Jeremy could not have guessed what would happen next. Once he was put in quarantine, the world faced a vacuum of information, and as everybody knows, when there's a vacuum, the media takes over. But it wasn't the good media; it was the gossip media. Both America and the United Kingdom were abuzz—they were on fire! Literal fires in the streets erupted over this. There were riots because people weren't allowed to just go there.

The world freaked out. Everywhere, there were just so many people trying to get to the site. Billionaires' planes were flying around, just asking for landing clearance, which they wouldn't be given. It came down to everyone wanting this to happen and no one wanting it to happen. People went from being scared and freaked out to trying to control the situation to literally riding the wave of chaos that had just unleashed as the whole world collectively lost their minds.

Religions reacted dramatically; there was a new Crusade, not joking—it was kind of scary. By day six, the Scottish government had literally deployed a platoon of men guarding Jeremy and the tent. Everybody had gotten to the point where even the government officials were losing their minds.

They had conducted so many tests on Jeremy that they knew his flames were real, but they wouldn't burn anything if he didn't want them to. So, he was allowed music, and everyone treated him a little bit like a freak show, watching him in his little tented room with guards guarding him, his hair and fingernails glowing. It was really surreal at this point.

Jeremy hadn't really tried pushing his luck. He had food brought to him and all the basic amenities. But after a while, realizing that everybody was just losing it a little too much for his liking—it was like watching an insane asylum being run by insane people—it hurt his tech brain, and he snapped, but not really. It was more like, "Okay, time to go to work!"

Jeremy walked from his bed to the little zipper door that separated him from the rest of the tent. As he unzipped it, he saw the two corporals he had gotten to know over the last few days—Corporal Jeff and Corporal Mike. He looked at them both and said, "Gentlemen, you know I'm not going to hurt anybody, right? Can you work with me on something?" They both looked at him and nodded, asking, "What?"

"Let's go for a walk. Come with me," Jeremy said. All of a sudden, Jeremy wasn't just himself; he was Private McDonald from back in his old days. He even stood up a little straighter. He left the tent and walked directly over to the command tent where he had been taken a couple of times. He just walked in like he owned the place, and no one stopped him. Everyone kind of looked over as he walked directly up to the commander of the base, put his hand on him, and scared the hell out of him. The truth was, the commander wasn't expecting that—none of his men would have done that to him.

"General, I'm going to go fix this for you right now. I'm going to take these two with me, and I'm going to see if I can safely secure this whole thing. I'm going to go for a walk. Let's just get this over with; this is getting stupid."

The general did not want to deal with this right now. He had no patience for any nonsense that Jeremy might be coming up with. He just looked at him and said, "fuck off."

Jeremy turned on his heels like he was in the military, walked straight out, and the two corporals just looked at him as he said, "Come on."

Jeremy knew one thing about this general: if he wanted you to do something, he'd tell you to do it. If he didn't want you to do something, he'd still tell you not to do it. Knowing him, this was his way of saying, "Please fix this if you can. If not, get lost and don't bother me anymore after all this shit you put me through."

Jeremy had to respect that.

No one stopped them; no one gave him any other orders. Jeremy walked over to another tent that had a lot of the equipment and asked the quartermaster for a camera vest and camera. He put it on right there and turned it on. He then looked over at the quartermaster, asked for the date and time, and looked over at the two corporals, Corporal Mike and Corporal Jeff. When the quartermaster read out the time and date, Jeremy thanked him, signed the paperwork for his equipment, and started walking. They didn't get more than four feet out the door before Corporal Jeff put his hand on Jeremy and tried to stop him. Jeremy did a half turn left, put his hand on Jeff's hand, took it off, and said, "Don't chicken out now. We're going to fix this. Come on, we're going."

Jeremy then looked over at Mike and said, "Hey, can you get a vehicle so I don't have to walk for two hours?"

Mike just nodded like he was nodding at a friend, saying, "Yeah, dude, I can help you out."

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It was kind of poetic because as they got into the vehicle, Mike, not even thinking, turned on the radio, and "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC started to play. Jeremy just smiled so hard. What they didn't even realize was that it happened so quickly that Jeremy didn't notice until he saw them looking at him funny. His fire turned dark purple, and he had this evil smile on his face as he sang along to "Highway to Hell."

The two corporals just looked at each other and shook their heads, thinking, "This guy is so stupid, and he's got magic powers. What is wrong with this planet?"

The 30-minute drive from the base camp up to the mountain had four checkpoints. They just got Jeremy to pop his head out at each one. By now, everybody kind of knew Jeremy. Everybody had gone to look at the "freak show" at least once, and he had met everyone, so Jeremy was super happy. If you haven't figured it out, Jeremy was super smart but super simple. He was loved by all and would give his shirt off his back if you needed it, no questions asked. But he had also been hurt enough that he was festering a little bit of anger and a mean streak—something he wanted to fix but didn't know how to un anger.

When they pulled up, there was a group from the CDC guarding the place and one CDC officer on-site. No one had told him that Jeremy was coming up, so Jeremy started talking with him, being very polite and nice, and explained that he was coming up to see if he could fix this.

There was a call back to the base camp, screaming through the radio, and then the radio went dead.

Jeremy looked over at the radio operator from the CDC and asked, "Did he say I can't go in?" The only response he got back was, "No."

"If I can fix this, I'm going to try. Do you want to come in with us?" The CDC officer was super excited and absolutely terrified. Jeremy looked at him and said, "I thought so. Okay, guys, stay here, and I'm going to go in and see if I can figure out what the hell is going on. I'll come out in a bit. Can you guys turn on all the cameras in there, please?"

They had actually set up cameras inside, but no one had the key to access the area beyond. They had cordoned off the whole area. There were a couple of trees and bushes against one of the sides where Jeremy had hidden the key. Just as he was about to go in, Jeff and Mike looked at each other, and Mike punched Jeff hard in the shoulder. Everyone was taken off guard by that, even Jeremy.

"Do it, man," came from Mike. "You will regret it if you don't."

Jeff looked at Mike with almost a tear in his eye and then looked over at Jeremy.

What people didn't realize about Jeremy's magic power was that he had dealt with so many people he could read them really well. That's why he was so nice—he didn't like seeing people angry. He just didn't. So, he already knew that Jeff, who kept staring at Jeremy every chance he got, especially when the magic was flowing and it was all colorful, wanted a piece of it. He wanted magic.

"Oh, shoot, Jeff, my ankle. Can you give me a hand over here? I need someone to help me get into the cave. Want to come help me for a moment?"

Mike, Jeff, and the CDC guy all groaned like it was so blatant, and Jeremy just smiled and said, "Let's go." Everybody thought he was so dumb, but they all smiled, and that's all he cared about. He was so upset about this; he had hurt so many people. He had set so many fires by just showing people this. It was like putting a match to a gas can. He knew that he started it. All the people that died—yes, he didn't kill them, but he started it. He was so upset.

Jeremy pulled out a cell phone and went to YouTube, putting on a playlist he had been working on for a week. He clicked play, and the first song was "Centuries" by Fall Out Boy. He just put it in his top pocket, turned it on low so there were some background sounds, and walked in. When Jeff followed, Jeremy looked back and said to him, "Holy crap, I didn't think you'd actually come in. You've got a set of balls on you. Okay, let's do this."

"Jeff, you've been respectful to me and nice, and I'm on camera, you're on camera. We're going to do this together. I didn't want anybody to kill me, so I kept one thing to myself. We're about to expose this one thing, so brothers in this, please don't kill me." Jeremy smiled at him and put his hand out, hoping that Jeff would shake his hand.

What Jeff did surprised even Jeremy. Jeff grabbed his hand, pulled him in, grabbed him by the wrist like brothers do, and then hugged him. Jeff looked at him and said, "Okay, what do we do next?"

Jeremy, coming out of his moment of surprise, looked at the entrance of the cave and started moving towards it. Off to the left, Jeff watched and followed. Jeremy went over to the bush about 30 feet away, just within the fence line, and after a minute or two, he found the key. The moment he pulled it out, he knew he had seconds before people would show up because they wanted the key.

So, Jeff and Jeremy quickly got back into the cave. Jeremy went right to the rock. He sat on the rock and looked at Jeff. "Hey, Jeff, want to see something cool?" he asked. Right between his legs, a round hole with a keyhole had appeared because Jeremy got close enough with the key. Jeremy put the key into the hole and twisted it. A door started to open—not just any door, but one that appeared on the wall and actually started to open. "Jeff, get over here real quick," Jeremy called.

Jeff ran over to where the key was. Jeremy walked over to where Jeff was, and they stood at the door. Beyond the door was fog. The door was opening, but there was nothing there—just fog. Jeremy went to swipe the fog away, and the moment his hand touched where the wall was, it was like the wall was there. It was all an illusion. But Jeremy couldn't move his hand away; it was stuck. The door started to close with Jeremy being pulled inside. Jeff grabbed the key, twisted it, and nothing happened. He twisted it the other way and pulled it out—still nothing. The door kept closing, and it took Jeremy with it. They now had the key, but it had Jeremy.