The town of Murkwell was a town deep in the crevices of America, seemingly hidden from the rest of the universe by a blanket of dark, black clouds which never seemed to be content to let it rest on its own. As far as anyone knew, nobody went there nor left there; it was a vacant enigma that served no purpose but to hunger the curiosity of by-passers. Its buildings were all characterized by a thick layer of grease and decay that deterred anyone from considering the venue, and the few people that called it home were reclusive and shy, holding no intent to create a sense of community. Yet, during one particular year, an equally perturbing phenomenon cast the spotlight on the bizarre town. Suddenly, the seemingly worthless place gained a massive influx of population. Strange, bizarre, unappealing figures all made a bum-rush to the foul-smelling town without a second's thought, the original few that occupied it having to tolerate a flood of freaks and deviants tainting the grass they stood on. Everyone wondered what the hell had happened, but nobody could do anything to combat the sudden changes.
Nor did half of the people suddenly traversing there en-masse understand why. Family members of the confused, desperate men saw their lives suddenly spun upside down with little power over their situation. Inhabiting a disgusting, vaguely unsafe half-city was just what life was going to be for the unforeseen future. Be it through confusion, poverty or sheer helplessness in their family hierarchy, they were trapped.
Membrane household, 12 PM
Dib watched with glassy, bewildered eyes as metallic machines with minds of their own continued to unload his family's belongings into the unfamiliar abode. His father was occupied practically every hour of the day with relentless research and investigation of practically everything there was to wonder about on Earth. So it made little sense to Dib why the man who had cemented himself as perhaps the most important scientist in the world would suddenly sacrifice everything for...nothing in particular. The walls resembled a dying tree, rot melting layers upon layers of wood to reveal the bare foundations of the house for the world to see. The carpets proudly sported a puke green color that wouldn't fly in the tackiest of homes, hiding many filthy stains in its canyons of fabric.
And yet, it still had many of the elaborate metal extensions his former home had, futuristic communication devices lining the walls and all. These band-aids merely had the effect of making the house look like some kind of collision between drastically different times, a warped aesthetic that tended to make Dib vaguely uncomfortable.
"Hey Gaz, doesn't it seem like there's something...wrong with dad? I mean, come on, why would he suddenly drag us into the middle of nowhere like that?" He didn't expect his sister to give him very valuable insight on anything, but he at least wanted to vent his confusion to anyone who would partially listen. Her terrifyingly vacant eyes stared into the deepest pit of his soul—or at least they would if he hadn't long gotten used to the effect. She just shrugged. "I think there's something wrong with your head!"
"Man, that one wasn't even clever," Dib sighed as he returned to his own devices. There were benefits to his new found situation, of course. For one, he didn't have to see all of the obnoxious schoolchildren who made a point to spit on him and make his life hell at every turn. They would be replaced with new, equally repulsive faces, but at least it was a temporary relief. Second, he didn't have that slimy, repulsive goblin that made every moment of his life stressful anymore, that disgusting insectoid face being out of his life at least for the time being. Of course, thinking of Zim being left to wreck havoc however he wishes made a pit in his stomach lurch back and fourth like an injured worm no matter how much he tried to ignore it, but he allowed himself the relief for at least the moment.
Instead of it chasing a rambunctious alien, Dib finally had time to pursue his normal hobby uninterrupted. And lucky for him, Murkwell was an absolute treasure trove of paranormal activity and bizarre happenings—even if nobody else seemed to notice. Dib stared through the highest window, armed with binoculars at the absolute ocean of strange people that sat before him. There was that man that seemed to religiously wear a skeleton Halloween costume, that weird purple dog, and every so often there'd be a cluster of people that seemed to mindlessly walk down the street in a line, single-file. Just when it seemed like there was nothing captivating enough to be truly worth fully investigating, Dib saw it-the holy grail of his endeavors.
They looked like they came out of a bizarre costume party, the set of individuals Dib layed his eyes upon. Their physiques weren't very out of the ordinary, outside of perhaps how far they leaned on either spectrum—but their skin colors were evocative of a child's drawing of a person, not content with the mere pale colors. Purple, red, pure white..it was surreal. The strangeness of the situation did not end there either; the tallest one had perfectly cubicle hair that was simply not possible with human hair, and the lean looking one, otherwise normal, had some kind of gem painfully lodged in the middle of their forehead.
In fact, all of them had those strange rocks smashed somewhere in their body, letting Dib deduct what exactly their gimmick was. Shiny, metal rocks decorating their skin...monsters projecting a physical form tolerable to humans! No, maybe..implants that grant them psychic powers! Mind-warpers that make their forms seem normal to the human eye! Whatever the reason may be, Dib had seen enough, a tidal wave of excitement and determination crashing into his head at full speed. "I'm going to catch those aliens and prove to the world that the paranormal does exist!"
"Can you stop loudly self monolougeing?" Gaz shouted from the floor below, "Someone's gonna call the police one of these days!"
"Yeah yeah, whatever.."
Days In hotel, 12: 35 pm
Steven wasn't particularly thrilled with the hotel room the crystal gems had walked into, looking as if they had stepped into the grungy, greasy part of town full of crime and wild parties he had always seen in movies. The wallpaper was slowly but surely retracting itself from the wood it was forced to call home, the ground was represented by dusting, filthy wooden planks begging to be put out of their misery, and the staff hadn't even bothered to clean the well-used ashtray sitting upon the desk. Steven jumped on the bed and immediately it gave off an unbearable clank, as if it was dying.
"Now, Steven," Pearl spoke up in an attempt to dampen the situation, "I know luxury is..very important to humans, but you'll only have to stay in this..room for a small period of time while we investigate the abandoned temple to the west. Besides—her voice cracked a bit—it's not the worst place to stay a night, is it?"
"Nah, P," Ameythest spoke up as she leaned in front of the fridge, "This place is a dump. My room back home's probably more clean than this place!"
"You aren't helping, Ameythest.."
Garnet raised a hand to diffuse the conversation. "We're going to scout the area and see if it's safe enough for you to come along, Steven. I have...-" she hesitated, "reason to believe that the ruins we're exploring are particularly dangerous. It'll take twenty minutes, tops, you'll barely have to be in this room."
"Nah, nah, I'll be fine!" Steven reassured. "Sure, it's kinda smelly and the people going by make me vaguely uncomfortable..but at least the view from the balcony looks nice?"
"I'm pretty sure that thing's gonna collapse any moment now," Ameythest chimed in.
"That's enough," Garnet cut off, giving Steven a thumbs up. "Twenty minutes, I promise."
Soon enough, the crystal gems dispersed, and Steven was left to his lonesome. "Man, how am I gonna pass these twenty minutes?" He kicked his legs against the bed, listening to prominent echoes of the aging wood. As much as he had grown in the last few years, keeping in his mind occupied in dull situations was still just as difficult as it always was. One minute bled into five minutes and that melted into ten minutes, and as time ticked Steven began to feel a pang of dread germinate in the pit of his stomach.
"Nah, come on Steven! I'm sure they're doing fine over there!"
Soon enough, ten minutes morphed into fifteen minutes, and Steven stared at the digital clock more and more the closer it got to twenty. Time seemed to slow down as it did, and eventually twenty minutes had passed with no sign of his friends.
"Pearl! Garnet" He shouted out from the balcony, his cries falling into the abyss. Two men looked up at him from the streets, both sporting milky white eyes and mouths that seemed to be permanently curved into an apathetic frown.
"I'm uh, sorry to disturb you fine gentlemen.."He mumbled as he backed away and slammed the balcony door shut as fast as he could. "I overreacted! Obviously they aren't gonna show up right away..." Yet Steven's optimism was in vain, as the river of time continued to flow on with no sign of his friends. Minutes turned into hours and the mixture of dread and confusion building up in his stomach continued to grow. He stared at the intimidating wall clock as it panged on, and on, and on, with no change in his situation.
"Alright," Steven sighed, "Something went wrong. I'm gonna have to deal with that. I'm gonna have to take things into my own responsibility. You can do this, Steven!"
Outside Days In hotel, 2 PM
Dib sat in the bushes, watching people enter and exit the crummy hotel with his binoculars. Dib was patient, but waiting for his target to come out felt like wading through mush. Missing the first few to exit the building didn't help temper his frustration either. Activity from the hotel doors completely ceased for a long while, leaving Dib to simply stare at the entrance and hope something interesting would happen. Just as Dib's eyes were starting to droop, his target finally came out, the one that looked like a kid with big puffy hair. It was now or never! Immediately Dib sprinted across the molten rubber of the road like a cheetah seeking its prey, determined to not let this chance be passed up. The venue was utterly barren, leaving Dib the perfect opportunity to enact his plan.
The chubby figure in front of him's oblivious smile quickly creased into a bemused frown as Dib continued to shoot foward like a torpedo, chasing what at the moment he saw not as a person, but an object of mystery and discovery that would play martyr to Dib's long history of humiliation, failure and regret. Finally human society would see his contribution to the world and not only embrace his ideas, but find them wholly necessary! Finally his time to-
Smack
Such a thick wave of exhilaration had crashed into the shores of Dib's head that he hadn't actually fully thought out his plan, as instead of pinning down the subject he had simply caused a massive, bizarre disruption to their day. He didn't fret, though, because the plan was absolutely salvageable! Even should the monster have a chance at fleeing, he had secured his chance to properly confront him and demand the answers he owed to humanity. Yet, as the figure pulled himself off the ground and regained his stature, his face was not one of a criminal who had finally been caught red-handed. No, he was merely staring at him with a confused smile. Manipulative little demon, Dib thought, I've seen that act before.
"Uhh..." The alien rubbed the back of his neck in awkward confusion. "Can I help you with something? That kinda hurt..."
Dib had little tolerance for these insipid mind games, as today was his day. "Knock it off, alien scum! I know your tricks! I've seen those little rocks wedged into you and your friend's skin! You might as well tell me your ENTIRE plan to slowly infiltrate the pentagon by manipulating the jewelry industry!"
The boy just stared at him blankly. "The pentagon..? Where are you getting any of this...?"
A slight tinge of anxiety gently landed upon Dib's shoulders, embarrassed that he had apparently misunderstood the alien's plans. "Well I, I just assumed...what with the whole gem thing..HEY wait a minute! You won't get the best of me, invader!" He proudly declared, poking a finger into the figure's chest, "you're still an alien no matter what kind of excuse you hide behind!"
Steven had never quite been persecuted so harshly, not even by the local conspiracy theorist back home, and his teeth clenched at the off-putting presence asserting himself in front of him. Was the rest of the world, formally a vast, uncharted landscape from his limited point of view, really so oblivious to the presence of extra-terrestrial life? It was the gospel, the law of the land since he was a child that he was a foreign entity, as were his guardians and closest friends. Empathy powers be damned, had he never considered how he looked from the other side?
Regardless, Steven was never one to be deceptive, and he had never faced negative consequences for being out of place before.
"Yeah, you..you got me. I'm an alien! I'm an alien. Well, maybe forty-five percent alien give or take, but you've caught me red-handed!"
In all Dib's years of paranormal investigation, he had never seen such a casual and jovial reaction to being exposed. The little speckle of anxiety sitting on his jacket like a pile of dirt began to began to suddenly pollute his whole body, irreparably staining the shirt that sat before it. In a flash nothing about the situation made any kind of sense, and the logic and reason he always had to cling to to survive was melting out of his hands like sand. After all his years of trying to prove in vain to an oblivious world that alien life polluted their skies, he had encountered the impossible right before his eyes: an open alien.
The world fell right off its axis and spun, spun, spun all around him. All of his calculations, all of his, his ideas, his expectations...melted from his brain and excreted out his ears. It wasn't right. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. He held his now sweating head to his chest, knowing that his plan had been swiftly crumbled. If he didn't come up with a plan immediately, something would take away everything he loved, and probably suck out his brain just for the sake of adding insult to injury. Once again, for the nth time, he had devastatingly failed and had nothing to show for it.
Perhaps all he could do was run. Run, like every other time he simply wasn't strong enough to punch back at the tidal wave that had smashed him into the dry, hot sand. At least he would have were it not for what happened next, a tremor that defied his expectations far, far more than the initial event had. The very same alien that had thrown his world off his track had gently placed a hand on his shoulder, dusting off the piling fear.
"Are you okay? I didn't know you were afraid of aliens..I guess a lot of people are afraid of aliens, huh? That's okay."
Dib looked at him with a frown, feeling as if he said something far more alien than if he had simply garbled gibberish and spat on his face. "Are you...comforting me?"
"I mean, yea, that's what I do for everyone when they're upset, even when they're realllly weird or mean. Is that weird?"
Dib sighed, idly rubbing his fingers across his chin. He need longer had the energy to keep up the wall that was his relentless paranormal-fighting-warrior persona. "It's just, um..nobody's really done that for me before. Especially not...someone from outer space." The -now established as friendly-alien's face scrunched up at this remark, indicating he was the one to be bewildered now.
"You've never had anyone comfort you before?'
Dib could swear he heard him mumble an "ouch" out of pity, but he saw it best to let it slide. Still, it was incredibly undignified, humiliating even, that the very thing he was playing unsung hero in trying to save the world from was giving him far more respect and decency that anyone he knew. Yet, it was comfort enough that the will to be confrontational had fizzled out like a dying candle. He could suppose that him being cool about his investigations would at least make everything considerably.
"Can you at least tell me what's going on with you?" He asked, feeling exhausted after the whole encounter.
"Sure! I'm kinda in a rush right now, but..I'll tell you all about Homeworld! And the crystal gems! And...whatever else I guess!"
Had it really, really been that easy? For once in his life? He had allowed his shoulders to roll back, wrapping the blanket of security around himself however reluctant he may be. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear right from the source what it was like living as a paranormal being!
"I'm Steven by the way. You?"
"Dib."
"Like the icecream?"
"...Sure."
And so that was it, Dib had found a ledge climbing the mountain; Someone who actually bothered to listen to what he had to say and bothered to make an attempt to understand his troubles. He wasn't sure how long the peace he had felt would truly last, but he saw fit to embrace it for as long as he could.
Unease is the most valuable thing in the world. Unease matures into fear, and when you have fear, you own every little thing, every possession the desperate worms cling to.