Jennie had been noticing Meyer growing more withdrawn with each passing day.
"It's your day off today, what are you planning to do?" she asked while looking out through the newly repaired window.
Meyer turned his head from the computer absentmindedly. A violent autumn storm was raging outside.
"I'm going to research the spider antidote. No other emails have arrived, right? Or maybe they did... and you deleted them to keep it from me?"
Jennie replied, "You've been watching too many movies, Steve."
After the tapping of the wind on the window, a sudden, heavy rain began to fall. Their conversation was cut off. Meyer let his fingers glide across the keyboard and searched again: Frank Cut.
"Frank Cut's condition has saddened his fans. 'He's in critical condition! His life is in danger!'"
Reading news about a patient he once carried in an ambulance made Meyer feel strange. Jennie came to stand beside his chair, trying to see what was on the screen. For a brief moment, Meyer was pleased by her attention — but he didn't reply.
He kept scrolling through the comments on one of the forums. His eyes moved as fast and focused as a predator tracking prey — lock and release, fixate and let go. The voice in his head, the Demon Chip, hadn't spoken in days. That silence only made things worse. He could no longer tell if what he heard was real or a hallucination.
According to the hallucination theory, no one else could see or hear what you did. And since Jennie hadn't said anything... maybe that voice — the one he called the Demon Chip — wasn't real at all?
"We will remember him in every gem!"
A grateful hand emoji.
"What happened? How did he get injured so suddenly?"
"Does anyone seriously believe this wasn't an assassination?"
Meyer skipped that one. It basically screamed Are you all idiots?
"Frank Cut was injured right when politics got involved. Makes me think of just one word: assassination."
Meyer was surprised at how clueless he was about all this, living in the U.S. like everyone else.
"Even the foreign press probably knows more than I do," he thought bitterly.
Even Jennie — and she was an android. Then again, that sounded dumb now. What didn't androids know anymore? Eating and drinking like humans? Hah! Who cared if they skipped that?
He turned back to the glowing screen and kept reading.
"To kill or to be killed — that is the question!"
Meyer expected an aggressive reply to that comment, but instead, he came across a link. Probably one of those cheap promotions — clickbait to earn traffic. Something like "Only vegans will like this!" Some nonsense like that. Still, strangely, his finger drifted toward the keyboard. He glanced at the mouse beside it — he was such a nub, he couldn't use the touchpad. So he clicked. Jennie had turned back toward the window. Another person who'd given up on him.
The link didn't give any security warning. It redirected him to a hidden YouTube page.
But the moment he clicked on the video, he realized this wasn't a video. It was interactive content.
On screen, it asked:
"Do you want to click the video?"
Yes | No
He looked at Jennie one more time, then held his breath, ready to hit Yes. He felt like a disgrace, standing in a cursed voting booth, about to cast a vote that would make him a target. Like someone would grab his arm and scream, "You filthy traitor!"
Yes! For once in my life, I have to be sure of something!
His fingers hovered in a trance between action and hesitation.
Would anything change if he clicked?
What if another image appeared... or a link... or a video?
What if all of it happened?
YES! he said again, louder inside his mind, and clicked.
"Put on your headphones!"
Meyer quietly reached for them. Jennie was distracted. This was the perfect time. Whatever — the curiosity, the burning question was lighting a fire in him. And that fire dropped embers straight into his lungs and heart.
As soon as he put the headphones on, an image appeared.
In the video... a man was slashing armored spiders with obsidian blades.
"But that's... that's me!"
After slicing through the spiders, the man was swept into a lava stream. Alongside him drifted a giant figure.
Soon, another spider emerged. The obsidian blades were gone, lost in the lava.
The spider reared up. You could see it was armored too.
It stabbed the man — him — again and again.
Meyer watched himself being stabbed over and over... and his own body began to ache in the same places.
He slowly lifted his shirt and his eyes widened.
Scars. Stitches.
"AAAAAH!"
He slammed the power button on the computer.
This couldn't be happening.
Jennie whipped her head around. "What happened?" Her face showed genuine confusion — a mimicry of human concern.
"I—Have I ever had surgery?" Meyer mumbled.
Jennie paused to think. "No."
"Ever been in an accident?"
Again, Jennie replied, puzzled, "No. Why?"
Meyer pulled his shirt back down over his stomach.
An alert sounded in Jennie's head.
"Mail received," she said, and read it through the electronic network.
"Now do you believe you've returned from a lava-drenched planet in the future?"
This... This couldn't be real.
It had to be a video game. What else could it be?
Those spiders? Those armored creatures?
A man built of concrete floating in lava?
A volcanic atmosphere?
Meyer was still reeling when he heard the voice again.
The same voice he'd heard days ago.
[Demon Chip initiated. You saw the future — are you convinced now?]
"W-what future, man?" Meyer was trembling all over. Jennie was asking him something, but he couldn't hear her through the voice inside his head.
[The video you watched comes from the future. The man who got stabbed — if your cognitive functions are still working — was you. Strange, huh? Fulfill your mission. Keep searching for the spider antidote. You'll find it eventually.]
"Meyer? Are you okay? Why are you muttering to yourself?"
"I've lost my mind," he said vaguely.
Jennie tried to say something, "But—" and didn't finish. Or rather, Meyer blocked her out.
He rushed to turn the computer back on.
He typed: mosquito repellent spray companies.
His fingers were shaking.
A familiar email address...
"I remember this."
"You're hard to understand," Jennie said, and slammed the door behind her.
Meyer hadn't noticed her walking away, so the sound made him jump.
"Shit!"
The door reopened.
"Sorry," Meyer said in shock, and the door slammed again.
He tensed all over again.
Am I... from the future?
Jennie yelled through the door:
"You're going to tell me everything! You've got thirty minutes to pull yourself together!"
Thirty minutes?
Even a lifetime wouldn't be enough to explain all this.
What would I even say?
None of this makes sense.
None of it is provable.
"Fine," he shouted back.
Jennie shouldn't question him right now. It was the worst possible time.
He touched the scars on his stomach again.
"I'm convinced," said the voice inside.
But am I stupid?
Should it really be this easy to believe?
What about the scars?
Where did they come from if not the past?
From the future.
The answer was clear.
And terrifying.
But undeniable.