Author's Note: Hey guys! Sorry about the delay. I've been busy and yadda yadda. Anyway, here's the new chapter. I worked really hard on this one so I hope you all enjoy it!
Dib Membrane took a deep breath before pushing open the door to his dad's lab. It didn't help to calm his nerves, like he had hoped. He didn't want to ask his father for help, but he didn't see any other option.
He slowly descended the steps, a new wave of dread pulsing through him with each step he took. What if he doesn't even care? Dib couldn't help but wonder. That thought is what scared him the most.
"Dad?" He called meakly after he reached the bottom of the stairs. He peaked his head around the corner, revealing his father hunched over some odd-looking machine that Dib assumed was his latest project.
The professor didn't answer, so Dib assumed he didn't hear. He took a step closer and spoke up. "Dad?"
Professor Membrane snapped out of his trance, jerking his head twoards the boy. "What is it, son?" He asked, seeming a bit annoyed.
"I, uh, need to talk to you." Dib proclaimed, wringing his hands.
"Can it wait?" Membrane asked. "I'm kind of busy-"
"You're always busy," Dib blurted out. He quickly regretted the mistake when his father turned to raise an eyebrow at him. Dib broke eye contact with the man, suddenly finding the floor very interesting, before continuing. "And, uh...this is important."
"Fine," Membrane finally conceded, turning his full body and attention twoards the young boy. "I have a few minutes."
Dib took a moment to think of how he should place his words. "I...think I'm really sick." He finally stated.
"Sick?" Membrane questioned. The tone in his voice said 'why are you wasting my time with this?'
"Yeah," Dib answered, feeling slightly embrassed. He could see his father was growing impatient rather quickly, so he tried to rush out the rest of his words. "I've been getting really tired and keep finding bruises and don't know where they come from and..." He sighed. "Coughing up blood."
This seemed to spark the professor's intrest. "How long has this been happening?" He asked.
"A few weeks." Dib admitted shyly.
"Not a good sign," Membrane muttered more to himself than Dib. His tone seemed worried, but his eyes were cold and calculating. This confused Dib. "I need to run a test."
"No!" Dib immediatly refused. Memrane gave him a confused look, curious as to why his son wouldn't want to be apart of one of his great experiments that could save his life. Dib sighed, frustrated. "Can we just go to the hospital?" He asked.
"Not if it's what I think it is." The professor stated, almost sadly.
"And that would be...?" Dib prompted, quite perplexed about his father's strange attitude.
Membrane sat down, quiet for a moment. The silence was unnerving. Dib had an ominous feeling that something bad was about to happen.
"There's something I should tell you," Membrane began. He was quiet again for a minute and Dib's patience was wearing thin. He wanted to shout "get on with it all ready!", but he waited instead. He could tell Membrane was considering his words carefully. "You aren't...who you think you are." He finally spoke.
Dib was genuinely confused by the statement. Also, a bit annoyed. The anticipation was killing him and it wasn't the time for vaugeness.
"Namely, you're not my son." The professor clarified. Dib's eyes widened in shock and Membrane immediatly cursed his bluntness. "At least, not in the technical sense." He corrected.
Dib suddenly felt the need to sit, too. His mind was suddenly flooded with questions. If he wasn't Membrane's son, who was he? How was it even possible that he wasn't Dib's father? Afterall, hadn't he always been told how much he looked like the man he'd always called father? Why wouldn't Membrane tell him about something like this before? And how did any of this relate to his sickness?
As Dib's curiousity rose, so did his anger at his "dad". "What do you mean?" Dib demanded.
"Things weren't supposed to go this far," The professor admitted, once again not being direct. "When I was younger, I was anxious to break out into the science world. I wanted to do something that had never been done, to get myself remembered," He paused. Dib could see a touch of regret pooling in his eyes, and maybe even a hint of...shame? "I tried and tried for months to no avail, failure after failure, until, finally, I came up with the perfect plan-the perfect project that would get name 'Membrane' recognized." The professor sighed. "Cloning." His voice cracked on the last word.
"Cloning?" Dib echoed the word weakly. Sudden realization hit him. "You're telling me that I'm a clone?" He shouted.
Membrane hung his head in shame. "My thinking was that, if I could sucessfully clone myself, I would not only make a huge impact on the world, but I would also have someone to carry on the Membrane legacy." His eyes turned to Dib.
All of a sudden, things made more sense. That's why Membrane always pressured him so intensely to study "real science" and give up on the paranormal.
Afterall, that is what I was created for. Dib thought broken-heartedly. He could sense something dark settle into the bottom of his heart.
An awful thought suddenly occured to him. "Mom." He choked out. "Is...is she...and Gaz...?" He couldn't form the last question that Membrane knew would occur to the boy.
"When I first began my research over cloning, I figured my wife would disapprove," The scientist continued. Dib didn't see the relevance to his question, but he was sure Membrane was getting to the point. "Afterall, it was illegal-still is-and some even argued immoral, so I knew I would have to conduct the entire experiment in secret. But, to my surprise, she actually welcomed the idea. We had found out not too long beforehand that we were unable to have children, so she figured the clone would be the perfect opportunity to raise a child together.
"I was against the idea," He admitted. "I wanted to stay professional about the whole thing. But, my wife was set on having a child, and I couldn't deny her something she wanted so badly." The man's eyes filled with sorrow at the memory of the love of his life. "It wasn't until a couple of years later until we proved the doctor wrong and she got pregnant with Gaz."
Dib felt like he was going to be sick. Everything he had believed to be true his whole life was turning out to be lies. His whole life was crashing down around him, and the man that was supposed to be his father was just sitting there with a cold expression, doing nothing. But what was he supposed to do, anyway? He was just a man who created him in a test tube. Even his sister wasn't really his sister. The woman he thought was his mother for all these years really had no relation to him at all. Dib didn't even feel human anymore. He was just another one of Professor Membrane's sick lab tests.
Dib allowed himself to feel everything at once. The biting sadness, the overwhelming betrayal, the heated fury. It consumed him, ate at his very core. Then, as quickly as it all came, it dissapeared. Dib shut off all emotions. He needed answers, and being emotional wasn't the way to get them. Besides, he had no reason to be too sentimental with the complete stranger sitting in front of him.
"What does any of this have to do with me being sick?" Dib questioned.
"I'm getting to that," Membrane answered. He cleared his throat, a nervous habit of his. "When I finally performed the experiment, something went wrong. Perhaps my calculation weren't correct or something was entered wrong or perhaps it just wasn't meant to be...whatever the case, the clone-you-didn't turn out right." Membrane paused to allow Dib a comment, but the only response from the boy was a distraught expression. Membrane imagined the boy turning over the words "something went wrong" in his head. A distrubing thought, but the professor tried to ignore his guilty conscience so he could finish his explination. For Dib's sake and his own. He needed to finally get this off his chest.
"You were living, yes, but there were things genetically wrong with you and the chemicals didn't add up right and I knew you probably wouldn't continue living for very long."
Dib clenched his teeth to prevent an outburst of emotion. I'm dying.
"I wanted to destroy the clone immediately, accept the failure, and continue searching for a discovery that would put me on top. However, my wife-your mother-insisted that we keep the clone and quit "the devil's work", as she called it."
Membrane was quiet for a little bit. His eyes were glistening. Dib figured he must have been thinking about Mom. The boy looked away, feeling as if he were invading in on a personal moment.
"She wanted to call you Dib." He stated, a sad smile gracing his features.
Dib's heart sank and sympathy rippled through him, despite all he had learned about Membrane. Dib didn't personally remember his mother very well-he had only been five when she had died-but whenever Membrane spoke of her, he could still see pain in the man's eyes.
"I'm a fool," Membrane continued, softly. "I've always been a fool. That was one thing that didn't change after she died. In my heart I believed I could just hold on to her, cling on to her memory and convience myself she wasn't really gone. Everything reminded me of her...especially you," He took a long, hard look at Dib. "She loved you with everything she had, and I soon realized that I did, too."
Membrane turned to look Dib in the eyes for the first time since he had begun explaining his dirty secret. "Dib," The name startled the boy. Membrane never used his name unless he was serious. "You're my son," he spoke, "nothing less."
"No I'm not," Dib spat, reaching his breaking point. "I'm just a pathetic reminder of the wife you can never get back. That's the only reason you care at all about me," This was too much to handle. "Why else would you have kept this from me for all these years?" Everything was spinning. "You knew I was going to die!" Dib felt dizzy. "You did NOTHING to stop it!"
Before Professor Membrane could respond, Dib bolted for the door. He had to get away. He had to think.
As he ran, he could feel the earth spinning underneath him. His feet were on solid ground, but he felt he would slip and fall at any moment. He didn't see where he was going; he wasn't paying enough attention to. He tried to think, but it was as if his brain couldn't process thoughts anymore. Nothing made sense anymore.
He ran and ran until he couldn't run anymore, and then he ran a bit longer. Once he finally came to a slow, his numbness began to dissapear and he finally noticed the small droplets of water pelting him from above.
Great. He thought bitterly, trying to catch his breath from the run by taking shallow gasps of air. He clutched his trenchcoat closer to his body, hugging himself for warmth. He turned his head, searching for some kind of shelter, when his eyes finally rested on the old, familiar "park" sign.
Dib waltzed into the gated area, observing his sorroundings. There was the old playground that he and Gaz used to play in when they were younger. He allowed nostalgia to fill him until the pleasant memory was dashed by the reminder that he wasn't the person he thought he was then.
Dib turned his head away from the now run-down playground, fury filling him once more. He remembered the young boy who believed he would be a prominent paranormal investigator someday. Now he realized that he was just a big a freak as bigfoot or any alien.
Isn't that just what I am? Dib mused. An alien? I'm a foreign being who doesn't belong in this world.
He was just about to turn around and leave when he spotted a strange sight out of the corner of his eye. He turned on his heal, inspecting the view further.
There was an undisguised Zim, lying down on a park bench about 40 yards away. His skin was scalded and his eyes were shut. Dib had to speculate whether the creautre was breathing or not.
Suddenly, Dib's instincts kicked in and he was sprinting over to the alien, feeling a certain urgency about the situation. He stripped off his trenchcoat and immediatly draped it over Zim upon arriving next to him. Dib hoped the fabric was enough to protect the Irken from the unrelenting weather.
"Zim...?" He spoke timidly.
The alien didn't answer, but Dib did note that his small chest was rising and falling ever-so-slightly, indicating that Zim was still alive. He breahed a sigh of relief, grateful for at least that much, and decided that he needed to get Zim to a sheltered area as soon as possible.
Dib picked the alien up (an easy task considering, due to Zim's height and small frame, he only weighed about 80 lbs) and hurried as fast as he could out of the park. As he made his way down the street, he could feel Zim squirm in his arms, his obvious discomfort from the storm showing through.
"Everything will be okay, Zim," He quietly reassured the unconcious body. "I'm taking you home."
