The Crucial Miscalculation (Rick and Morty) | ✓

Chapter 12: The World As We Know It

The queen of bloblians was a terrifying creature with her twelve heads, wings and sharp teeth. "Ugh, Rick?" The boy kept wiggling but his body was tied to a pole and the more he struggled the more stuck he seemed to be. The pole was attached to a small piece of a floating rock and was surrounded by a lake of fire with terrifying creatures swimming in it.

While the temperature seemed to be raising with each passing second Rick didn't seem to care at all, as per usual. Instead he was focused on keeping a matter transforming tool the queen wanted from him for himself. "You can take the kid. Just let me have this thing." Rick said calmly with tossing his half-empty flask from one hand to the other.

Morty assured himself that of course he was bluffing, of course the man had something up his sleeve. As much as the old man liked to pretend that he didn't have a heart Morty was starting to believe that after all they'd been through maybe he did have one after all.

The queen wheezed and rumbled wrapping one of her furry tentacles around Morty's neck. Rick just stood there pouring the remaining liquid into his mouth. "Yeah, I have no idea what you just said."

The alien's skin turned scarlet red and her grip on Morty's neck tightened cutting off his air supply. The boy wanted to yell at Rick to hurry the fuck up with whatever plan he had but he could barely focus his vision, much less produce any sound. Rick's eyes shifted to him for a moment but then he sighed. "I don't need this old piece of shit anyway." He said tossing the aforementioned device at the queen.

The alien reached out one of her tentacle for the matter transforming device while tossing Morty across the sea of fire. The boy landed on the hard ground struggling to catch his breath and yelping in pain at the same time. "Get your ass up, Morty. We're getting out of this shithole." Rick said pulling his grandson up to his feet and basically pushing him through the portal.

Soon enough Morty found himself on the floor of their garage still wheezing and shaking. "Oh, don't be such a bitch, Morty. Pull your shit together and help me make the new transformer."

When Morty finally managed to catch his breath he realized what Rick had just done for him. "Wow, Rick. You saved my life in there." He said with a smirk knowing how much it would annoy his grandpa.

"Beth would kill me if I didn't bring you home so thank her."

But Morty knew that it was more than that. He was starting to think that things were finally looking up for them. Ever since they had returned from that awful trip across the multiverse their lives were somehow drama-free. Even Jessica smiled at him once or twice which had to be a good sign. As if the stars in their universe finally aligned allowing them to have normal lives – or at least as normal as life with Rick could be.

They ate dinner with the whole family and soon after that Morty went up to his bedroom and started getting ready for bed. And once he was comfortably wrapped in the sheets he felt like tomorrow would be just another fantastic day.

But just as his eyes closed the whole house started shaking. Morty jolted – suddenly fully awake once more wondering if it was an earthquake or if it was another one of Rick's antics. But no, Morty realized that it was something far different when a golden glint caught his attention. He looked through the window and noticed that the sky seemed to be tearing apart in the most beautiful spectacle known to man.

It looked as if liquid gold was cascading from a big tear in the middle of the pitch black sky. "Oh, man. What again?" Morty muttered to himself thinkinh that this kind of event had to be somehow related by his grandpa. He just hoped that it wasn't the end of the world – or rather that it wasn't the end of the world that his genius grandfather couldn't fix.

But then, among the gold, a familiar figure appeared. "What is happening?" He asked no one in particular when the figure turned out to be Summer. Summer as in his sister Summer that he had just seen eating dinner and arguing about going to some party.

The girl floated down onto the ground and started running towards the house. "Morty!" She called as soon as her eyes landed on her brother standing in the window. Dumbfounded the boy just stood there, neither moving nor saying anything to his sister.

When he saw that Summer ran inside the house the boy quickly left his room to check whether or not his sister's room was empty. "What do you want, dork?" She asked when Morty opened the door without knocking.

"Ugh, n-nothing." He replied quickly shutting the door. And just as he did so he felt a pair of arms wrap around his body from behind.

"I thought I'd never see you again." Morty frowned realizing that he had never heard his sister sound so sincere.

"Summer? What the hell is going on?" He asked turning around to face the girl.

Once again he had a shock of a lifetime as he saw tears sparkling in his sister's eyes. Something had to be seriously fucked-up for Summer to be acting like that. "That would be a lot of explaining." She said. "For now all you need to know is that we must get out of here ASAP."

The girl wrapped her palm around Morty's wrist and started pulling him down the stairs. Still confused the boy followed her absentmindedly and only when he realized that his sister was pulling him towards the golden rift he stopped. "No. Before I follow you into God knows what you need to tell me what is going on. Whatever it is that we're dealing with I'm sure it has something to do with Rick. So if we talk to him-"

"No." Summer said simply. "No talking to the old man. Or to anyone else here for that matter." She said squeezing her eyes and looking around suspiciously.

"What? Why?" Morty asked. "Who are you?"

Summer sighed. "I'm Summer. Your sister."

"My sister is in her bedroom!" Morty exclaimed feeling himself start to panic. His life had been so idle recently. Only regular teenage stuff with a good old Rick and Morty adventure thrown in every now and then. Of course it couldn't stay that way forever. "Oh, Jeez." He said, his head spinning. "What happened in your universe that you had to come to mine?"

Summer looked sad, apologetic even. As if having this conversation was hurting her. "A bunch of Ricks appeared out of nowhere chasing my grandpa and brother out of their home." She paused for a moment. "And when I found out how dangerous Rick's plan was for you I agreed to help them track you so I could save you."

"Your insane, Summer." Morty said with a shake of his head. "I don't know who you are. And I'm not going anywhere with you." Before the girl had a chance to do anything her brother started running back towards the house, towards Rick's garage to be more exact.

He stormed inside only to find Rick tinkering with another one of his weird devices. "Rick! Rick!" Morty yelled looking over his shoulder to check if Summer was following.

"What do you want, Morty?" Rick asked not even looking up. "Can't you see I'm busy here?"

"There...there's some kind of hole in the sky or something! We have to do something about it!" He exclaimed pointing at the abnormal golden blaze displayed across the night sky through the open garage door.

Rick finally lifted his eyes and looked outside. "What are you talking about, Morty? What hole? There's nothing there."

"What? But-"

"He can't see it." Summer said entering the garage.

Rick didn't seem to notice his granddaughter's presence as he returned to working on the device while cursing under his breath about Morty's incompetence.

"I...I don't understand." Morty said hopelessly looking around.

"He can't see it because he's not real." Summer continued on. "None of this is real." She said gesturing around. "It's all made up."

"Made up?" Morty repeated.

"Yeah. By your mind or something." Summer said. "The other Ricks explained it to me. It's something about the brain not being able to deal with the pain. You created a whole reality for yourself because you are in so much pain."

"What?" Morty's whole world was literally shattering as Summer spoke. He didn't want to believe that her words were true.

"I'm sorry." She said simply. "The truth is that you never really left Achainia."