The first thing that Zim noticed when he opened his eyes was that he could not see. The stark blackness that met him caused his skin to tense and he immediately flew into a panic. He wasn't sure if he was being blindfolded or if his eyes were just incapable of seeing anything, but he was sure that he couldn't even make out a single outline around him. After some time, he gave into the fact that his eyes were useless and focused on using his antennae to pick up on vibrations. He grit his teeth and moved the antennas around stiffly, surveying the area around him. Nothing was within range of him to pick up on, no matter how much he focused. For brief moments he could pick up on a distant beeping sound, but found that was of no useful information to him. Nearly biting his serpentine tongue in half, he tried it again but while moving his arms. He found that his range of motion was affected greatly in his left arm; he could suddenly feel the faint jingle of a tiny piece of metal hitting a bigger piece.

Zim smirked. 'I'm ingenious.'

He slowly felt his left arm up until he felt a large wad of gauze and tape. He poked it, using his fingers to identify the substance; he felt a prick of alarm when he found that there was some dried Irken blood underneath the layers. Zim's breath hitched in his throat, but he continued to travel downwards until he found a wire attached to his wrist. He shrieked and tugged at it frantically until he earned a sting of pain.

The next thing the Irken felt was the sharp burn of seeing light after a long period of darkness. He yelped and covered his eyes, now very well aware that he could see.

His head snapped to his body. He realized that the wire that was attached to his wrist was an IV and the machine was pumping his blood out into a considerably large container. His ruby eyes widened with intense fright; he had been exposed. He shrieked twice and jumped off of the cot he was laid down on. The ripped out IV site was profusely bleeding; pink substance leaked steadily into his bare fists and onto the linoleum floor. He attempted to deploy his PAK-legs to make his escape easier, but he found that his PAK was not responding to any of his commands.

He clamped a hand around his wrist and looked around at his surroundings. There were multiple doors and none of them were labeled. All of the doors were at the foot of his prison, so he figured going down any of those paths was a bad idea. He looked to the right and found that two large doors were propped open and lead into a hallway. The hallway was considerably dark compared to the fluorescents that lit up his holding room.

Zim's head pulsed once with a wave of dizziness; he figured it was the blood loss. He turned back slightly and looked at the cot which had a small portable tray propped next to it. A small blue cloth was draped over the contents. Something in the boy's spooch told him not to investigate, but if he didn't try to stop the bleeding now he may pass out. He growled; the zippered teeth waved up in down in a low snarl that signified his annoyance. He ran over to the tray and unclothed it.

He was expecting some kind of sharp object: a rusted knife; instead, he was met with a clean roll of bandage, a travel packet of gauze, and cloth scissors.

"Hm! Was there not even the afterthought of the possibility of Zim knowing how to save his own life?" He grabbed the supplies and grinned until he was met with the large clang of a door opening from nearby. His antennae rose, and he swiveled towards the doors; one of the windows were now lighted and he could make out the outline of a shadow.

"They were toying with me!" he screamed and stuffed the supplies into his PAK. Another wave of dizziness graced him as he nearly stumbled to his knees. His head was beginning to swim dangerously, and his legs felt loose and almost nonexistent. Zim groaned; he noticed he was no longer bleeding a light pink, but now a dark magenta. His blood reserves were dwindling, and his PAK was obviously not doing its job.

He huffed and clawed his way under the cot; the door opened immediately after and a person wearing what Zim perceived to be medical attire walked in.

"It's gone." The person mumbled, "And it left a mess." He leaned down and swiped dangerously close to Zim's hidden body, where a puddle of fresh blood lay.

Zim shuddered as he regarded the deirkenization in the person's voice. Zim wasn't Zim to this human. He wasn't even a sentient being. He was a thing. This caused a final shudder to travel down his spine. Suddenly his PAK switched back to online mode and splayed his PAK-legs before he could even stop the command. His cover was blown.

"Stupid infernal-!" He yelled as the cot tumbled back down at his feet, having already flown into the medical technician's torso. The tech stared at the Irken dazedly before realizing who he was.

"Hey!" he barked as Zim sped out of the room, the alien's own blood coating the knees and sides of the paper gown he was dressed in. The tech jumped to his feet and glared at the Irken's retreating form.

"LADYBUG. Stop both voluntary lower extremity muscle movements, send control to DAQ 558." He said.

At first Zim regarded the human's words with confusion, until he ended up face first into the floor at full force. He moaned in pain, and blood seeped from a new wound on his forehead. He put a palm to his skin and hissed.

"What have you done?" he demanded, staring up at the large form above him.

"Well, LADYBUG, it seems we lowly humans have found a way to manipulate your little backpack." The man smirked. The shadows that danced over his body caused him to look more menacing. Zim regarded the wristwatch device on his arm and let out a yelp when he realized that the world had gone dark again.

"You've lost control, little bug." He whispered to the Irken.

Zim shivered, he swore he could feel a hint of a tear coming, but he pushed back the fear and narrowed his eyes.

"I'm still in control, human. You and your little device couldn't possibly overcome an Irken invader's PAK for long. The PAK will reject you after ten minutes and I will regain it as its rightful host. And when I do, I will personally take those scalpels that you and your grubby hands so easily carved into my flesh with and dig out every single last one of your blood cells." He growled threateningly before falling catatonic.

A weak and strangled cry was all he could mutter out as a deep pain radiated throughout his entire system. It was as if someone had spilled poop cola all over his insides and was frying him from within.

"LADYBUG-."

"QUIT calling me that! I am Zim! I am not a pathetic little earth insect and if you try to direct me as such once more I will-!" he was cut off by another zap.

"As I was saying. You fail to realize that you really are just a pathetic insect. All your little- what did you call it?- pack does is keep you alive so that we can keep testing on you and ripping you apart bit by bit. LADYBUG," he spat the word, "you can't fly away this time."

The zap convulsed throughout Zim's body up until the human's final word had ended. Zim's lip quivered with both mental and physical pain and he collapsed upon losing the control of his upper extremities as well. His glare faltered into a pained expression as it dawned on him that this might really be the end.

"Don't look so sad, little LADYBUG, I'm sure that you will be very valuable one day." He bent down to Zim's level and lifted the Irken's face to meet his. Zim was still blind, but he could feel the shameless smirk that was most definitely painted on his captor. "Like those big pink eyes. Might make a beautiful centerpiece." He rubbed his thumb underneath Zim's clasped eyes, his other fingers stroking the side of his cheek and head.

The fingers left Zim's eyes and traveled to his collarbones that poked through the thin material of the paper gown. He was repulsed by the feeling of bare human fingers, but couldn't drown out his next words, "I bet those strong Irken bones would make a good set of tableware. Just a little sanding," he jabbed a rough couple of knuckles into Zim's windpipe and ground them along, "and of course we gotta remove them first."

Zim was nearly closing his eyes with the glare that had settled on his face. He began to realize that the fear and sadness of being captured was steadily being taken over with the anger and contempt from being toyed with.

The man didn't stop, though he did chuckle at the Irken's blind glare. At this tiny little thing that thought it had any inch of control over the situation. His hand braced the pit of Zim's torso and the Irken immediately screamed in protest.

"DON'T TOUCH ME YOU FILTHY PIG-GREASE! I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU. I WILL WRAP YOUR INTESTINES AROUND YOUR BRAIN UNTIL IT HEMORRAGHES." Zim yelled, trying his absolute damnedest to regain control of his body.

The medical tech grinned, "Funny how long you've stayed on this planet and you still have no idea how human anatomy or physiology works."

"I don't need to learn. I could care less what type of things make you humans up. It was only valuable when I needed to blend in. Other than that, in my mind's eyes; I CAN, and I WILL make your brain hemorrhage by wrapping your small intestine around that miniature, stupid SMELLY brain of yours." Zim snarled.

"I wonder," the tech spoke, ignoring Zim's furious outcry completely, "if your insides taste any different from the insides of say a deer."

Zim did not take very kindly to the thought of a biopsy. However, this man possessed a certain type of animalistic, primal, vagulely caveman affect that made his green skin crawl.

The Irken's mind flashed to a certain black-haired bi-spectacled boy as he compared the two motives of education and hunger. On one hand they were one in the same. Education was one hell of a stimulant; it drove the kid to such lengths to get Zim on a table. This hunger, he refocused his glare onto the man in front of him.

He was all bulging neck veins, dirty collar, and sticky beard. His grin was not unlike a lion over top of a helpless gazzelle. This hunger, Zim recognized as the type that had only one reason to do what his type did; he killed, he binged, and he lived only for himself.

As Zim's mind went in rollercoaster loops, he almost didn't realize that his eyes were functional again. Blinking owlishly as the man continued on a rant not even important enough to document, Zim sprung into action.

ADMINZIM907796 BACK ONLINE. INITIALIZING CONTROL OVER PAK.

Zim swung his hips up and watched as the man's face disappeared behind his black pants and boots. He kept going until the shot was inline, and before the man could guess what was happening, Zim ricocheted forward. His heels dug into the eyes of the man as his toes put out enough force to topple the tech over. Zim wasted no time after the human was on the floor. He hopped off his head and bolted down the hallway.

His eyes slipped open. The disgusting crust that built in the corners after a heavy sleep kept him from further peeking beyond his lashes. For several seconds he wondered if maybe he should just ignore the screaming and fall back into peace.

That was until he realized just how grating on the ears the screaming was. His eyes reopened, slightly more this time as he took in the tone, the shrill, and the crack in the scream. It was as if the horrid sounds were being broken in half. He could unfortunately place the scream into a person, or rather a being.

Dib was now wide awake as he padded over to the door of his room, the room he only took posession of if only to simulate a sense of control. The screaming tensed and faded and he found himself yearning for something that familiar again. The times when he regarded his alien neighbor menace with anything but animosity were rare and mainly confined to being in this place, but his gut twisted at the thought of someone having captured Zim.

He pouted.

"I wanted to do it." he slumped against the simple wooden chair that pressed tightly against the desk. The heel of his boot tapped and banged against the floor of his room. The echoes reminded him of his first night and he caught his fingers splintering agonizingly against the wood of the chair.

Dib cried out, there were splinters under his nails and he wanted nothing more than to shout the entire urban dictionary but vaguely remembered the last time he showed anger.

'Curse. Go ahead, do it. It's painful. And maybe get the nurse's attention and beat her to death with the leg off that horrible broken chair.'

The teenager sighed deeply and replied audibly as usual, "Okay. I acknowledge you're back Headvoice, but I wonder why. You see me trying to avoid you, yet you place very deliberate obstacles in my way." he continued as he sat on his bed and faced the wooden chair with a fixed focus, "as for your second request. Somehow I do not think murder will help me out of here, both figuratively and literally. Though I will take you up on calling the nurse."

Dib stretched out his arm down to the finger and regarded a figure that wasn't there, "Thanks, by the way."

'Foolish boy. Do you honestly believe that psychobabble bullshit about being nice to your voices makes them less aggressive?'

Dib grinned thoughtfully. "Ah. Someone's tapping into my memory of that psychology text book. If you must know, Headvoice, I act kindly with you for the sole purpose of studying you."

A sharp jut of a laugh. 'Study me? Don't you have another test subject that is much more worthy of your attention.'

"With Zim absent I don't have much material to study on. I've mulled over medical documents, read literature, and accessed files from the Armada for so long I'm surprised the whole race hasn't up and retreated. " Dib clutched the doorknob to his room and let loose a tiny smirk. "You, on the other hand, are present and more than willing to give me what I want. Which is, if you're wondering, something to study and figure out the innerworkings of."

'I'm not a fucking car. You aren't a mechanic. I am not a sentient diety, not yet at least. You can only study one thing for several hours before it sinks in that it doesn't do anything interesting.'

"That's awfully self-depreciative of yourself. Personally, I think you're plenty interesting. You're literally the closest thing I have to a roommate." Dib smiled to a phantom before pushing the knob to the side and slipping out into the hallway.

The boy noticed how dim the hallway was and wondered briefly why his mind immediately flicked to a place where a clock should be. It did not take him long to remember that this facility did not have any clocks. In fact, even the staff didn't wear digital wristbands, or glance over phones, nor click at pocket watches.

Dib huffed, pocket watches were iconic. He wondered if maybe he could bring back the use, like a trend.

He traversed down the hall as he begin to recollect useless fragments of a memory that meant nothing to him. The latest trend was wearing bell bottoms and he smiled in a twisted way as he imagined two legs chopped off. He might have seen that somewhere. He glared inwardly. Useless. Nothing. No help to just recall fashions or mindless bodily multilation.

It was only when Dib met the double doors did he realize he missed the nurse's station about five halls down. His brown fingers reached forward with caution, he figured that maybe the other nurses on the adjacent ward were up to pulling splinters out from under his fingernails. Both hands pushed out and whispers of a vicious voice echoed into clarity.

'You stupid pest. You blunted screw. This is a dream.'

Dib hissed, a feeling of cold and a tickle at his neck brought him to listen, "The pain seems real enough."

'Pain doesn't constitute... correlate... with the fact of whether one dreams or is awake. This is not like the dreams you've had before. With him here now you aren't gonna be novacained much longer. The project continues, Feeb. Wake up.'

The door continued to swing forward and he started to beckon towards the call of a lighter blue. This blue was nice. It wasn't the fluorescent blue that made his skin buzz with the thirst for sunlight and real oxygen. Not this bottled up brand of air that only came in short breaths.

He breathed and breathed and breathed as the sun warmed up his features. Brought what was once turned pale and vitamin deficient back into a healthy glow of brown and flushed redish cheeks. He was riding his bike in the summer, like they used to do as kids. The breeze was so intense that he could feel the wind whipping his scythe along to its whim.

The blue, the peaceful blue. The sky as he never remembered it being. The sky, his sky, was angry and red and cursed its inhabitants with a karma well-deserved. But this sky, not his sky, it felt good, even as he was trapped under his bike. His head was bleeding. He could feel it. His breath hitched as he felt the sting of needle. He giggled at the thought of God being a seamstress. The novacaine was wearing, wearing thin.

Suddenly he was lifted. Tiny ants, god how many of them, were carrying him. They took him nowhere. They took him everywhere as they dug their pinchers into his spine suddenly, and it was then they were no longer ants. They were scorpions and he felt the panic bubble so fast he screamed.

He slipped and they worked fast. They worked fast as their panicked fingers and eager studies drove them.

The blue expanded so much that he nearly felt enveloped. His screaming stopped, abruptly, almost as soon as it started.

The pinches of a million scorpions came back. There wasn't any novacaine left, only his imagination. The pain was distant.

There was a machine in him now. He was a machine now. Unnatural. Oh god it hated him, he hated himself. He fought and fought and after the ten slipped from the hand he so feverioushly held onto, he counted it with greed.

Oh yes, to live to live in this body with these new thoughts and these new objectives.

To be an Admin. To be in control. Exhilarating.

He glared up at the sky. It was too blue. Much too cheerful. Too peaceful. Did he even remember the meaning of the word? Perhaps not.

But he turned the sky. He turned it into a red masterpiece. His sky. The sky. The tortured mistress who bled so easily to punish her citizens. But he drank the blood just as easily. Red red red.

Hey what was this gun doing here?