He was awake. The words in the upper right hand side of his monitor were fuzzy, they were flickering. The words scrambled, changing rapidly. This was so unusual, normally the information would show up quite quickly. And clearly. His monitor must be damaged. It cleared slowly.
Rick Sanchez. Dimension O-1620. Male. Age 173.
What? 173 years old? That wasn't right. He tapped his temple lightly, keeping his eyes shut tightly. The numbers scrambled again, flickering and changing.
Rick Sanchez. Dimension O-1620. Male. Age 53.
He hit it again, harder this time.
RickZanches-DimenzionO.1620-Male-Age24-
He rubbed his face and shook his head. Then, once again smacked his temple violently. If this thing didn't start working he'd have to replace it. Damnit.
Rick Sanchez. Dimension O-1620. Male. Age 70.
Fucking shit. Why wasn't it working?!
Rick Sanchez. Dimension O-1620. Male. Age 34.
There we go. Perfect. Finally. It was working again, just as it should. He opened his eyes cautiously, expecting it to be really rather bright. But he was quite surprised to find the opposite, it was dark. So dark.
Everything was so very dark.
He stood, bones creaking painfully, and started towards the last place he saw the light switch. His limbs didn't want to cooperate, his entire being felt like jelly, and he felt so... old. That was how he would describe it. Old. That was weird.
He stumbled, not quite falling, but pretty close to it. Everything was so... cold. He clutched his sides, he wasn't wearing a shirt. Why wasn't he wearing a shirt?! Holy shit he was so freaking cold.
He staggered for a little, but then abruptly found a very heavy, probably attached, item on the floor. He found it with his toes. The horrific crack-pop that the bones made ensured him that at least one was broken. Shit. It hurt so much.
He felt the object he'd hit, it was a bench. Like a kitchen bench. A kitchen counter? He honestly didn't care what it was, but why was it here? How'd he get in the kitchen? Wait, where was he? Who's house was he even in?! Holy Shit. Diane was gonna be pissed. What was even going on anyway? He couldn't really remember what had happened before he passed out.
A sharp pain stung his temple, he held his head gingerly, but as soon as he felt the dry blood on his head he became just a little more stressed out. He couldn't remember getting hit in the head, which meant it must've been a pretty good hit. That's probably what messed up his monitor. At least he knew that now. He'd just have to take it a little easy.
What if they'd gotten to Dianne?! He felt his leg, seeking a pocket in his pants, but found himself quite naked. Shit. Where were his clothes?! He was naked and had been hit in the head/had hit his head on something really hard. What had happened?! He wandered around blindly, and realised the possibility that his blindness may not be from the lack of light. He squinted, then blinked rapidly. Why was it so dark?! Was he off-planet?
He tripped over what felt like a body and fell down rather ungracefully. He sat up and reached a hand towards the body. His hand landing a little roughly on hair. He gingerly felt around, and found much to his relief that his hand had fallen on someone's head. He felt their hair, it was short. And soft, like Dianne's. Very delicate. His hand wandered cautiously, carefully, and found the person's shoulder. They were wearing a shirt, and lying on their side facing away from him.
"Hey? Wake up." Rick shook them by the shoulder slightly, then found his way to their wrist and felt for a pulse. They had one, a steady, healthy pulse. He felt his own pulse. It was... his heart was racing. He was super stressed out. He was so sore, and cold. He hugged his legs to himself. He felt dizzy even though he was seated on the ground. He leant back, against where he thought there was a wall, but found nothing there. He fell lazily onto his back, and rolled onto his side. This was so confusing and everything hurt. Holy shit he ached all over.
After a few minutes of doing nothing, he got to his knees. He carefully put his hand on the person's arm, then onto their head, then considered how tall they would probably be based on their armlength to head size ratio. He gingerly put a hand on their lower leg, good. They were wearing pants. They seemed young, probably not even an adult, and he really wanted to think that he hadn't slept with an underaged person while he was drunk, so he was relieved that they were wearing clothes.
He stood, possibly a little too abruptly, and staggered away from them. He needed to figure out where he was. He crashed straight into a wall. Shit. His toes still hurt from earlier. He felt the wall with his hands, feeling along while walking in one direction. His knee hit a table, which he felt along, there was nothing on the table that would be useful right now. He continued along the wall and felt a light switch. He switched it on and was temporarily blinded by the light. He held his head, covering his eyes with rough hands, and tried to recover.
His head was throbbing now, great. He was still super cold, he'd broken at least one toe, he wasn't wearing anything, he had previously been bleeding from the head, and now his eyes hurt. It took him longer than usual to focus, but when he had he looked around. He was in a kitchen/dinning room.
There was a teenager lying on the ground over there, they were wearing a yellow t-shirt and blue jeans, the appeared male and were wearing socks and shoes too. Lucky bastard. He looked around, and nowhere near the boy he spotted a dried pool of blood where he assumed he himself had been lying.
He looked down at himself. Holy shit. He was wrinkly?! His skin looked so old... he was covered in scars he didn't recognise. He felt his own face, wrinkly old person skin. He felt his hair... he had a bald spot on the back of his head. A bald spot?! What the fuck?! He was 34!? Balding shouldn't happen that young!? Should it? Shit. He didn't know.
He looked around, his clothes were nowhere to be seen and his portal gun was even less available. The room itself was quaint. His stomach churned suddenly alerting him to the fact that he was gonna puke. He went to the trashcan, because it was closer than the sink, and emptied his stomach violently. He opened his eyes and stared into the can. Well, that was a lot of blood to be throwing up.
He felt dizzy again and toppled over, luckily not taking the trashcan with him. As he slipped out of consciousness he could feel the irritating droplets of blood/vomit that slowly crept down his chin. His mind turned numb and everything that was real faded.
Suddenly he was ripped from the peaceful bliss of nothingness by a rather terrified sounding voice. "RICK?! You gotta wake up! You gotta get up! Holy shit, Holy crap, oh fuck, RICK!? WAKE UP!" He peeled his eyes open, man they felt so dry. He gazed up at the concerned face foggily. It was the teen from before. His throat felt dry too, but it wasn't too dry to mumble a meaningful comment on his current perspective/point of view. "Wubba lubba dub dub"
He tried to fall back into the nothingness, but the teen grabbed his arm rather roughly and shook it violently. It hurt so much. He glared at the child, "What do you want from me... why can't I just die in peace" The boy shook him again. "Rick? C'mon, you gotta get up" His eyes slipped closed, but he felt the teen drag him along the ground, not far, and then he felt the cold wall against his back. He'd been propped up like some sort of display.
He forced his eyes open when a glass was pushed into his hands. He stared at it. It was quarter full of what appeared to be plain water. "What is this shit?" The teen seemed so concerned over nothing. "It's water, Rick, just tap water, we don't have any cold y'know? I don't think there's anything else here? I'll check!" He watched the boy scramble around the kitchen looking for anything drinkable. There really was nothing. There wasn't any food either. The house had been cleaned out, and not recently either by the looks of it.
It was a wonder that the taps even still worked. He took a sip of the water, and rather quickly spat it back out. Ugh. It was disgusting. He put the glass lazily on the ground. Then he realised once again that he had no clothes on. He shivered violently. He'd never been so cold before.
He looked at the boy once again, but this time he was trying to remember who they were. They seemed so familiar, which was quite disturbing to him. They had Dianne's eyebrows, and her nose. Must be a relative of hers. But that still didn't explain who they were, or what was going on, or where the two of them were.
"So, where the fuck are we again?"
The boy looked confused. "Rick, you said we were in Dimension K-136."
He didn't remember saying that at all. "Oh yeah, right. Where're my clothes"
"Alien took them Rick. Remember?"
"All of my clothes? Holy shit."
The boy looked suspicious, he realised that he'd have to come up with an excuse that didn't involve explaining that he may have forgotten a few little things. He just went with the first thing that came to his mind. "My portal gun was in my pocket, wasn't it? Damn it."
The teen nodded, "Yeah, that thing got all your stuff. After it threw you and you hit your head it left with all your stuff. We came here looking for this Dimension's Rick, but no one lives in this house anymore, apparently Dad bought a new house about a week ago and we only just missed them. You said that after you had a short nap we'd track 'em down and stuff."
He shook his head, "Yeah, I know what I said. Fuck. Okay." He got up, once again too quickly, and once again emptied his stomach into the trashcan. The teen looked horrified by all of the blood. "Rick?! You're throwing up blood!"
"Wow, you're a genius. I didn't notice." He felt so drained and sore. He righted himself and leant on the wall, once again looking down at himself. His big toe was broken. And swollen. Shit. Oh well, at least it didn't hurt. Fuck. Who was he kidding? It was so painful, more so than any broken bone he could remember personally experiencing.
"Rick, Should we get going?"
He glanced at the concerned teen, and shrugged. "Take a look for anything we can use, I'm gonna go have a look around." He wandered off before the boy could respond, he didn't need any of this. He just wanted to go home, crawl into bed with Dianne and sleep. He didn't even wanna fuck around, he just wanted to go away forever. He wanted to fade away into the abyss, but she would be pissed if he did that, so he couldn't think like that.
He headed into one of the bedrooms and searched the cupboards. He searched the whole room and found nothing he could cover himself with. He shivered violently as he wandered into he next room, and once again was disappointed. There was only the curtains, and he really didn't wanna wear curtains. Especially of that particular colour. Whoever picked those out was very poor in taste.
He searched all of the rooms and found nothing he could wear. He headed into the garage and searched it thoroughly. Under a wall panel he found a box full of things, and so he quickly got it onto the bench. It was heavy. He tipped it all out, and much to his dismay he still found nothing to cover himself with. He sighed.
As he dumped everything back into the box and piece of paper fell out. He put everything down and picked the paper up, it was a note. He read it. The note told of the new address that this dimension's Rick had moved to, it also showed the date which they had moved. The note was addressed to Bird Person. He frowned.
Putting the note aside from the pile of things he looked for any weaponry available, anything that he could use to build a way out of this messed up dimension. He just wanted to go back to his beautiful wife. He just wanted to go home. He found a screwdriver, a hammer, and a handful of nails. He found some wiring, some sort of melted plastic thing, and he found a piece of string.
There was really very little else. Why was the box so heavy then. He felt the base of it, and found a latch. He opened it up and found none other that a flat, armoured box in the base. It was heavy. He took it out and inspected it, before trying to open it. He nearly dropped it when the high pitched voice spoke up behind him.
"Rick? What are you doing?"
He tried to calm down. It was just the kid. Everything would be okay. He leant roughly against the desk, then composed himself. He spun around glaringly, holding the strange device/box in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. "I was TRYING to FOCUS." The boy frowned, "What's that?"
Ugh. Holy shit this kid was annoying. "You ask too many questions"
They were both frowning now. "But... why have you got a screwdriver? Where did you get a screwdriver Rick? I didn't think that-"
"Holy shit, I have no idea what you're getting at, I found it in the box. I gotta concentrate and get the armour off this thing so we can use it."
The boy crossed his arms and watched him. He couldn't get the stupid thing open. This armour was good. He couldn't find a weak spot.
"Rick?"
"What the fuck do you want can't you see I'm busy!?"
The teen took the device from him roughly. "This is a shielded box Rick, that an alternate version of You made. Do you really think you can get into it with a screwdriver like you were trynna?"
He crossed his arms. "Well fine then genius, you get the fucking thing open."
The kid did something he wasn't expecting. He threw it onto the ground and stomped on it, and surprisingly the armour casing popped off. "How did you know that would work?"
The teen glanced suspiciously at him, "Well, that's how you always get armoured cases off things usually. I've seen you do it plenty, so I just figured y'know, this didn't look any different." Then the boy picked up the device out of its shell. It was a strange box, with a Blue button on the top. It looked overly familiar. It was obviously something built in the same build style he had, so the other Rick probably built it.
The kid grinned up at him. "It's a Meeseeks box! Just like from home! Except a different shape, but that's so cool anyway. Maybe we can get a Meeseeks to take us to where the Other Rick lives!"
He frowned. A Meeseeks? Some sort of alien that can be summoned from a push of the button on this strange device. An alien that can be made to do things requested? Some sort of alien slave. Holy shit. Were all Ricks so messed up? He just wanted to summon it and set if free.
He took up the device carefully and inspected it. In one hand he clutched the screwdriver, and in the other he held the Meeseeks device carefully. He pushed the button experimentally. A blue alien appeared out of nothing, and exclaimed loudly. "I'm Mr Meeseeks! Look at Me!" The boy smiled at the alien, "Hey Mr Meeseeks! Rick, what do we want from this one?"
He considered this. "Answer three questions that I ask you."
Mr Meeseeks waved his hands around, "Sure can do!"
He contemplated his questions, and then asked the first one. "Where does the Rick of this Dimension, Rick K-136, currently reside?" The Meeseeks recited the address from on the piece of paper to the letter. He nodded.
"How far from this current location is that residence?" The alien told him, it wasn't really all that far away actually. Only a few days walk.
"What is the current time, date, and day is it in this dimension?"
"1:02 AM, 12/12/2018, Saturday."
He nodded, and the alien suddenly dispersed. He was concerned, but didn't ask. The 'Meeseeks' seemed happy to answer to questions asked, but when it had done what was asked it dispersed. Almost like it stopped existing. It was entirely possible that Meeseeks were a type of genie species, existing only to complete a purpose, which once completed would allow them to return to nonexistence. He wished he was like that himself. Not existing.
"Rick? Are you feeling okay?"
He looked at the child, who was staring up at him in concern. So much concern. Who even was this kid? How was he related to Dianne and how did he know Rick? He rolled his eyes, "I feel like shit, do you know how shit feels?"
The teen looked disturbed. "Doesn't it depend on what you eat?"
He shrugged, "Well I feel awful. Come on then, we're not going to get where we're trying to be by talking about shit"
The boy grabbed up the Meeseeks device, "Rick! Aren't we gonna get a Meeseeks to take us there?" He turned to the boy, who obviously had dealt with these aliens before. "Fine, whatever, just get over with it." The kid looked overly concerned, but then looked determined and pushed the button. Another Meeseeks appeared out of nowhere, it was obviously a different Meeseeks.
"I'm MR MEESEEKS!"
He closed his eyes, why did this have to happen, while everything had been going so well? He just hoped that he could get back before Dianne noticed he was even gone. Wait. Holy shit, the funeral! He was gonna be late for Dianne's mother's funeral. Fucking Damnit. He phased back into the conversation, and heard the teen's words quite clearly.
"...Ok Mr Meeseeks, if you can do it without messing anything up you can stop existing, but if you can't we'll have to get you to do something else instead."
He suddenly felt the whole world fall apart around him, and the three of them were standing out on the road in front of a house. The Meeseeks looked at the kid desperately. "Did I do it good? Can I go away now?!" The teen grinned. "Yes, you did great!" And then the alien was gone.
The kid grinned up at him. "So, this is where they live! It's so fancy!" He looked at the house, it didn't look all that great to him. Just looked like a plain old house. He followed the teen who went over to the front door. The boy turned to look at him, then smiled again. He frowned and crossed his arms. He didn't have any reason to smile back.
The teen shrugged and rang the doorbell. After a few minutes a man opened the door. "Morty! What are you doing outside at One in the morning? Haven't you got school tomorrow?" He frowned again. "Tomorrow's Sunday." The man gasped and looked up at him. "Rick! I didn't see you there. Wait. Did you take Morty out on another adventure after I specifically said no adventures during the weekend?!" He put his hands behind his back and lent forwards in an intimidating fashion. The man looked quite intimidated by him really. He felt somewhat satisfied and superior.
The boy, who's name appeared to be Morty, poor fucking kid, spoke up again.
"Dad, just let us inside, alright?
The man sighed and stepped aside, allowing them to enter. Morty led them to the garage and opened the door, then stopped. He shrugged and went passed the kid into the garage, whatever. The teen followed and shut the door before the man could speak again. Morty locked the door. Interesting move.
He looked around, the garage was quite alike the one in the other house, except it was loaded with things. Much like his own at home. A hatch in the ground opened and Rick K-137 climbed out followed by what he guessed must be Morty K-137.
The K-137s looked quite startled. Rick K-137 pulled a gun and aimed it at him. Shit. He looked so old. He considered his options. He didn't really have any. Then K-137 spoke up. "What the fuck are you doing in my dimension. You have no right or reason to be here." He looked at the ground. Fuck it. He didn't need this shit right now. "I uh, well... See... Fuck... u um..?" he looked at 'his' Morty.
Morty glanced at him in concern, then looked back at the others, then spoke up. "You're K-137? Right?" Rick nodded, so did Morty K-137. Morty continued after the response, "Well, we got attacked by some creature during dimension traveling, it flung us into this dimension. Then it attacked us more and ate all of My Rick's stuff, including his clothes and Portal gun. We went to were you guys used to live, and learnt that you had moved, so we came here."
K-137 put his gun away then turned to face him, and he suddenly felt quite small. He'd never met another Rick before. "So you need my help huh? What will I get in return?" Morty glanced up at him in concern, and Morty K-137 frowned and spoke. "Rick! We, we g gotta help them! Th they're trapped here, and they didn't even wanna be h here, right?"
Morty nodded, "Yeah, Rick and I weren't even trying to be anywhere near this dimension, we were actually going home from a raid in QB-Delta 32, on planet Sebutt 9." He frowned down at the teen, what was he talking about. The last thing he remembered doing was going out for a drink. He'd never met this kid before in his life, let alone went on a raid with the kid to Sebutt.
The Rick seemed interested by this topic however, and crossed his arms. "Do you still have any of the crystals? I'll help if you give me crystals." Morty looked up at him, as if to ask permission to give K-137 crystals. He shrugged. He just wanted to go home. He didn't know what was going on, but getting out of this dimension was his priority right now. He didn't want to die at the hands of another Rick. Morty gave Morty K-137 a bag full of crystals.
Rick grinned, "Ok, I can send you straight back to your dimension or send you to the creature that ate your portal gun so you can get it back. You choose." He looked down at Morty, what would be the right choice? He didn't know if he'd have the equipment to build another portal gun at the moment. Morty looked up at him, "We should get the portal gun, so you don't have to make a new one." He nodded, looking back at the other Rick. "Sure. That then."
The Rick looked a little suspicious, as did both versions of the teenager. He frowned. "Fuck, just sent us to the fucking creature already." Both K-137s shared a look of confusion which turned to concern, then everyone there turned to him. Morty spoke first. "Rick... are you feeling ok?" He glared down at the teen by his side, "Do I look like I feel ok!? I already told you! I feel like shit! Fuck." He crossed his arms and glared at the ground.
Why was this happening to him. He just wanted to die. No, scrap that, he just wanted to go home to his beautiful wife and their comfortable bed. Then he remembered that she'd be pissed at him. Shit. Oh well, sleeping on the floor in his house was better than what was happening here anyway.
He heard the other Rick pull a gun again. Shit. He looked up at the other, the Rick looked really quite alarmingly angry, and his words were venom. "Who the Fuck are you?!" He closed his eyes, checking his monitor to be sure before he said anything. He was still getting used to being labelled, and hadn't yet learnt his dimensional code by heart.
"O-1620. I'm from O-1620."
He opened his eyes again, and once again felt quite dizzy. He stood still, he couldn't be seen showing weakness, not by another Rick. A shiver ran down him, a very unnatural feeling one. He shuddered involuntarily, then locked his eyes to his counterpart. K-137 looked concerned. He frowned. "What." Both of the teens looked up at him, and he realised that both Morty K-137 and the other one were standing next to Rick K-137. All three of them were staring at him.
A wave of pain spread across his body, and then everything went numb except for his head which started throbbing unbearably. Fuck. He squeezed his eyes closed for a second and opened them up again. His eyes hurt. Literally, his eyeballs were hurting.
What the fuck.
His stomach churned and once again he realised his imminent future actions. He didn't have time to find a trashcan this time. He fell to his hands and knees, managing to turn away from the others, and released the contents of his stomach rather violently in front of him. He'd thrown up more blood. Damnit. Why was there so much blood?
He felt so much pain. His head throbbed, his throat felt as though it had been torn out, his back was stinging? His toes hurt like hell. His eyeballs were painful, his wrists felt as though they'd just been burnt by an electrical shock. His intestines felt ruptured, his spleen felt like it was made of glue. His lungs felt like they were full of sawdust, and his bladder felt like it'd been cut through with a chainsaw. His heart felt like it had been squished and then deep fried. His brain felt like melting charcoal.
His vision became distorted and confusing. He was so cold. There were dark blotches and light patches invading his vision, they looked so beautiful. They covered everything, they became his very being. He couldn't feel. He couldn't see. He wasn't real. Everything went black. He faded into the nothingness, they became one. And he was almost ok with it.
And then everything stopped. He wasn't ok with this.
Something pierced his nothingness, his bliss turned to confusion. He couldn't fade, he couldn't join the nothingness yet. Not without her.
The nothing turned into blackness, and the darkness was broken by white rays.
He could see the stars of his own existence.
He felt himself slip from the depths of nothingness right back into the land of the living. With this return to life came feeling. Everything hurt. His pain overwhelmed him, enveloping him once again. Everything went away again, but this time he knew he wasn't falling into the nothingness, instead he fell back into his own mind. He retreated into the protective bubble of his mind, falling unconscious.