3 WeyrdChic
Know Thy Enemy
He stared at it every day in class, looked it right in grey-blue eyes that he knew were really a menacing purple-red. Studied the sickly green skin, wondered how the twisted creature heard without ears, and ached for a chance to prove that he wasn't crazy. To prove that Zim was more than just a child like himself. He might not even be a child, but whatever he was...he wasn't from Earth, and his race wasn't friendly.
Dib's classmates thought he was crazy. He didn't care. A few even commented that there was another reason he stared at Zim. He didn't care. His father and sister were too caught up in their own lives to support him. He didn't care. He had raced blindly down the hallway in attempts to save a handful of conscious students from the ravages of an alien monster ready to suck out their guts.
That was worthy of caring about.
Those select, more mature and yet crueler few who would comment on Dib's "real" feelings for Zim would have had a field day. The way he ate, slept, and breathed the face of that inhuman creature, analyzing, strategizing, praying for someone who would believe him, yet feeling resolved to battle for Earth alone. His journal had made a startling revolution since that first day of Zim's arrival, star patterns and the occasional description and restudy of 'The Bigfoot Encounter' suddenly changing to pages and pages of notes and sketches on the little green alien and his race. He flipped through them now, under the starlit sky, blinking down at the frantic scribblings in blue ink.
"He constantly seems eager, willing, even thrilled at the thought of conquest..."
"Is there love where he's from? Or friendship? How does a living creature continue without that form of contact? How can a race of conquerers, however, continue such relationships without allowing room for error?"
"Do they send children out to take over planets, or are they all that damn *short*?"
Out of the blue, a thought came to Dib as more of a revelation than a question, and it set him thinking.
Zim was overconfident, too eager, at times even comically maddened by the thought of conquest and his disgust for humanity, and it often caused him to fail. But the one thing Zim was not was stupid. In fact, he was one of the smartest kids-well, apparently a kid-that Dib had ever known. If Zim had been a human, he would have believed in aliens. He might have been an ally to Dib. He might have been a friend.
'If' was definately the word. But Dib, nonetheless, didn't have many friends.
Through each bit of research or observation, through the planning of each move, there was Zim. Smirking, screaming, creeping, laughing. Running. Chasing. And Dib had to admit, there was a thrill to the chase. Even, in a way, to the being chased. There was something to wake up to, something to think about , something of worth to live for. Zim had proven to him-once and for all-that there was life out there. And he had a purpose. He had a reason to be alive.
And if he managed to stop Zim on his own? Or if Zim, for some reason or other, had to leave prematurely? What if everything went back to the way it was, as if there had never been an invasion, or an alien, or anything at all?
Well, I'll worry about that when it comes, he thought, ignoring the sudden knot of feeling in his gut. He jumped back down into the confines of his home, Gaz at her Game Slave, his father engrossed in something that was most definately nuculear, the silent and empty shell of his room where he could get lost in his own thoughts.
Is this part of your tricks, Zim? he thought bitterly. That I keep thinking of you like this? That this obsession...consumes me, until I can't imagine life without it? My world is over if you succeed, Zim. But the one thing you can't do is give up.
If you give up, *I'm* over. The stars will be meaningless, I'll be alone, and there will be nothing left.
-fin-