A Way With Words
Chapter Five
"We need to land," Dib said, "Now,"
"Do you really want me to land on a pile of the dead?" Zim replied.
"Well, not if they're out of the ground!"
Despite what Dib had said, Zim waited until he found a spot that was clear of headstones. It wasn't like he didn't have any respect.
Upon exiting the voot and setting foot on the dusty ground, Dib looked around for any signs of life.
"You think that we're in a different dimension?" He asked.
"Impossible. I'm assuming that the Tallest opened the connection between only our dimension and theirs,"
Zim turned around and faced the voot, where his little robot was staring out onto the world with a forlorn expression.
"GIR, I need you to stay here while the human and I explore," He said, trying to have enough patience.
The robot nodded before sitting down, leaning against the wall.
Zim closed the door to the voot and turned back to Dib, who was nervously glancing around at the graves.
They walked around to the opposite side of the voot, where a rather odd sight met their eyes.
It was their teacher, standing about ten feet away, staring at the ground and smiling.
"Ms. Bitters?" The two said in unison, obviously taken aback.
"No, no. Just the image of her," She said.
Her grin was crooked, almost murderous.
"Then what are you?" Dib asked.
"Boys, isn't it obvious? I am death," the old woman answered, "I took this image so your eyeballs wouldn't be burned by seeing my true form,"
Zim raised a finger accusingly, but before he could say anything, a hand was clamped over his mouth.
"Could you tell us what happened here?" Dib asked nervously, shooting Zim a look that clearly said shut up.
"War. The Irken Empire came to Earth, looking for the final piece of universal domination. The humans put up a good fight, but in the end, nobody survived,"
"So, we're literally the last people on Earth?" Dib asked, praying in his mind that it wasn't true.
"Yes,"
"How do we fix this?"
"You don't," Her smile faltered the tiniest bit, "The apocalypse was bound to come eventually, and luckily, you missed it,"
With that, there was a gust of icy wind, and Death was gone. In her place, there was a single black feather, which floated to the ground and rested in the dust.
Dib's hand fell to his side, uncovering Zim's mouth.
"Well that was useless," Dib said, staring at the feather.
"Thanks, for stating the obvious, human,"
They walked in silence, glancing at the headstones one by one. The only things to remember the people by were small objects placed at the foot of the grave. One had a guitar string. Another had a box of salt and a small revolver. One even had a bible, opened to a page with a single highlighted sentence, of which was covered by the dust. An electronic beeping sound could be heard. Upon further investigation, a Game Slave was placed at the foot of one grave, and its battery was running low.
"Do you think that's…?" Dib stopped. He didn't want to say what came next.
"Yeah,"
Without thinking, Dib reached over and intertwined his fingers with Zim's.
"What are you doing?" Zim asked, glancing down at their hands.
"Reassurance," Dib replied, staring at the Game Slave.
"For what?"
"That you're still there,"
"Why would you want to know that I was still here?"
"Because being alone on the earth would be awful,"
Zim didn't argue. Instead, he just stood there.
He never knew what drove him to do it, but he held the other's hand tighter.
They walked on, hand in hand, looking for something- anything- that would help them.
To them, worst case would be to spend the rest of their lives trying to survive in a barren wasteland.
It was looking as if that scenario would come true.
Eventually, they came to the edge of town, where the Massive was laying on its side, just as gray as everything else.
The sight triggered memories of Zim's counterpart being pushed from the top of the Massive in the alternate dimension.
"What does this mean for you?" Dib asked, glancing over at Zim, who was squinting at the battleship, as if he didn't think it was quite real.
"This means that I am the last of the Irken Empire," Zim said, "Pity. I was kind of hoping that Scooge would survive. He survives everything,"
"Scooge?'
"Old accomplice,"
"I guess that we're together on this then," Dib sighed.
"It would seem so,"
Their hands stayed together, just for reassurance, nothing more.
(LINE BREAK I AM SORRY ABOUT ALL OF THE FLUFF)
They walked back to the voot to find GIR, yet again, asleep.
The two sat around for a bit, trying to think of ways that they could survive without getting into a fight.
This is the part where a simple-minded person might think that I would tell you that they spent the rest of their days surviving in the wasteland that was Earth, using each other to the best of their abilities.
But that's not true.
Instead, Zim burst into a fit of nervous laughter.
"We could travel back in time, to before the war started!" he cried, almost hitting his head on the roof of the voot.
"That sounds great, but time travel doesn't exist," Dib snapped.
"Yes it does!" Zim argued, "I had parts in…my base,"
"We could see if your base is still standing,"
They clambered out of the voot, and raced off in the direction of Zim's odd little house, using only crumpled shells of buildings as their guide.
There it stood, colors faded, but still together. Zim's base was the only building left standing in the world.
They entered, taking an emergency stairwell into the depths of the base.
It didn't take long for Zim to find the parts. They were tiny, only an inch in diameter, and were shaped like discs, but were made completely out of aluminum-looking material.
They had a chance at bringing their worlds back, and they couldn't just let it pass by.
A/N: Yes, yes, I know that this chapter was a little bit messed up, with all of the graves and the hand holding and all of that. But I promise that the next chapters will be a little less confusing. Well, It was confusing in my opinion. Who would like to see more ZaDr in this story? Please respond! Anyway, continue reading, as reading is good for the human brain, and RESPOND TO MY QUESTION PLEASE. Adios!