Frederick Returns from a Sabbatical

Hobbo:
Frederick sat back down at his desk, everything was in order. He was excited, yet at the same time anxious. What would become of him after Esmeralda found out what he had planned? A cunning plan, one that would either win the heart of his one and only love, or lose it forever. His Celine Dion tape finished with a click. He could now hear his heart beating to the rhythm of the early morning birds chirping beyond his balcony.
As he sat, his reflection visible in the window adjacent to his desk, Frederick was deep in thought. He could see his chest heaving beneath his jumper - his most valued possession - a jumper that he had been given by his late Science Professor. Frederick’s thoughts flew back in time, back to the beginning of his third semester when the two of them had been happy, working feverishly on the project…nothing could go wrong. Frederick smiled and his pulse calmed. He unclenched his fists and as he stared at himself in the reflection of the window, he realised that he not only had the same exceptional mental capacity as his friend and Professor, but he almost looked almost identical. He just had to get rid of the braces.
The memories started seeping in, slowly at first but then like a torrent of water gushing through a crack with tremendous velocity. He remembered how close his Professor was to discovering the truth when the magnitude of his findings threw him into oblivion and eventually over the edge, into insanity. Frederick remembered how, having made a break-through in the library, he had stumbled into the science faculty late one night. As he made his way down the stairs leading to his lab he had heard the sound of a million teeth ripping into fresh flesh. The sound was terrible…the crunching of bone, the tearing of tissue…it was almost as bad as a Metallica song, he thought.
As he entered his lab, Fredrick was hit by a black cloud of dizziness that drained the life out of his legs and left him in a crumpled heap behind his cordless 300 watt infrared enabled toast machine. He didn’t know how long he was out for but when he awoke, the rats were still chewing. Frederick remembered how he had eventually pulled his Professor from the cage, and how he had tried to revive him but was too late. It was too far gone. The savages had already taken both legs, blood spurting from the foot long spouts below his stomach. His intestines were being ripped from within…the stench…God…the stench! Frederick remembered the convulsions pumping up through his stomach, through his throat and violently spewing all over the rats. The mixture of his insides and the blood repulsed him but for some unknown reason, gave him a warm fuzzy feeling inside, the same feeling kind of feeling that he got when his mother had caught him with the neighbours jack russel. The texture of the intermingled fluid seemed appealing to him. It was beautiful. Frederick reached for a jar so that he could collect a sample and study it later. The killer rats seemed to bask in the pool, swimming around in unison like swans on a lake, some kind of sick victory parade. Realising it was too late Frederick pulled himself together and took a step back to think. That was all he was good at…thinking. There was nothing he could have done to save his friend so he abandoned him…threw him back to the ravishing creatures. He sat at his Professor’s side for the entire night, staring in awe, until eventually the rats had polished off each and every ounce of flesh, making the remaining bones glisten in the moonlight. To this day Frederick could still smell the disgusting odour of his Professor’s demise in the lab. But Frederick liked the smell…he couldn’t work without it. And he couldn’t work without the remains of his Professor and greatest friend looking over him, swinging on the curtain railing from the depths of his lab.
Frederick snapped out of it and jumped as he heard a knock on the door. An hour had passed and he was late for his engagement. He hoped for his sake that Esmeralda hadn’t already left. What would he do then? His plan destroyed. His mind raced…