Chapter Three
Surprises in the Mirror
Author's note: Yeah, I know that this chapter has been delayed for a very long time. I also know this is a pretty short chapter. I also know that the chapter title couldn't possibly be any worse. :P Anyway, sorry for all three of these things!
Rick awoke with a start. Jerking forward, he let out a gasp and his eyes sprung open.
I must have fallen asleep…
It took a few seconds for him to recollect his thoughts.
Last night. My 21st. Cosmopolitan secret exposed. Vyvyan is a bastard. Party ruined. Life is over.
He plopped his head back down on the mattress and closed his eyes, suddenly not wanting to get up, remembering he no longer had a reason to. He fisted his hands in his hair and groaned as all the horrible memories came rushing back to him. The fact that the morning greeted him with the same pounding headache he had fallen asleep with the previous night, which now seemed to have intensified somewhat, made it all the worse.
As he lay there and tried to piece together his muddled mind, he realised that something felt odd but couldn't quite put his finger on it. Perhaps it was the position he was in. Everything was dark. He couldn't remember falling asleep upside-down, with his head beneath the covers and his feet resting on the pillow.
Aargh! What's that horrid smell?
Rick had only just noticed the evil, toxic, deathly, nose hair-burning, eye-watering stench beneath those covers. It was unbearable – he could hardly breathe! Such a smell could never have come from his bottom! His parents were respectable citizens, after all – practically blue blood!
Oh God, where am I?
He coughed and spluttered as the unholy smell choked him. He thrashed around in the covers, desperately trying to find a way out of the hell chamber he had ended up in, but only getting tangled as a result. He eventually fell out of the bed, crashing onto the hard wooden floor. Still furled up in the covers, rather like the meat in a sausage roll, he tried another tactic – he grabbed the covers with his fists and threw them off. Free from the putrid cocoon, Rick lay on the floor, gasping for air. He gave a sigh of relief.
After a moment, he unsteadily stood up and stumbled over to the bathroom across the hall. Leaning over the filthy, hair-clogged sink, he splashed his face with cold water. As he rose to check his reflection in the bathroom cabinet, Rick got the shock of his life. For staring back at him in the mirror, was not his face, but…
VYVYAN'S!
Rick gave the longest, loudest, most hysterical scream of his life (and that's saying something!).
