Something is Wrong with Lewis's Behavior

I was woken up by a sound I’ve never heard before. Not a squeak, but a full-on shriek coming from the rat cage. I basically flew out of bed, my heart pounding in my chest because it was just so awful and piercing on the chilly autumn night. I turned on the lamp and there he was, Lewis, with his fur all puffed out like a pinecone, just screaming his head off. He's always been the sweetest boy, so seeing this kind of elderly rat sudden aggression was just... shocking. It was directed right at poor Pip, who was just trying to sleep in their shared hammock and looked completely terrified, just frozen in place. The whole room felt tense and wrong.

Usually at night all I hear is the quiet little click-click-click of the water bottle or someone rustling around in the bedding, but this noise just cut through the silence, it was bad bad, like really bad. I just stood there for a second trying to process it. Lewis just kept going, this strained, horrible shriek, and Pip was cowering as far away as he could get. Squeak, the sleepy one, was buried deep in one of the fleece liners, probably trying to ignore the whole thing (which is very on-brand for him). I always talk to them softly before I open the cage door so I don't startle them, but I didn't even think, I just had to intervene. It felt like an emergency.

The Aftermath

I feel so guilty. Like, did I miss something? A sign that he wasn't feeling well? I keep replaying it in my head, wondering if Pip did something to him, but he was just lying there. My mind was just spiraling with what if what if what if. I just sat there on the floor next to the cage for a minute, phone in hand, and started doom-scrolling rat forums at 3am which was a terrible idea and only made me more anxious (of course). Everyone was saying it could be a sign of pain or a neurological issue, and that just made my stomach drop. I mean, he's an old man, I know that. But not like this.

I finally managed to coax Lewis out and scooped him up, he was trembling. He felt so tense. I didn't know what else to do so I had to separate him into the travel carrier with one of his favorite blankets just to get things to calm down. The silence after he was out of the cage was deafening. Today he's been really tense and jumpy, he's just been hiding in his little Sputnik pod all day and avoiding everyone. He won't even come to the bars for a mushy pea, which is his absolute favorite treat. He just looks at me with those cloudy eyes and my heart just breaks. He seems fine—well, not fine fine, but physically okay, I guess. I don't know.

Anyway. He's still in the carrier next to my bed. Pip and Squeak seem to have settled down in the main cage, but the vibe is just off. I'm calling the vet the second they open tomorrow morning. I'm not messing around with this, there's no waiting to see if it gets better on its own. Something is really, really wrong with my little guy and I'm terrified. Just gotta get through the night without my brain exploding from worry.