"Aliens Don't Exist"

'Chapter Seven'

The first thing Dib registered was a pounding headache as consciousness slowly floated back up to the surface. He groaned as he shifted trying to force his eyes open but the migraine that rested right behind them made it difficult.

Slowly he brought his hands up, rubbing at his pounding eyes and noticing then that he didn't have his glasses on. In confusion he opened his eyes and was met with the stark white of the ceiling. Quickly he sat up in bed, suffering a head rush as he forced himself to figure out where he was.

He was…

In his room.

Dib stared at the blue walls, at the mess on the floor, his books, computer, taking a log of everything and noticing nothing out of the ordinary. Once the covers had fallen he found himself to be shirtless and dressed in his pajama bottoms.

Zim wouldn't have re-dressed him if he did bring him home; he would have been thrown on the bed if the invader was feeling nice enough.

He tried to jump start his brain, trying to make it remember what had happened the night before or if the night happened at all.

He remembered going to Zim's house, he remembered when Zim got mad, he remembered the pain in the back of his neck.

He reached up touching the base of his skull and feeling nothing. Not a bump, not a bruise, not anything and he drew his hand back from it.

What was going on?

His brows furrowed as he turned his head towards his window – it was open, the cool afternoon breeze floating in and ruffling his hair. He felt so disorientated and he didn't understand why.

It couldn't have been a dream could it?

He distinctly remembered waking up, getting ready, walking to Zim's house.

It wasn't a dream.

It couldn't have been.

Dib grabbed his glasses off the night table, forcing himself as awake as he could get as he stumbled from his room and down the stairs. He sprinted into the kitchen, fighting his head ache as he glared around the brightly lit kitchen trying to find the electronic calendar.

Ah!

Dib moved over to the microwave staring at the characters and finding some triumph in the fact that it was indeed Thursday.

That meant Wednesday had happened.

But, why was he in his bed? Why had he been re-dressed? Why did his head hurt so fucking bad?

"Shit." Dib growled, pressing his fingers hard against his forehead in a vain attempt to stop the throbbing. He meandered towards the fridge, his free hand fishing for the bottles of pills on top, knocking most to the floor before he gripped the right one and brought it down.

Opening the bottle in haste he poured out three tablets, just wanting the damn pulsing to stop as he swallowed them dry. Setting the bottle on the counter he started towards the living room, kicking the fallen bottles out of his way as he set his sights on the couch.

The house was still a disaster from Tuesday and now he could add the destruction in the kitchen to the equation. It was fine; he just had to clean everything by the time his father got home which wouldn't be for a few more days.

He had time.

Dib had wandered over to the couch, laying his body out on the sofa and just trying to relax. He ran a hand through his hair, his dull gold eyes staring up at the ceiling as he tried to figure out what was going on.

He had a pounding headache but no physical evidence of anything else. This was all so confusing and he wished he could just force Zim to give him all the answers; but then again, the alien might not even be real.

He let out a harsh sigh, closing his eyes, "He's real." He mumbled to himself, "He has to be real."

Dib wondered what Zim had been working on that was so important, what he had been busy with before he barged into his lab. Surely him working meant something.

Dib groaned, turning on the couch and staring blankly at the black screen of the t.v. He sort of wished Zim would hurry up and destroy the planet already – it would definitely make his life easier.

He glanced around the room, noticing the mess he needed to clean and finally he picked himself off the sofa and just decided he may as well focus on something other than his thoughts. Grudgingly he began to pick up the living room, kicking the broken debris into a pile which he would put in a trash bag later.

His movements were sluggish but eventually he had the living room done and the kitchen was well on it's way. He stacked the pill bottles back on the fridge and did a final sweep of the kitchen before he deemed his cleaning work done.

It had only been an hour or so since he had woken up, but now he lacked anything else to do downstairs. Slowly he trailed his way back upstairs, back to his room, intent on taking a nap and forgetting about the confusion of his life.

Dib closed his door before he slipped back under his covers and tried to get comfortable. He slid the window shut and drew the curtains, encasing his room in a gloomy darkness. With a muffled sound he buried himself into his pillow, tossing his glasses onto the floor, not even caring if he might've damaged them.

He just wanted things to start making sense; he wanted his life to go back to being easy.

Go back to when he knew for a fact Zim was real.

Go back to when he had a mission in life; go back to the days when he wanted to save the planet and all the people in it.

Now he didn't give a damn about any of the people in the world. He was finally on the side of his nemesis, yet now his enemy might not even exist and he was just insane.

It was some sort of irony or something.

Dib buried his head under the pillow as his to escape his own thoughts, curling in on himself and trying his hardest to purge his over-active thought process.

He just wanted to sleep.

He wanted to sleep until things made sense.

He didn't want to wake up until a tomorrow would be normal again.

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A/N:

Argh. Short chapter is short. Don't worry, the next one is long. I couldn't think of a good stopping point or a continuing factor. I just thought this transition chapter had to get in here, even though it's sort of lacking of much of anything. Oh well. Next one has action and things and it finally shoves the plot in a proper direction. Please leave a review if you are still interested in reading!