Sublime Awakenings

Sublime Awakenings: Chapter 35

Zim gathered his instruments from the little squealing human's room quickly while the others were busy moving his body down stairs and into the Dib's dirt-runner. By the time the Irken had exited the pitiful human dwelling, Dib's “automobile” was packed and ready to go. It seemed that the sight of a group of adolescent pig-smellies lugging the body of another into an nonemergency transport unit had only drawn the attention of the same nosy old lady next door. As soon as they arrived at his beautiful base, he hopped out of the passenger seat and marched at a brisk pace up the walkway to open the door before his security system opened fire at the intruders he was letting in.

As soon as the humans were all inside, Zim slammed the door shut, only to be met with a painful, if routine, metallic thud to his wig-covered head. “AH! GIR, get off my head!”

Instead of obeying, GIR simply leaned over his master's head to look first into his disguised eyes and then to the visitors. “Hiya, Master! Ohhh...they's a lot of people here...let's have a tea party!”

“Eh, everyone, this is my mentally challenged robot dog, GIR.” The Invader turned his attention back to the SIR unit with all the forced patience of the human parental unit of a two year old worm-baby. “Yes, GIR, there are a lot of humans in our base. But they are here for a mission, and not for a tea party. Now, GET OFF MY HEAD!”

Holding his wig in place, Zim shook his head violently, dislodging the defective, green-dog-costumed robot that could never seem to comprehend the fact that human dogs didn't talk. Because of this, he had taken to telling anyone who noticed that GIR was an artificial dog that he planned to someday sale in mass, but that he hadn't managed to work the kinks out of quite yet. Actually, if he still needed plans to take over this ball of dirt, that wouldn't be a bad one to try out as he already had quite a few buyers lined up for whenever the GIRs were ready.

The small robot toppled to the floor with force and rolled across it laughing. “I wanna do that again!”

“No, GIR.”

“AGAIN! AGAIN!” Just when he was about to be forced into a tantrum, his short attention span switched gears abruptly when he saw that the other humans were holding another one a few feet off the pink and beige checkered tile floor in between them. Approaching the unmoving human, he lifted a clothe paw to poke his side. “Awww. He's so cute. Like a puppy! Can I play with him, Master?”

“No, GIR. This human is sick.”

“Like ma piggie?” The SIR units artificial eyes somehow filled with tears behind his fake doggy-eyes, causing them to wet as well. “I miss you, Pig! I miss you so much! WHY my pig-friend, masta, why?”

“Just because GIR! You played with it too roughly. But...uh...do not worry. The pig is..eh..the pig is living happily in space, having been adopted by a friendly colony of Giant Space Pigs. They will teach it how to grow large, and people will ride it and laugh with sickening glee as they drink Space Soda!”

“Really?” The SIR sniffled a few time and the tears came to a halt.

“Yeah, sure. Why not? But, you are not to come near this human. Do you understand?” The last thing he needed was to have GIR's madness mixed in with what was already a kink in his plan.

“I dooo.”

Zim rested one hand on his hip, looking down at his minion with incredulity and a tried kind of expectation. “Ya don't really, do ya?”

“Noooo.”

“GIR, just stay up in the house, alright?”

“Yes, my master!” The little robot's posture straightened in duty mode before he was back to his usual self only seconds later. “Hi ya, Gazzy!”

“Uh, hi, I guess.” A hint of worry crept into the goth's voice as memories flooded her poor antisocial mind. He wasn't going to hug or..kiss her again, was he?

Zim smirked knowingly. “Riiight. Com-put-tor! Do not allow GIR into my labs until I change this command!”

“Command confirmed.”

“Good. Now, humans-fellow humans-follow me into my AMAZING base! But, don't touch anything or I'll...I'll render you unconscious and let my pet dog play with you until you are in a state that requires that I make up an elaborate happy ending for you so that he doesn't cry! Not that an Elite such as myself really cares if he cries.”

“Of course not, Zim.” Opps. Dib really hadn't meant to let the sarcastic comment slip. Starting an argument with the alien would just slow them down, but after all this time it was force of habit.

“Silence, Dib-thing! You know nothing, and we do not have time for your relentless, nonsensical, smeet-like squabbling!” They had to be fast about this because the Irken didn't like the idea of the anaphasic life form unconstrained, even in a human body.

“Zim, I was more mature than you when I was eleven, and you know it.” This was pretty pathetic considering that Zim claimed to have been flying space ships since before he was born. The paranormalist still wasn't sure how old his nemesis really was, at least by human standards, but he had a tendency to forget that Zim had actually been an adult when he arrived because of the Irken's consistent immaturity.

“Your filthy head is full of delusions and lies, human.” Zim had to make a concentrated effort not to break out into a full fledged defense that would waste away his precious time and possibly ruin his only legitimate plan in months. He turned pointedly from the humans, leading them into the kitchen to open the refrigerator entrance to his real base. Even through it was his largest lift for nonstorage, he couldn't help feeling claustrophobic with all five teenage humans crammed in with him.

“This is your basement?” Letta asked in an astonished voice after the lift released them. It was amazing! She couldn't even guess as to the functions of most of the equipment in the room!

Gaz answered before Zim could get an threating word in edgewise. “I know. Lame, isn't it? He doesn't even have any video games.”

Shifting the weight of Squee's legs in his arms, Dib scanned the lab area before turning suspiciously to Zim. “Where are Squee's parents?”

“What? Ohhh, them. Eh, they're ...on my moon base!”

Letta stared at him with wide eyes. “You have a moon base too?”

“Zim, I swear, if you've done anything to them...,” Dib began.

“ZIM? Preform some hideous brain switching experiment on a pair of stoopid and easily captured Eartinoids? Don't be silly, Dib-thing.” Actually, Zim had mostly learned his lesson with the brain switching a few years back when he had exchanged the brain of a law enforcement drone with that of a squid. If the brains of two Irkens were switched, both individuals would loose the last ten minutes of their memories before the paks kicked back in and rebooted the brains, which were little more than organic relay systems for the paks. With humans, the brain apparently was the individual, so brain switching was not an effective method for wiping memories.

After brushing the accusations aside with a wave of his hand, the Invader pointed to a large window that doubled as a video screen in the side lab that the lift had taken them to. “Put the Squeak in that room! Then, I will use my superior knowledge of superior technology to display the contents of his unconscious mind on this screen!”

After helping Pepito carry Squee's body down a ramp and into the room, which was set lower than the lab used to monitor it, Dib felt a tingly sense of deja vu as he took in the white, metallic room. There was one chair in the middle of the room, which Squee was strapped into, on a circular, steel platform that was the only floor aside from a narrow walkway leading to the exit. The ceiling was a dome with a large, pink sphere protruding from it. “Zim! This is the room you used to find out that I threw the muffin at you in fifth grade!” It was a strange coincidence that energy beings had given him powers in those Zim-induced imaginings.

“Correct, Dib-worm. How preceptive of you.” He sent the Earth-boy a wicked, yet playful smile. “That same technology will now allow us to see into someone else's, less enormous, head. Ya think his head will be as full of spooky as yours?”

“Stop making fun of my head! I happen to think that I've grown into it rather nicely!”

“So you admit that it at least was freakishly huge, even by intergalactic standards?”

“What! No! Come on! Intergalactic standards?” Although, there was that time that Zim's leaders had said his head was big without any known reference to other humans...

“Not that Zim would know anything about intergalactic standards, of course.” The Irken smiled widely at his temporary ally. “Now, back to the control room!”

Zim set a brisk pace on the way back. Once everyone was in the control room, he took his place behind the control panel. “Computer, set up an electromagnetic barrier around the subject. And be quick about it this time!”

“Zim, are you sure that's going to hold him?” Dib eyed the alien skeptically. It hadn't worked very well in Squee's room.

“Of COURSE Zim is sure. The mighty Zim is always sure.”

“Well, have you ever tested its effectiveness on an energy being before?” Pepito asked nervously. He had never felt this helpless before.

“Not ..tested..as such, no. But, rest assured, young Earth-larva, that I, Zim, have everything perfectly under control! COM-PUT-TOR, initialize procedure number four-three-six-six-nine-five.”

“Sure thing, Zim.” The computer could almost be heard rolling its nonexistent eyes.

“Hey, show some respect! I am your master!”

“Processing.”

“That's more like it.” It still sounded sarcastic, but that was sadly what usually passed for obedience in Zim's base.

The screen flashed to life, losing translucence and concealing the boy on the other side, but showing only blackness.

-----------------------POV SHIFT-------------------

When Todd regained some form of coherency, he was standing on something flat and hard. He could see only darkness because his eyes were shut tight. Perhaps subconsciously his mind was instinctively resisting whatever horror the monster that roamed his mind had in store. But, as usual, the more he tried to ignore something, the harder it became. Strangled sobs, low whimpers, and grunts meet his ears. “Shmee...what's going on?” he asked in a timid voice.

“Why don't you open your eyes and find out, my boy?”

“No. I can't...I won't.”

“Too afraid already? After this last week, I find that difficult to believe.”

The boy gave no reply. He was obviously going to receive no sympathy from Shmee. The bear seemed to have changed since his childhood, but then, it could just be that Shmee had always been this way toward those who displeased him, and Todd had always simply been on his good side before.

“It's a shame. You used to be so much more compliant. Well, you leave me no choice. If you won't open your eyes, then I will do it for you.”

Todd barely had time to release a desperate “no” before he was bombarded with the same swirling pressure from his room, but this time, with no barrier, the pressure did more than just swirl around him. It seemed to melt into his body, and on some level he knew that this body was merely a metaphor for the degree of control that Shmee choose to assert over his mind. His real body had already been taken over.

As the being entered him, Todd felt as if the part of him that was him was being pushed down into some tiny place inside the body, from which it could only experience the actions of the other, but do nothing about them.

“Ah, that's much better, don't you agree, Todd? Now, about those eyes.” With little effort, the boy's eyes were forced open, letting in light from dangling laps of rusted metal with florescent bulbs.

If Todd had had more control of the body, he would have gasped at the sight before him. He was in a concrete room with no windows and walls, decorated with sharp and painful looking devices hung upon them. Directly in front of him, Mark Castil was tied down in an Inquisition style, iron chair with spikes penetrating nearly everywhere that his bare skin contacted the metal. To his right, there was a small, square table with an array of medical devices setting on its gleaming, but bloody surface.

When Todd's eyes met his own, the weary and bleeding man seemed to just realize that he was standing there. “YOU! You fucking, little psycho bastard! Since the day you were born, you were a no good piece of SHIT! If only your stupid mother had gotten a goddamn abortion like I told her to! That's right, bitch! Are you glad you kept this nutjob now?”

He felt the mouth smirk against his will as Shmee forced the body to look in the direction of his father's gaze. About eight feet away, his mother was lying face down on a flat, metal table. She too was strapped down with tight bonds on her legs, arms, middle section, and upper back. The places that were strapped were the only ones where she wasn't covered with porcupine quills. It was like some sick, twisted version of acupuncture.

Thanks to his love of the Discovery Channel, Todd knew that a typical quill is three or four inches long, and that the quills of New World porcupines have backwards facing barbs, which work to pull the needle-sharp keratin further into the tissues with normal muscle movements. He could only assume that the process went faster when one struggled, and by the looks of Jennifer, and the fact that there was roughly an inch and a half of each quill on the surface of her skin, she had either been struggling a lot or she had been there for a few days. If they weren't extracted soon, they would continue to move through her body, puncturing vital organs, killing her, and eventually coming out the other side.

“I always knew you would turn out to be a fucking lunatic, but I never thought that you would have the balls to pull something like this!”

Shmee/Todd only looked at him.

“You better let me outta this goddamn thing, now! I'm gonna see what I can do about getting your mother a POST-Birth abortion! Why the hell are you just standing there! Fuck, DO something already! What do you WANT from us?”

Then Shmee was making the face smile and moving forward, toward Mark. Todd tried to stop him, but the pressure tensed against him, keeping him as confined as his parents, though he wasn't in any real pain. When Shmee picked a scalpel from the table, moving even closer to his father, the boy felt even more uneasy.

“Don't be so down, Todd. Isn't this what you've been dreaming about for the last four years, ever since you realized that you hate these people?” Shmee's voice rang out inside the body so that only Todd could hear it.

“Those were nightmares, Shmee! Please, don't do this!” His own voice stayed within the body as well, probably because he didn't have enough power to override Shmee's hold on it.

“How do you distinguish nightmares from dreams, my boy? If you hate them, then why would their demise be something that you fear? Besides, I'm not doing this, we are.” Prying Mark's mouth open, carefully as not to be bitten, Shmee placed the scalpel against the corner of his lips.

“Shmee, STOP! I don't want to do this! I don't want to BE this!” But it was already too late. His hand ran the blade from Mark's mouth to his ear, letting blood leak down his chin from the open wound. His father grunted loudly as tears ran down his face to mix with the blood, and Todd felt sick in some indescribable, nonphysical way. He had dreamed of killing his parents many times over the years, but he had never tortured them like this. Sure, he had screamed at them, lectured them first about why he was about to kill them, but the deed itself had always been relatively fast. He hated those dreams, even if they didn't quite qualify as nightmares, but this was so much worse, so needlessly cruel.

“But that's exactly the point. And, if you don't mind my saying so, you haven't been choosing your companions very well for someone who doesn't wish to become like THIS!” On “THIS”, the hand moved to the other, left, side of Mark's face, cutting his pale face apart there as well.

“Nny wouldn't let me turn into this. He would KILL me first. He promised. You're the one who was always telling me to hurt people!”

Shmee chuckled out loud. Or if you hug him, eh? But, I wasn't just referring to the man who tells you grotesquely detailed jokes about his latest victims. Remember, my boy, I know everything that you know.”

When Todd said nothing, he turned back to the table, replacing the scalpel with a clear, plastic squirt bottle filled with salted lemon juice before answering the long standing question of the man before them. “What do we want from you? First, father, we want you to smile. You never seemed to do that in our presence.” He tilted Todd's head to the side, taping the chin lightly as if wondering why before looking back into the man's brown eyes, which were without the reflective glasses for once. “And then, then we simply want you to scream.”

Turning the bottle upside down, Shmee placed it over Mark's punctured back, then squeezed out half of the contents. There was a deep groan, but still no scream. The man seemed to be purposefully defying them, trying his best not to show pain. No matter. He reached behind the chair to turn a metal crank, tightening the bonds that held Mark to the chair, and forcing the, now wet and salty, spikes in deeper.

“AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” The man finally let out an ear-splitting screech, opening his mouth wide, wider than ever before thanks to the Glasgow smile that he had just received, and riped his own face apart.

The blood was flowing in torrents now, and Todd thought that, had he been in control of his body, he would have thrown up until there was nothing left in his metaphorical stomach. “Oh God, stop it.”

Shmee backed up a few feet as more blood accumulated on the stained floor. “Very well. Shall we move on to our other guest?” Not waiting for an answer, he walked them to the other side of the room, where Jennifer lay, apparently passed out from the pain. To wake her, he tugged on one of the quills. "Let's see if she can ignore you now.”

She woke with an agonized gasp. “No. No more...please. It hurts...it hurts so much.”

After dousing her back side with the same cocktail that he had applied to Mark, Shmee threw the empty bottle to the side and moved to her feet.

Even though Todd hadn't noticed before, there was an instrument on her feet that looked like an interlocking pair of iron shoes. Its purpose was made clear when his hands moved to take a Bunsen burner from another table at the end of the one his mother was lying on. “Shmee, don't. If you're trying to teach me something, it isn't working. This isn't the way.”

Cranking the burner up to its hottest level, Shmee applied the blue flame to the metal shoes, watching as Jennifer began to cry and struggle as they turned a hot red.

As she struggled against the leather binds helplessly, the quills worked themselves ever deeper into her body. The pain in her feet must have been so hot that it felt freezing cold. “PLEASE! I'm sorry! Whatever I did, I'm sorry! God, help me! I'm sorry!”

“Shmee, STOP IT NOW! Please! This is wrong! If you're not going to stop, just kill them, please!”

“But if we kill them, they won't learn anything.” The entity chuckled again.

“That's not the point, and you know it.” And Todd did as well. He had to. Had to remember that his parents weren't really there. These were figments of his imagination. They had to be...otherwise...no, they were.

“And what is the point, my boy?”

“I don't know! I told you, whatever you're trying to do isn't working!”

Todd was right. The boy wasn't terrified, and he had yet to completely break down. This was traumatizing, but not quite in the way that he had meant for it to be. “You know, you may be right. How about we make a little deal? I will relinquish my hold over your body on one condition. If you think that they would be better off dead, then you must do it yourself.”

Oh no. Not this again. “But...Shmee...I....”

When Todd hesitated, Shmee moved the burner from the metal to the skin of Jennifer's ankle, making her scream even louder.

“Okay! YES! I'll do it! Just STOP it!”

“Very well.” Shmee turned off the heat source and returned it to the table before loosening his grip on his boy's mental body.

When he regained control of the body, Todd let out a ragged sigh before choking on the smell of burnt flesh. He once again looked around the room in search of something quick, something to the point. Of course, there wasn't a gun in sight, which made sense considering that he was pretty sure of where he was. Though he had never been there to know what it looked like, Shmee had.

Quickly, my Todd, or I may change my mind. To emphasize his point, Shmee moved the boy's arm, brushing his hand carelessly through the quills on Jennifer's back.

“Shmee, stop! I-I need a weapon!” When his mother screamed again, Todd jerked his hand back as his eyes landed on a large butcher knife on the wall. As least the cut would be heavy, swift, and even.

“Weapon...T-Todd? Don't...p-please don't.”

Oh, shit. He had said that last sentence out loud, hadn't he? “I have to.” He attempted to make his voice cold and uncaring, but it came out a little broken all the same. He didn't want to make her think that he felt bad about this, that she had a chance at living, because she didn't.

“Why?”

“Because I hate you. Now shut up or it will be worse.” Even if he did hate them, he couldn't imagine wishing this type of prolonged pain on anyone.

Walking to the back wall, he removed the ample blade, stopping by his father on the way back. The man looked nearly dead already, but his chest was still rising and falling. Todd took a deep breath before raising the knife over his head. If he was religious, this would be the point where he would ask for forgiveness for what he was about to do. But forgiveness was bullshit, a cop-out of personal responsibility. He brought the knife down hard, cutting through his father's thigh, severing his artery and nearly doing the same with his leg. There was no way that he could have decapitated the man from the angle that the chair allowed, but he knew that that particular artery bleed out fast. If he had been thinking more clearly, it would have been the one he went for Friday night.

His black jeans and sneakers were bloodied in the spray before he could move out of the way, but that hardly mattered at this point. Holding the dripping knife out, away from his body, he made his way back to his mother's side before raising it yet again. She was sobbing violently now, but he only stilled for a moment before letting it drop again, slicing cleanly through her neck. There was a sickening plop as her head hit the floor seconds later. It was followed by a loud clang when he dropped the knife to the floor to be overtaken by the pool of red that was draining onto the floor.

“There. It's done.” There was nothing, but silence. “Shmee?” There was still no answer, but now there was a steadily growing sound of sirens in the background. “Shmee, are you here?” There were footsteps on the stairs leading down to the room that he was in. The knob jiggled, but was apparently locked. “N-ny?”

Suddenly, whoever was on the other side of the door rammed into it, breaking the rusted latches instead of the lock and falling slightly forward, but catching himself before hitting the bloody floor. “Todd! What are you doing here?”

“P-Pepito? I...don't...I-” The sound of sirens had grown louder now that the door was open. This didn't make any sense. It wasn't real...was it?

“After Shmee attacked you, you just got up and ran...we didn't know where you went. Letta...she called the police to help look for you.” Dark, fiery eyes roamed over the messy room, widening in belayed recognition of Todd's parents. “Todd...what did you do? How did they get here?”

“Shmee...he was hurting them. He-he said that I had to. I didn't mean it. It wasn't real. It wasn't!” Though he hadn't cried before, he definitely was now.

Pepito moved swiftly across the room, taking him in a tight embrace. “Shh. It's okay, Amigo. It's okay.”

Todd's body racked as he sobbed into the other's shirt. “But, it's not. It's not okay. Nothing can make this okay.”

As Pepito lowered himself to his knees, he pulled Todd with him.

He could feel the, now cold, blood soaking into his pants, but payed it little mind in his distraught state. At this point, he wasn't even sure that he had the strength to stand on his own, and he had no desire to release his grip on what little comfort he could find in the wake of such heinous acts.

“It will be okay, Todd. I can make it okay. I can make this go away.” One of Pepito's hands left his back to run through his hair as the he placed little kisses on the other's head and cheek.

“You can? H-how?”

Pepito kissed his lips and then smiled in a inappropriately comfortable manner. “You have to give yourself to me...completely.”

“W-what?”

Another kiss. “I can take away all of the fear, all of the pain. I can make sure that you never feel bad about anything that you want to do ever again.”

Todd shook his head. “I...I don't want that.”

“Don't you? Don't you want me?”

“I...don't know.”

“But I do. And you're just going to have to trust me.”

“Wha-” Before the word had left his mouth, Todd was pushed down, onto his back, on the bloody floor, and Pepito was on top of him. He tried to push the other boy off, but the Antichrist only pinned his arms above his head forcefully before leaning in for another kiss. This time, Todd turned his head to the side, and the kiss landed on his cheek instead of his lips.

“Come on, Todd, doesn't this feel good?” One of his hands traveled down to lift Todd's shirt, then gathered some blood from the floor before running slowly up his chest, tracing some sort of pattern.

“Pepito, what are you doing! Let me up!” Maybe this time he really would throw up...on Pepito. Maybe that would get the other boy off of him!

“Don't struggle, Amigo.” The old nick name was spat out, almost sarcastically. “It's so much easier if you don't struggle.”

“It would be easier if you would get the hell off me!” Even though he tried to sound strong, he was beginning to be deeply afraid. “I DON'T want you, okay? I don't!”

Suddenly, the bloody hand was raised to his forehead to form a fist in his hair and pull his head to the floor, coating it, like his clothes, in blood. “Well, that's just too bad, because I want you. I would have preferred it not to be this way, Todd, but I will have you, willing or no.”

“P-Pepi...you're scaring me.”

Pepito laughed darkly before shaking his head. “Oh, I'm sorry, Squee.” He lowered his head to within an inch of Todd's. “This,” he kissed him harshly, “is going to hurt like Hell... quite literally, I'm afraid. But, don't worry. Soon you won't care. You might even grow to like it.”

-----------Back at the lab----------------

As the computer played out the scene, Letta buried her head even further into Dib's shoulder than it already was. “What's happening now?” she asked yet again.

Dib only shook his head at the screen in front of them.

“Pft. Wussy,” Gaz sneered at the blond. Now this was high quality entertainment. If only it was a game.

Pepito's hand, which until then had lain flat against the surface of the screen, dropped to the side before moving back up to slam it so hard that the hand felt numb afterwards. How dare Shmee use him to hurt Todd! “Something must be done to remedy this! We have to get him out of there.” He turned around to face the alien at the control console.

“Silence, lowly worm! ZIM has a plan! I can hook someone else up to the system, allowing them access to the Squeaky-kid's mind.”

“Ohhhh.” Hazel eyes grew so large that they looked almost unnatural on Gaz's face because it was such a rarity. “I'll go.” This had the possibility of being the ultimate gaming experience ever.

“Wait. Did you see anything in Todd's room when Shmee attacked us?” Pepito looked her over, assessing the situation before she even answered, but remained quiet on the matter. This whole thing was starting to make a strange kind of sense.

“Yeah. Don't worry, I can see the freak.”

“But that's exactly why you can't be the one to go.” How much could he afford to tell them without making the meaning of what was playing out on the screen all too clear? “From what I've been able to discern from Todd's story, Shmee can manipulate anyone who has the ability to see or hear him. That's why he was able to make his neighbor, Johnny, accost him. If anyone who can see him goes in, there is a chance that Shmee could just overshadow them as well. And Shmee is attached to Todd. I don't think he would think twice about killing any of us.”

It was true that his lock would probably protect his life from Shmee, but what he had said about the other seers went decuple for him. Even if Zim's little, untested, barrier could keep a possessed human trapped in this lab, it might not be able to keep the Antichirst in. And, really, there was no reason that Shmee couldn't choose to control their physical bodies the way he had with Johnny. So, as much as he would like to personally kick Shmee's sorry lack of ass for what he was doing to his best friend, there was really only one person in the room who could go.

Letta looked up from Dib's shoulder to see all eyes on her, as expected. She was glad that she had already thrown up the pizza from dinner onto the floor of Zim's “beautiful base” during the torture of Todd's parents, because her stomach was now twisting and turning like a feral cat at the vet's office. Resolute tears fell as she gave the monitor a quick glance. She felt her whole frame start to tremble, but she wasn't sure if it was from fear, worry, or anger. Maybe all three. “I...I'll do it.” Todd was practically her brother, and, if she could help it, she would never leave family behind.

----------Squee's Imagination-----------

Todd struggled harder when Pepito's tongue was forced into his mouth. He managed to free one of his hands to push at the other's shoulder, but then he realized something. This kiss was rough, domineering, and completely lacked any kind of interpersonal passion. It was nothing like kissing Pepito, but it was familiar. His hand went limp for a moment and he stopped struggling as most of his fear was converted to anger. The hand formed a fist and he pulled it back before punching the one atop him as hard as he could. When the other was pushed off and onto the floor himself by the force of the blow, Todd swiftly sat up and grabbed the bloody butcher knife once again, turning it on “Pepito”.

“Shmee!” He was really starting to hate his childhood bear, maybe even more than his parents.

Even with the knife to his throat, Shmee laughed at him. “Dear boy, for a moment I was certain that you weren't going to figure that one out. But, go ahead, kill me if you wish.”

The teen pressed the knife harder against the Pepito-lookalike's neck, but drew no blood. “You have no idea how much I would like to right now. But that wouldn't do any good, would it? Just like with Johnny. None of this is real.”

“Oh, it's real, Todd. Just not in the way that you have come to let yourself believe. The material reality is the lie! Believing in other people, who will always leave and betray you, is the lie! Only I will always be there!” Thus saying, the anaphasic entity dispersed into fog, which rolled around the boy.

“Damn it! WHY are you doing this to me?” Todd yelled at the, now empty, spot before him. Instead of an answer, he felt a hand fist in his hair, from behind this time, as he was jerked forcefully to his feet and then flung onto the metal table that his mother had previously occupied. She wasn't there now, which proved that this was indeed similar to a dream..or nightmare. Tightening his grip on the knife that he still held, he attempted to sit up, but mechanical arms shot out from the sides of the table, restraining him yet again and forcing him to drop it.

“Because you're a prime specimen, and the world has got to know the truth!”

Forcing his head to the side, Todd saw Dib standing before him. He was wearing blue scientific goggles and a white lab coat in the shape of his favorite trench coat, which was still open, showing his “Aliens Exit” t-shirt underneath. “Shmee, this isn't going to work again.”

The copy of Dib stepped forward to hold the bottom of the teen's shirt, using another scalpel to cut it up the middle. Next, he sat the blade aside in exchange for an empty syringe and a rubber string. Despite Todd's struggling, he was able to work the rubber under the boy's upper right arm and tie a fast knot. “First, I'm going to need a blood sample. It wouldn't do not to have any backup evidence if you die during the dissection.” He stabbed the needle in violently before extracting some blood. “Your DNA is actually where I expect to find the real evidence anyway. I'm sure that after all those years of dissolution, there aren't many physically obvious differences between human beings and yourself. Still, to be scientific, I need to check.”

Todd cringed a little as the needle left his arm just as roughly as it was inserted. He was pretty used to blood tests because of the D.H.M.I., but even the nurses there were more gentle than this. As a cold marker traced the dissection lines on his torso, he glared at “Dib”. “How stupid do you think I am? I know its you, Shmee.”

“Ah, Shmee. Now he would be a fine specimen, if I could actually get my hands on him. No offense to you, of course. Ha.” He looked overhead at a camera that appeared to have been set up to film the operation. “Look, I'm apologizing to it like it's a person! And talking out loud to myself again. Oh, well, I guess I can always edit some of the audio out before I present my findings to the Swollen Eyeballs.” He looked back down, trading the marker for the scalpel again.

“I have administered no sedative or pain killers of any kind, as such chemicals could potentially effect the results of the procedure.” This time “Dib” appeared to be simply making audio notes for the film. A white sleeved hand rose to Todd's chest, cutting a deep line between the boy's shoulders. Dib's face remained impassive as the other's tensed with pain and tears ran down his eyes, like Todd was merely a dead frog that would get him yet another A in science class.

The pain was almost as much as when Todd had sliced his arm open, and he could already fill the sticky blood starting to run down his neck and shoulders. None of this was making any sense, and this time, he had no way out. He vaguely thought that maybe being inside Nny's head had made Shmee go insane before the pain became even greater, blotting out conscious thought, as the scalpel ran down his stomach.

-----------Back at the lab----------------

Pepito winced as Todd's scream was relayed throughout the control room, both out of sympathy and because Todd could still scream louder than any other human he had ever known. The screen was now split in half between a clear window into the chamber and a video of his friend's ongoing ordeals. Through the first one, on the left, he could see Zim making adjustments to a new chair in front of Todd, which Letta now occupied. “Hurry it up, Zim! This is getting really unsavory!”

“You can't rush perfection, human!” Zim spared a short moment to glare at the worm-babies in his control room before looking back to finish what he was doing. “There! Alright, dirt-child, the computer is going to monitor your brain waves, and, if all goes according to plan, you should remain at a half way point between conscious awareness and something like sleep. We will be able to use your brain to communicate with both you and the Squeaky-kid, and we will be able to pull you out of the nightmare world if need be. Do you understand?”

“Not really.”

“Good! Sit tight!” Before the human girl could question the amazing science that most of her species couldn't understand anyway, the Invader marched back into the control room.

“Wow, Dib. You could play the mad scientist in one of those crappy, B Scifi movies that you always have to watch on the big TV,” Gaz commented as she stared ahead, captivated by the screen on the right.

“That's not me, Gaz! And he's doing it all wrong. The specimen would bleed to death within minutes that way!” Turning to his sister, Dib glowered, then looked back to the screen more thoughtfully. “I'm not really that callous, am I? Why would he think I would do that?”

“Why don't you ask your boyfriend,” She nodded a purple head toward Zim, “whom you've been threatening to do that to for, what? Almost six years now? I would have so dumped your ass. And these are Squee's worst fears being exploited, genius.”

“That's different with Zim, Gaz. He's-”

“What? Not a person?”

“Well, he's obviously not human, but he's a menace to society. And, it's not as if he's never tried to kill me. But, I wouldn't do that to him! Not while he was alive.”

“Dib-thing, you do realize that Zim still has a large stack of sketches that feature you doing exactly that to me, correct?” The Irken tried to chock down the fear that still arose whenever he contemplated being found out and dissected by the Earth scientists, but failed to suppress a small shiver that ran down his spin.

“You...kept those?” Watching Squee writhe in pain and fear and hearing the underlying hurt in his enemy's voice, Dib suddenly felt more guilty than he ever had before, even more so than when he had found out that the wizardry store in the mall caused major environmental degradation to get its shipments of crystals and stones. The truth was that, when he was younger, he hadn't seen Zim as a sentient being. He had objectified him just like most corporations objectified their workers and the Earth. Zim had been his proof, the embodiment of his entitlement, just like the other paranormal entities that he had encountered.

Over the years, as he had grown to know the alien and to be more accepting of the continuing ignorance of his fellow humans, he had realized that paranormal science shouldn't perpetuate the exploitation of its subjects. What was the point in proving to the world that Big Foot existed if you had to cause them extinction in doing so? And then he had went out with Vayoween, expecting to discover the secrets of modern Witchcraft, and instead learned that witches were simply people, people, for the most part, who accepted the occult into their lives as a natural thing without exploiting it. Maybe aliens were people too. Maybe humans weren't the only people.

“Nooo. Why would someone as mighty as ZIM keep the scraps of mental excrement produced by a pathetic hyumun such as yourself?”

“But, you just said-”

“Would you two whiny dumb asses hurry up and push the button already before I rip your tongues from your cake holes!” Gaz's eyes were once again narrowed, this time at Zim. WHY couldn't those two ever shut up?

“Eh...right.” A black gloved finger darted out to press a sequence of the many buttons on the console. At least the Gaz-beast had gotten him out of being questioned by the Dib.

Notes:

Notes:
-the “ elaborate happy ending” that Zim made up about the flying space pigs comes from the official IZ comic that resolves the series: http://www.roomwithamoose.com/pictures_misc.php

-Characters belong to JV, not me.