Error!Strangetown, Curious Family, day 1
It all started with lip gloss, as strange as that sounds. Vidcund Curious was always a bit more… peculiar than his brothers. Pascal was lost in his formulas, Laslo in his feelings, but Vidcund? He was always somewhere in between, floating in the clouds of his own ideas. Women didn't interest him much - except, of course, for Circe Beaker, but let's be honest: first, she was married, and second, if she ever cast a favorable glance at any of the brothers, it was only at Pascal, and even then, back in their school days.
That morning, Vidcund strutted into the kitchen of their home-laboratory, dressed in various shades of red. His usual brown blazer was gone, replaced by a screaming red shirt that seemed to glow in the dim light of the cloudy day.
His hair was combed for once, and on his lips - to think about it! - shimmered reddish lip gloss, as if he'd just escaped from some fashion runway.
Lazlo, sitting at the table with a slice of cold pizza, noticed him first. The pizza lodged in his throat, and he swallowed hard, momentarily forgetting how to breathe, started coughing.
"V-Vidcund?" Lazlo began cautiously, setting the pizza down. "Don't tell me that psycho of yours is back and it's another prank of hers."
Pascal, sitting across from him with a glass of milk (lately, he'd been craving dairy, blaming it on stress), nearly choked. He turned to his middle brother, and his gaze caught something even stranger. Vidcund's nails were painted. Bright red polish, applied meticulously, as if he'd spent hours in front of a mirror.
"What's wrong with you?" Pascal managed, his scientific brain already trying to classify this as a symptom of something inexplicable. "Are you… okay?"
Vidcund (or whatever was left of him) only giggled - a high-pitched, unnatural laugh that sounded more like static from an old TV.
"Me? Oh, I'm fabulous, Pascal. Can’t you see? I'm Bella!"
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving a trail of floral perfume, and sauntered to the fridge, humming something incoherent.
Lazlo and Pascal exchanged a glance. Outside, the first snow started falling quietly - another rare occurrence in the Strangtown desert. But inside the house, a different change was brewing.
Pascal set his glass down and stood, his eyes narrowing. "This isn't normal. This is… a deviation. Vidcund, you'd better stay in your room until I figure this out…" His voice was steely, but beneath it lurked anxiety.
He was already mentally flipping through symptom charts: personality transformation, behavioral changes, physical metamorphoses. Maybe, it was some new flora Vidcund had been working with?..
Something was wrong, but he couldn't name it yet, didn't have enough data.
Lazlo, unlike his brother, couldn’t just brush off emotions. He stared at the locked door behind which Vidcund - or what was left of him - now sat. "We can’t just… keep him there," he muttered, but Pascal was already heading to the telescope, muttering about "cosmic signals" and "atmospheric anomalies."
Lazlo sighed and returned to the kitchen, deciding to find something for Vidcund. Maybe food would remind him who he was. He placed a plate of sandwiches by the door and knocked. "Hey, Vidcund, I brought you some pizza. Your favorite. Remember how I used to tease you and Pascal for liking the most basic one?.."
Silence. Only that same eerie giggle, which made the hairs on his neck stand up.
Meanwhile, Pascal buried himself in work. Telescope, chemistry table, notes - he searched for answers, ignoring the heaviness in his stomach, which he attributed to nerves. "If it's not radiation, then maybe a virus? Or… electromagnetic interference?" He didn't notice the hours ticking by, the snow growing thicker outside, or the house growing colder.
By evening, a faint knock came at the door, almost drowned out by the howling wind. Lazlo rushed to open it and found Johnny Smith, their nephew, shivering and looking uncharacteristically lost.
"Uncle Lazlo… My parents… Jill... they're… not themselves," Johnny gasped, his teeth chattering. Lazlo pulled him inside, wrapped him in a blanket, and sat him by the heater. "You're home, Johnny. We'll figure it out."
Pascal emerged from the lab, his gaze as cold as the snow outside. "Symptoms?" he asked, holding a notepad. "Tell me everything."
The first day of the strange blizzard felt like a bizarre masquerade, with Vidcund's lip gloss and red shirt as harbingers of something inexplicable. Pascal sought answers in science, Lazlo in family, and Vidcund… Vidcund was no longer himself. Something was beginning, and it smelled of floral perfume and buzzed in their ears like static.
