Irksome
Two updates in one month; I'm doing good! Standard disclaimer applies: I don't own nada. Don't sue unless you want student loans.
Ground: THR33
It had been over a month since Karis first met the green alien. She lazed in bed and listened to the chilly autumn rain beat against the window, unable to sleep because of the nightmares--the screams from the Street and a man in a white trench-coat. Drifting between wakefulness and dreams in the early morning, trying to block the dreams, Karis wondered what he was doing at that moment. Did he sleep? Was he working on a machine to destroy humanity or was he cleaning up after his green doggie? Her bedside clock glared 2:46 A.M., bright red.
If she had been deeper asleep, Karis would have missed the sound of her living room window being opened.
If she had been just a little less awake, Karis would have missed the groan as someone tumbled into her apartment.
But by now she was wide awake. Grasping the baseball bat resting near her nightstand, the young woman crept into the main room. Someone sat underneath the window cursing and rubbing his head. The smell of burning flesh reached Karis' nose.
"Zim?" She raised the bat a little.
"Eh? Oh, Karis-worm."
"Don't sound so surprised to see me. I do live here after all," she said, lowering the bat and resting it against the wall.
"Yes, but don't stink-beasts usually sleep during this time?"
She ignored him for a question that was pestering her. "What are you doing back? I thought I remembered you saying I'd never see you again." She smirked at him in some small victory.
"Zim is just passing through. What are you doing here, huh?"
Karis ignored him again and poked her head out the window. Three stories bellow a boy wandered into the alleyway looking like he'd lost something. He looked up at her, his glasses flashing as the street lamp glared off them. The boy made to climb the fire escape, but stopped as police sirens were heard. He ran, his trench coat billowing out behind him and combat boots echoing through the alley.
"Who was that, Zim?" Karis pulled her head back into the warmth of her apartment and shut the window.
"Dib-stink. He's the most annoying of all the horrid children at Skool. He tries to reveal what I am, but no one believes him, the fool. Zim is just the foreign exchange student with a green-skin disease. Who could see through this disguise!"
Karis blinked. What an explanation. "What use would an alien have at school? Can't you just get information off the internet or something?" Zim squinted one eye at her.
"But I need to observe the humans. Hi Skool is a good place to find the weaknesses of the pitiful stink-beasts." The girl laughed and started making a bed for Zim on the couch.
"And how long have you been 'observing'?" She tucked a piece of brown curl behind her ear. Zim mumbled. "Come again? I didn't quite catch that."
"Five years," he grumbled, glaring at her. "Five years I've been stuck on this miserable dirt-ball."
Karis fell silent. Five whole years he'd been away from his home, his family and friends (Did Zim even have friends? He seemed more like the loner, keep-to-himself type). The human felt unhappiness settle in her gut like a rock.
She cleared her throat, drawing Zim's dejected gaze from the floor to her. "Feel free to stay the night," she said, trying to shake the twisting in her stomach. "Just don't go out the front door in the morning. The landlady's on my case again and might be hovering outside the door waiting for me."
Zim cringed at the thought. He indeed remembered the obnoxious landlady. Pushing himself off of the wall he was leaning against. Then he noticed something. "Zim's grown again."
Karis turned to look at him. When she first brought him to her apartment over a month ago his head met with her shoulders. Now the top of his head reached her nose. "Does your entire race grow half-a-foot in a month?"
He looked at her with something strikingly similar to concern reflected in his red eyes. "I reached my full height almost a hundred earth-years ago. Zim is now one and a half feets taller since coming to the accursed planet earth."
"Wow. You were one short sucker." Zim rounded on her in all the fury of a growing, red-eyed alien.
"You dare talk to Zim that way?" he shouted. Karis backed down and raised her hands up to placate, for once actually feeling threatened by the healed alien. When he was wounded, a bat would save her. Now she had nothing.
"Sorry—didn't know it was such a touchy subject," she muttered. Zim stared at her a moment before relaxing.
"Zim will need to use your living facility for a few hours. Then I can promise you won't see me again."
"I all ready told you, you're free to come and go as you need. Make use of it because if the landlady has anything to say about it, I won't be here much longer." Karis finished the couch-bed and left for her own bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
It was probably around 5 in the morning when Zim opened that door. Karis continued to regulate her breathing and kept still as he came to stand by her bed. What he was doing, she couldn't tell since her back was to him. There was the barest hit of footsteps before he was rustling through her drawers. "You know, whatever you're looking for would be far easier to find if you just asked me," she rolled to face him, but what she found wasn't Zim. "You!"
The boy from the alley looked back at her, terrified. The look vanished as he said, "Ma'am, I'm with the FBI and it is believed that you a-are," he started stuttering as Karis sprung from the bed and grabbed the bat sitting next to the nightstand. "That you're harboring a dangerous alien. Ma'am, you do know it's illegal to harm a member of the FIB. Ma'am? Ma'am!" Karis swung, purposefully missing the boy's head by a few inches. He ducked under the bat and made for the door.
Karis got there first. "You're that nasty little boy from school, aren't you? The one trying to get Zim deported. Whatever you think, kid, Zim's legal and I'd appreciate it if you stopped heckling my friend," she swung for emphasis. "Not only do you abuse him, but now you're trespassing in my house," another swing, pushing the thin boy against the wall. "I should call the cops and have you arrested for breaking and entering and harassment."
"Please, wait! You don't understand. He's dangerous!"
CRACK. The bat connected with the boy's knee and he fell. "Get out of my apartment," her voice was low and grated. Rage made the bat shake in her hand. The impudence of this kid, to break into her apartment looking for evidence against an alien Karis had seen all of two times, to steal into her bedroom while she slept so he could riffle through her stuff. "Or the next time it will be your head."
The boy fled. He limped with all speed out of her bedroom and out the front door. It slammed shut behind him.
Karis lowered the bat and sighed. Then clapping sounded from above her. Looking up Karis found Zim suspended from the ceiling by his mechanical legs. He continued to clap even as the legs lowered him to the carpet. He had a manic grin stretched across his face, flashing zipper-teeth. "Zim, what did you do?" Her voice had that dangerous edge to it still and her grip tensed around the bat.
"When Zim saw the Dib-creature climbing the fire escape. I simply took the bat and slipped into you room. If Zim just so happened to shut the door just as the Dib was looking, then it was just an honest mistake."
"Like Hell it was. That boy's right, you are dangerous." Karis rubbed her forehead, a headache forming.
"Zim could not allow the human to see me without a disguise in your presence. Your heinously wonderful speech would have been ruined!" Karis grumbled some colorful curses in response. Zim cackled in response. "The rain has stopped, Karis-worm. Zim will be off now."
"What about the kid?"
"He won't find me on the rooftops." And with that the alien left her once again.
Another chapter, another adventure. Poor Karis seems to have bad luck when Zim's involved--arguments with friends, green-dog infestations, trespassers. Shame he's only going to bring her more trouble but she'll get back at him plenty :). It's been interesting writing this last chapter because my original plot wasn't panning out the way I'd hoped so my imagination dashed off in another direction. I have to drop random tidbits of information to help turn the direction of the story. Hopefully it will work out well... ;)
Please review and let me know how I'm doing!