Oook, this is a story I wrote. It's the first one I'll publish on this wiki. I just hope it gets attention - I encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments. It's inspired by one of the possible "deaths" in ep. 7 - you'll read more about it in the notes at the end. So... let's begin with this, shall we?
"I'm so tired of being dragged away while I'm trying to explain things!!" Harper exclaimed as the two Crown Mesa citizens were hauling her, their grasp clenched on her arms as she struggled vainly.
"Noooooo!" Jesse shouted, stretching her opened hand towards Harper, as if to grab her to safety. But before she could actually run to her to help, she was frozen by PAMA's robotic voice:
"Interference located. Drone identified."
A citizen had drawn close to her and attempted to grab her. Jesse struggled and initially managed to push her away, but as she was about to flee she saw other citizens coming and turned back to escape, only to see a zombie walking towards her; another citizen had reached her walking robotically, then grabbed her arm, as the other citizen blocked her other arm.
Jesse struggled but in vain, her heart started pounding in panic, and due to the fight-or-flight response, adrenaline started flowing in her veins strengthening her; but although she struggled with the force of dread and despair of someone fighting for their life, the grip of the citizens did nothing but toughen on her arm.
"Hide and seek is done, Jesse," PAMA said as Jesse fought vainly and as more and more monsters and citizens approached her. "I think we can make that headset... useful."
Another citizen approached zombie-Jesse from behind and firmly grabbed the chip on the back, pulling it as to tear it away.
"Begin... termination sequence," PAMA announced, with a hatefully satisfied face on the green screen.
Jesse started hearing interference noises. They weren't only in the helmet though, because Ivor and Lukas heard them too, and looked at her with worry and perplexity.
The headset started smoking, the noises became louder and more acute to the point of nearly making Jesse's head hurt; she jumped back with a scream of pain and scare, grabbing the headset nearly instinctively, as Ivor and Lukas looked at her concerned and scared.
Jesse tried to remove the headset.
But she couldn't.
Something was wrong. It was stuck somewhere, it just wouldn't get to go away, no matter how hard Jesse tried to pull it away. She started panicking even more, groaning in dread as she pulled the headset with as much strength as she could, but despite her racing heart and her crazy adrenaline increasing at every second, she couldn't remove it. Lukas and Ivor sensed something was wrong too, looking at how hard Jesse struggled with the headset and at how much panic leaked from her wails.
Then, suddenly, electric shocks started running through Jesse's body, unbearably painful. Jesse shouted in pain with all her voice, nearly paralyzed. Lukas and Ivor were frozen in terror. Her eyesight suddenly blacked out and she felt nothing more.
Jesse fell on her back.
"JESSE, NO-!" Ivor screamed in horror.
Lukas looked at Jesse's still body lying on the ground, petrified with terror and shock. He couldn't bring himself to believe that... no, NO, that could NOT be!
He quickly drew close to Jesse and knelt down near her, his heart pounding, and he held her.
"NO, no no!" he exclaimed in panic. "You can't... be..."
He put a hand on Jesse's chest, fearing the worst, to sense if she had any heartbeat.
Under his hand, he sensed a faint pulse.
He took a deep breath, relieved.
"She's ok," he said to Ivor, with a smile of relief. "The pulse is weak, but she's alive."
"Oh thank goodness!" Ivor replied, still quite shocked but way relieved. "I was afraid the worse had happened!"
Lukas looked at the headset. The light blue light was shut off. He tried to remove it, but it was indeed somehow stuck.
"It's stuck," he commented. "That's why Jesse couldn't remove it..."
"How is it stuck?" Ivor asked.
"I don't know," Lukas replied.
Ivor grabbed the helmet and pulled hard, but it didn't move of an inch.
"Agh! The thing really is stuck!"
"Told ya," Lukas said. Then he looked back at Jesse. "Is she going to wake up anytime soon?"
"I couldn't tell," Ivor replied. "Indeed, I'm not even sure of what happened out there. Not precisely, at least."
"Me neither. But I suppose Jesse's zombie was taken down."
"Well that's probable. Could explain this."
Suddenly, Jesse moved a bit, waking up.
"Jesse!" Lukas called out. "You okay?"
"Give her some time, she's still waking up!" Ivor said.
Jesse raised herself, staying sat near Lukas. Strangely, she had emitted no sound, and didn't seem to have seen Lukas or Ivor.
"Jesse, I'm here," Lukas told her, taking her apprehensively but gently by the arm. "Are you ok?"
Jesse didn't answer.
"Jesse...?" Lukas had started to worry. There was something creepy about her.
Suddenly she grabbed Lukas by the scruff with an unnatural strength and stood up, as the headset started glowing with a red light.
"Jesse what are you doing?!" Ivor shouted.
Jesse looked at him.
"Jesse is not here," she replied, with that unmistakable robotic voice. "There's only PAMA."
Lukas’s heart stopped.
“Wha… no,” he said, horror grasping his guts. “No, please, no…”
“Denying the obvious isn’t useful,” PAMA remarked through Jesse.
Lukas looked at Jesse. He suddenly felt a rising fury towards PAMA. He already hated PAMA for chipping him and Petra, for attempting to chip Ivor and Jesse and for all it had done… but brain-washing Jesse was a step too much.
Ivor suddenly threw himself against Jesse, making her fall and letting Lukas free. Jesse stood up and drew out her diamond enchanted sword.
“Your attempts to stop me are making me sad,” PAMA said through Jesse.
She attacked Ivor, but he promptly drew out his golden sword and defended himself.
Lukas looked around and saw the water which was encased in the glass.
He called out for Ivor, who turned towards him for a second. Lukas pointed at the water. Ivor understood what he meant and nodded. In that moment, though, Jesse nearly hit him with a blow of her sword; but Ivor parried it at last second, with swift reflexes. Then he kept on duelling with Jesse, luring her closer and closer to the water.
After not much time, Ivor had his shoulders against the glass which contained the water. Jesse got closer, ready to grab and block him. But as soon as she threw herself against him, he quickly jumped to a side. Jesse landed just in front of the glass at the last second.
At that point, Lukas punched a block of glass right in front of Jesse, and the water flowed out, flooding a big zone on the floor. She tried to run away, but Lukas threw himself against her and pinned her to the ground, putting the headset in the water.
Jesse let out a groan as water flowed through the circuits of the headset, wetting the delicate and refined Redstone components, and small electric sparks started flickering on its surface. The red light turned off.
“…Jesse?” Lukas called, hesitant.
Jesse raised her look towards him.
“Lukas, that… that was awful!”
Lukas chuckled:
“You tell that to me?”
Jesse touched the headset.
“Is this thing going to be stuck on my head forever…? It kinda doesn’t help vision…”
“Hold on, let me try again,” Ivor said, and he took the helmet, trying to pull it away.
This time, the headset just let itself be taken meekly, as if the water somehow unlocked it, revealing Jesse’s eyes and letting her hair drenched with water droop, as water poured down from it. Shortly after Ivor removed it, the headset broke in a puff of smoke.
“Well, the headset’s gone, gents,” Ivor said. “But the important thing is that Jesse’s here.”
“It was weirder than anything I could have ever imagined,” she said as she got up, helped by Lukas. “It was like… like being a waterdrop in a waterfall, or between wild river rapids. Mixed with all the others, in this… chaotic carousel of thoughts, emotions and… ugh! It makes my head hurt just by thinking about it.”
“Yeah, you should take a little break,” Lukas remarked. “Trust me, rest for a short while and it’ll feel better.”
Jesse nodded. Lukas put an arm behind her back, gently accompanying her as she walked in a small corner, where she sat down.
“Have your rest as long as you wish, Jesse,” Lukas said in a low voice. “Regain your strength. We’ll all need it when we’ll face PAMA.”
NOTES: this story, as mentioned by the subtitle, was inspired by a possible “death” in ep 7, which occurs if the player doesn’t remove the Mind-Control Headset in time; it’s one of the rare deaths in which some other character has a reaction aside from a shocked face (Ivor screaming “Jesse, no-!”). I was wondering, how exactly was Jesse made useful when caught with the headset (which also happens if you don’t migrate in time before)? I resolved that PAMA hacked in the headset itself through the Mind-Control Chip and mind-controlled Jesse via the headset itself. Although it’s not explained here, this is my idea and it’s what happens here. The idea of the stuck headset is purely hypothetical (I needed some way to explain how Jesse couldn’t pull the headset away, since she’s not a YouTuber who is doing a video with all ep. 7 deaths) and the actions subsequently done are such as well, but I thought this would’ve been an interesting story. I decided to use female Jesse because… dunno, I thought it would’ve been more emotional, somehow. I usually use female Jesse in my stories. In case someone was wondering what happens next, well, from now on things go pretty much the same as they go in the game. Last note: probably the shippers will be wondering if this is Lukesse. Well, if you wish to see it as Lukesse, you can consider it such; otherwise, you can interpret it however you prefer.