Wasting no time, Flint rushed right into the hotel room, past Earl, Brent, Tim, Manny and Steve, who were rather surprised by his hasty entrance.

"Hey, son, how was yer trip with Sam?"

"No time to explain, Dad!"

He quickly pulled the Brain-Transmogrifier out of his backpack, and raced back out the door again. "Just don't tell Sam where I am!"

As soon as Flint had left, Earl clutched onto his chest. "Ngh! It's that burnin' feelin' again!"

Seconds later, Sam opened the door, completely out of breath. "Has anyone...seen...Flint?"

Everyone pointed and answered in unison. "He went that way!"

"Thank you!"

Sam raced off with what little breath she had, but Tim and the others followed suit, clearly seeing that something was wrong.

Flint knelt down in the open grass courtyard at the back of the hotel, changing the batteries and turning the tiny knobs on his helmet with haste. Sam knelt beside him while the others watched from about fifteen feet away on the back patio.

"Flint, please, tell me what's going on!"

"I'm really sorry, Sam. You're right, my behavior has been off lately, but once I configure this Brain Transmogrifier, I'll be my better self in no time!"

"Brain Transmogri-what?!"

Steve jumped at the thunder and lightening sparking in the dark sky. "Danger! Danger!"

Earl nodded. "Steve's actually bein' smart fer once! Flint, get outta there!"

"Just a second, Earl!" Then Flint turned back to Sam. "I changed my brain to get rid of my Asperger Syndrome to try to make myself normal, but after the President called me, I decided I'm not gonna take any chances, and make sure that disorder stays out of my brain for good!"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute! You actually changed your-?!"

ZAP! A bolt of lightening struck down on Flint and his helmet!

"AAAAHHH!"

"FLINT!"

"DANGERRRRR!"

Everyone watched in horror as Flint Lockwood sat there on all fours, screaming in pain, and the thousands of volts electrocuting him while they powered up the helmet. The siren and lights repeatedly flashed on and off, and the knobs were spinning around all by themselves!

Flint could feel his entire body undergo an excruciating transformation. The right side of his brain inflated from inside his head, causing his scalp to inflate along with it, with much of his hair still attached onto the lump. His smoothed-down mop had burst back into tangles that were in three times as much disarray as his signature style. Thick, red blood veins had swollen large enough to become visible from underneath his skin, lining across Flint's forehead. His screaming turned into a loud groaning with a very low-pitched tone of voice. His bloodshot eyes were now completely coated with red. One pupil was three times its normal size, and the other three times as small.

Finally, the Brain Transmogrifier burst into a million pieces, and its victim let out a blood-curdling…

MOOOOOAAAANNN!

Within that instant, all was quiet. Sam and the others stood there with wide eyes, waiting anxiously for a reaction from their tormented friend.
Flint kept kneeling there on all fours, heaving raspy breaths as he tried to regain his bearings. His distorted eyes blurred his vision, and he felt his head spinning from vertigo. He then stared up at Sam with a glazed look in his eyes. She hadn't budged once since the transformation, and was now just lowering her hands from her dropped mouth, her voice quivering with fear.

"...Oh...O-Oh my God..."

Sam hesitated at first, then slowly reached her right hand toward Flint's head. "N-N-Nice, Flint...easy, Flint?"

But before Sam could touch him, Flint took a few steps back on four legs, whimpering and cowering with fear. Sam tried to approach him, but he kept backing away the closer she got.

"No no no no! I-It's ok, c'mon. I'm not gonna hurtcha..."

Flint shook his head in fear. As he and Sam got farther away, Earl and Tim raced over to them, followed by Manny, Brent and Steve.

"Flint, Sam, wait up!" Earl shouted

"Son, wait! Where are ya goin'?!" Tim added.

Flint noticed the others rushing toward him, but because of his distorted vision, they looked more like unidentifiable figures that one would see in a fun house mirror! Frightened at the sight, Flint tried to run away on all fours toward the front lawn of the hotel.
At that moment, two Caucasian security guards aimed their pistols at him!

"YOU THERE, FREEZE!" One shouted.

A mere glance at their guns, and Flint's mismatched pupils went wide. Sam and the others were quick to block the guards, shouting "NO NO! DON'T SHOOT HIM!"

Sam made one lower his weapon. "Sir, whatever you do, you can't hurt him!"

Earl nodded and pointed behind him. "She's right! That's Flint Lockwood over there, and we gotta change him back to nor-"

But a quick turn around, and everyone saw that Flint had completely disappeared!

Earl darted his head every which way. "Oh no, where'd he go?!"

Sam gasped. "Officers, Flint Lockwood accidentally changed his brain using one of his inventions! We need you to help us find him so we can change him back, but please, DON'T hurt him! We need him back here alive!"

"I'm very sorry about Flint's predicament, miss," one guard responded, "But we'll do whatever we have to to keep everybody safe..."

Both headed toward their police car, still holding their weapons.

Tim's voice shook with desperation. "P-Please, officers, just-just bring him back safely! Don't hurt him; he's my son!"

Earl added. "I agree! As a man of the law myself, I am tellin' you, do NOT arrest Flint Lockwood-!"

"We'll do what we have to, sirs!" The guard shouted. He was not about the budge from the mission at hand. "And we'll notify every officer in the district..."

The guards drove off in their police car with flashing sirens.

Tim rushed toward his rental car, a beige Studebaker, in panic. "Everybody get in! We gotta find Flint before he gets hurt!"

Earl saluted. "I'll patrol the streets in case he's hidin' off-road!"

Manny took the driver's seat while Sam sat in the back, holding the remains of the Brain-Transmogrifier.

Tim stared at the machine with a frightened brow. "What the heck was that thing?"

Sam stared at the pieces of the helmet with a heartbroken expression. "Flint used it to change his brain so that he wouldn't have Asperger Syndrome anymore..."

Tim stumbled over his words with an almost equal amount of heartache. "What? B-B-But, w-why?"

"I dunno, but as soon as we find him, we're gonna change him back. I promise."

Sam didn't look back at Tim as she spoke. She just stared off into the distance for a moment or so, until she buried her face in her hands, sobbing. Tim gently stroked her back as she wept.

Meanwhile, Flint was hiding in a small park near some local suburbs, just crawling out of a bush and scratching the leaves out of his hair with his claw-like fingernails. He also started to itch in his blue, wool sweater, but rather than unbuttoning it, he tore it off his torso with his bare hands, accidentally leaving holes and claw marks on his blouse in the process. Now his formal attire had been reduced to white, long-sleeved rags.

Flint observed his environment around him with anxiety and confusion. His vision had cleared up to a much smaller amount of blur and distortion, but he didn't recognize this place at all, let alone any of the trick-or-treaters and their parents walking around the houses nearby. At least he saw them as people now instead of fun-house-mirror blobs. He approached each house with a face that was begging for help, still moaning in place of words, but everywhere he went, the reactions were virtually all the same. The neighbors either rushed inside and locked their doors, or simply ran down the street screaming in panic.

A few tried to fight him off, such as a middle-aged man tossing books and shoes at him from the front porch.

"Get the hell off my property!"

Or, at another point, Flint approached an African-American woman walking on the sidewalk with her daughter, but she sprayed his face with mace!

"Get away from my child, you freak 'o nature!"

Flint screamed in pain from the burning substance, and used a nearby sprinkler to wash it off his eyes before desperately fleeing down the streets again. Everyone in the block called 911 on their phones as soon as he was gone.

The neighbors had scared Monster Flint off into the outskirts of the suburbs. He rushed past some vacant lots and deconstruction ruins, where houses were either destroyed or never finished, until he reached an abandoned park with a dilapidated playground that was covered in rust, spider webs, and dotted with bees nests, as if no one had taken care of it in ages. There was no one around him but the company of a single street lamp that stood twenty feet from the playground, where the paved road ended and the acres of grass and weeds began. Flint was glad that there was nobody around to hurt him anymore, but he didn't find a desolate park any less disconcerting, and certainly not the least bit comforting.

As the deformed inventor walked warily around the empty parking space, where the street light stood, he stopped and noticed his reflection on the shards of a shattered, green wine bottle. He backed away at first, as if he didn't recognize himself, but then he looked closer, squinting down at the glass. He noticed the reflection of his hand as he touched his misshapen head and face; this was his image all right. And not just his mirror image, but clear visage of his true form, how ugly and frightening he looked. Flint didn't understand why he was like this; he didn't even remember the Brain-Transmogrifier! And yet, despite his most recent memories failing him, he had a feeling that he wasn't supposed to be like this, that there was a time when he used to be much more communicative, coordinated, mentally stable, and, most of all, much more loved, far longer ago than he could remember at the moment.

Desolate, scared, confused, and in despair, the monstrous Flint Lockwood sat on the concrete bumper of the parking space, wrapped his arms around his body, and broke down crying with heavy, deep sobbing. After all this time of trying to earn more friends, he was now more isolated from the world than ever.