back. Jeremy nearly fell to the ground, but Michael caught him.
“Hey, Jake?” said Michael, causing Jake, who had just walked in, to turn and look. “This might sound weird, but if I hold down Jeremy, could you make him drink this?”
Jake shrugged. “Actually, that doesn’t sound weird at all.”
Up, up, down, down, left, right, A
At the squip’s words, Jake doubled over in pain. Michael was confused, because he couldn’t hear the squip, but when Jake looked back up, his eyes glowed, letting Michael guess what had happened. Jake raised his crutches aggressively, ready to bring them down hard.
Michael, ducked out of the way just in time, but one of the crutches knocked the bottle out of his hand. It rolled away out of his reach, most of the liquid spilling onto the floor.
Before they could react, other students came and surrounded the bottle, their eyes glowing bright.
Jeremy, who suddenly felt stronger, pointed to the bottle. “we have to get it, there’s still some mountain dew left.”
Michael shook his head. “How?”
Jeremy thought for a moment, before it dawned on him “Apocalypse of the Damned, level 9!”
“The cafetorium!” finished Michael, understanding immediately. Still holding Jeremy up, Michael dashed towards the bottle. When he came towards a student, Michael pushed them aside. He was surprised how much Jeremy was able to help, only seeming to get stronger.
When he was only a few feet away, a squipped Jenna blocked Michael’s path.
“I know what you’re doing Michael, I know everyone’s doing. All the the time!” she said, sounding deranged.
Michael had been momentarily distracted by this, and didn’t notice the hoard of students closing in until it was too late. In a flash, Michael dropped Jeremy, dove for the bottle, and threw it over the students’ heads where it was caught by Jeremy. Michael was surrounded by the mob.
When Jeremy fell to the floor, he was dazed for the second before looking up and seeing the bottle of mountain dew red fly towards him. Jeremy caught it and stood to his feet.
Before he could drink it, however, Jeremy heard Michael coughing loudly. He turned to face the crowd, which had spread apart away from Michael. Jeremy gasped and took a step back.
Michael was kneeling on the ground, coughing up a green liquid that had clearly been forced into him. Green mountain dew.
“J-Jeremy, they… squipped me!” Michael struggled to say in a hoarse voice. His eyes were full of terror.
Before Jeremy could move towards his friend, he heard the dreaded words from his squip that would sync Michael’s new squip to his.
Up, up, down, down, left, right, A
“No!” shouted Jeremy.
Michael let out a strangled cry as his eyes began to glow. However, his eyes got brighter and brighter. Jeremy could see electricity course through Michael, and heard a sound that was similar to when his computer glitched last year. Michael’s body shuttered and twitched for a second, until it stood still.”
“M- Michael?” said Jeremy softly.
Behind him, Jeremy’s squip began to laugh. “Well, that was certainly unexpected.” he said nonchalantly.
Jeremy whirled around to face his squip. “What did you do to him?!” he said with rage.
The squip shrugged. “Sorry Jeremy, Michael’s squip glitched out when I tried to sync it to us because his desire conflicts with yours.”
Jeremy looked confused. “What does that even mean?!”
“It means that if Michael’s squip were to be successful in its task, then I wouldn’t be able to complete my task to you, so when I tried to sync, the thing glitched out.” said the squip.
Jeremy looked down in thought for a moment, before his head snapped back up. “Wait, are you saying Michael wants to get with Christine?!”
The squip rolled his eyes. “Of course not, he wants you!”
Jeremy’s mouth fell open in shock. He was unable to speak. His squip moved over to Michael and put his hands on Michael’s shoulders. Michael's body remained still, eyes still glowing, but much dimmer.
“Poor Michael, all he wanted was to have you back.” The squip said in a sickly sweet voice, and began to rub his shoulders. “Guess Jeremy was the only thing holding you together, huh?”
Jeremy clenched his fists at this sight and ran at his squip in a rage. “Leave him alone!” To his surprise, his squip flickered out and reappeared behind Jeremy. When Jeremy didn’t move, the squip gestured to Michael. Jeremy turned and ran to his friend, grabbing his shoulders.
“Michael, can you hear me? Michael?” he said, shaking him gently.
Michael remained still, no glimpse of himself seemed to be present.
Jeremy turned back to his squip, and held up the bottle of mountain dew red. “You’re done. I’m getting rid of you!”
The squip blinked, and then shrugged. “Fine. You’re clearly not willing to make yourself better, so I’ve done all I can.”
Jeremy waited for some kind of trick, but there was none. He slowly tipped the bottle back, and drank a bit of the red liquid. Immediately, Jeremy screamed. He noticed that the other squipped students were screaming as well, except Michael, who just fell to the ground, limp. Before Jeremy could have another thought, he blacked out.
Jeremy slowly opened his eyes, and found himself in a hospital bed. He looked around and saw that his father was sitting in a chair by his bed. When his dad saw that he was awake, a wide smile spread across his face. “Welcome back son.”
For the next three days, Jeremy felt really out of it, not being able to remember much from that night. Physically though, he quickly recovered, even being able to get out of bed. The rest of the students who had been squipped were there too, and they all hung out in Jeremy and Rich’s room, since it was the largest, while they waited to be released.
Finally, the memories came back in a flash, and Jeremy looked around the room in a panic, and realized someone was missing.
“Where’s Michael?” he asked.
The rest of the group fell silent, before Jake spoke up. “Uh, Michael hasn’t woken up yet.”
When Jeremy heard this, he jumped up and demanded to know which room he was in. His dad took his hand gently, but when Jeremy met his eyes desperately, he smiled and led Jeremy to Michael’s room.
Jeremy approached slowly. Michael lay completely still, with his eyes closed. Jeremy noticed how pale Michael looked, and it made him feel sick. He glanced nervously at the heart monitor, relieved to see it beeping steadily.
“They can’t figure out why he isn’t awake yet, but they said he’s in some kind of coma.” said Jeremy’s dad.
Jeremy felt his stomach fill up with dread as he wondered if Michael was even still in there. He took his friend’s hand, hoping he could somehow will him awake.
“Michael? Come on buddy, wake up.”
Silence
“You… If you’re just doing this to get back at me for the party, well, you got me. I’ll already regret it for the rest of my life. So…”
…
“Seriously, you’ve got to still be in there. This can’t be the end, we're going to college together, remember?” His voice cracked as he tried to hold back tears.
Nothing
“Please wake up, you have to. Mikey please!”
A sob finally escaped him, and he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry Jeremy. I’m sure he’ll wake up soon.”
Jeremy nodded, but deep down, he knew that his friend was gone. He took a stupid pill, threw away years of friendship for a girl, and now Michael was gone.
Jeremy’s dropped his friend’s hand, and said softly, “I’m so sorry I left you. You’ll always be my player 2.” He secretly hoped for answer, but there was only silence.