Dark.
Can't see.
All there is… is pain. Hot, searing pain.
So familiar… or is it?
Wait… what's that… a figure. A faceless shape again so familiar yet just out of mind's reach.
Standing just above.
"Defect."
Echoing. Quieter and quieter, then louder and louder until it's the only thing that fills the dark void.
"…defect. Defect. DEFECT DEFECT DEFECT…"
Screaming. Burning. Stabbing. Kicking.
"DEFECT."
~*~
Zim woke up at this point as he always did. Although he wished he hadn't. He shouldn't have. He shouldn't have even been able to sleep. Irkens can't sleep, don't sleep, as it is unnecessary and a waste of time. There is always something to be done and if one is not doing something, they are wasting time. The logic was flawless, but it wasn't really as if he had a choice.
You see, it wasn't as much "sleeping" or "dreaming" as it was a lapse in consciousness occasionally accompanied by hallucinations. He had suffered these slips for as long as he could remember. This, however, didn't stop him from blaming the habit on spending too much time around humans, for whom similar practices were not only necessary, but just about ritual. It was actually during his studies of human sleep patterns that he adopted the terminology. But every time he woke up, he was once again reminded that this was one more thing that set him apart from other Irkens.
Was that really so bad, though? Wasn't it the variations of the individual that made up the strength of the whole? Of course it was. That's the way Zim always saw it. It was his combat skills that made him a soldier, his conquering techniques that made him an invader, his knack with technology that sent him to Vort, and…
Well, he didn't know precisely why he had been sent to Foodcourtia, but he was sure there was a good reason.
But this wasn't a special talent or ability, it was simply a flaw. A flaw that he tried his hardest to make sure no one found out, but he didn't exactly get to choose when he would succumb to these spells. They just sort of… happened. Fortunately they were rare enough not to seriously interfere with his military career, and when it was ever brought up, he would simply deny it. Denying your flaws is just as good as ridding yourself of them, after all.
Zim had found himself thinking about things like this more and more often since that "Existence Evaluation". Of course, that had been nothing more than a fluke, some glitch in the system, Zim was vehemently sure of this, but even still, he had found himself frequently analyzing his own actions, habits, flaws.
Zim had also found himself giving in to this particular flaw more often as well, and each lapse held with it a hallucination, although more nightmare than dream. And they were all the same. Darkness, pain…
"…Defect…"
And it was always so familiar, like he had heard that voice before, seen that figure before, felt that pain before. It burned like fire against his skin, stabbed into him like a spear, beat against him in rhythmic pulses and he knew it all by heart.
Perhaps it was a memory, Zim thought. Something he had blocked out from long ago. Or it could be bits and pieces of various memories put together in such a way that they seemed to make sense, one after another. Or maybe, just maybe, he was subconsciously punishing himself for even having these flaws in the first place.
By now, Zim would normally have dismissed these thoughts as foolish and gone to work on something, keep his mind occupied, but recently his thoughts had been anything but normal. He was unsure of himself and he did not like the feeling on bit. He is Zim; he has no reason to be questioning himself. Or does he…?
No.
If Zim was sure of one thing, it was that he was not a defective. No amount of pain and screaming could ever convince him that he was a defect to Irken society. It was simply inconceivable.
He looked down at the desk in front of him. He had fallen asleep down in one of his underground laboratories. He picked up the device he had been working on, a laser pistol that had been damaged during one of his and Dib's scuffles, and examined it.
Broken.
Zim may be "unique", he may have his own way of doing things, but he was not broken.
He just had that much more to prove.