Zim took a few things to remember earth by, when he left.

He despised the planet still, but it had become a part of him: the air, the soil, the boy that challenged him. Earth was a compelling place for all its flaws. It was a planet where passions ran high: sex, violence, love, hate. People lived and died hard there. Humans hid their treasures.

In the end the dirtball had given its secrets to ZIM, though. Nothing resisted his might.

These were the things that remained of earth: A pair of glasses, cracked and with bent frames. A smooth leather trench coat that smelled faintly of oil and human sweat. A primitive human computer, clunky and slow compared to Irken technology. It was good for an ego boost, though.

Then there was one human.

These were the things that the Irken Empire would come to know earth by. These were also the things that had defined earth for ZIM.

Zim would put on the glasses sometimes, observing the way the thick lenses distorted the world. They made the stars outside seem bigger, like blazing fruits growing and withering, folded in the dark leaves of some ancient tree. He would slip into the trench coat, which was much too large for him; the sleeves fell over his hands to flop uselessly and the long folds of the coat covered his feet. When he tried to walk in it he stumbled. When he closed his eyes he could almost imagine he was back on earth, chasing and being chased, pressing his body into the shadows, waiting to pounce on the person that crept after him. The coat was a shadow. The boy who had worn it had been Zim's shadow.

When his thoughts reached that point he would rip the garment off, fold it clumsily and hastily and shove it back under his seat. The smooth hide was a little tattered now from the violence his claws wrought on it. The glasses had almost been destroyed once, in a fit of enraged frustration- how could anyone see clearly through those things? The problems of humans were stupid and their solutions were even worse.

Then there was the computer. Zim plugged it into the ship's mainframe every so often, flipping through the writings and pictures and stories carelessly. This was the second-most fascinating artifact: a window into the mind of one person, a view of barely contained despair, and excitement. And loneliness. Some of the things Zim found there almost made him feel pity and that enraged him as well: how dare a mere HUMAN presume to make an Irken Invader feel sympathy, or guilt, or anything? When Zim had arrived at the planet earth it had become HIS to do with as he pleased, with no emotion to cloud him. He resented that he couldn't free himself from slight guilt.

When these thoughts, when these traces of compassion came upon him he would rip the cables from the computer, screaming and kicking and tantruming with rage. The first time he had almost destroyed the primitive machine. Sometimes now he thought that if he had crushed the thing when he first found it the trip would have been better.

His last resort was to take an elevator down to the bowels of the ship, where the lights stained everything dull orange and tangled tubes festooned the walls. There, at the very back, throught a labyrinth of chambers and twisting passages, there was a freezing-cold room. When the door whooshed up into the ceiling to give entry into that room mist came creeping out. The air inside was crisp in Zim's lungs and the chill made his antennae prick. The cold refreshed him. Zim would have come there often except for the last specimen he had collected.

The sole occupant of this room slumped sleeping in a tube filled with gel. When Zim went close he could see a human outline through the tracework of frost on the glass; a nude, pale boy with closed eyes and a slack face. Coarse black hair sprouted from his head and his limbs were twiggy thin. It was so easy to think of crushing it's pale body right there, while the boy remained unconscious; dead to the world by Zim's hands. The alien wondered if his enemy dreamed. Surely he did; this human had always been a dreamer.

This was Zim's most fascinating artifact.

Sometimes Zim actually tapped his claws softly on the glass, and imagined the rapping amplified and becoming explosions in the other's subconscious, becoming a part of the boy's memories of battle.

Sometimes Zim stood close to the only computer console in the room, and ran his hands thoughtfully over the buttons and switches, thinking of letting the boy wake up, letting him out. Letting him see where he was now. Wondered if he would love it or hate it.

When that happened he raged and screamed and slammed his fists against the unbreakable glass and wondered that the other still had this power over him, even asleep. The human should have no influence, but his voice still stained Zim's mind, the passion in it. The crazy enthusiasm. The human in which Zim was reflected. The enemy he couldn't leave behind.

When the rage left him, as it usually did in the face of his enemy's helplessness, he would tap his claws against the glass again, gentler, thinking Soon, Dib. Soon I'll wake you and you'll see starlight again.

And Zim wondered what he would do when the human woke up: if he would kill him or if he would love him. Or if they would kill each other.

And he wondered if Dib would maybe be happier if he was left to dream.

Soon I'll decide.

END

Err… I don't think that actually made much sense. At least it's properly-spelled nonsense…right? RIGHT?! Eheh. I have not abandoned Pact so don't worry; I just had this image in my head and wanted to get it out. Hopefully it's not a total waste of netspace.

June 6, 2004