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The pill in Rich’s hand was oblong and grey. His voice was low. Strained somehow.
“It’s called a squip. It’ll travel through your blood, implant in your brain and then it tells you what to do.”
“That sounds really creepy, actually. Like some kind of mind control parasite…”
“Psh!” A dismissive gesture. “Jeremy… Do you want to get popular or not?”
Jeremy took the pill without further questions.
***
At first the squip had fulfilled its function just as advertised. Turned out it took the form of a voice in Jeremy’s head, sounding not unlike Keanu Reeves. Following its advice, letting it control his demeanour and put words in his mouth, Jeremy had managed to build himself a whole new social circle in just a few days. Chloe and Brook had offered him a ride. Jake and Christine liked spending time with him after play rehearsal. Even Jenna was not so bad once he got to know her a bit. And of course, his best friend Michael never left his side, even if he remained a little sceptical of Jeremy’s rapid social ascent. The only one that was absent from their group was Rich. Nobody had seen him in days.
***
It only took Jeremy a few more days, however, to realize that something was very wrong. The voice in his head had gotten louder by the day. More demanding. More menacing. Jeremy’s skin had been tingling all week. Weird rashes had formed all over his body practically overnight. The squip had told him it was an allergic reaction to something he had eaten. Jeremy had not known he had been allergic to anything. And every morning he had woken up with weird kinks in his neck and a dull pain in his muscles. He had chalked that up to the exercise routine the squip encouraged him to do.
This morning was different.
Although he was very much awake, Jeremy could not move a single muscle. He could not see, since he could not open his eyes. He could not scream, as he was unable to open his mouth. His thoughts were hurtling at break-neck speed as he lay there, paralyzed, his breaths continuing at a normal pace, his heart beat terrifyingly steady.
Jeremy wanted to cry.
But he couldn’t.
His eyes opened but Jeremy could still not see.
His eyes did not focus.
In his head, a phrase began repeating.
SQUIP THE SCHOOL.
Like a mantra.
SQUIP THE SCHOOL.
Over and over.
SQUIP THE SCHOOL.
Louder and louder.
SQUIP THE SCHOOL.
Drowning out his own thoughts.
SQUIP THE SCHOOL.
His legs swung out of his bed. His body got up and got dressed. Every movement of his limbs hurt. Jeremy tried to resist but all his efforts were for nought.
And he realizes that this is going to be his last day.
***
Jeremy’s fingers scratched at his rashes.
His nails were bloody.
Delicate greyish-white tendrils meandered through the raw, exposed flesh of his forearms.
The fingers of his right hand dug into his left arm.
White-hot pain seared his brain.
He felt like throwing up, felt like he should pass out from this agonizing pain no human should even be able to feel.
But he did neither of those things.
He couldn’t.
It wouldn’t let him.
His fingers parted the strands of muscle and pulled out a tiny, grey pill. They dropped it in the prop beaker filled with Mountain Dew next to Jeremy of the bathroom floor.
***
The beaker had an obscene number of pills in it by the time the squip was done with Jeremy. It made his body get up and wash off the blood from the most obvious places and covering up the open wounds with his clothes. They were already dressed in his Midsummer Nightmare About Zombies costume, it would not be noticed that most stains were his actual blood. Jeremy’s arm reached down to grab the beaker off the floor and his legs carried them back stage. This would be the performance of its life.