A/n: Hey, everyone. Yes, I know, you are all wanting an update to YOLT. And I've been working on it. Really, I have. Things have just been…hard, lately, and between not having much time and a touch of depression (I say that like it's the flu), writing has been one of the last things I've been able to focus on.
But I got this idea the other night while at work, and decided to play around with it. I was toying for this to be an alternate ending to YOLT, but decided that it was a bit too…I don't know, too-something. So it's going to now be its own thing.
At any rate, I shall be quiet now and let my overly caffeinated mind speak for a while.
DISCLAIMER: Me no own Zim, nor does me own the theories/quotes I'm stealing from JHTM.
My Life Is Hell
So I've always had this dream:
I'm in the backseat of a car. Dad's driving, Mom sitting beside him, both singing off key to the radio as Gaz and I play "license plate bingo" and figure out how many words rhyme with "fart." Somehow I know that we're on a vacation—an annual one at that, and I'm excited. I can barely contain myself. I want to run and scream and shout and jump and do the hokey pokey, and instead I reach out and poke Gaz's arm.
"Quit it."
Her voice holds no malice, only the slightest twinge of a bothered whine, so I giggle and do it, again.
"I said, 'quit it', Dib."
This is becoming fun. I poke her, again.
"Mom" She whines, "Make him stop."
I stick out my tongue at her, as my mother lightly chastises me, telling me to leave my sister alone or I won't get ice cream when we stop for dinner. Gaz gives me a triumphant smirk, which turns into a mischievous grin as she reaches out and pinches my arm.
"Ow! Mom!"
She looks skyward, as if praying for Divine Intervention, "Kids, really. We only have two more hours until we stop. Can you just please leave each other alone?"
The car is silent for a moment, and then small fingers pinch my skin.
"OW! Mom!"
"Kids!" My dad scolds, his voice barely raising, "What did your mother tell you?"
Neither of us really care at this point. I reach over and pinch her back, and in time pinches turn to punches turn to hair pulling turn to screams and whines and crying, and my mother is turned around, trying to pull us apart, and my father reaches behind his seat, flailing his arm in an attempt to grab one of us to make us settle down and in that instant his eyes leave the road, and the car swerves and before he can even warn us that he's going to pull over, there's a blaring horn and screeching tires and too bright lights and I'm free-falling, spinning, crashing, turning, bleeding, crying, tumbling and then there's silence.
I never understood the dream when I was younger, but now, standing where I am, seeing what I see, I do. I understand. I know. I get it.
Finally, I get it.
There's a certain feeling of vertigo that comes with being in two places at once. It's a unique disorientation, akin to drinking too much, right at the beginning of the spinning stage, but not quite to where you feel like you're about to throw up. It's slightly unpleasant, but interesting and exciting all at once….
"I told you that you would find this interesting." Zim sneers at my side, "If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense."
I turn and look at him, but can only nod my response. I still don't know why he's showing me this. Why he feels that it's his job or his right to enlighten me in this way, nor do I know whether or not I should be grateful or whether I should throttle the little green menace.
"How did you find this?" I ask, my eyes traveling back to their original point of focus.
"Interdimentional transport. I was going to figure out a way to send you, here, to get rid of you for good, when the computer informed me that you already existed on this plain. Or, at least, you used to."
We stand in silence for a while.
"How do you know that this is real? How do you know that this is the reality, and that our world is the figment?"
I can feel his eyes on me. He isn't wearing his disguise and his pupiless gaze is disarming and unreadable.
"How long have I been on Earth, Dib-Stink?"
I count back. Could it really be six years?
I give him only silence as an answer, but he knows that I'm still listening.
"Tell me, have you grown? Aged? Has anything changed other than the date? Are you not still the same stupid little boy that you were six years ago when I landed on this disgusting ball of dirt? Has your father found a gray hair? Has your sister grown to maturity? Has Miss Bitters shriveled up and died?"
Again, silence is my only response.
"How do you explain every moment of your existence? How do you explain being taunted and teased and tortured at every turn? How do you explain the world's utter lack of decency and worth? How is it that everyone on our plain is so wrapped up in themselves that they can't even realize that they're sitting in their own filth? There is only one word to describe it all, Dib, and it is not Heaven."
I finally turn back to him. I finally speak, "But why me, Zim? If this is true, why am I here? Children are born innocent. Ten years is not enough to change that. Why me? And better yet, how does that explain you? How are you here? You're not even human!"
He smirks. I hate that look. I want to hit him.
"Yes, Dib, why am I here? Why have I been there at every turn for the last six years? Why have I been Pushing you, trying to make you See? Trying to make you Understand that this is Not your place, that you are Better than this? And better yet, why have you always assumed that I was your enemy?"
"Because you want to destroy the world!"
"And if the world is what we now know it is, what would that make me? Who would want to destroy such a Negative existence? What type of being would want to make things Different, would want things Changed? What am I really? Can you see, now? Do you understand?"
I throw up my hands, tired of his riddles, tired of his empty words. I want answers, I want to understand. I don't want rhetoric. I begin to storm away when I feel his hand on my shoulder, holding me back. His voice is in my ear, close, warm breath on my face.
"You want to know why you're there? You want to know your crime? Think of your dream, Dib. Who makes the first move, who moves the pawn, who causes the chaos?"
"I don't know—"
His grip tightens. It's beginning to hurt, "You Do know, Dib. You know and you're too stubborn to say it aloud. You're too stubborn to confess. You'd rather continue to make My Job hard, to wallow in your own shit, to make yourself the martyr, to continue feeling the guilt and the stress and the negativity that goes along with what you feel is your crime. Give in, Dib. Tell me: why are you there? Why are you not Content? Why are you in That reality?"
"Zim, let me go—"
"No, damn it, I won't let go until you admit defeat, Dib-Human. I am tired of these games and I am tired of this assignment, and I want you to move on so I can! Just accept it, already!"
I turn on him, pushing his hands off of me, "Accept what? That I killed us? That I'm the reason why my family's lives were cut short? Is that what you want to hear? That I distracted my parents and caused my dad to pull into the wrong lane? Fine. There. You have it. I'm a murderer. That is what the dream tells me. I ruined everything. I am at fault."
And the tears are flowing and for some reason he's smiling, and he laughs and I see for the first time what he is. I see for the first time the light that surrounds him as he shakes his head and looks upwards to the sky.
"There it is. There is the ticket. There is the answer, there is the dream, and here is the reality—you weren't in the wrong lane. The truck that hit you was."
There it is, again. That feeling of vertigo. Suddenly I'm on my knees, and my hands are clasping the grass and I can't breath or speak and all I see are colours and blurs.
The truck was…
So we weren't…
So I didn't…
………
…Oh.
Finally I can stand, and I place my hand on the three stones and Zim has brought me to see, as if blessing each one in turn. There is a sound, and I turn and see a woman in the shadows. She is blurred and almost transparent and I think for a moment that she is a ghost, until I remember where I am and what I have learned. She passes through me, kneeling on the grass in front of the stones, placing a wilting rose on each. She begins to speak, low murmuring tones and though I can't see her face, I know every inch of it. I reach out to touch her, but Zim pulls me away, slowing shaking his head. I frown, but listen to him, and allow him to pull me away. When we reach a safe distance, he pulls me into his arms and whispers in my ear that this will only hurt for a moment.
Before I can utter a word, my world is thrown into chaos, and I'm free-falling, spinning, crashing, turning, bleeding, crying, tumbling and then there's silence.
And light.
"Hmm…Hell…looks a lot like the normal world…"
A/n: Well…that went on a tangent that I wasn't expecting. This was a bit disjointed even for me. I mean, I get it cos I wrote the damned thing, but if no one else does, I completely understand. Really. Cos, wow.
Perhaps I shouldn't write when I'm this tired and caffeinated all at once.
Cos really. Wow. That was weird.
Anyhow, R and R, people, cos I'm interested in everyone's views on this coffee induced bit of brain vomit, and I promise that I'll try and get the next chap of YOLT out ASAP. Really.
j