As the strange pink fog at last began to clear through the open basement windows, Rick managed to stop choking. In another few moments it had vanished completely, though there was a distinct sweet smell left over. Rick caught his breath and staggered around for a few moments clearing his head.
In a slight panic, the chemist looked himself over and over and made sure everything was intact and that the smoke hadn’t burned him or worse. Luckily he seemed okay, and as the coughing subsided Rick found that he was intact. Just to be sure, he found a mirror on the table and held it up, examining himself carefully.
Once he was certain there was no effect on his person, Rick’s rage towards Brendon returned in full. That little shit! Rick was trying to make a difference with his work and that slacker was skipping school, getting stoned, and pissing his life away. Sometimes he wished Brendon would just… vanish. Rick reminded himself that he was still his wife’s son, and in that way his own child, and managed to calm down with some difficulty.
Rick busied himself with cleaning up, wiping up the broken glass vials and spilled mixture. Luckily he had written detailed notes on his experiment, so nothing about the formula was lost. This was particularly relieving, and Rick let out a relaxing sigh.
When everything was cleaned up the 39-year-old man decided he’d try again in the evening from scratch, once Brendon had left the house with his little pot head buddies. He shook his head once more and put it out of his mind, turning his attention to other things as he began to close the windows.
Suddenly a realization made him gasp in alarm, and he wheeled and scanned around the basement with frantic eyes. Where was Josephine, his pet iguana?! Sure, the smoke hadn’t harmed him, but he was human! His beloved lizard could be lying somewhere hurt by the fumes.
“Josephine!” Rick whispered, beginning to search under the table and in the makeshift study around him. He became more desperate, his pet nowhere in sight. “Jo!” He called again, glancing near her favorite spot on the worn maroon couch by the heater in the corner, and there he saw a tail sticking out from behind the space in the back.
It wasn’t moving and something wasn’t right. Rick gulped, afraid for his longtime pet of 10 years, taken from his old university science lab, and slowly tiptoed towards the couch, afraid of what he was going to find.
Especially since he had been working on very mutative and dangerous chemicals.