Homesick

The teenager stood against the stop sign with his thin, pale hands in his pockets. He was starting to become worried about the extraterrestrial, the one who ruined his life, the one who had been shut inside his base for weeks. What was he up to? He began taking small steps towards the awkward looking house as he eyed the neighborhood. Empty, as usual. Faster than he had hoped, his boot reached the first step of the home, and he paused, looking down in remorse at the cracked concrete. What if he's gone?

The boy had been gone himself for some time, being thrown into an asylum, and finally being able to come home after nearly a year. He eventually succumbed to reality and only pretended to be normal. He hated not being able to act like himself…his normal crazy self. Every day in the asylum, he would wake up and tell himself, 'I am Dib...' He never had to say anything else to remind him of who he really was. However, despite the terrible things he'd seen, he returned to school immediately after being released, and he waited for the aliens return. Had the alien wondered about his existence? This would be the first time they'd seen each other face to face in a year.

It was almost impossible to shake the nerve away as he raised his hand to knock on the door. I'm going to knock? What is wrong with me? Still, he knocked. After a long moment passed he turned to walk away. In doing so, a familiar voice called from behind the door, his eyes red.

"Gir!" Dib sounded almost excited to see the robot who glared at him with evil eyes. "Gir?" He seemed to be, for once, in duty mode for longer than a few seconds. This worried him.

Reluctantly, the robot's eyes shifted into their normal shade as he squealed. "YOU'VE GOTTEN TALL!"

"Er, yes, I have." The awkward silence grew between them. "Hey, where is Zim?" Quickly, the robot dropped his expression and grabbed onto the boys hand.

"Master is making himself all better." All better? Gir led him into the house and stopped in the middle of the room. Then he sat. Dib knelt beside him, letting his jacket touch the floor.

"Can you get him, Gir?" Gir grabbed onto Dib's sleeve and looked at him in sadness.

"Master told me not to go down there." Dib could tell the robot hadn't seen him either in quite a while.

"How long has he been down there? When was the last time you heard from him?" Why should I be concerned with this?

"He been goooone. Gone. Gone. Gone." Gir chimed in a sad tone. "He left me up here and told me not to come down no matter what I heard. So I been sitting here." He played with the cloth on Dib's sleeve.

"What have you heard?" This doesn't sound like anything that could possibly turn out good.

Gir seemed to have ignored Dib's question.

"Could I go down there, Gir?" The robot glitched for a moment when he answered.

"Noooo." Is he scared?

"Come on, Gir. I bet he's testing you. He wants to see how you'll handle something like this. If you take me down there, I can let him know how well you've guarded the base."

"Really?" So simple minded. He smiled.

"Yeah."