The Sanchez Chemical Reaction

Chapter 7: Nightmare Alley

Getting to my room, I quickly change my clothes and plop onto the bed. My brain goes fuzzy with thoughts for awhile, making it hard to sleep. "I've taken more naps in a week hanging out with Rick's family than I have in eons. Weird. Did I really adjust myself to sleeping so little? That's kinda impressive." My mind sudden flashes back to the fight, "you know what else was impressive? That battle! Yeah  that was pretty impressive. Rick was pretty impressive..." I feel myself daze off just day dreaming about our fight. "It was rather thrilling to be around Rick and feel like I was fighting an equal. He's so strong along with his brains. I didn't expect it." Slowly, I feel my face start to heat as I picture the intense flame I felt in my gut. When I was fighting I felt so tingly and worried. I wanted him to be safe, but I also wanted his approval on my attack method. Overall I think it turned out perfect and I can't help but let out a soft giggle.
    My mind finds ease at these thoughts and allow me to drift asleep. A soft cascade of feelings overflowing as I pass on.
    "Where am I?" I ask myself aloud as a sceneray of white reveals itself. A large space with nothing. The floor is mist like, making it hard to see my feet. Curious, I walk forward and look for some kind of sign of life.
    "Wow look at you go! You're a natural sweetheart!" A vaguely familiar voice calls out from a distance. From where I stand I can only see a black shadow. But I begin my descent toward it so I can get a better view.
    "You're going to be a real help to society with those skills!" A second voice calls out. As it emerges from the shadows not long after.
    As I make it closer and the shadows recede, I come to understand what I'm looking at. A memory. Or at least a made up memory. When I was a kid, I used to dream about what my life would've been like, had I grown up on my home planet. It's actually very easy for my species to implant false memories. I've only done it on myself tho.
    Walking up behind my parents, I see my tiny child self crafting on a small wooden bench. Gadgets that seem to do spectacular things strewn about like a mad scientist's laboratory.
    We form a circle around my child self, my parents congratulating me and encouraging me to build more. I always wished I could hear my parents praise me.
    A little further down I see another false memory I made. It's me with my adopted parents and blood parents.
    "I'm so glad we can all be one big happy family!" Tiny me giggled as we all held hands.
    "We love you so much y/n." My adopted mother said.
     "And we're all very proud of you and who you're becoming." My father chimes in.
    As I stand a distance away watching, I feel my heart throb longingly. Streams of water fall from my eyes as I turn away. I buried these memories away. They only made me feel lonelier when I woke up. So much so that I'd often sleep for days on end after I lost my adopted parents. Just so I didn't have to face reality.
     This realization made me remember why I stopped sleeping as much as possible. Once in awhile I'd get drawn into these painful false memories. As if my body longed for relations. Ones that I'll never again experience.
    I have to turn away from the sudden thousands of memories that slowly start to emerge from the misty ground. The voices of my parents calling out to me starts to become overwhelming.
    Deciding to run away, the voices stay by my side. Making me cry so much that I can't see where I'm going. It feels like an eternity before suddenly I feel myself falling. Wiping the tears away, I notice the abiss I've stumbled into is pitch black. The light of the level above slowly disappearing from view. For some reason I'm not worried, actually slightly relieved I'm able to escape that place.
    I turn in the air to face my descent, but don't really see anything. It's not for another few minutes that I start to hear crying. This must be another level of memories I blocked out. But judging by the sound of it. These aren't fake. These...are very real.
     "Look at this creep! She doesn't even age!" Sounds of kids in my village yelling and throwing rocks at me start to get closer. A chamber of walls with cells become visible as I fall by. Each chamber has some terrible moment in my life that I tried to forget.
     My heart aches as I start to recall them all. Sounds of my child self and even teenage self crying starts to fill the void. Suddenly an overwhelming sadness starts to wash over me. As if I'd unlocked the pain of many years, just by being there.
    As I start to cry again, I fall past all the cells and return to a lonely blank nothingness. But I still can't put away my tears.
     "Hey there," a deep voice calls from the void.
      At first I thought it was just another memory, but when my eyes clear up I start to see a figure. Huge and winged, with a grotesque figure. As if it had gone through years of mutilation. I could feel the evil and guilt emanating from it.
    "Need some help?" It says softly as it flies toward me. Or descends with me would be a better way to describe it.
     Stifling slightly at the sight before me, I shake my head.
    "Sure you do little girl. You're awful lost. In a not so good place too." It smiles wickedly, as a mysterious goop fallls from its mouth.
     "Little girl?" I say to myself. Holding out my hands I notice they are awful small. And glancing down at the rest of my body, I find myself stuck in my child like state.
     "Here get on my back and I'll show you the way out." It insists.
    Feeling a sticking pain in my gut at the idea of following this creature, I decline and try to wake myself up.
    "Aw don't be that way. After all, we go wayyyy back." It offers a claw shaped hand. "Touch my hand and I'll show you all our fond memories together."
     As if reverting back to my child self. I'm unable to resist. Taking his hand I'm suddenly flashed with horrible, terrible, cruel, and disturbing memories of myself. To put it in a vague description, it was of times I experimented with what things could kill or hurt me. To say the least it's not pretty.
    I panic and pull my hand away. But by then it's too late. I wake up strapped to a cold steel table, surgical drugs and instruments all around me.
    "L-let me go! I want to go home!" I shout. But I'm only answered with a maniacal laugh as the thing emerges from the shadows.
    "But we have so much time left. And we still haven't finished our experiments. Besides, what home do you have to go back to? Aren't both sets of your parents dead?"
     "No! No more! I want out! Anywhere but here!"
     It walks closer and holds a scalpel under my chin. "My dear, if you really want out, you know how to leave. You've had the ability this whole time. You just refuse to use it."
    "Use it?" I asked slightly taken aback.
     "Why your powers of course!" It laughs as my face frowns. "But we all know you won't be using those. Now will you? Want to know why? Because you secretly like the life of pain. You used to visit me every night. Begging me to find the way out. Now you don't even want to stop by for a visit." It pretends to be sad and mocks my emotions.
    "I'm done with you! And you know I won't use my powers! You know why!" I feel a tear run down my face as I look away from it. "It's too dangerous for anyone to be around me. I can't control them. If I use them, people will get hurt."
     "Then you know what I must do." It chuckles as it knicks my face with a deep, messy, cut. I hiss at the pain and glance up to see small bright lights in its' eye sockets. I feel my body go pale. Now flooded with memories of why I didn't want to come back.
   I scream for it to let me go, but it just begins to torture me. For hours....and hours...maybe even days, weeks, months...it goes on so long I lose track of time. I may not die from these injuries, but I can still feel the pain. And the longer it goes on, the harder it gets on my body to regenerate.
    One moment after all that time passed, the creature just stops. Looks at me with the most twisted smile it's ever given me and whispers "found it". I whimper, as that's the only strength I have to left to do.
     Slowly it takes a knife, digging deep under my rib cage and stabs something. Something I didn't know I had. It was a vessel for my powers.
    "Maybe if I overload your powers, you'll explode and finally meet that cherished end you've begged me for, so long ago."
    "N-no" I plead softly, blood spilling from my mouth.
     "Let's give it a try shall we?" It growls and violently stabs it, before tearing it open.
    I scream and feel a hot boiling in my veins as my powers start to run wild. Hot lights emerge from my body and pierced the dark atmosphere. Revealing thousands of dead version of myself hanging on hooks. Swaying ever so softly back and forth. But as my powers continue to leak out and take over, the wind starts to violently swing the bodies around.
    "STOP!" I beg with my last breaths, my body levitating off the table.
    It laughs manically, "if you want to stop it, you know how!"
     I feel my body starting to ricochet from the inside out as my powers blast outward. I cave in and try to aim what little energy I had to waking up. It gets harder and harder as I feel my consciousness fade away.
     But in a flash of light, what I thought was my body exploding, I wake up. Back in my room at the Smith's house. Although, I definitely was using my powers in my sleep. Things have been thrown, broken, and dropped across the room. I notice my hair is stagnent and in just as disarray as the room.
     I try to catch my breath and slow down my heart. It hurts, too much. Just now noticing I had been thrown off my bed, I force myself to sit against the bed frame and take a moment.
    "That's why I stopped taking naps," I whisper to myself after a few minutes. Not even noticing that I had been crying since I woke up.
    "Maybe I should leave. It's not safe for me to be here. Around them especially..." I want to get up and run out of the house, but I can barley bring myself to sit on my bed. I'm shaking too much to even stand.
    Not long after, I get a knock on my door. Without saying anything, morty and summer walk in. Seems like they already knew what was going on by the look on their faces. I hate that look. I turn away from them, not wanting them to see me crying.
    "Y/n?" Summer calls softly.
    "Are you alright?" Morty adds in. Sounding worried and a bit scared.
    I smile weakly at the question and turn to face them. They seem shocked at first. Probably because my face is covered in tear rashes running down my face. But they quickly get concerned looks. "I think I should leave." I reply back after a moment. My voice still hoarse and shaky.
    "What?!" They both yell.
     "You can't leave!" Morty walks in with summer, sitting in front of me on the floor.
     "I think you need our help," summer adds.
     "Thanks guys," the smile not leaving my face. "But this isn't something you guys can help with. I think I need to leave before I do something terrible again. I have a feeling my room wasn't the only place affected by my powers?"
    They look at each other. As if not wanting to speak up.
    "What did I do?"
    "W-well...we had s-some earth quakes..." morty says softly.
   Summer decides to be fully honest. "We had some pretty powerful earth quakes. A lot of the stuff in the house broke. And we've been waiting for you to wake up for about a day."
    I glance around and wipe a stray tear from my face. "Where's Rick? He doesn't seem to be with you guys."
     "He came in and saw you levitating and shit. And then went to the garage. We haven't seen him since then." Summer says honestly.
     Morty chimes in, "but we think he's making something to help! Which is why you can't leave!"
     I chuckle softly at the idea Rick Sanchez would help a lost cause like me. "Trust me, I don't think even Rick Sanchez has the ability to fix what's wrong with me." I stand up, barley. And walk towards the door, "you can go ahead and tell him that I'll be on my way. He doesn't have to worry about...me destroying the planet or anything. It's safer this way." I play with the doorway for a moment before adding, "I can't lose more people that I care about. Even if it hasn't been that long. You guys have been so kind. If I had to go through loss like that again, I'd probably just drift space for eternity as a mindless zombie."
   They both go to protest, but I quickly pull them in for a hug. Both too stunned to say or do anything. And I quickly walk out. Gaining more confidence and strength,  I run out the front door, and towards my house.
    "I can't believe I was finally on Rick's good side and then I almost lost control of my powers. I bet he wasn't constructing something to help. He was constructing something to kill me incase it got worse." I feel myself start to tear up again, but quickly push it away.
     "I'm not going to hurt the ones that I care about again. I won't even pack my stuff. I've just got to get my space ship and go."