One night zim had a dream that was in a dark and unfamiliar theater.
It's arches against the faded black ceiling held forboding shadows that shifted and twisted as his dream clouded eyes passed over them. They dropped like water into crimson red curtains that enveloped everything, and lush red seats sitting in the middle like stones in a river, waiting for the patrons to sit in them. In this dream, however, He was alone.
Zim sat down, waiting for the show to start. It could have been years of waiting, for the time inside a dream is something more like a feeling then a concrete measurement. He waited for something to happen, even though by his own will it began soon enough.
It was as if the stage filled his vision and all else faded away, a spotlight on a dark floor.
Standing tall, a figure clothed in gray, skin to match. White eyes with black pupils and a pointy chin. Like an opera clown in front of a distinguished audience, he calls out with languished drama in a sorrowful voice. "Gaz?" he says with his pained voice. "Where is my Gaz?"
But he is speaking to no one. Gaz does not exist.
Edward is a name that someone once said. Maybe not to me. Maybe it was to you?
He calls out again to find his Gaz, but edward doesn't answer. His face is covered in sweat, or maybe it was just water from behind the scenes to add to his show. The shadows overhead begin to cry along with him, wondering who wrote such a sad play.
That was you, and they know it. Things are starting to lose shape.
The figure loses form quickly and falls apart at polyginal fissures in his body, tumbling in every direction as red blocks, as if they had been knocked over by a child prodigy searching for his next breakout piece.
It's going dark. Is the show over?
No. the panels are falling away. The theater is becoming something new. Shadows slither into cracks as our stage blossoms outwards into grass. The tall soundproof walls you've become familiar with are tilting back into the hills and the curtain river has gone crystal. Is it water? No, it must be something painted on a stone canvas. It's too beautiful to be real, surely. The stones that line it's bank shine against the sun, but the sun isn't there, because it was hurting your eyes so I wished it away. Are you happy? Because I am.
The sky is so blue, and so close. Go ahead and touch it. It's real.
I can swim in it too, if I want. And I will, because the grass is becoming smaller and smaller.
If I move my legs just right I start to swim into the air. The atmosphere is just dense enough to support my weight, just as you've always known. Don't let your mind get too heavy or you might come down.
Isn't this what you wanted, my dearest friend? A sky and clouds to fly through, a wind in your hair and no sun in your eyes? I wanted it like this from the very start.
Didn't I?
Yes, I wanted things sideways. When did I get home? The furniture on the wall is so inconvenient. Who put it there?
It wasn't me.
Maybe music will follow me into the next room. This isn't my house. The windows look tall and clear, but I don't think outside is real anymore. I feel trapped even though the room looks welcoming. When did the music stop? Did it ever start? That's not very comforting at all.
Now I've forgotten what outside really looked like. The sky was blue but it wasn't nice at all. Now I can hear her. Shes in the room.
Why did I let her in? Why did I let this become a nightmare again?
She's in the stereo. Shes going to come and get me. I'd better get to my room where it's safe. They can't get me if the door's closed.
I'm in my room now. Why didn't I close the door? The hallway light went out and the house is quiet. They aren't going to come to me now, I realize. They want me to come to them.
But that's silly. I wouldn't do that. If I do, they'll get me and they'll hurt me. They live for it, you see.
But I can't make them wait, I suppose. I'd better go downstairs. Yes, I'd better go downstairs. That's where I'll be safe. I'm walking down the stairs now, one step at a time. The banister is the same it's always been. That's comforting, in a way. There's always something comforting to make it a bit better. I reach the bottom step. I see the furniture I recognize in the darkness, but it's not acting very nice to me. Where are they? Why did they stop talking?
Are they going to find me? What are they doing in my house?
Where's mom and dad?
I hide in the bathroom. But it's too dark. If it's dark they can get me. I can't stay in the dark. That's where they live.
I run back into the hallway. It extends into eternity. Spotlights line the ceiling going on and on and on, forever. I run. They go out behind me.
Can't stay in the dark. Only light will save me.
Out they go. Maybe I can outrun them if I fly. But that won't work. The air is thinner inside the house, I can't get enough traction to take off the floor.
The lights go out in front of me. I'm under a single spotlight.
And now they're here, just at the edge of the light. I can see them but they can't see me just yet. I can't move or they'll know. Who are they? I know what they are. Their necks are too long and they've got too much skin. I'm a statue under the light. Alone on a stage with no audience. I'm the figure of a long forgotten past. My skin goes pale and my eyes lose color and the smell of dust and wood floors fills the eyes behind my real ones. I have bcome the performer who cried out "Edward" in a tragic song for the laughing shadows in the rafters. Only this time I'm not going to fall apart before they get to me. My song is ending soon. I have to escape before it reaches the final crescendo.
I have to wake up. I have to wake up.
Eyes, open, part the curtain before it's too late. Take me away on wings of silk skin and blue rivers.
Waves crash against my mind. Where did sound go?
It wasn't real. Yes it was. Who am I? Who are you?
Is my bed still here?
Yes it is. I'm in my room. There's my dresser. My desk. My bookshelf. My clothes on the floor. My ugly carpet and circus tent curtains and poster I never hung up, and my pens on the floor, and a forgotten toy kangaroo under the shoes in my open closet.
What time is it?
I must have fallen alseep a few minutes ago. Or a few hours ago? My clock isn't there.
Did I have a clock?
Why is the door open? I don't sleep with the door open. My eyes are heavy. Heavier then they've ever been. Are they open?
The light in the hallway goes out.
I called out for mom but she didn't answer. Someone else did.
Im afraid. I can't move my legs, and the bed is gone. I'm sitting on the ugly carpet.
I should shut the door.
Something floats into my room unvited. It's too fast and it's unnaturally shaped like a candy I used to eat but can't stand the taste of anymore. I don't trust it, so I scream.
It's happy I screamed. It screams along with me. We scream together as it approaches, never touching the ground. It's sliding along a roller coaster track that I can't see and it's going to get me. It's getting dark and the walls are closing in and I can't feel my hands. Or my body.
I can't feel anything except fear. Who are you? I can't understand you.
I'm afraid. Where's my mom and dad?
But I can't trust even them. Dad is a cannibal and mom is too ashamed to tell someone.
I'm alone. Alone, alone, alone.
It's too dark, but I'm too scared to make it light again.
Even when I control it all the levers and buttons are moving by themselves, see? I can't control this. The car is rushing towards a dead end and there's nothing beyond it but a cliff. I can't see and I'm so very afraid.
Help me. Someone help me.
Help was just a step away.
As I'm about to fall down the stairs I pass through a doorway into space.
And I'm safe now.
The stars are all around me, caressing me in my dreams as best they can, and the nightmare is finally gone now. The universe came to help me, and pulled me into heaven.
And now I can roam the endless realm of the cosmos as I please, and say hello to each star as I pass them. It's a black pool just shy of my heart, filled with crystals and nice music, just like when I rub my eyes a little too hard.
If I do that I get a nice, pleasant brown color forming a beautiful kaleidaskope of ever shifting and bending shapes, spinning around like a machine. The shapes become stars and the stars dance together into a great whirlwind, and they're bringing me home now in a spectacular fashion, a spiral of the universe spinning together in a way that sends me off through the planets and doors, each one leading to another dream. Or maybe another nightmare. I can't tell them apart because all the doors are all the same. Except one.
The door back to reality is just on the edge of my vision. I can't see it because the door is sight itself. It's a spotlight on the world stage. I'm the performer of an ending dream. The show is ending now and I can see the audience begin to rise, and they're clapping because I found my Gaz, and she's beautiful and radiant, and I can finish the song with the great crash of the melody accompanying me, and I can smile because the dream is becoming a daydream, and even if Gaz never existed I can tell she's with me forever and ever.
And I'm free. I'm free as a bird in a blue sky.
I bow to you and thank you for coming to see me. You were fantastic. And so was I , wasn't I? And now I'm waking up. The nightmare is watching with green eyes from a seat in the back, ready to interupt the next show, but a dream was the headliner and it will be the ending. Always a dream.
Where did it all go?
Away, forever.
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Zim awoke with a start, chest heaving and skin covered in a layer of sweat. His hands grasped at the sheets with a ferociusness that as sleep left him he became confused. What had just happened? By all logic, he had just been asleep, and yet... Awake? It was if he had existed in some parallel dimension, not far from the spacial plane he was currently in on planet earth. Yet somehow that didn't really feel like it at all.
He was about to get put of bed and do some tests on his brain when Gaz groaned next to him and blinked.
"Zim, what are you doing? It's four in the morning."
"Do not fret, Gaz. I am only getting gup because I believe I slipped into the multiverse a few minutes ago while I performed you earth hobby of 'sleeping'. I'll just be in the lab."
Gaz looked confused for a moment before rolling her eyes. "Zim, you were just dreaming. Get back into bed."
Zim's face registered shock. "THAT was the 'dream' you earthlings describe so often?"
Gaz, unamused by Zim's antics, just snuggled back into the covers. "Yep, congratulations."
Zim, however, felt real amazement at what he had just experienced. His first dream was nothing like he had thought it would be. His integration into human society had already had side effects, so he figured he would have a "dream" as long as he practiced "sleeping" like other humans did, but nothing could have prepared him for the out of body, nonsensical, terrifying experience.
Zim jumped out of bed. "I have to get my equipment! I have to study this!"
Gaz furrowed her brows as her crazy alien boyfriend scrambled around the room, turning lights on and making a lot of noise. His excitement wasn't wearing off on her, certainly. If she wasn't so tired, she'd have gotten up to clobber him. Oh well. He'd have to catch hell in the morning when she was rested enough.
Zim carried on with his experiements, too preoccupied to realize that Gaz would kill him when morning arrived.