His experiment was in its most delicate phase. All he had to do to squeak out a success here was make sure the substances he mixed were of the absolute correct variety and amount.
He’d do this right for sure.
Ian dipped the vile into the next one and managed to watch with delight and wonder as the mixture turned a nice bright green.
“Hahaha! I did it!” Ian smiled as he turned around with his lab coat looking a tad dirty alongside his magenta pants. “With this serum, I’ll be able to create a protective shield around my butt that’ll render me completely immune to wedgies for the duration of the formula. Oh ho ho! I may even be able to sell this! Science has finally conquered the wedgie!”
He was doing a little dance of happiness before stopping to clear his throat.
“No,” Ian said calmly. “I mustn’t jump the gun. After all, there’s no real telling if this’ll work or not without the proper field testing…” Ian said, dipping a tiny bit onto the palm of his hand. Immediately dumping a concoction he just made directly on his butt didn’t sound like the brightest idea.
With a deep breath, he swung his hand up and then slammed the back of his hand against the sharp edge of the table.
He felt nothing.
“Ha! The serum withstood the sharp edge of the table! The sharpness of the common wedgie shall be no match in comparison…!” Ian grinned. “I guess I could test this out on me and just… give myself a wedgie to be certain but it might be more authentic to piss Mario off instead. He’d give me one if I provoked him for a couple of seconds.”
Ian contemplated for a moment how strange it was that part of his experimental process included trying to get Mario to give him a wedgie. What has science done?
“Alright, now where is that bulky idiot?” Ian muttered as he shook the concoction about in between his fingers. He didn’t seem to quite notice that it was bubbling and sizzling a little too much for a steady mixture.
As he took a step forward to try and approach the lab door, the sizzling the mixture was doing started to really take its toll. He was a bit stunned by how much it was bubbling and heating up.
“Wha-?” Ian stopped. His heart thumping in the same split second that the vile in his hand erupted in a plume of smoke!
Ian yelped and dropped it.
The vile shattered on the ground and sent the mixture spilling along the floor but the plumes rose and changed colors in a psychedelic but frightening manner. Ian was about to brainstorm a way of fixing this but didn’t get the chance to when his vision flashed a bright white and an explosion went off.
—
Ian’s ears were ringing.
His vision was extremely blurry and he wasn’t sure where exactly he was or what was happening.
With a groan at the edge of his voice, he found himself stumbling to his feet, feeling intensely weird and cold. He was also fairly damp but not in the way that would have concerned him with his issue of fear wetting. No, it seemed as though the pipes in his lab had leaked everywhere from an… explosion!
“Oh no!” Ian's eyes belted all the way open now. The small aura of haziness he was enveloped in dissipated as the reality of his surroundings came into full view.
The sky was open before him. The ceiling was half blown off with rubble piled directly beneath it.
His lab equipment was torn asunder. It was either destroyed, covered in soot to the point of being functionally useless, or crushed via a collapsing mound of plaster and drywall.
His state of dress was the least of his worries at the moment but the cold sensation was definitely the fact that his pants, shoes, and socks had been blown off. He was in just a pair of Mega Man underoos and a shirt and lab coat that were both charred black at the bottom.
Ian’s heartbeat increased exponentially. He wasn’t sure what just happened or how what he was mixing could have created such a devastating explosion.
He took one glance at the exit and saw that it had basically collapsed in on itself. He wasn’t getting out that way.
With a grumble and a grunt, he started to go the opposite direction and climbed up the rubble leading to the outside. It was pretty dark. Perhaps that explosion knocked him out until nighttime?
When he poked his head through the ceiling, however, the sight he was greeted with frightened him to the bone.
The sky was an eerie blood red. The entire neighborhood looked dilapidated and run down.
Buildings were breaking apart. Trash and sludge seemed to be toppled over and making a mess in the streets. He also didn’t see anyone else around.
What on Earth could this mean?
Ian tried his best to use whatever little athletic ability might be trapped within the skinny young bones of this budding scientist to crawl his way down the side of the building. Using the drain pipe was his best bet, though, it wasn’t a very comfortable descent. The fact that he could see a clear view of the destroyed neighborhood didn’t help.
“What… happened while I was out?” Ian began sweating harder. His bare feet touched the grass of his lawn and he looked around with a growing concern. “Where is everybody?”
As he began to step outside the framework of his destroyed home and bore witness to the entire front of it having collapsed, he began to ponder to himself a terrible thought.
“Is this… because of me?” Ian muttered, clamping his hands together as his gaze shifted from building to building. “I hope Mario wasn’t in the house… no, it was too quiet. He had to have been out…”
He was having small little panicked conversations with himself and the fear in his eyes only increased with each destroyed and abandoned house he passed by.
He somehow must have been unconsciously trying to seek a more comfortable refuge because he ended up making his way to where Troy’s house was.
At first, the sight of it almost made him shriek and start crying. It was destroyed too. It looked worse than his own house where the actual explosion happened.
However, upon closer inspection, he managed to catch sight of a young boy with red hair peeking from the rubble.
“TROY!” Ian screamed and ran forward, scrambling like mad towards what had to be his downed friend.
Climbing up the rubble and ignoring the pain in his bare feet, he brushed the junk aside and grabbed Troy by his arm to help yank him from under the pile.
When he got a closer look at Troy’s face, he saw his eyes gleaming with shock and awe at the person before him. Troy was awake but he didn’t look happy to see Ian.
“Ian?!” Troy gasped.
“Hang on! I’ll get you out of there! I just need to find a reservoir of strength within this nerdy frame and–” Ian began before Troy interrupted him.
“Go! Leave me! Run!” Troy shouted.
“Huh? What?” Ian grunted. “What are you talking about? Why would I leave you?”
“My leg is trapped! They’ll be here any second! You can’t let them get you!” Troy clamped his hands on Ian’s shoulders to shake him. He looked so panicked. For what?
“H-Hang on! What are you talking about? Let WHO get me?! What’s happening?” Ian asked, grabbing Troy’s arms to try and calm him down.
“Ian, you’ve gotta run! I can’t-GAAAH!” Troy screamed when suddenly, out of the corner of Ian’s periphery, a small, hellish creature with green skin zipped over to Troy and bit down hard onto his neck!
Ian screamed and let his friend go, falling over and tumbling down the pile of rubble before crashing onto his head.
With his eyes rolling and his undie clad butt sticking up, he was barely able to register that more of the scary looking gremlins were beginning to surround him.
In a haze, Ian shuffled to a sitting position and shook his head to clear his vision.
Then, upon looking up, he saw something shocking.
“M-Mario?!” Ian gasped.
It looked like his brother but… why was his skin such a horrible sickly green? His eyes looked completely vacant.
Mario opened his mouth and his blue tongue flopped out. He was eyeing Ian like he was a tasty morsel.
Ian shook with fear, scooting back a bit before feeling more droplets of spit hit his head from above.
He scooted out of the way and looked up to see a grinning Chris. He also had a similar shade of skin and by his side, his bitten into younger brother Troy was seemingly passed out.
“What the–?! Y-You guys are–what are you doing?!” Ian snapped, trying to get their attention properly.
Mario and Chris started to slowly stumble after Ian.
Ian began to back away, feeling his underwear get damp. Now the fear wetting was setting in!
As the two older brothers approached him, his eyes traveled towards the downed Troy. “T-Troy! Are you okay?! Please! Say something! Stop them!”
“Z-Zom… Zombie… Zombie…ee…” Troy’s voice was muttering, as if trying to explain what was going on.
Ian’s eyes widened.
Zombie.
That served as its own one word explanation… but it couldn’t be! Could it?!
“A gas… turned us… zombies…!” Troy stuttered to speak. His skin was turning the same color as Chris and Mario’s now.
“No! No! Troy! Stay with me!” Ian called out.
At that, Mario and Chris lunged at him!
“GAH! HYAAAH!” Ian screamed and dodged them by a hair. He scrambled around them and scurried back up the pile of rubble to grab Troy.
His body was extremely cold to the touch. He turned his head to make him look at him and rather than be greeted by the color of his pupils, saw a flash of vacant eyes instead.
“EEP!” Ian let him go and stumbled back.
“B-Behind… you…” Troy stammered, pointing with what remained of his strength.
Ian gulped when he bumped into something. His eyes slowly turned and he saw another, what had to be a, zombie behind him!
It was Bourbon!
“B-B-B-B-Boouuurb–?!” Ian couldn’t even get the whole name out. “Y-You…! You’ve turned into a…! E-Everyone’s turned into…!”
Ian yelped when a hand grabbed his leg.
It was Troy.
He slowly turned to look down at him.
Troy looked up… and salvated, showing off his blue tongue and making unintelligible gurgling noises!
“ZOMBIEEEEEESSS!” Ian screamed, jumped and scrambling away!
He fell over again, rolling down the rubble and smacking his stomach onto the ground before scrambling to his feet and ungracefully rushing off down the sidewalk.
“Zombies! I can’t… I can’t believe it! Th-The gas…?! Was it MY experiment?! N-No way! I couldn’t have!” Ian screamed and looked back with a shaky worried face.
The intense gas explosion killed them but its strengthening properties turned them into zombies? Is that what happened?
The zombified kids were lumbering slowly after him.
“Oh geez. W-Well, they’re zombies so at least they’re slow–!” Ian began.
Then, without warning, the four of them increased their pace and scurried after him like scurrying insectoids!
“GYAAAAH! THEY BECAME FAST ZOMBIES TO SPITE ME!” Ian screamed, spewing tears from his eyes as he increased the pace.
The scared young lad ran down the scary, empty road with the dark red sky hovering above him. He knocked over trash cans and whatever else was in his way that he could successfully push over to slow their approach.
Eventually, Ian made it to a fence and scrambled up the side of it. The zombies reached him faster than he would have liked and one of them, seemingly Bourbon, grabbed his leg.
“GAH! L-LET GO! NO! NOOOO!” Ian screamed and booted at his face. He resisted getting bitten, thankfully, and found himself successfully making it over the edge and landing on the other side!
He got up and started rushing forward again, eyes closed and not looking where he was going properly.
BAM!
Ian flopped onto his butt with his eyes rolling again. He looked up and saw two people in front of him. They weren’t zombified and strangely enough the sky wasn’t red here. It just looked like regular oncoming stormy weather.
Perhaps the zombie apocalypse had only affected his neighborhood…! But if that was true then it was coming! It was coming here! He had to warn them!
“ZOMBIES! THE DEAD ARE COMING!” Ian screamed, jumping to his feet and screaming out to the people walking by in public.
He was drooling. His eyes were erratic and shrunken. He was standing in a pair of damp, goofy looking underwear. His hair was a little messed up. He sounded like and was saying extremely crazy stuff!
“I DID IT! I’M SORRY! I DIDN’T MEAN TO HONEST! MY FRIENDS ARE ALL ZOMBIES NOW! THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU! ZOMBIEEEEESSSS!” Ian continued to scream his heart out, going from person to person to cling to their legs and getting drool all over them.
Ian could tell by the looks on their faces that they weren’t taking him seriously! They were looking at him like he was crazy!
Wait? Was someone calling the police?! No! Don’t do that! He’s not wrong! He’s not crazy! He saw them! The dead have risen! ZOMBIES ARE COMING!
—
Whether or not the people believed him was something Ian would never find out.
He was found and taken away before he got to see what happened next.
Currently, he was considered a bit of a danger to himself and those around him, whoever they were. The details of his predicament were lost on him. Ian eventually had to be sedated and taken away so what happened in between being on the streets and where he was now was lost on him.
Where was he now? In a padded cell and stuck in a straight jacket.
The only thing on his mind was what he swore he saw earlier. It was all real and it was all the truth.
Zombies were coming! They would all come to see soon enough!
Was it real? Was it a hallucination brought upon by his experiment?
There was no way for Ian to tell. He was trapped in his mind, singing to himself about the song of zombies while the last images of his friends and brother pooled at the forefront of his mind.
Real or not, this was a comfy place he was at currently.
If only he could reach over and do something about the wedgie he had right now.
---
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