Inspired by CAPTCHA - Joly cannot prove he is a human via CAPTCHA and therefore concludes that he is, indeed, not actually a human. The hypochondriac goes into Panic Mode.
"Agh!" the hypochondriac yelped, blinking as the glaring white screen refreshed once more, another wall of unreadable text changeling him with a gaping, empty field. Keen, focused optics scanned the text, gnawing on his pen-lid in a desperate attempt to summon deliberate concentration, too swiftly lost in the elevated beat of his heart. Joly tapped at his keyboard, entering the singular nonsense-word lodged within his intelligent mind, only for a similar fate to recur. He emitted what could only be described as a strangled wail, furiously jabbing at the misfortunate F5 key, hope fleeing the wake of evolving terror. The cry was enough to distract Bossuet, working from across the shared apartment, absent mindedly ignoring the regular squeaks and whimpers of Joly, only enquiring to his well-being when a certain octave was reached. It was, however, that upon this doomed evening Joly's alarms reached a critical status.
"Are you well?" he called, peering over the edge of his encyclopedia-type book, studying the panic-struck form of the medical student.
"It, w-won't..." Joly stuttered, skimming the page for a similar tab, or a quick escape from the impossible riddle confronting him, "Isn't..."
The ex-law student rose clumsily from his seat, staggering in a sleep-riddled state towards Joly, resting a hefty forearm over the back of his seemingly uncomfortable chair ("But I could crook my spine!") and examining the intense whiteness of the hypochondriac's screen. Joly frustratedly entered another word, only to fail miserably once more, the struck-through, italicised, jumbled word of extraterrestrial characters deemed unsolvable.
It was then that the undeniable truth dawned upon Joly, as he sat before the monitor, fingernails worn blunt from furious tapping, as he once more read the stand alone black font, punctuated by a questioning symbol, throwing down the both metaphorical and digital gauntlet before him.
Are you human?
That was all it took for Joly, after an evening on artificial and disproportionate stress pushing him towards anxiety, the last sane mind-string snapped, causing his easily-shook web of intellect to shudder and break. His heart pounced against his ribcage, eyes widening drastically, a low whimper escaping from thin lips.
Joly was infamously a hypochondriac, blowing a simple sneeze or cough, maybe a slight complaint of a headache to exponential proportions, this constant worry fuelling him to a career of medicine, yet, he knew little of computers. He was close to oblivious to code, calling Bossuet at the feeblest glance of html, even more ignorant of hacking. If he heard the word, his health-set mind would jump to violent image of another choking and coughing, or maybe the action of felling a great tree with a dulled axe. Nought of his knowledge could have reasoned with the mechanism, characters only the human mind could recognise, misprocessed by software. For all he knew, an alien enterprise was attacking France's computing network, the sole, irking device their last resort of prevention, and now he...
"No!" he screeched, yanking away his hands and pulling them close to his chest in an almost meerkat-like fashion, thrusting into the chest of his roommate, "I'm not human! I am a freak! An alien, sent to earth and hypnotised into bending to social pressure, even worse, it lives within me! Help me, dear Bossuet!" he continued, clawing at his belly in some inane attempt. Bossuet snapped from his daze, enjoying the silent bliss of simply remaining close to his friend, focusing upon the display. He leaned forward, reaching outwards, brushing against Joly's neck, throbbing veins visible against his throat, typing a unrecognisable word upon his keyboard, stroking the enter key with newfound grace. There was a minor chime as the page granted access, revealing a new page of blueish colour and text. The larger man withdrew his limbs, crossing them across Joly's clavicle in a fervent but loose hug, turning his nose against the shaggy mop of his hair. Joly inhaled deeply, relaxing into the grip, smiling slightly. "Oh..." he squeaked, a delicate blush appearing on his cheeks.
"You're welcome." Bossuet countered, smirking, "Remember, no Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart can outsmart me."
