Dero had a single story house with a black vehicle charging in the attached carport. It may have been the beginning of summer, but a mix of Halloween and Christmas lights decorated the wide windows of the house. His mother had pestered him about decorating for the holidays, but because he had no interest in them, he just left them, much to the chagrin of some of his neighbors. There was some purple flashing, so he must have turned them on at some point.

Hal helped her onto the porch. Amy rang the doorbell, and she waited a good five minutes before she stretched as tall as she could to peek through the windows. She saw nothing because he never drew his curtains to allow natural light into his home.

Amy backed away and had Hal hold open the screen door while she tested the inner door, and the doorknob turned with no resistance. She opened the door. There were a couch and a coffee table, and there was a trash all over the place: paper and plastic wrappers all over the table and floor. On the couch, there was a pile of plaid-patterned blankets, and there was a tuft of blond hair protruding from it.

Amy recalled that Dero was a natural blond, but he had stated how he loathed the color on himself. It had been several months since the last time she had seen Dero, but she doubted that he would have let his natural hair color return during that time.

With Hal’s help, she got into the house. His complex system of computers was on, and all four monitors brightly lit up the room. One monitor merely showed the desktop, with a picture of a large, muscular demon—his own artwork—on the wallpaper. On another monitor, there was a drawing program opened with the blue sketch of what would become the detailed drawing of a voluptuous woman, and there was a slideshow of a few reference pictures for the drawing on another monitor. The fourth monitor was just a white screen.

There were drawings posters of many old horror anime and films on the walls. On an enormous projection screen there was an image of a one-eyed man cleaving monstrous blobs in two with a weapon too big to be called a sword.

Amy went to the side of the couch with the tuft of blond hair, and she lifted the pile of blankets, revealing an unfamiliar face. They looked pale and gaunt, and faint freckles dotted their face. Their hands were tucked under their face, and there was drool on their chin and hands. Raising an eyebrow, she shook their shoulder, but they made no sign of returning to consciousness. She lowered the blankets back into their original place.

"Is that him?" Hal asked in a low voice.

"No, it's not, and I have a bad feeling about this."

"Why is that, Miss Amy?"

"Either this dude is a heavy sleeper or they're on something. And if they're on something, then Dero is likely on something as well."

"Do you mean a drug?"

"Yeah, and he has a bit of a history of it."

Hal went to one knee beside the coffee table, and he brushed aside a few wads of plastic and paper, revealing a sheet of paper with some cartoon characters from a children's show she did not recognize. A couple of characters were missing on the bottom.

"Of course, LSD," Amy said, sighing. "Let's just flush that down the toilet, Hal."

"The laws regarding drugs are not quite as strict as they once were, Miss Amy."

"I know that, Hal, but that doesn't mean Dero needs to be anywhere near them."

"I will flush this, then."

"Thank you."

Amy went into the kitchen area. It was a spacious area with a bar separating the kitchen from the living room. The refrigerator door had been left open, and there was no food inside it. She closed it to stop the waste of electricity. Beside the fridge there were two doors: one lead to the backyard, and the other went into a hallway, where she would be able to find the bathroom and the bedrooms.

The doorway was just big enough for her wheelchair to fit through, and just down the hall, in front of the first bedroom door, there was someone lying facedown on the floor. They were wearing all black clothes and long, messy dyed-black hair. Their feet were bare, except for the tattoos of bones and red roses. The most concerning thing was the puddle of some kind of brown and pink liquid beneath them.

Hal leaned over Amy to peek into the hallway without getting in her way.

"Is that him?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's definitely him," Amy said, sighing. "The bathroom is behind me."

The hallway was narrow, but she was able to turn and go to her fallen friend. As Amy came closer, she realized the substance looked like melted chocolate ice cream, and there was a definite rise and fall in his chest with his every breath. Even though he was definitely alive, she leaned forward and pressed two fingers to his throat anyway. His pulse was strong, and she settled back into her chair with a sigh of relief.

There was the flushing of the toilet, and she turned her chair and watched Hal approach her. His eyebrows were pushed together as he looked at the unconscious man on the floor.

"Is your friend all right?" he asked.

"He seems to be, but it might be a while before he wakes up. Would you mind dumping him in the bathtub for me?"

"Of course, Amy."

With the limited space in the hall, Hal had to shuffle sideways past her. He rolled Dero onto his back, revealing a rather gaunt-looking man with the melted ice cream all over his face. Black and red makeup was smeared all over his face, and his fancy, Victorian-style vest and black, long-sleeved undershirt were a crumpled mess.

Hal lifted him in his arms just as easily as he could Amy, and then he shuffled passed Amy to gently place Dero into his small bathtub. Amy considered for a moment having Hal turn on the water, but that would be too mean. She and Geordi had done that to him once before, and he had been furious with them—not that his anger had made it any less funny for them.

"All right, let's clean this place, shall we?" Amy suggested. "I'll start with all the trash in the living room."