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Chapter 2
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With a pout, Morty sat up from where Rick had shoved him. He brushed some dust from the ground off his forearms and peered with curiosity toward the gaping, glowing hole in the ground that Rick had just jumped into.
It was really nothing new for Rick to treat Morty like a possession more than like a person, but he seemed to be in an especially foul mood today, and was being particularly harsh. Hurt feelings were something Morty was unfortunately used to, but that didn't mean he liked it. Rick wasn't usually so physically violent either. He usually just stuck to hurting feelings.
While it was true that Rick wasn't the most gentle person, and had grabbed or shoved Morty a little too hard on occasion, usually if Morty told him his grip was painful, or if Morty made it clear he didn't want to be grabbed Rick would stop. Usually Rick was only rough when he felt he had to be - like if he was shoving Morty out of harm's way or dragging him along as they ran from some danger or another. Tonight, he seemed to just be frustrated and in a bad mood and was taking it out on Morty for some reason.
Morty shivered as he pulled his knees up toward his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. It was kinda cold here, and the fact that he'd been sleeping in a t-shirt and boxers and hadn't been given time to change into real clothes wasn't helping. He wasn't even wearing socks...
Laying his head down on his knees, Morty closed his eyes and waited. He almost felt like he could fall asleep right here... That is, until he heard what sounded like something big sliding quickly across the ground nearby.
Morty gasped softly as he scrambled to his feet and turned sharply around. "I-is someone there?" He stuttered. Suddenly everything seemed darker than it had before. Maybe it was because he'd stared at the glowing light coming from the hole and his eyes hadn't readjusted yet. "H-hello?" He called when no answer came in response to his first question.
As he blinked into the darkness, Morty strained to see into the distance. It wasn't until whatever had been stalking around was within feet of him that Morty finally could see it. It looked like a strange, giant, horrifying mixture of a spider and a snake. A horrid, slithering creature the size of a large crocodile, with huge, jagged scales, multiple eyes, giant claws, and a sharp, piercing mandible lunged toward him, reaching out a giant, clawed hand. Morty felt several sharp claws slash through his shirt and graze his skin underneath, causing him to stumble backward with a terrified scream.
Before he knew it, he was tumbling back into the hole Rick had gone down. Morty was falling through it backward, whereas his grandfather had seemed to go down so much more gracefully.
With a thud and a soft, pained choking sound, Morty hit something solid, but continued to tumble even further down as he gripped desperately at both the air around him as well as the crumbling dirt wall. There was nothing to grab. He kept falling. He felt harsh stones and clumps of dirt scratching and bruising his skin as he grasped desperately for something to hold onto to keep himself from falling any further. The hole was deep, but at least it wasn't entirely straight down - various slanted spots broke his fall... over and over again, stopping him just long enough to slow his momentum, until he finally rolled to a stop at a flat, even spot at the very bottom of the hole.
Morty closed his eyes and whimpered before opening them again and staring up. Loose pebbles and dust continued falling onto him from where his rough fall had broken it loose from the dirt walls of the hole. He coughed a pained gasp and squeezed his eyes shut again as he tried to force his shaking, ragged breaths to even out.
Once he'd managed to intake a few pained breaths, coughing as both oxygen and dust filled his lungs, Morty opened his eyes again. The sky above looked much further away now as he looked at it through the long, dusty tunnel of the hole he'd just fallen through. It didn't seem like the spider-snake creature had followed him down at least. Everything was eerily still as the dust settled around him.
Groaning, Morty forced himself to sit up and brushed some dirt off his shoulders. Lots of spots within the tunnel of the hole as well as the tunnels branching off from the spot where he'd landed were glowing, which allowed Morty to see a lot better than he'd been able to up above.
A soft gasp escaped his lips and tears filled his eyes when he looked down and saw a rather rough-looking scrape on his arm. With a trembling lower lip, Morty stared as blood dripped lazily from the wound. Is wasn't gushing blood at least, but it still bled a lot more than he would have preferred, which of course would be not at all.
Ignoring the wound on his arm for the moment, Morty looked down at his stomach, where the creature had clawed him. His shirt was shredded by three long slashes across the fabric and his skin had three shallow cuts to match. They were barely bleeding.
Still sitting, Morty stretched his legs out in front of him, looking himself over for any more injuries. Each of his legs was quite covered in scrapes and bruises as well, but not as large as the one on his arm. His other arm seemed relatively unharmed, but his palm was scraped up where he had tried to catch himself on the way down.
With aching limbs, Morty crawled backwards so that his back was against the dirt-wall of the tunnel. Each small movement hurt him. He wished his grandfather had never woken him up tonight. Unable to hold back his tears, Morty brought his hands up over his eyes and began to sob.
"Morty!" An angry, frustrated voice called from nearby.
Sniffing back tears, Morty looked up from behind his hands in time to see his grandpa walking rather calmly toward him. Morty shrunk down slightly, certain that Rick was going to be angry with him.
"God damn it, Morty." Rick grumbled. "I clearly asked you to stay put... This was supposed to take five fucking minutes. I'm starting to wonder if Mortys are always more trouble than they're worth or if I just so happen to be with the biggest clusterfuck of a Morty there is."
Morty gulped and looked up at Rick, through a blurry shield of tears. "S-something attacked me... W-well, it tried to... I f-fell..." He tried to keep his voice strong as he explained and ignored his grandpa's insults. "I don't know w-what it was. It was huge, Rick... I-it came at me out- outta nowhere."
Rick breathed a loud, exaggerated sigh. "I need a fucking leash for you."
Morty frowned up at his grandfather. The last thing he needed right now was Rick's stupid jokes. He needed the man to be a responsible adult for once and take him home.
"You think I'm just fucking with you, but I'm serious." Rick continued. "I think I'll actually get a leash and drag you around like a fucking dog, because this clearly isn't working. I thought you were self-sufficient enough to be left alone for thirty seconds. I guess I was wrong. For once. I need something to actually tether you to me so you can't get yourself fucking killed." He grumbled as he reached toward Morty and grabbed his arm, yanking him painfully to his feet.
Morty winced as Rick's hand clamped down over scratches and bruises already forming on his arm from his rough tumble. "Ow!" He cried out, tugging his arm protectively away. "Stop it, Rick! That hurts! Can we go home now?" He wondered as he sniffed back tears. "Please?"
"No." Rick rolled his eyes as he grabbed Morty's arm again.
"Rick, stop!" Morty pleaded again. "You're hurting me..." He frowned. It didn't seem like Rick really cared that his grip was painful, or that his hand was pressing down on already existing injuries. He didn't care that Morty was hurt. He only wanted to use his grandson like always.
"Stop being a baby, Morty." Rick advised and began leading him through the tunnel back the way he had come. "Since you're down here anyway, you might as well help me collect some of these rocks."
Sniffing back tears, Morty followed Rick a few steps down the tunnel where two wooden buckets sat near the dirt wall of the cavernous place. A tin layer of glowing rocks covered the bottom of one of the buckets.
"I asked you to stay up there to prevent something stupid like this from happening." Rick explained as he dug another glowing rock out of the wall and tossed it into the bucket. "You're so fucking clumsy. But all Mortys are."
Morty frowned and stared down at the bucket. It was going to take a lot longer than five minutes to fill up both of them. Rick was exaggerating the extent of Morty's uselessness yet again, and wasn't doing a damn thing to make Morty feel like he was even an individual... Just another, replaceable Morty.
"R-Rick?" Morty frowned as he carefully dug at a glowing rock embedded in the wall at his own eye-level - one which Rick had missed.
"What?" Rick asked in an exasperated tone, not bothering to look down at him.
"Y-You're being extra mean tonight." Morty averted eye contact. "You know, I like coming with you on a lot of these adventures, a-and, I mean, even though sometimes you wake me up in the middle of the night, and, you know, I'm tired and would rather wait until morning, or you know, sometimes things get a li- a little too crazy, but I like helping you most of the time. I didn't think I was, you know, getting cocky or anything..."
He glanced up toward Rick who was staring down at him with a frown and a raised eyebrow.
"I-I'm just saying, Rick..." Morty hesitated. "You know, you... you don't have to be so mean... My arm's bleeding kinda a lot, you know... a-and I mean, I just fell down a really deep hole, and hit the ground like six or seven times on the way down..."
"Morty..." Rick raised his hand to indicate that Morty needed to stop talking and let him speak. "You're fine. If nothing's broken, you're fine. I don't bring you along with me just so you can fall down, get hurt, and make me go back home before I get what I came for, alright? You're a teenager, not a five year old. Man up."
Morty pouted and continued digging somewhat angrily at the glowing rock, which was about the size of small marble. He finally managed to wiggle it free from the dirt wall and tossed it rather roughly into the second bucket, which had been empty up until that point.
"Geeze, Morty." Rick spoke with a sarcastic tone as he glanced down at Morty's bucket. "Way to do your part, kid. I got like sixty already. You've only managed to get one."
Morty glared at him for a moment before kicking his foot out toward the bucket, knocking it over and allowing the tiny glowing pebble he'd collected to bounce across the dirt floor of the tunnel. "If you're so good at it, maybe you can just do it without me." He grumbled as he turned to walk away.
"You got an awful lot of faith in me, Morty." Rick spoke in an even tone as he pretty much ignored Morty's outburst and continued digging rocks out of the wall and tossing them into his bucket. "You gotta a lotta faith that I'm gonna put up with your bullshit. You don't even know how close I am to smacking you."
Without turning back around, Morty paused. He honestly had nowhere to go and didn't really care to find out what all lived in these tunnels. Like Rick had noted before, Morty needed him to get back home. Storming off wasn't going to solve his problems. It would just put him in more danger. Morty was just frustrated, and knew that Rick would never leave him behind in the end.
"When I get these buckets filled, I'm outta here. If you're still here, you'll come with. If you're not..." He shrugged. "There's more Mortys out there... It'll be a minor inconvenience for me to get a new one. I absolutely am not wasting my time chasing after you through these tunnels because you decided to have a little fit. I'm not a babysitter. You should make things easier for me, not harder. You need me a hell of a lot more than I need you... Clearly."
"Y-you're a jerk, Rick." Morty stammered, clenching his hands into fists, but wincing when his scratched up palm stung at the gesture. He stepped toward Rick and shoved him, even when it hurt his hand and arm to do so.
Morty didn't shove Rick very hard, but one would have thought he did judging by Rick's reaction, a rather harsh slap across the boy's face.
Stumbling backward, Morty fell against the ground. He brought a hand up to his stinging cheek and stared up at his grandfather through tears that were welling up in his eyes.
"Don't ever shove me, Morty." Rick warned as he glared down at his grandson. He took a threatening step forward and looked like he was fully ready to hit him again if Morty argued about this.
Morty shrunk down as he stared up at his grandfather. He didn't know what to do or say. He wanted so badly to get upset and leave, but he was no longer confident his grandpa would come after him. Maybe Rick really would leave him behind if he ran off. On a normal day, Rick did put up with a lot more from Morty. He hurt Morty's feelings constantly, always acted like he didn't care, but would always do whatever he needed to keep Morty safe anyway. He'd threaten to leave Morty on his own, but never actually did so... Rick had never hit him before either though...
Was this the new normal? It wasn't too far-fetched that an already emotionally abusive person could become physically abusive as well. Morty just never thought it would happen. He trusted Rick with his life and well-being all the time. He trusted that no matter how angry Rick was with him, that the man would never hurt him on purpose in any way that wasn't solely emotional.
"Y-you hit me." Morty finally stammered.
"You shoved me first, Morty." Rick defended as he turned back toward his work. "Don't fuck with people if you don't want them fucking with you right back."
Morty frowned. He'd only shoved Rick because Rick was being really mean. It seemed fighting back was not an option. It didn't even things out as much as it escalated them.
Rick shook his head and continued digging stones out of the wall. "Hop to it, Morty. Get to work, or go wander through the tunnel and see how long you last. I don't care. I'd rather get a new Morty anyway if you're not going to cooperate."
Sticking his lower lip out into a pout, Morty stared toward his grandpa. Surely the man didn't really mean all this. Maybe he was just extra grumpy because he hadn't been drinking. He did seem unusually sober. Lack of alcohol was probably making him cranky. Morty tried to not take it personally, but that was much easier said than done. He dragged himself up off the ground, walked back over toward Rick, and picked up the bucket he'd kicked over, tossing the discarded stone back into it and standing back up straight.
Sighing, he begrudgingly went back to work digging the stones out of the wall. It made his already aching fingers hurt, but he needed to help so they could get this done and go home.
"What are these for, Rick?" Morty wondered as he tossed another into his bucket. He tried to forget that Rick had just backhanded him. He didn't want to feel the way he did right now. Even though it seemed like emotional and physical pain were separate entities, that hard, unforgiving slap had hurt in both ways, much more than any words from Rick ever had. When the stinging feeling on his cheek started to disappear, Morty's emotions still hurt.
Rick ignored him as he pulled out a particularly large stone. "Just hurry it up, Morty. We aren't supposed to be taking these."
Morty winced. "W-why not?" He wondered.
"Uh, because we didn't dig these mines? Maybe because someone else did all the work here and we're just taking all the shit they unearthed?" Rick scoffed. "On what planet do you think people are okay with other people just opening up a portal and stealing a bunch of their shit?"
Morty frowned. "You do it all the time."
Rick laughed and yanked another stone out of the wall. "Aw, nice! I'm gettin' to the big ones now."
Morty looked back toward the wall and continued digging out tiny stones while Rick was finding ones the side of baseballs deeper inside the wall. He hoped after Rick filled the first bucket that he'd help Morty fill the second. At this rate, Morty's bucket would never be full if he had to do it himself.
The stone Morty had been digging for became dislodged and tumbled to the ground. With a sigh, he squatted down and picked it up, but was distracted when Rick made a startled gasping sound.
"Shit!" The old man yelled as he pulled a huge stone out of the wall, but noticed a lot more than just the stone coming lose. The entire wall started to crumble and cave in on itself, filling the tunnel with rumbling sounds and clouds of dust.
With a scared whimper, Morty shrunk down, covering his face with his arms and curling himself into a small ball.
"Time to go, Morty!" Rick called. "Morty?"
Morty moved his arms slightly so he could try to find Rick, but couldn't see the man anywhere. "I'm here, Rick!" He called out desperately, hoping his grandpa could find him quickly and get him out of here.
"I can't find you, Morty!" Rick called from a few feet away. Morty still couldn't see him. There was too much falling dirt, stones, and dust. "Fuck... Morty, I gotta go..."
"No!" Morty felt panic rising in his chest. His grandpa wouldn't really leave him here... Would he? "Rick, please! Wait!" He struggled to stand on shaking legs as dirt and rocks fell all around and on top of him. "Don't leave me!"
"Sorry, kid." Rick called from somewhere to his right. "I'll come back when the dust settles and see what's left of you. Stay put."
A panicked whimper shuddered through him as Morty stumbled toward his grandfather's voice. He saw a faint green flash of light, likely Rick opening a portal. The light disappeared, and Morty felt very, very alone.
Before he could get too much more scared, something fell against his temple, knocking him hard enough that his vision went black as he collapsed onto the ground.
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