The rainy morning drizzles against the empty house as Rick mindlessly portals himself back into his regular timeline, landing inside the garage while carrying a bunch of alien materials that he needs for a new invention. He walks over towards the chair
by his desk, placing some of the wires and circuit boards down carefully so he can rummage through which ones are compatible with Earth's technology, and which ones are too advanced to do anything with yet. Of course he could easily make them work
with a little bit of time, but time isn't something that Rick's willing to give up freely. After deciding which materials are worth his valuable time he stores away the rest of them in a box underneath his shelf next to the kitchen door, glancing
through the small window he notices the light is turned off. Everyone probably went out, hopefully Morty listened to me before I left.Rick mutters a few words under his breath before heading back to his desk across the garage. The rain
patters against the windows and the roof, creating a small barrier between him and the world as if there wasn't one there already. The garage's folding door is left wide open to fully experience the sound of the rain hitting the sidewalk and drenching
the outside world, creating a serene tranquility that words cannot describe on this dreary morning.
Rick takes a mental note of the lack of people walking on the sidewalk after a few minutes of having the garage door open, which limits his suspicions to anything 'out of the ordinary' for Earth such as intergalactic works, or perhaps an invasion like
C-023 experienced last week. Did I enter the right coordinates? This can't be human error.Rickbegins to doubt himself, he'd stop making simple mistakes in his late thirties after blowing up several different dimensions throughout the universe,
all accidental except for one or two which were intentional at the time for his own personal reasons. His curiosity gets the best of him and he glances over towards his portal gun's coordinates, noticing all of the numbers seem to be correct; however
there's a small scratch covering the last digit which doesn't concern him too much. Breathing in a sigh of relief he begins to focus at his task at hand, if he messed up his own timeline's coordinates surely the other Rick's would torment him about
it.
His nimble fingers dance over the oddly shaped piece of metal as he fiddles with tedious wires, checking to see if the circuit board is still working with every adjustment he makes. His mind stays focused on the task at hand but whenever he feels the
thoughts from his past creeping up on him, he stops for a second and takes a swig of brandy from his half empty bottle that's off to the side. Morty's taking forever, I shouldn't be surprised considering all of them are dumb in one way or another. How hard is it to find plutonic serum? I left it on the shelf next to the milk in the fridge. Maybe next time I should leave sticky notes with arrows pointing in the direction for his dumb little head.He
snorts a little, well aware of his bitter emotions towards his grandson, and anybody else for that matter. But it's for the better, emotions get in the way of whatever shenanigans Rick does throughout the universe and it could lead to disastrous results;
too bad nobody understands except for him, and countless other Ricks around the dimensions.
He carefully makes a small nest of wires inside the center of his contraption with his long fingers, delicately placing the circuit board along with a supercharged battery connecting to a few of the wires in order to power up the digital aspect of his
new device. The light blinks on the end of the foreign object while a small, subtle smile twitches across his lips. After a few moments of self-gloating over his new invention Rick sets it aside, fiddling with the dials to see if it'll actually work
the way he wants it to. As he's turning one of the dials he hears a loud scream emit from inside the house, causing him to nearly drop his new creation to the concrete floor beneath him. Carefully he sets it down on the table, cursing under his breath
while taking in a deep, agitated sigh. He eventually rises from his chair, staggering a little bit before catching himself and reaching for his bottle. When I get my hands on Morty he'll pay for wasting my time. And why the hell did he scream like a little turd; unless he walked in on Jerry in the bathroom again... Rick
opens the kitchen door to see what the hell's going on while steadying himself once more against the wall, a few warning signs trigger off throughout his mind keeping him on high alert. Surely nothing could take him by surprise after all the turmoil
and hiding he's been doing for over forty years; he's practically seen it all by now.
The house looks eerie when it's empty; usually it's full of Jerry's lame voice questioning everything around him and Beth's unconscious thoughts regretting the fact that she even married him. There's enough tension in the air to strangle anyone who's
not used to their toxic relationship; even when they're not here. Rick's glazed eyes wander around the kitchen noticing the cupboards were hastily open with a few cans of food missing, as well as boxes of crackers, cookies, cereal, and all kinds of
other food turned over in a rush. The counter has a few smashed glasses here and there, as well as drops of blood smeared everywhere; on the walls, cupboard doors, the counter, and even on the floor. Rick dismisses any serious thoughts about the amount
of blood and labelled it all as Jerry being a complete dumbass and smashing all of the glasses while cutting himself. Jesus Jerry, did you try drinking or something?The thought of Jerry attempting to be an alcoholic amuses Rick greatly, the
man's too stupid to do anything right at all.
The lights inside the house seem to be turned off, indicating that nobody should still be home. Strange, did I miss a family gathering? Good. He thought bitterly, the idea of spending time with Jerry's side of the family was a good enough reason
to put a bullet through his head. He comes to a halt where spilled liquid from the opened fridge door seeps through the tiles on the kitchen floor mixed in with blood, hoping that it wasn't the plutonic serum but strongly having a feeling in the back
of his head telling him that it is. Damn it Morty if you dropped it then we can't use the portal gun for reckless things, I've only got half a jar left and the rest needs to be stabilized before we can use it.The closer he gets to the spill,
the angrier he feels. There's no mistaking that metallic scent mixed with chrome colours; it was the plutonic serum. He rubs his temples with his fingers, taking in a deep breath before he begins to holler and shout like he normally does when
he's fed up. Sometimes he feels as if Morty doesn't quite understand the precise actions needed to create stable experiments, all though he's well aware of how dumb Mortys truly are when it comes to dimensions and creations; he still can't help but
get agitated over every small mistake his Morty makes. Sure Rick can whip up just about anything in a matter of minutes, but preparing the ingredients to be used in Earth's climate takes time which is something he hates wasting.
Rick steps over the spill and begins to head towards the staircase in the living room, noticing a familiar scent lingering throughout the air. His eyes catch sight of human-shaped shadows advancing towards the house through the living room window partially
covered by thick curtains, as they scratch against the glass with their fingers, as well as noticing the entire living room is in a rushed mess. Papers, photos, and important documents are scattered around one of the end tables while shelves were
hastily rummaged through, the glass coffee table is completely shattered with blood everywhere, one of the smaller couches happened to be turned over on its side as well as one of the bookshelves that contained a lot of Beth's mother's stuff. I forgot her name... How could I have forgotten her name..?He
narrows his eyes towards the photo of Beth's mother, straining his mind in the hopes of remembering her name. Ever since he walked out he picked up a bottle and forgot a lot about his past, he'd rather keep it that way too.
Rick's eyes manage to spot a bloody handprint smeared across the sliding glass door, swallowing the sickening feeling that's rising up from his stomach. I'm sure Beth made it out fine, it's probably Jerry's blood anyways. He assures himself, hoping
for the best that maybe Jerry would risk his dumb life for his little girl. Immediately he faces the staircase where the scream came from, his eyes catch a silver object lying down on one of the bottom steps. Carefully he reaches over, picking up
a butcher's knife from that kitchen that's already coated in blood and smells of death. How long was I gone for? It couldn't have been more than a day.He hears the familiar cries from his grandson on the top floor once again, while letting
out another deep sigh. Maybe it was three days...
Rick approaches the bottom of the staircase and he pats himself down, reaching inside one of his lab coat pockets and pulling out a grey flask. He quickly uncaps it and takes a swig from the strong vodka bourbon mix, recapping it and placing it back inside
his pocket while wiping his mouth on his sleeve. I'm getting too old for this shit. He sluggishly makes his way up the carpet steps towards the dimly lit hallway, gripping the handle of the knife and taking note of the sickly scent growing
stronger.
To the left is Beth and Jerry's room, which is oddly darker than usual as well as leaving a weird chill in the air. With just a quick glance Rick notices that their bedroom looks identicalto the living room, drawers tossed on the floor with clothes
thrown in every direction, blankets torn off the bed, and a few bottles of wine leaking onto the carpet. He doesn't bother flicking on the light to fully investigate; he can already tell that they packed up whatever they could and fled without looking
back. Some family gathering, maybe I should be a little concerned. Rick forces himself to head down towards the end of the hall where Morty's room is, right across from Summer's detailing the strong scent once more followed by the cries and
a strange noise he's never heard before coming from one of their rooms. His eyes narrow, half of him wants to see what the fuss is about however the other half of him regrets coming up the steps and wanting to head back down to finish his new invention.
He slowly begins to move down the end of the hall, steadying himself with a hand on the wall and hearing the desperate cries mixed with a few snarling noises that sound inhuman. Wonderful, somebody tracked an alien creature through the dimensions again. Why does nobody listen to me when I say wash your damn hands?
As Rick approaches the end of the hall the smell hits him like a truck. It reeks of decaying flesh that's been sitting up here for days going unnoticed, followed by the inhuman snarling emitting from Morty's room. Without another word he turns the corner
fully prepared to see his grandson being ripped apart by some undead creature; except he was only half right.
In the middle of the room Summer's corpse continues to bash it's crippled hands against the closet door where Morty trapped himself in the hopes of Rick finding him eventually. Damn it Morty. Her cracked lips open and close while hissing and snarling
at the cries coming from the closet; leaving him stunned for a split second. Rick quickly glances around the room looking for a weapon of some sort to stagger her backwards, knowing that he'll have to act fast after realizing that he set down his
portal gun in the garage, and didn't bother to bring anything with him to defend himself with since he clearly wasn't expecting this. He reaches for a lamp that's on Morty's dresser, unplugging it just as Summer's corpse turns her fixated
attention towards him. Her face appears to be slightly ripped off, exposing a few muscles around her cheeks that didn't get damaged, one of her eyes is barely hanging inside of her socket whereas the other one is completely clouded over, erasing any
shred of humanity trapped inside her rotting body. On one of her shoulders there appears to be a massive bite wound that looks highly infectious. Piecing together the evidence, Rick silently curses under his breath realizing that he's entered an apocalyptic
timeline full of reanimated life. Impossible, the coordinates were right...He thought, racking his brain once more to see if he overlooked any small details previously;
the scratch.
The left sides of her pants are stained with massive amounts of dried blood followed by huge gashes around her torso, indicating that the knife he found earlier was definitely used on her at some point today, or yesterday. She begins to stagger on weak
ankles and a twisted leg towards Rick in a slow manner, grasping at him with her dry, skinless fingers from scratching on the closet door for who knows how long. He raises the lamp and immediately brings it down on top of her head sending her stumbling
backwards as well as shattering the lamp to several pieces from the force of the blow, feeling no remorse for what he had just done. There's a huge gash outlined where he struck her on the forehead, revealing bits of her cracked skull from the strike.
The closet door opens a little bit after hearing the loud noise, revealing half of Morty's face with terrified eyes full of tears and guilt aimed directly towards Rick.
"M-Mo-uurrp-rty grab something you dingus, b-beat her over the he-urrp-ad or something!" Rick hollers over the angry snarls, he grips the knife tightly knowing that he's going to have to somehow pierce her skull with a dull kitchen blade.
He quickly analyzes the entrance points to her brain, through the eye socket or chance it with the cracked skull that's exposed on her forehead. After a split second of precise decision making he jabs the sharp end through Summer's eye socket, pushing
it further in until the corpse stops moving and slumps over, grasping at him one last time before falling to the floor in a heap of unmoving, rotting flesh with blood spewing from the hole. Morty eventually opens the closet door, looking dazed and
scared as he tries to step over Summer's body; terrified that it'll come back to life at any moment again as well as staring at his grandfather awkwardly, considering he showed no emotion whatsoever while ending his sister's life.
"Wha-what the hellMorty, you couldn't kill your sister— again? Believe me, it wasn't h-uurrp-ard." Without another moment to lose Rick grabs his grandson by the arm, hauling him away from his bedroom with tears flowing over Morty's
cheeks as they rush towards the stairs in the hopes of escaping the reanimated life outside their home. Faintly Rick can make out the sound of more snarling and angry moans coming from downstairs, realizing that he'd left the garage door open to air
out the garage. Fuck, well I guess that one's on me.
"What was I supposed to do Rick, she wa-was my s-sister..." Morty stumbles over his words, trying to hold back tears once more for what he had just witnessed. "Was your sister. She's dead no-uurrp-w." Rick corrects him, completely desensitized
towards killing his granddaughter. Morty stays silent, unable to form a response to an answer quite like that. He knew his grandfather was reckless and had sociopathic tendencies but he didn't think he could just end the life of somebody who's family
and not blink an eye. Morty's terrified eyes dart around the hallway, expecting something else to jump out at them like Summer had. He notices a long metal rod from the heater that was kicked in and picks it up, gripping the makeshift weapon tightly
while staying close to his grandfather, fully understanding the unknown circumstances outside of his home.
Quietly Rick approaches the stairwell, listening towards the staggering monstrosities that invaded downstairs within a matter of minutes, probably drawn in from the noise that was happening up here. The only thing that's stupider than a Morty would be the living dead. He
thought, probably the only compliment he'd ever give a Morty. He motions Morty to stay upstairs and to keep his mouth shut as he carefully inches halfway down the staircase, with his eyes widening in horror at the scene before him. About a
dozen of them had already made their way inside the house judging by the smell and the strange gurgling sounds they emit. A few of them wander around the living room tracking blood and smearing dirt throughout the home, and each of them appears to
have been bitten in one way or another. Some of them have broken limbs, torn up faces, there's at least one of them crawling on the floor due to their legs being mangled, and a few others missing an arm or such. One in particular has intestines spewing
out onto the floor from a huge hole, dripping stomach acid and who knows what else onto Beth's expensive rug; one way or another Rick knows that he'll have to get through to the garage with his life still intact, or he'll have to abandon everything
he's worked on for his entire life and run like his daughter did in the hopes of finding her once again after walking out on her years ago.