Chapter 1: Confined

15 years later…

15 years have passed since that strange green kid arrived to the city, 5 years after Professor Membrane's death, 4 after Gaz became Membrane's lab chairwoman and 1 since Dib was confined in the mental hospital.

But, when everything started? Everything started when the green kid arrived, where is he now? Dead, Dib killed him, is what the police said; Dib finally snapped, and nobody was surprised.

"Where… are … you… Zim?" a weakened voice was heard through the screen which was used by doctors and security guards to keep an eye on the patients, "He keeps calling for him" said one of the guards, "Yeah, he must feel guilty, even after a year" was the reply of his colleague.

Inside of the padded cell, was Dib, extremely skinny for a 25 year old man, his skin was deadly pale, there were very pronounced bags under his eyes for the lack of rest, his eyes were unfocused because of the mental hospital's drugs, his mind was a mess of lights, colors, sounds, voices and memories from a distant childhood, memories of a strange green kid, "Where… are… you… Zim?". The therapies weren't as frequent since the doctors gave up on him, they said he was getting better when Dib admitted Zim wasn't an alien and they said he was almost cured when he admitted being capable of hurting Zim, but never under any circumstance they could make him accept Zim was dead, anyhow he still have some pointless therapies, like the one of that afternoon.

"Dib, as long as you don't accept the truth, you won't start to really heal, you have to accept it, Zim is dead" said one of the psychiatrist while Dib was looking to some point in the wall, "Zim… is… alive" said Dib softly, like if he was struggling to remember the needed words to express what his mind was screaming, like if he was struggling to make his mind connect to this world enough time before it can return to it's own world, so much concentration needed just to whisper the same phrase he has been repeating over and over again since he arrived to the mental hospital, Zim is alive.

2 hours later the psychiatrist left with a resignation sigh. So long since any progress…

A year ago…

"I haven't seen Zim for three days, I'm sure he is up to something, and only I can stop him!" said Dib to no one in specific while he walked quickly in the street, until everyone stared at him and started to whisper "He is so weird" or "That guy is crazy", that happened a lot, and were the kind of things that people said to him frequently so he kept walking silently while he was thinking 'I have to stop talking alone, people will think I'm insane'.

Since he graduated from college he has been working on his father's lab, it turns out that even if it bored him to death, he was very good at the science; it was terrible when his father died, but it was even worse when he realized that nothing had changed that much in his family, except for the fact of Gaz being in charge of the Membrane labs as business (Professor Membrane's will), even though Dib was the older one, his father preferred to leave that position to his sane child, so for his dead father's will Gaz was his boss (and not even that brought too many changes).

He went to his home after work as always, went to his room and changed his clothes, but instead of putting on something comfortable he put on a special outfit designed and made by himself, black and tight, it covered his mouth and nose, and also put on modified night vision googles rather than his regular glasses, it helped him to have better sight specially in the pitch darkness, specially designed for the occasions when he wanted to get inside Zim's base; "Time to see what is he planning" 'If I keep talking alone, someday I will end in a mental hospital'.

It was already dark outside, so looking him moving silently in the shadows was hard even though there were not a lot of people to hide from in the streets. But when he arrived to Zim's house he couldn't believe what he was sawing, the roof was destroyed, the doors completely open, and from outside it was possible see the also destroyed interior and the walls and floor splattered in blood, Dib had to get closer to see it, he was in a complete shock, he kneeled in between the ruins of the roof now piled in the floor, everything had a violent pattern, but there wasn't remains of a corpse, he let his gloves stain with blood to see it closer, this couldn't be Zim's blood, even though he doubted it was human blood. He always had hated Zim with passion, after all, it was an alien who wanted to conquer Earth and slave mankind, but he couldn't be dead, no, he was somewhere out there, waiting for the moment to strike, this has to be one of his complicated and not very well thought plans, (Even though this looked almost real, in fact too real) but Zim couldn't have suddenly died even less if Dib wasn't the cause, this was what occupied all of Dib's mind, what occupied his entire perception, he couldn't listen the patrols when they arrived, he couldn't listen the sirens, he couldn't hear the officers when they pointed at him with their guns and yell at him to surrender and to don't resist, he barely noticed when they arrested him and made him to get in a patrol.

Before he could assimilate the current events he was in front of a judge with homicidal charges; the proofs were presented, the elementary school files, in which it was reported his strange behavior in general, and his hostile behavior against Zim, the devices used to try to catch Zim, he was close to be condemned to a life in prison, he tried to explain everything to the judge, about Zim being an alien, about how he planned to conquer earth, about the Irken empire, about Zim couldn't be dead and everything must be a complicated trap, while he talked he could see the look on everyone's faces and he knew nobody believed him, he knew everyone thought he was crazy, his passionate speech about everything being an alien's trap finished with the phrase "Believe me this time…", there was frustration and disappointment in his voice, the desire of someone believing in him at least just this one time, but his defense lawyer said immediately that Dib was insane, and not as a way to avoid prison but as the truth, and the judge thought the same way when he ordered Dib being confined into a mental hospital.

He would have accepted go to prison if someone had believed in anything that he said. But why being surprised?, nobody ever believe him, not his colleagues, nor his family, nor the swollen eyeball network, which didn't replied to his messages since years ago, after so many years devoted solely to prove that Zim was an alien and fail miserably, it looked like not even them were going to keep listening.

But, Where was the strange green kid?

End of the first chapter

N/A: I want to say 'Thank You' to my beta-reader and personal friend Erwin, thanks to him this chapter is a little better and I'm a little better writer ;). And also, if there is any grammar mistake or misspelled words, please let me know.