Author's Note: Welcome to my first real fanfiction in around two years. This is a concept I've been toying with for over ten months now, and it just kind of flew to me when I was sealing envelopes. Don't ask, really, I just hope I can do this idea justice. Enjoy, and it never hurts to R&R me - it'll make me happy and give me the steam to keep on with this project.

Have fun, and keep an open mind. Remember, this is ZIM fanfiction! (There are also two made up characters that you do not know. Please don't let that detract you from reading!)

Log 1: Meatbags and Green Men

"This just in!" came the news announcer, suddenly interrupting Dib's obsessive taping of the same episode of Mysterious Mysteries for the third time. Dib groaned and let the remote fall from his big-headed hand - if he didn't tape it, he'd never see the Evil Space Monkey from Wisconsin ever again, as Gaz had destroyed his archives last week for throwing out the last bit of mold-infested pizza. Dib had cried that it was slimy, and Irken in appearance - Gaz had rebutted his arguments with severe blows to the skull and unspeakable curses of death.

"Well, it can't be more important than the Space Monkey," said Dib grudgingly, talking out loud once again for no apparent reason.

"The crackpot cult 'The Swollen Eyeballs' has finally been disbanded," came the cross-eyed reporter excitedly. Dib fell out of his seat and landed with a dull thud.

"What!" he cried, clutching the TV and shaking it rudely. "WHAT!"

"BE QUIET!" came Gaz's screech from the kitchen, "Or do you need me to come in there and-"

"SORRY GAZ!" apologized Dib quickly, wishing only that she would shut up long enough that he could hear. How could this have happened? Was it all a joke?

"The Swollen Eyeball Society has long been blamed for the paranormal attacks on many public places, including the local garbage dump," continued the reporter feverishly, "and has long been condemned as the reason for our President Man's failure to recognize a cheese grater from tissue paper. The captain of the police force had this to say regarding the raid..."

"I think that the eyeeeballs are just SPOOKY!" spat the policeman slowly, a small drop of drool oozing down the corner of his mouth. "If it weren't for them, our country would still be allied with the Pig Men of America, as well as the strange mutated harlots in the downtown district. I liked them mutated harlots."

Dib shivered. It couldn't be true - would he be next? Did the government know about his membership with the secret society? How had they been discovered anyway? The Swollen Eyeballs were some of the most brilliant minds of the generation, it seemed so foolish to even think that the whole ordeal was over. Humankind had lost his greatest band of warriors to a bunch of idiots who thought the Pig Men weren't out for human flesh. But they were. THEY WERE.

"DAD!" shrieked Dib, running into the kitchen as quickly as he could. His father was standing at the toaster, shoving what looked like blue tentacles down the bread slots and writing obsessively on his clipboard.

"What is it, son?" asked Membrane dramatically. "Have you been enlightened by REAL SCIENCE?"

"... Sure," said Dib, eyes narrowed. "We'll go with that. ... Dad, no one came looking for me, did they?"

"Oh," began Membrane, looking up at the ceiling and scratching his chin, "just a few intelligent-looking men in white coats holding up a straitjacket. Don't worry - I simply explained that you were insane, and they left in their little caged car..."

"Wait, what?" stammered Dib, his eye twitching.

"Oh, and I gave the nice men your little moldy balls made of cheese as a going away gift."

"... My... Wait. You gave them my space rocks from the Planet Battle between me and Zim?"

"Oh, yes, I forgot..." said Membrane slowly, digging into his pockets, "your little green friend with the red eyes came over earlier. He told me to give you this."

Membrane dropped a small something into his son's hands along with lint and a paperclip. Dib looked at it curiously, and suddenly, he felt a great electric shock fly through his body. Dib was certain for a moment that he smelled the stink of burnt hair.

"GAH!" he yelled, dropping the small moose toy the size of a penny. "... DAD! THAT'S A GENETIC PATTERN-RECOGNIZING ENERGY EMULATER!" He painfully pulled a splotch of dead skin from his face. "Zim did that on purpose! He coded it to match my genetic structure so he could give me mass quantities of electrical-induced agony!"

"Don't be ridiculous, son," dismissed Membrane quickly, turning back to his toaster, "it'll be another thirty-eight years before we come up with that technology. Now go back to your room or something. I MUST FIND THE SECRET OF LIFE SO THAT I MAY FINISH MY PROJECT DU-!"

"... You do that," Dib said sarcastically, suddenly noticing that he seemed to have suddenly contracted a massive case of dandruff from dead, burnt skin. He kicked the small moose electric circuit into the living room, shocking his foot and shrieking aloud as he did so.

--

The next morning, as Dib opened his locker - which smelled strangely like rotting fish today - one of the girls from his class came up to him. She stood behind him for a while, and it was only until Dib was annoyed enough to turn around and yell at her for snooping that she spoke up for herself.

"You're molting, did you know that?" she said slowly, putting her hand on his where the last of his peeling skin was. She pulled it off of him so fast that Dib felt as if someone had taken duct tape to his big head and removed it along with all his hair and a piece of his scalp.

"GAH, WHAT WAS THAT FOR!" he yelled, jumping away from the strange girl as if she had burnt him. "That hurt!"

She held up the thin strip of skin as if examining it. "Yes, yes, it's true what they say," she muttered. She looked at him with intense curiousity.

"You're very weird."

"Thanks!" he shouted, turning around and storming to Ms. Bitters' classroom angrily. The nerve of some people! It was one thing when they sat on his head, but this... This was RUDE!

He took his place at his desk, still fuming, rubbing his sore hand for a good while to ease the pain, but only irritating him more. Zim walked in just before the bell rang, and Dib decided that this was his opportunity to confront him - after all, there was never a bad time to try and force everyone to see what Zim really was.

He jumped in front of Zim's desk, eyes narrowed, watching him intently. Zim's eye twitched.

"What do you want, Dib-human?" spat Zim, meeting Dib's glare with one of his own.

"ADMIT IT, ZIM!" shouted Dib accusingly, pointing a waving finger at the invader's forehead, "ADMIT IT!"

"Sure, I admit it," Zim replied lazily.

"AD-wait..." faltered Dib, lowering his hand slowly. "You do? Just like that?"

"I admit that you're stupid, and have an incredibly big head!" shrieked Zim, standing on top his desk and pointing at Dib's overlarge cranium with a threatening gesture. "HOW DOES IT GET SO HUGE!"

"NO, NOT THAT!" cried Dib, shoulders up and shrieking so loud flecks of spit were flying from his mouth, "THAT YOU SENT A MOOSE-SHAPED GENETIC-PATTERN SHOCK EMULATER!"

"I did no such thing, human," spat Zim cooly, sitting back down at his desk. "You're crazy."

"DIB!" hissed a dark, shadowy voice from behind the human's gaze. "Your desk. Before I feed you to the rabid ferret running loose around the school."

Dib stepped back to his desk at Ms. Bitters' orders, dragging his feet, but not without shooting an angry glance at Zim before doing so.

At the back of the class, two girls eyed each other, whispering feverishly, and shook their heads.