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Chapter 14

I sigh, already feeling my heart beginning to pick up its pace at the memories. The awful memories that are going to have to come up just so I can tell Jesse what terrible things P.A.M.A. made him do. But if I don't, he's going to remember himself. And his memories are corrupted and twisted and just truly nightmarish.

"When you got chipped, it was the worst. Worst sight I've ever saw. Worst feeling I've ever felt. Just the absolute worst."

Jesse's red eyes, glowing dead, as he stood there perfectly still. A statue of what he was only a moment ago.

"It was like you died. One moment, screaming and thrashing to get away and then... poof..." I distantly made the gesture with my hands, numbing tingles jumping all over my body. "...gone.

"I was stunned, Petra was furious, and Ivor was trying to think how to get out of there. If P.A.M.A. didn't get overloaded, we would all be chipped right now."

"Not without Jesse! We don't leave him!"

"We might not have a choice!"

"I don't know what happened to you after that, because you didn't chase us when we fled the town."

Running, running in a desert but feeling so cold. Dread chilling all my muscles, terror shaking me to the core. No idea what to do, so hopeless about everything.

"It was awful! I didn't know how to help you, I didn't know what to do, I was panicking, everything seemed so hopeless. Everything was hopeless! I didn't know how to make Ivor or Petra feel better or how to talk to Harper, everything was just..."

Petra and Ivor bickering, their voices humming under mine. I can particularly feel cold sweat drip down my body again and my heart hammering frantically as I search for some answer to something.

"We get to Harper's lab, and it was the most bewildering conversation I've ever had. She was so strange, and you are always so good with people that I never realized how hard it is to just get someone to tell you something!"

My hands tingle as the same hair pulling frustration bubbles inside of me. Wanting to ask, not wanting her to find me rude and not help us. Trying to calm down Petra, or at least hold her back, while making sure Ivor doesn't do anything stupid and trying to figure out this lady.

"While getting into her lab is when P.A.M.A. attacked." Jesse's green sword glimmering as he approached us. "The spiders went after Harper and you kept us busy."

"It is useless to defy me."

I shake my head, doing nothing to keep out Jesse's red eyes as P.A.M.A. spits out words in his twisted voice. "P.A.M.A. cut through us like we were nothing. None of us actually wanted to hit you, but even if we were trying to hit you we would still have been demolished. Breaking Petra's arm, hurting her head, and I'm not sure if you broken anything in Ivor's face."

The expressionless red eyes glowing as Ivor falls back, Petra thrown to the ground like her skills were nothing, waterfalls roaring in my ears as my heart hammers uncontrollably in my chest.

"Then P.A.M.A. told us..." The sharp clang of metal rings in my ears, my heart trying to break my ribs. "It said-"

"Jesse was starving..."

"Th-that's when-"

"...sleep deprived and emotionally exhausted..."

"P.A.M.A. t-told us-"

"...his own friends did this to him and never bothered to help."

"P.A.M.A. said how you were suffering!" My throat feels raw, as if I've just been screaming over waterfalls. "In your own corrupted voice it said how we were destroying you!"