Micha

— Chase, referring to Micha during Jenna's route

**Micha** is a side character in the visual novel Echo. He is a friend of Jeremy Begay and Heather who has recently returned to Echo.

## Appearance

Micha is a short, slight bat with grey and tan skin and white fur on his neck, torso, upper arms, and the top of his head. He has amber eyes and very large ears. Micha has numerous tattoos covering both his arms and vestigial wing flaps connecting his arms to his torso.

He wears a black tank top with a pink and magenta design on his chest, and green athletic shorts with white accents. He goes barefoot.

## Personality

Micha is initially depicted as arrogant, prickly, and short-tempered, but this largely seems to be a defense mechanism and gradually wears off over the course of the story. Underneath, he is shown to be loyal to his friends and displays a strong conscience.

## Story

### Prior to 2015

Micha was raised by selectively religious (heavily implied to be Mormons), 'prissy' parents in a yellow stucco house on the end of Jasmynn Street in Echo. His father seems to have formerly been a police officer.

While growing up, Micha made friends with Jeremy and Heather, and he and Heather went camping frequently. Along with Jeremy and Clint, Micha bullied Chase and his friends when they were children, although it seems like Micha was, unlike the others, not physically violent towards them. At some point Micha acquired a reputation for kleptomania.

Micha and his friends came to greatly respect Keith, who acted as a friend and mentor to the group and who Micha considered like a brother. Keith used to take Micha out on Fridays after school to fly RC planes. After Keith suddenly vanished, Micha felt like he had nothing left in Echo.

In or after 2008, not long after Keith disappeared, Micha's parents found out about his homosexuality and kicked him out of the house. Micha lived on the outskirts of Pueblo for several years, but returned to Echo just before the events of the story.

#### Route 65

Micha attends the Day of the Dead party at Parsons in 2008, where he and Leo film themselves having sex in a van using a camera and tripod Micha stole from their high school. They are interrupted by Chase, who ultimately comes out to Leo and starts a relationship with him that night. Micha loses touch with Leo after that, and has not seen him in years.

### Jenna's Route

Though it is not revealed until later, Micha is directly responsible for Carl's disappearance, which sets the events of the route into motion. On Tuesday night, Micha goes to Carl's house to evaluate it as a potential robbery target on Clint's orders; but Carl sees him, gets spooked, and runs out into the desert. Carl is able to take a blurry picture of Micha with his phone, which Chase and his friends later find, but they are unable to identify who is in the picture until Micha confesses.

On Wednesday, when Chase visits Jeremy to ask him about Carl's last weed purchase, he runs into Micha and is shocked to learn that the bat is back in town. Although Micha provides no leads and does not admit to being at Carl's house, he noticeably tenses up and becomes less hostile when Chase mentions Carl is missing. The following day, Micha and his friends throw an ‘Ahoa Party' in honor of their friend and mentor Keith, who has been missing for several years. Chase, Jenna, and Flynn arrive with more questions for them, and Chase observes that Micha is clearly trying to hide from someone. When Jeremy lies to cover up the truth of what happened, Micha stays silent.

That night, Micha sleepwalks to a wash outside the motel and stumbles upon Chase. They talk about the bad dreams they've both been having and Micha describes the Hum, Keith's term for the supernatural backdrop of nightmares and visions that haunts Echo's residents. Micha admits that he was at Carl's house on Tuesday, and that he saw Carl flee into the desert. Micha also asks about Leo with more than just casual curiosity, according to Chase, but tries to play it off nonchalantly. The next day, Micha frantically alerts Chase by text that Leo is attacking Clint. When Chase arrives, Micha is hiding in an RV and explains that Leo's aggression has outed Micha as a snitch and put them all in danger. Brian soon appears and Micha hits him in the face with a wrench to get him to stop strangling Leo. Micha flees, but Brian chases and ultimately catches him.

Later, Brian comes to the motel and slams Micha's face against the window of the room where Chase, Jenna, and Leo are hiding out before breaking down their door and kidnapping them. Micha is brought into Brian's trailer as a captive not long after Chase awakens there. Micha warns Jeremy and Clint that they are succumbing to the mass hysteria that is beginning to take over the town and accuses Brian of killing Keith. When Brian explains how he outed Keith and caused him to leave Echo, Micha becomes noticeably downcast.

Brian forces Micha onto a wobbly stool and puts a noose around his neck, and Micha is forced to flap his vestigial wings to barely keep from asphyxiating. Micha is saved by a warped, burnt figure that suddenly appears from Brian's closet and cuts the noose down. Micha frees Jenna, Leo, and Chase, and the four of them set out to help Carl. On the way Micha talks about a dream he had, likely from the perspective of Sydney, in which he felt thankful and free while Chase held him underwater and drowned him. Soon after, a mysterious van appears out of the darkness, which Micha and Leo recognize as the same one they had sex in back in 2008. Leo becomes more lucid and sincerely apologizes for abandoning Micha when they were younger as well as never contacting him for years, and he and Micha grow more and more at ease with each other throughout the rest of the route.

If Chase endorses Micha's plan to talk Heather down, Heather shoots Micha superficially through his wing. In Jenna's bad ending, Flynn shoots and kills Heather on Jenna's orders and Micha is furious at her for killing his friend.

In Jenna's good ending, Heather announces her plan to flood Echo and flees, and Micha insists to the others that they should take her seriously and follow her instead of escaping to Payton. At the dam, Micha helps Jenna talk Heather down from her plan. At the pancake house in Payton, Micha orders a huge meal and enjoys it with his newfound friends, while continuing to patch things up with Leo.

### Flynn's Route

Micha appears briefly when some of Echo's citizens meet to discuss the worsening mass hysteria. After Duke attempts to blame the event on Chase and fires his gun into the air to stop him from leaving, Micha runs off into the desert and is not seen again.

## Relationships

### Leo

Micha and Leo were intimate in high school, although they were never in a defined relationship. Micha hasn't been in touch with Leo in years, but he still thinks about the wolf often enough to ask Chase soon after seeing him again whether Leo ever talks about him. Leo has rarely if ever mentioned Micha to Chase (which makes Micha feel hurt, even though he tries to hide it), but harbors a sense of guilt over cutting ties with Micha and failing to help support him after he was disowned by his parents. Leo never made any attempt to contact or respond to Micha since their last encounter, almost like he was trying to pretend it never happened and making sure Chase never learned of it.

When Leo is revealed to be a victim of The Embrace in Jenna's route, he immediately comes to the wolf's aid. He tells Leo that it's not real, and how the Embrace takes the form of those one loves most; revealing how it once came to him in the form of Keith, taking the form of his idealized version of the fox who would tell him things he'd always wanted to hear. With his help, Leo is able to slowly break free of the Embrace's hold.

At the end of Jenna's route, Leo makes amends with Micha and sincerely apologizes to him for using him only to then abandon him for years without any contact. It is also heavily implied they are growing mutual feelings for each other then.

### Chase

Micha calls Chase 'Schizo' and presumably made fun of him for his mental health issues when they were growing up. Soon after they become reacquainted, Chase says he assumes Micha hates him, but Micha replies that he doesn't care about Chase enough to hate him.

As Jenna's route progresses, Chase and Micha warm up to each other greatly, and Micha soon comes to trust Chase enough to tell him the truth about Carl's disappearance, even if it means putting himself at great personal risk.

### Heather

Heather and Micha were good friends growing up, and are able to quickly resume their friendship despite Micha's long absence. Micha is protective of Heather, and regrets not being able to do more to save her from her difficult home life. Like Heather, Micha says he has also heard Keith's voice as a result of the supernatural 'Hum' in Echo, but he was able to resist listening to it, and eventually he helps Heather to resist it as well.

### Jeremy and Clint

Though they were once friends, Micha grows disillusioned with Jeremy and Clint's willingness to follow Brian and their apparent indifference towards the torment he inflicts. Jeremy and Clint do not seem to take Micha's conviction that Brian killed Keith seriously, with Clint calling his theory 'conspiracy shit.' Ultimately, Micha is willing to betray Jeremy and Clint in order to undermine Brian.

### Brian

Micha is deeply distrustful of Brian and suspects him of being behind Keith's disappearance. He also seems to greatly resent the authority that Brian holds over Jeremy and Clint.

### Keith

Micha looked up to Keith and admired his efforts to help people. Even years later, he is still affected by Keith's disappearance and seeks answers about what happened to him. Micha comes clean about Carl's kidnapping in Keith's honor, and he is able to use the positive memories that he and Heather still have of Keith to get through to her during the Hysteria.

## Trivia

* Micha is a backer character added to Echo as a result of his creator's support toward the Echo project. He shares this distinction with Daxton, Kudzu, Julian, and Raven. Uniquely, Micha and Julian were contributed by the same backer.
* Micha is the only side character to be featured in a CG.
* Micha survives the 'bad ending' of Jenna's route, making him the only side character who features in a route with a bad ending not to be killed by the events of that ending.
* Micha is the only Echo character with visible tattoos.
* it is heavily implied in the game that Micha has nipple piercings.