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As soon as Michael lets him in, his best friend flops down on the couch in the musty, weed-smelling basement beneath the Mell house. Sighing dramatically, as if waiting for Michael to ask what was up, Jeremy pulls out his notebook and starts highlighting his notes. “Alright, Jer, what’s wrong??” He asks, folding his arms. The boy on the couch grins up at him after hearing the nickname, but his face quickly falls once more as he spaces out. It had only been a few weeks since the Play Incident. He still seemed to be in shock and he was definitely acting weird. Michael felt quite bad for him, really, he seemed to be getting more and more distressed over the last few days.
“Bad day, I guess. I’m hearing things,” he mumbles. That’s not good. “Hearing things, huh? Like what?” Michael sounds concerned. Could It be coming back somehow? No, that’s impossible, it got dissolved. “Fuckin’ Keanu Reeves,” Jeremy laughs uneasily. “Like… Squip Keanu Reeves, or just normal Keanu Reeves?” He sounds nervous. Supposedly, the Squip had sounded like Keanu Reeves, which Rich had told him was because it took the form of someone the host would look up to. Why Jeremy looked up to Keanu Reeves was a mystery, but to each their own. “Squip Reeves, but I’unno. He still sounds funny.” Under his laughter, he sounds increasingly more agitated. Michael notices his scars glowing.
That was the other thing left over from The Incident: Jeremy’s arms, neck and back were absolutely covered in blue, circuit-pattern scars that would grow hot enough to brand wood. No one could really explain this, not even doctors, so they had all chalked it up to the Squip. But Rich’s scars looked completely different; normal Lichtenberg figures that definitely weren’t bright blue.
“Hey, uh, your arms are being weird again.” Jeremy looks up. When he lifts his arms from the coffee table he’d been leaning against, the wood had the patterns burned into it. “Agh. Sorry.” Michael nods in forgiveness. “Does it hurt you? I mean, it burns wood,” he asks. He shakes his head. “Nah. Actually, it really doesn’t feel like anything, it’s just bright.”
Michael nods, then tries for a laugh. “How many things have you, ah, watermarked so far? ‘S gotta be a lot.” He shrugs. “Really, as long as I have something covering my arms, I won’t burn anything. Not entirely sure how that works, but this is already weird enou...” Before he can finish, his eyes grow unfocused and he stares at the corner. The scars dim, Michael could swear the circuit patterns spread further down his arms ever so slightly. He taps his shoulder. “Jer? You okay?” He sounds worried. “It’s-…” Jeremy stops talking, seemingly snapping out of it. When he looks back, he smiles, but it makes Michael extremely uneasy.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Sorry ‘bout that. Hey, um, would you happen to have any alcohol?” He asks, his hands shaky. “Why the hell do you need alcohol?? Seriously, Jeremy, are you okay??”
He silently shakes his head, still smiling but looking like he wants to cry. This escalated way too quickly and bizarrely. Michael grabs his shoulders and shakes him a bit. “What’s wrong, you can tell me,” he says, extremely worried now. “I-It’s telling m-me t-to k-kill m-” He stops, trying not to break down. “M-Micah, w-what am I g-gonna do??” Jeremy clings to his arms, sobbing.
Michael hadn’t heard this nickname in forever, and despite the horrible situation, it still gave him a warm tingly feeling. He just hugs him closer. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s not real, it died at the play.” Jeremy shakes his head frantically. His scars flare up again. “Why didn’t Rich end up with it any worse?! He’d had his for years, i-if anything his should have been so, so much worse!! I d-don’t deserve a-any of this! Why are my scars bright fucking blue?!” His voice cracks as he cries. He’s clearly not rational right now, but Michael can’t tell what set him off. It’s scary.
“Jeremy, listen to me, you have to calm down. It’s not here anymore, okay? We’re all safe, there’s no more psychotic brainwash computers, yours is gone too.” He flinches when he feels his arm rub against Jeremy’s, burning him, but he doesn’t let go of him. “Does your head hurt?” He asks.
Jeremy pushes him away. “I don’t know!!!” When he shouts, horrible pain explodes through his body, and it looks like he’s almost.. glitching. Like his body is fragmenting. The sound of static and a high-pitched whine floods the air. Blocks of his image flicker around him and his scars glow white-hot. He screams in pain, it feels like he’s being shredded to pieces. He can only get out short bursts of unintelligible noise. “K- &L1F- H3eL784()8@$;(2;’:@:/-)&&8-” And with that, he collapses, completely still. The glitching stops, the noise stops, and it’s all over.
Michael just stands there, staring at him. The silence is a heavy one. “…Jeremy?”
His voice is depressingly small, like a little kid asking for his mom to wake up. No answer. He can’t even tell if he’s breathing. That’s when
Michael starts to panic; for all he knows, whatever had happened had just killed his best friend. “Jeremy?!” He shouts, grabbing his hand. He quickly lets go when he notices the tips of his fingers are black. Does that mean something?? “JEREMY!??!” He inhales sharply when he checks his pulse, though. He’s alive. He hears the basement door open. “Michael?? Is everything alright? I heard shouting.” He’s already hauling him up. “I don’t know what happened but Jeremy passed out and he won’t wake up and I don’t know why and I think he started seeing things and-” his mother stops him. “Do you want me to call his dad?” She asks. “Uh…” “I’ll take that as a yes.”
She helps him get Jeremy upstairs. His mum comes downstairs to help take care of him while Michael’s mother calls up his dad. “Hey, Paul, something’s happened with Jeremy. Can you come pick him up? Michael says he doesn’t know what happened to him, but if you want to take him too so he can explain better that’s alright with me.
Michael can barely hear anything around him through the whirlwind of panic.