RIDE THE LIGHTING! (Commences intense thrash-metal headbanging)
Anyway, this chapter is really just dealing with more stuff and will begin to move into more adult-themed themes, but also, will break all known cliché's of them at the same time.
As you do.
Gaz also tries to force herself to find people attractive, which in my opinion is an IMPOSSIBLY hard thing to do.
So. Warning label as follows, there's a very short very crappy scene involving dreams and… erm… things. You'll know when you get to it ok?
So you all know, I don't particularly like this chapter very much. It's not that I hate it, it's just… not as good as I wanted it to be, you know?
Whatever.
So, I own nowt. Yup.
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One whole week. It'd been one whole week since her promise and as Gaz wandered through the halls of her high-school, keeping herself as far away from others as she could, the words of her, so far unfulfilled, promise entered her thoughts.
'Try and look for someone,' the voice of her conscience whispered to her, 'Try and find at least one boy physically attractive.'
Gaz forced her gaze up, glancing over the people that passed her by. The first males her eyes landed on where a group of average, normal, totally un-out of the ordinary college rock fans. Baggy jeans and t-shirts over long sleeved shirt types.
'Boring.'
Then a group of moaning depressed, all very similar looking emo boys, all wearing their little sisters pants, all star trainers and some kind of band t-shirt with eyeliner made to look like they've been crying.
'No.'
Goths, all dressed in black and white makeup, heavy metal boots, chains, piercings and lots of hate for the norm.
Gaz paused. She considered herself to be something of a goth dresser but she didn't go through with the thing as a whole. Goths were often just as bad, sometimes worse, than their prep enemies when it came to liking certain bands, clothes and opinions in general.
And besides, all of these guys looked unattractive anyway.
As she walked past each group of people, she scrutinized each and all of the males she saw. None of them even registered.
By the time she was sitting down across from Zim, Gaz was feeling highly disappointed with herself. She'd tried, actually tried, to find at least someone attractive, but each time she just felt nothing. It was like whatever it was that caused desirability towards others just wasn't there, a vital cog removed from her heart.
She felt… almost disgusted at herself. She was increasingly finding that she was broken, and alone, distant from others. Almost as if there was a glass mirror, and on one side everyone was happy, smiling and hugging and kissing and feeling the effects of love, while she was on the other side, dark and alone and cold.
'I'm going to die alone…' The thought seeped into her mind as she stared at the table, 'I'm going to die alone, and cold, and having never felt love.'
She cursed herself. She wasn't meant to care so much, she was Gaz! She never needed and never wanted anyone before, so why should she care so much now? Her hands clenched into fists. She felt like smashing the table up in anger, but she didn't.
Instead she reached into her bag and took out her Gameslave Three and began playing, wishing for the game to wipe her mind of her problems for a while.
Zim watched as Gaz began to play her game, an unusual look of forced concentration and anger on her face.
The irken however, said nothing. He knew better then to annoy Gaz while she played a game and by the look on her face Zim assumed it'd be suicide should he even say a thing.
Instead he looked around, this was the third day in a row Dib hadn't sat with them, but at least last night he'd be caught trying to sneak into his base. So he'd had the chance to mock and lightly threaten him over his new girlfriend before setting robot chipmunks on him.
That'd be a good laugh for an hour or so.
A sudden, not often heard sound hit the irken's disguised antenna, the sound of a computerised 'you lose'. His eyes widened, Gaz hadn't lost a game during lunch since that great flu epidemic last winter, and that'd only been when she'd be so run down that she didn't have the energy to keep her eyes open to play.
Something was most defiantly wrong with the girl.
Gaz slammed the handheld down and cursed. Her eyes looked up and locked onto Zim's surprised expression. Her face twisted as she snarled. "What?"
Zim quickly looked away, "Nothing, human, nothing at all."
"No, what is it?" Gaz growled, her annoyance at herself being forced out onto Zim.
"You never lose during the lunch hours," Zim commented slowly, not wanting to entice the Gaz-human's wrath, "So you're either ill or troubled by some… troubling thing."
'I'm ill, I can't feel affection,' Gaz quickly answered in her mind. She quickly brushed the thought away. "Mind your own business."
"Fine," Zim replied, "I've got to think of a new amazing plan anyway."
Zim began poking his food with a fork while leaning onto the table, supporting his head with a hand.
Gaz wanted him to ask again, to try and pry into why she was feeling so angry and so sad. But she quickly realised that he wouldn't. No one would. Because she'd never needed to before, so why should they start now?
Gaz' stomach dropped as she realised, not only could she never reach out to other people, but no one would ever reach out to her.
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'What's wrong with me?' The question had been echoing in her mind since she'd arrived home. She'd gone right into her room, as usual, with the intent of drowning her thoughts with images of bloodshed in high graphics and occupying her mind with thoughts of winning the game she'd been playing.
However, she couldn't concentrate. The plot to the game had a romance, a pairing of the main character to the classic damsel in distress. Gaz couldn't play anymore, the game was reminding, almost mocking her of her own problem.
Everything around her was reminding her of nature's fundamental law. Love is in everything. Everything expect her. She was a freak of nature.
Gaz sat on her bed, her legs up against her chest and her arms wrapped around herself. She felt sickened at herself.
All this time she'd been laughing at humanity for its failures, its drawbacks and its mistakes, at humanities inability to see its own worthlessness but now she realised that it didn't matter if the majority were idiots who were slowly killing themselves, because they could stand it as long they could at least feel that someone was there for them.
As long as they had love, they didn't need anything else. Such a powerful emotion could sustain an entire civilisation from collapsing in on itself with the pure horror of what they'd done to each other, to their world, to the life that existed around them.
And Gaz would never know how it would feel.
She was isolated, completely and utterly, both physically and emotionally. She had no friends to turn to, she'd quickly isolated herself from others at a younger age, her mother was… gone, her father was too busy to care and Dib was now completely preoccupied with his own life, his own love.
She'd never felt alone before.
She'd always had her games to keep her company but now they'd turned against her, and unlike her games no magic spell would help rid her of her confusion at her sexuality, of her self-hate at her own cold heart or at the repulsion she felt whenever she even thought about trying to reach out to someone, although she was desperate for someone to listen to her.
Her mind was conflicting, warring and fighting against itself. She felt torn, tired, hurt almost.
'NO!' Her mind yelled at her, 'Stop this! You can fix this! You can pull yourself together and figure out what's wrong with you!'
Gaz lay down onto her side, crawling up her bed until her head rested on the pillow. 'How? How can I fix this? How can I fix myself?'
Her eyes closed and didn't re-open. The week had been so tiring, so hard. Her mind was exhausted from its inner fighting.
Slowly, Gaz let sleep drift over her, she needed a good night's rest. As she slept, she began to dream. She was in her dream, but so was Zim.
It was like Gaz was watching the scene from a TV, watching Zim and herself talk, but she couldn't make out their faces properly, like they were blurred. Then suddenly, they were on a bed. Then they were touching each other, then kissing, then there clothes vanished, then they were having sex, very passionate, very graphic sex.
Gaz' eyes snapped open; she shot up in her bed. She felt sick, very sick, almost to the point of throwing up.
She took in deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. But she couldn't. The images were still playing through her mind like a repeating cassette, over and over again, making her feel even sicker. What's worse was that she feeling wet…
'Holy… FUCK! I'm getting turned on by this!' Gaz felt repulsed with herself. She wanted to dig her nails into her skin and tear it off. She felt like digging knives into her legs just to feel pain. She felt like slashing at her face, her brain, her mind, just for conjuring the thoughts.
She was panicking, and she knew it. She wanted to get these thoughts away, she wanted to stop feeling disgusted with herself, she wanted to scream and shout and tear her body apart in a excruciatingly gory way for its treachery.
Instead she settled for curling up into a ball, biting her lip and pressing her nails against the skin of her arms. She'd never felt so revolted at her own body, not even when she'd had her first period, that was something completely unavoidable, this was something her own mind was doing to her.
Her fingernails dug into her arms and the pain felt… good. It distracted her from her thoughts while also giving her a sense of punishment. She was hurting herself for thinking such things, it was only right. She hated herself, she should feel pain, it'd make her feel better about being such a cold unfeeling being, about her own mind rebelling against her heart.
Replace the emptiness with pain, because she deserved it.
Her mind warned her where such thoughts could lead, pain was never a good way to deal with something like this, but Gaz didn't care. She felt sick, repulsed at herself, and even scared.
Right now she'd take any cure.
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"And so, my amazing new plan will end up destroying all the water on this planet!" Zim ranted on; unaware that Gaz wasn't even listening.
It was lunch time, once again, and Gaz had taken her usual place across from Zim on the table.
Dib wouldn't be joining them; he'd be watching Gretchen in band practice. It was something of a mixed blessing. On one hand, Gaz didn't have to listen to him and Zim argue all the time, on the other, she now had to put up with Zim more then she had to in the past. Right now he was telling her about his new plan to evaporate all of earth's water supply.
However, Gaz wasn't listening. She was just staring at him, wondering why the hell her mind had chose Zim as the subject to her little un-wanted fantasy.
She not only did she find him annoying, he was stupid and not to mention not even human. She supposed Zim wasn't unattractive, if you ignored the lack of ears or nose, but she didn't personally didn't feel attracted to him.
So why had she wet-dreamed about them having sex? What the hell was going on inside her mind? Was she going mad? Was this some kind of repression working itself and using Zim as just something to project her inner needs onto?
If so it linked back to her first dilemma, why Zim?
Either way, that feeling of self-loathing hadn't left, it had softened, but it felt like it was hiding just under her skin, waiting to strike again at her mind and drive her more into confusion and hate.
"-And that's how it'll all work," Zim finished with a sure-fired nod. When no one replied he frowned. "Gaz-human?"
"Wha?" Gaz snapped out of her thoughts, "Oh, yea, very pathetic Zim."
Zim narrowed his eyes at the girl, "Oh you'll see how pathetic my plan is when you all DIE!"
"I'm sure I will," Gaz mumbled, looking down at the cheese sandwich in her hands. She didn't feel hungry in the slightest, but she hadn't eaten any breakfast this morning, and she reasoned that she had to eat to keep her energy up.
But the sight of food was making her feel ill. Whatever, she could live off drinks anyway.
"You seem distracted Gaz-human." Zim commented as he crunched a lettuce sandwich. Zim could eat vegetables; he'd slowly managed to build up a tolerance to Earths mass of water, after all, being on a planet that's three quarter's acid was hardly safe for him. However, very strong alkaline and acids still caused him pain, as well as meat. Zim didn't mind, he just passed himself off as a vegetarian, although Dib still threw the odd piece of baloney at him, just to remind him how much meat pained him.
Gaz wondered how they did it. How did they manage to keep up this fighting for so long? It wasn't even about saving the earth anymore, Gaz suspected that they both knew the armada wasn't coming, yet they still battled.
Maybe it was true hate, enemies to the end. Maybe it was because they liked to fight. Gaz liked to think it was because it both gave them a sense of completeness; they fought because they were unsatisfied with themselves. It was like self-harm, only without hurting yourself you hurt someone else and in turn they hurt you back.
Why was it that pain seemed to be just as accessible in society as love? It was almost as if the two where linked, married almost. Whenever people weren't having sex, they were suffering some painful affliction. The ultimate high of love was always followed by the horrors of pain.
And if you didn't have someone to fuck, then you were only feeling hate.
Gaz felt a lot of hate towards herself lately, and since she was now sure she couldn't feel love, she realised she was looking at living an existence only filled with pain.
Her mind flashed with images, a knife, a wrist, blood and pain. Stabbing herself in the stomach, cutting her arms open in great bloody swathes, ripping her body apart, one slice at a time.
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, but they still lingered, in the back of her mind, itching at her.
What would that feel like?
"Gaz human?"
She snapped around again, quickly covering her shock at her spacing with an angry glair. "What? Quit bothering me!"
Zim laughed, but didn't say any more.
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So!
Yes, Gaz is falling into that classic pit that I'm sure all asexuals go into at least once, the 'I'm a cold unfeeling person' pit.
Will she climb her way out? Well, you'll have to keep reading to find out…
And in other news, yes vegetarian Zim. What? What'cha looking at me like that for? I though it was a good idea at the time dammit!
Erm… yea. R&R is nice! Thank you please!
