Rick had been wrong; there was an afterlife.

When Morty had first approached heaven, he thought that everyone saw the same thing as him. That in everyone's heaven there were unexplored planets in the distance, burning suns, moons orbiting colorful planets, millions of stars twinkling in the deep blue sky.

But after a few days in heaven, he realized that the astronauts exploring distant planets and the astronomers peering up at the forever-midnight painted sky were all in their own versions of heaven. Morty's heaven shared similarities with theirs, but their heavens expanded past his.

Morty soon learned that his heaven was expanded past space as well; he laid on the shoreline some days, bathing in the sun and enjoying the waves lapping at his toes; he danced in the rain as he had on those rainy Wednesdays on Earth, his soaked hair plastering to his face in wet curls; he even sat in a garden full of blooming daisies, daffodils, and begonias, rested in the fluffy grass and watched the beautiful blue sky, making shapes out of the puffy white clouds that passed by. His heaven expanded again when he grew to desire more, but he typically stuck to his main four heavens, only rarely venturing out to explore his other Zions.

He made friends in death, coming across new personalities that were like his own. But often, Morty preferred being alone.

He had been given, in his heaven, his wildest and simplest dreams.

Eventually, though, he grew lonely, even with his new friends. They had their own heavens, and only rarely did theirs conjoin with Morty's. What he craved, however, was a way to look down on his family, on the life he'd once had.

So a gazebo grew in the center of Morty's garden. The gazebo had white pillars with vines spiraling down them and small, comfortable benches inhabited the structure. (His neighbors, the Adsons, had had a gazebo; he had grown up jealous for one.)

Maybe Morty couldn't have what he wanted most; to be alive and back with his family. Heaven wasn't perfect, but Morty yearned for a way to view his family, to view the lives touched by his loss.

So he did.

Beth was the one most present to deal with the police.

She'd been the one to call 911, to file a missing persons case for Morty while the family sat in the living room, listening to Beth's trembling voice inform the police of Morty's absence.

During the next couple of days, the inter-dimensional Tv hadn't been turned on at all, and, instead, only played their local news station. They'd seen the news report on Morty's case five times, in counting.

Jerry had resided in either his man cave or the living room during the days, never anywhere else. He was getting increasingly worried over his son, over the family he'd envisioned having ever since he was a child and first watched the misadventures of Clark Griswold and his family in the National Lampoon's Vacation movies.

Beth had only been drinking wine, either from a wine glass or straight from the bottles. She stumbled around the house, lounging in her bed, but never entered Morty's room. She couldn't take it, she couldn't take the disappearance of her youngest. While Summer had always been Beth's child and Morty had always been Rick's, it would still tear Beth apart to have either of her offsprings harmed. (She tried to keep the pessimistic killed from entering her drunken thoughts but little worked.)

Summer had completely abandoned her phone unless it was to try and call her brother for the umpteenth time. She knew her efforts would be fruitless every time, she knew that Morty had either lost his phone or it was dead, but she still tried. She paced in front of the door every so often, stared out the front window, went on the balcony to observe any passing figures wearing yellow.

Rick had spent his time in the garage, frantically trying to externally fix Morty's tracking chip that had been implanted in Morty's brain. Rick knew that it had sustained damage (damage, only Morty knew, received from his last moment alive) and he tried ever so desperately to get Morty's coordinates. Other times, when Rick got too drunk to even see straight, he sat in his chair, reflecting back on his wonderful times with his favorite grandchild. Some of them were platonic, memories from before he and Morty became intimate, and the others were sweet, loving memories that were Rick's all-time favorites.

Then, on the second day, there was a call from the police station.

Beth answered it, sobering up like she had every time there had been a call within the past few days.

"Hello?" She asked, her tone laced with fervor.

"Beth Smith?" The police station had gotten familiar with Beth.

"Yes?"

A long sigh drifted through the phone. "Detective Frederick Calvin, speaking. There's been...an update."

Beth's breath caught in her throat.

"We've found a hand buried near the forest next to your neighborhood," Frederick Calvin spoke. "We've tested it, and it's an exact match of your son's DNA."

"Nothing is certain," Jerry reassured a crying Beth. She hiccuped and sniffled and nodded, going through the motions.

Everyone knew that nothing was certain—that Morty could definitely be alive and he might even be thriving without a hand (Rick certainly taught him to make the best of his situation, after all), but it had been two days. Rick, who could do anything, couldn't even track Morty down.

No one spoke. Morty had watched as his family looked at one another in the well-lit room. Beth had slowed her tears, Jerry had looked uncomfortable, Summer had looked sorrowful, and Rick—Morty almost couldn't believe the man's expression—had looked lost. He looked desperately lost without Morty clamoring, laughing, being by his side.

The silence carried on as, at one point, it began to rain. They all were thinking the same thing, but no one voiced it. That Morty, dead or alive, was out somewhere in the rain. They had all hoped that he was safe wherever he was, that he was dry, warm, and content.

Morty had looked away then, unable to watch even though he had seen so many monstrosities during his short existence.

He, instead, focused on Rick's garage. There were no new projects littering the counters and none of his and Rick's projects that they'd started together (as Morty had sat on Rick's lap, Morty reminisced fondly, with Rick pressing loving kisses to Morty's forehead) had been moved an inch. Morty knew that they might never move, that, over time, they might collect a thin layer of dust over the wires and screws.

Rick suddenly stormed into the garage, slamming the door behind him. Morty watched with wide eyes as Rick stomped over to his workbench, glaring daggers at the table and the objects on said surface. Rick paused, reeling with the new information. Morty clutched his arm as he watched the man's shaky form.

"Goddammit, Morty!" Rick yelled and, as quick as a bolt of lightning, Rick flailed his long arm, striking the data receiver to Morty's tracking chip. The device shot off the table and dropped to the concrete floor below, shattering into a million pieces. Morty watched in slow motion as Rick watched what he'd done, saw all the progress he'd erased, how he'd just taken a hundred steps back and away from finding Morty, from finding the only person he'd ever loved.

"...Shit," Rick breathed and his composure cracked from there. " SHIT! "

Rick fell to the ground and picked up a fist of the broken metal and glass. Blood oozed out of his clenched palm as Rick ran his other hand through his spiked hair, messying the blue hair up.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, Morty," Rick whimpered. The only thing Morty wanted was to wrap his arms around the man he loved. To confirm to Rick that everything was alright, that Morty, though dead, was fine. To tell him that he should live, to move on without his companion.

"I-I can fix it, I swear, I-I-I can fucking fix this!" Rick growled. He stood up and dropped the small bits of the device on the desk. He scooped up the rest of them and plopped them down on there as well.

Rick had a manic look in his eyes as he stared down at the broken contents of what used to be Morty's data receiver. "I-I—I'm Rick! Rick motherfucking Sanchez and I will fucking find you, Morty! Morty, you—you—you dumbass son of a bitch!"

Uncharacteristic tears were streaming down Rick's face and apparently, the elder had no idea of their existence when they fell from his cheeks to the very table he was now so frantically working on. "I-I...I'm going to fucking find you, Morty, and you're—you're never leaving my side again you dipshit, I swear."

A blood vessel looked like it was ready to burst on Rick's forehead and the man's unibrow was so furrowed with fury that it made a perfect 'V'. He pulled out his flask and chugged its innards all at once. He burped when he was done and clumsily resumed his work.

Morty watched Rick carefully throughout the better part of the night. He held his breath as Rick steadily became more emotional and off-balance. At this point, had Morty been there, he would have gently led Rick away from his work, taken Rick to his room, set the man down on his side, brought him a bucket for him to throw up in, and laid there happily in his arms when the man inevitably requested for him to do so.

But Morty wasn't there—physically.

So all Morty could do was rub phantom circles into Rick's back as the man threw up in the garage's garbage can, hoping that it was enough.

The next morning, police officers roped off the outskirts of the forest to begin with their search, almost five miles away from where they should be looking.

And even earlier the next morning, Rick barged into Summer's room, disrespecting her privacy just as he had to Morty.

"S-Summer—Sum-Sum, get—URP—ge' up."

Summer rolled on her left side, burying her face in her comforter. She moaned into her pillow, " What ?"

"We—we gotta—we're gonna, gonna uhhh... gonna find your brother," Rick slurred drunkenly. He pulled out his flask and drank sloppily from it, beads of the alcoholic beverage trailing out of his mouth.

Summer sat up in bed, revealing herself to be, quite frankly, a mess. Her hair was in disarray since she hadn't been wearing it in her normal ponytail. Her eyes had slowly developing bags under them and her mascara was smudged from her not taking it off from the night before.

"Grandpa Rick, are you sure it's a good idea to get involved in all of...this?" Summer said lightly. Though she wasn't as much of an expert as Morty had been to handling a drunken Rick, she knew that he was emotional and unstable when he drank far too much than he should, so she kept her tone gentle.

Summer's words took a minute to process for Rick. His buzzed mind was running a mile a second so it was hard for anything to get a word in edgewise.

"S-Summer—Of course i-it's fuckin' okay! The...The police don't know shit about what the hell t-they're doin'! We—y-you and I have sooooo much m-m-more experience: we'll—we'll find M-Morty in twenty minutes tops!" Rick said crossly. Drool dribbled down his chin in strands and onto Summer's carpet.

Summer curled in on herself until she realized that, with Morty out of the picture (for the time being, Summer hoped) she'd be in charge of Rick, of making sure he didn't do anything too immoral or reckless. Up until that point she hadn't realized how truly unglamorous her brother had it. So she got out of bed and slowly placed her hands on Rick's shoulders.

Rick continued. "And...and then, when we—URPP—f-find 'im, we'll, I'll... I'll keep 'im locked up in my—his—our room. No more school, no...no more errands, just—just Rick and Morty time f-forever," Rick garbled, throwing his hands about. Summer dodged the flying hands that were rapidly zooming towards her face. "Just...just us time," said Rick.

Summer sighed and stopped struggling against Rick. He sensed as much and stopped waving his arms about. Summer sat the two of them down on the edge of her bed and rubbed her temples. "Okay, grandpa Rick... We can look."

Rick narrowed his eyes and smiled, tipping his flask out towards her that he'd retrieved from his coat as she'd been talking. "'Atta g—HUGHH—irl. Get uh, get ready and then we'll leave in like... seven minutes." And Rick left the room.

Summer fell backward on her bed, her arms spread eagle.

She prayed that they would find her little brother.

Police officers stood on the forest border, growing more and more frustrated, plying the cold wet ground for evidence as they looked for Morty. At the same time, Rick and Summer ambled around aimlessly in the forest. Morty watched raptly as the two different groups of investigators looked for him, and he scanned for any lurking dangers.

Morty knew exactly where his body was but he could not tell anyone. He only watched and waited to see what they would see. And then, like the domino effect, late in the afternoon, a police officer found a discarded book buried in the bushes right as Rick found a damp patch of dirt.

"Over here!" Rick and the officer yelled in unison, though in different places.

Summer ran up to Rick as the officers ran up to their counterpart.

The police called up Harry Herpson High School.

"Principal Vagina here, no correlation," The principal of the school answered.

Detective Frederick Calvin spoke. "Hi, this is Officer Frederick Calvin speaking. I believe we've found new evidence to add to the Mortimer Smith case that needs to be confirmed."

"What's up?"

Rick held up a sample from the ground for Summer to look at.

"What is it?"

Rick sighed and hung his head. "It's soil taken from the ground. I've just scanned it. It contains traces of Morty's DNA."

Frederick Calvin rode his patrol car up to Harry Herpson High School. Gene Vagina was standing outside of the school, waiting for him, a grim look on his aged face.

The police officer parked and got out of his car, strolling up to the man.

"Do you currently have a tenth grade English teacher on campus?" Frederick Calvin asked.

Gene Vagina nodded and led the detective into the school.

"What...what does this mean?" Summer questioned shakily.

"I-it means what it means, Summer," Rick said somberly. "But, f-for your brother's sake, let's hope it means something else."

Rick gently placed the bag of dirt in an evidence preserver and placed the carrier in the bag.

Frieda Grate sat behind her desk as Frederick Calvin stood facing her and interrogated the woman.

"Mrs. Grate," Frederick Calvin said, "does this book look familiar to you?" He took a paperback book of The Book Thief from out of his bag and placed it on her wooden desk. "Are your students currently reading this at school?"

Mrs. Grate's face was drained of all color. "Yes..."

Frederick Calvin nodded. "Are there any defining features you've made your students do to their books? Names written on them, notes in the margins?"

"I've made them write notes in the margins," Mrs. Grate confirmed. She stared into Frederick Calvin's silvery gray eyes. "I... I have other examples of Mr. Smith's handwriting as well if it's needed as reference."

"Please."

Rick took Summer back home, portaling her into the empty kitchen. Summer went off to do whatever and Rick instantly made for the garage.

He emptied his bag and specifically reached for the evidence container. He grabbed the bag and set it on the table. He analyzed the soil, observing the substance. When tested, it showed that there was a dense concentration of Morty's blood mixed with the dirt.

Everything checked out.

The police made calls. Morty watched the circle widen. The police used other handwritten notes and papers of Morty's to determine that the copy of The Book Thief was his.

Detective Calvin called Morty's parents. "We've found a book. The tenth graders had been reading it. It has your son's handwriting in it."

The evidence was mounting, but Jerry, who had envisioned a perfectly normal family, still refused to believe. "It could be anyone's, Beth. Or he could have dropped it."

They both thought otherwise but denied ever thinking so.

Rick kept the evidence he'd found to himself. Maybe there was a way that everything could be denied.

All of it made Morty crazy. Watching but not being able to steer Rick or the police toward the small house three doors down from his old house, where Dylan sat and played video games. Morty knew his assailant had watched the news, seen the newspapers, but the teen professed his innocence like he spouted out the answer to a simple math problem.

There had been a calamity mounting inside of Dylan but now there was calm.

There was too much blood in Earth's soil.

One piece of evidence led to the change in nature of Morty's absence.

A man emerged from a glowing iridescent green portal. He walked into the front office of a police station, everyone nearby jumping at his sudden appearance.

"Oh my god!"s were screamed. "What the hell!"s were prevalent too.

Amongst the chaos "State your name, age, and business!" rung throughout the room. It was authoritative, and the words came from Detective Frederick Calvin.

The odd man took out a flask from his long, white lab coat and sipped from it nonchalantly, as if the man had asked him something as simple as "What's your favorite color?"

Finally, after a long gulp, the man wiped his mouth and replied.

"Rick Sanchez, fuck you, and I-I've—URP—found something of Morty Smith's."

Detective Calvin walked Rick to his desk, offering him a seat. He then sat down behind his own desk and stared Rick down.

"Do you have any affiliation with Mortimer Smith?" Frederick Calvin asked, clasping his hands together.

"Duh, shit brain, he's—he's my grandson."

Calvin knitted his brow in concern. "You're family?"

"No, he's delivered me my pizza once, nothing else," Rick said sarcastically. "Yes, dipshit, I-I'm his mother's father. Pretty—EUGH—pretty simple."

Calvin breathed away his frustration. "...Right. Excuse me." Calvin blinked in an attempt to get back on his train of thought. "Now... what the hell was that thing back there?"

"Uh, a portal?" Rick said as it if it was obvious.

"...A portal?"

"Yes, it was a goddamned portal! Get over it!" Rick snapped. "I'm the s-smartest fucking thing in the—the multiverse! It makes it pretty fuckin' simple to make a portal!"

Calvin held up his hands in alarm. "Fine, sorry! Forget I asked!"

Rick leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. Frederick Calvin could tell that the elder was annoyed and he cleared his throat.

"Forgive me. What exactly have you found of Mortimer's?"

"Fuckin' finally you ask," Rick growled. "That's the only reason I'm here." He pulled out a sample of soil.

Calvin picked up the baggie containing the dirt.

"...What does this have to do with the boy?"

Rick rolled his eyes. "I've reviewed over this—the soil. It contains dense concentrations of his blood."

Calvin raised a brow. "Anything else?"

Rick's face darkened. "I think you should further explore the forest. It...it looks like he was there on the 15th." With a sudden flip of his hand, his murderous expression changed to one of measured indifference. "But run the tests, review the dirt, d-do whatever you have to. Just...please... find my grandson."

And just like that, Rick stood up and shielded his face. He fired his portal gun, and left the room, leaving Frederick Calvin sitting there in shock.

Sure enough, the tests confirmed what Rick had said.

The police officers decided to set forth and explore the forest clearings. There appeared to be freshly manipulated bits of trees and bushes that looked like they had been tread upon.

It took a while, reviewing the paths, to find another daunting piece of evidence.

"Sir," an inferior officer said as he ran up to Calvin. "We found something."

Frederick Calvin reviewed the evidence the man held in his hand.

"Add it to the list. And I think we're done for the day."

They finally had enough evidence.

On December 19th, among the knocks on the door that signaled to Morty's family that they would have to further numb themselves before answering the door to strangers—the kind and awkward neighbors, the ditzy and insulting reporters—came the final blow that caused Morty's family to break down.

It was Frederick Calvin, who had been kind to the family, understanding.

The officer came inside, by now familiar enough with the house to know that Beth preferred for him to say what he had to in the living room so that the whole family could listen to any updates.

"We've found a personal item that we believe to be Mortimer's," Frederick said. He was careful. Morty could see him calculating his words.

"What?" Beth said impatiently. She crossed her arms and braced for another inconsequential detail in which her daughter and husband invested meaning. She was a brick wall. Schoolbooks meant nothing to her. Her son could still survive without an arm. A lot of blood was just that—a lot of blood. It wasn't a body. Jerry had said it, and Beth, for once, believed him: nothing is certain.

But when they held up the evidence bag containing Morty's yellow shirt, something broke in her. The fine wall of leaden crystal that held her heart—numbed her into disbelief—shattered.

"His shirt..." Summer said. Hot tears were trickling down her face. No one had seen her begin to cry but Morty.

Beth made a sound and ran a shaking hand through her hair. The sound was a metallic squeak, the sound of one of Rick's inventions breaking down, a machine uttering its last oily noise before its engine locks up and Rick has to go and repair it.

"We've tested the fibers," Frederick said. "It appears whoever accosted Mortimer used this."

"...Fuck..." Rick croaked. He was, for once, powerless. He was being told something that even the smartest man in existence couldn't comprehend.

"It was used as a way to keep him quiet."

Jerry frowned. As always, he was the one left in the dark. "What?"

Frederick sighed. "It's covered with his saliva. He'd been gagged with it."

Beth grabbed the vibrant yellow T-shirt from out of Frederick Calvin's hands, and she buried her face up against the blood-stained material. The tears dampened the article of clothing.

Morty saw Summer stiffen. Their parents were unrecognizable to her; everything was blank and unrecognizable.

"Mr. Smith," Frederick Calvin said, "with the amount of blood we've found and the violence it implies, as well as other material evidence we've discussed, we must work with the assumption that your son is dead."

Rick heard what he'd already known, had known deep down ever since the 15th of December when Morty hadn't come home. Beth began to wail.

"We'll be addressing this as a murder investigation from now on," Calvin said.

"But...there isn't a body," Jerry tried. Morty could see the seams holding his father together rip apart and he realized how much his dad had loved him.

"All evidence points to your son's death. I'm very sorry." Frederick Calvin met Jerry's pleading gaze. "I'll call to check in on you later today."

By the time Jerry had turned back to the living room, he was too devastated to reach out to his wife or his daughter's still form nearby.

And Rick, who'd fled the room as soon as his eyes welled up with tears, leaned against the door to his and Morty's room that they used to share together at night.

The back of his head hit the hard surface with a thump as Rick allowed the tears to fall.

He heaved with sobs but his throat was too constricted to even allow sound to escape him.

His Morty...

Dead.

That afternoon the four of them crept forward in silence, as if the sound of footsteps might confirm the news.

At seven P.M., Beth and Jerry ended up standing in the kitchen downstairs. They had come in from opposite doorways.

Morty's mother looked to his father: "Joyce and Leonard," she said, and he nodded his head. He made the phone call to Morty's paternal grandparents, delivering the news.

The house remained quiet.

Morty worried that his sister, left alone, would do something rash. She sat in her room on her twin bed and worked on hardening herself.

Beth told her that it would be her choice whether or not she wanted to return to school before Christmas—there was only one week left remaining—but Summer chose to go.

On Tuesday, she wore her hair down to school for the first time since her freshmen year. Everyone stared at her as she approached her desk.

A hand placed itself on her shoulder. She turned around to face Mr. Goldenfold.

"Principal Vagina wants to see you," Mr. Goldenfold confided. He looked unsure of himself.

Morty's sister did not look at Mr. Goldenfold when he spoke. She was perfecting the art of talking to someone while she stared straight through them. That was Morty's first clue that something would have to give.

That morning, she would begin looking into the eyes of only those people she could fight against.

As she gathered her things, she heard whispers everywhere. She was certain that Tricia Lange had whispered something to Nancy Greer. Someone had dropped something near the back of the classroom. They did this, Summer believed, so that on their way to pick it up they could say a word or two to the student neighboring them about the dead boy's sister.

Summer walked through the hallways and in and out of the rows of lockers—dodging anyone who might be near. Morty wished he could walk with her, mimic the principal and the way he always introduced himself as having no correlation with his last name: "My n-name is Gene Vagina, n-no association!" Morty would whine in her ear, never failing to make her laugh.

But while she had been blessed with empty halls, when she reached the front office she was cursed with the sympathetic looks of consoling secretaries.

But it didn't matter. She had prepared herself at home while Morty had watched. She was armed to the teeth for any onslaught of sympathy.

She entered the principal's office when a graying secretary told her to. Principal Vagina looked up from a stack of papers. His neutral expression shifted to one that made Summer's skin crawl.

"Summer," Mr. Vagina said, "I received a call from the police this morning. I'm sorry for your loss."

If looks could kill, Summer could've taken down an entire army with one glance. "I'm sorry, Mr. Vagina, but what exactly is my loss?"

The clock ticked on in the background and Summer stared past Mr. Vagina's bald head and through the window. The winter morning was dark and damp and snow rested on the windowpane.

Mr. Vagina sighed and walked out from behind his desk. He sat on the edge of it and motioned for Summer to sit down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. She refused.

"We're here to help in any way we can, Summer," Mr. Vagina said. Morty sympathized the man, as well as any other creature that would encounter the force to be reckoned with that was his sister.

"I'm fine," Summer said curtly.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"What?" Summer asked accusingly. She was being what her mother called 'petulant' as in "Summer, don't speak to your father in that petulant tone."

"...Your loss," he said. He hesitantly reached out to touch Summer's shoulder. His hand was like a brand burning into her flesh and she shrugged it off.

"Oh, really? I didn't know that I'd lost anything."

Mr. Vagina didn't know what to say. He'd had Grace Henson fall apart in his arms the year previous. It'd been difficult, indeed, but now Grace Henson and her dead grandmother seemed like a skillfully handled crisis. He remembered simply saying "I'm sorry for your loss," and having the girl burst into tears like a water balloon hitting a slab of concrete. He'd held her as she sobbed and that night he had to wash the tear stains from out of his blue button up.

But Summer Smith was an entirely different thing. She was sarcastic and fairly smart. The only records of her getting into trouble were for minor things, like incessantly texting in class.

"Leave her a-alone," Morty said urgently. Morty wanted to be able to tell him what he was doing wrong. "Let her have a n-normal day. Give her a distraction. M-make her laugh!" All Morty could do was talk, give suggestions, but no one could hear him.

"What I'm saying is that we all miss Morty," Mr. Vagina said.

Summer snorted. "He didn't have any friends. If people miss him, they're too late."

Mr. Vagina winced. "Well...he was very smart," he tried.

She stared blankly back at him. "He had autism, sir. You and your staff placed him in mind numbingly easy classes because of that. I don't think you even know a thing about who you're talking about so don't even try. It's insulting."

Mr. Vagina resembled a fish out of water. His mouth opened and closed repeatedly, as if he wanted to say something but had no idea what.

"Anything else?" Summer asked. Her expression was fiery and her red hair made her look even more likely to combust into flames.

"No, I..." Mr. Vagina reached out his hand again. He was grasping at straws now. "I want you to know how sorry we are. How sorry everyone is."

Stony silence.

The bell rang in the distance.

"I'm late for first period," Summer said with a glare.

In that moment, she reminded Morty of a character in the Westerns that he and Rick used to watch together, the ones that were the more extreme interdimensional counterparts of C-137's broadcasts. There was always a man who, after he shot a gun, raised the pistol up to his lips and blew air across the barrel. The men had always reminded Morty of Rick, so maybe Summer was growing into her genetic extremities. Either way, she looked fierce, and it sent chills up Morty's spine.

Summer got up and slowly walked out of Principal Vagina's office. The walk was the only time she allowed herself to rest. Secretaries were now on the other side of the door, teachers were at the front of the class, students in every desk, her parents at home, police sirens nearby. She wouldn't break. Morty watched her, felt the lines she repeated over and over in her head. Fine. Everything is fine. Morty was dead but that was natural. It was a fact—people died. Hell, she'd caused people to die. It was a normal, daily aspect in her life, so why did it suffocate her this time? Her real brother had died over a year ago, only for this Morty to replace him. Why was this more difficult?

As she left the office that day, she appeared to be looking into the eyes of the secretaries, but she was focusing on their misapplied lipstick or on their obnoxiously patterned blouse instead.

At home that night she laid on the floor of her room and deleted half of the contacts saved in her phone. Now marked the end of her attempt to be popular. Life was short and so was popularity. She convinced herself that none of it mattered. Everything was bullshit.

Morty sat in the gazebo in the center of his heaven's garden and watched his sister wipe away the remnants of her old life and begin her new one. One without Morty present in it.

Hours before Morty died, his mother had tidied up. She went through a box of old drawings he and Summer had drawn in their early childhoods, before the pressure of school and society had been too much. She'd separated a picture from the rest, peering down at the messily drawn image. It was something Morty had drawn; in the drawing, a thick blue line separated the air and the ground. She ended up setting it down on the kitchen counter and in the days that followed, Morty watched his family walk back and forth past that drawing. He became convinced that the thick blue line was a real place—an Inbetween, where heaven's horizon met Earth's. Morty wanted to go there, to disappear into the cerulean blue of Crayola, the spiky edges of lapis, the overlapping waves of Aegean, the soft and gentle nature of sky.

Often Morty found himself desiring simple things and they would come in breezes. Long strokes on a violin. Dainty notes issuing from a piano. Crescendos making Morty's ears perk up. To put it simply: Music.

Every night in Morty's heaven, wind-chimes tinkled in the distance and an orchestra played soft beginnings of musical beauty. The orchestra had wanted someone to play for and Morty was their audience. They played long into the nights.

There was harmony that was ever changing but beautiful the entire time. There were duets that made crazy schizoids of solace. There were solos that made waters still.

But no matter what the ensemble performed, at midnight, the clarinet, oboe, and flute players would slowly fade out of Morty's heaven. The song reverberated until the remaining few, for a final time, passed the tune over and silence replaced it.

Morty would lay back down in his garden, laid down amongst the flowers, and watch the starry complexion of the sky.

The Smith house was always asleep by then; this was Morty's Evensong.