Rick stared at the door. For a long, horrible second, the genius, the god, the monster, looked genuinely lost. Then he pulled a flask from his coat, took a long swig, and muttered to himself:

Rick’s eye twitched. He opened a compartment on his wrist watch, then closed it. “That’s… an unfortunate side effect. Look, Morty, a little cognitive dissonance is the glue of society. You remember the boring trauma stuff now, sure. But do you remember the fun stuff? Like the time you had the Vindicators’ mega-seeds up your—”

He walked out. The door didn’t slam. It clicked shut with terrifying finality.

“Morty?” Summer asked. “You okay?”