*This chapter should be a little more interesting now . . . It was
the one I had been looking forward to too! I loved writing this part, but
it took a long time . . . Anyway . . . Zim and Kree try to escape now in
this chapter, but will they? Read on, and plzzzzzzzz review!*
Zim lay his head in the itchy, uncomfortable hay, fast asleep, dreams flowing into his head. All of a sudden, he heard a soft creaking noise in the background. Looking around in his dream in the mists of space, he tried to figure out what that sound could be. He grimaced, terribly disgusted that he had to wake up and spend the whole day in that hell hole. But then, he realized . . . It was the door!!!!! Right away, he broke himself from his dream and perked his head instantly.
"Kree?" He called out anxiously, hoping that he wouldn't bore to death, yet. "Kree?"
"Kree?" Questioned a startled voice. "Kree?!" That's when Zim realized it wasn't Kree. Gaz stepped out of the doorway where Zim recognized her in plain view. "Kree Sever? My little scientist and inventor? Has she been coming down here?" She snickered.
Zim remained silent, using a human phrase and thinking, "Oh God, oh God, oh God."
"You sounded like you were really anxious to see her . . ." She smirked. "I was really hurt that you didn't want to see me."
"Oh, but I'm awfully pleased that you came up to see me." Zim said sarcastically.
"Anyway . . . " Gaz started toward the bars of Zim's prison. "So, has my little scientist been coming down here?"
"Little? When has she been considered little?"
Gaz glared at him.
"And when did she become yours?"
"Answer the god damn question."
"Is it any concern of yours?"
"It will be."
"And how?"
"You'll see." Gaz laughed in a way that chilled every bone in his body to the top of his skin. "I'll see you later, Zim."
She left the room in a way that froze his body and left his mind screaming with fear. She slammed the door, and he heard her rush down the stairs. Oh God, what was going to happen, he thought in his mind. She hadn't beat him, that was true, but somehow, this seemed worse. He was left with so many questions and painful fears. And it is worse, to not even know what will happen next.
These horrible feelings filled with terror pounded in Zim, and each second seemed to last forever, waiting for the door of his putrid prison to swing open . . . .
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The door swing open; even if it was weak and slow to drag about, it did open. It was maybe several hours after Gaz had come into his prison. It was still daytime, but it was dark outside, just like a regular night that was clouded with gray disgusting clouds of smoke. Zim cautiously leaned to one side and the other trying to see who it was this time. He had to be careful that it wasn't Gaz or someone else who worked for her, besides Kree.
Fortunately, it was Kree, but she was different.
Bruises decorated her cheeks along with the scratches across her face. In fact, her arms were covered with blood-dried cuts and so were her legs. They were like chicken pox on the body of a child. One of her hands held her side, right near her stomach while her other hand held on to the walls to hold her up. She was limping, that was for sure. Her left leg seemed to be dragging behind, looking like it was tagging along, but couldn't catch up. She was breathing heavily and tried to catch her breath. Zim knew she couldn't have been running. He saw her go through the door, and by studying human movements before; he knew she had been limping. Her once confident-filled eyes were filled with weakness and pain.
What had happened?? She was the last person out of all his acquaintances for him to picture to be weak. In pain. Seeming to be powerless.
"I'm . . ." She tried to catch her breath. "I'm . . . I'm sorry . . . I . . . I couldn't . . . . . . . . . . . . come earlier . . . . . . Something . . . . Something came up." She leaned against a wall of the prison.
Zim was dumfounded. No words couldn't be forced out of his mouth. He just stared, stared in horror at what he saw.
She glared at him, but weakly still. "It's human life, Zim." She couldn't force snapping or a mean tone in her voice. She was too exhausted.
Zim still couldn't talk. He just stared at her for another few minutes as she jadedly limped to Zim's prison bars and held on to them. She opened the prison bar doors and dragged her feet inside. She tripped over the plate she brought in earlier and fell to the ground. Zim caught her, and she weakly sat up.
"Thanks . . . ." She exhausted.
"What . . . What happened?" Zim trembled, trying to keep a steady voice.
"Nothing that an Irken like you should be concerned with."
"Oh?"
"You really don't give up, do you?"
"Irkens never give up. Even when death's breeze surrounds our souls and bodies, we'll never give up. Surely, you don't think I'll let this pass by?"
"I guess not." Kree weakly smiled. "Before I do tell you what happened, I have to tell you the reason for my actions: human nature."
"This should be interesting." Zim rolled his eyes sarcastically.
"Gaz found out. You know, about me coming up here and all. Well, she questioned me about coming up here and if I was helping you at all. I told her about coming here, but not about helping you. Then, she told me not to come up again and for me to give her back the keys to your prison door and I refused . . ." She paused.
"And?" Zim questioned.
"She was furious and she called up her thickheaded guards. They held me and Gaz . . . Gaz beat me. With a whip. For a long half an hour of painful agony. Finally at the end, she took a knife out. It was a short knife, but still a knife. And for once in my life, I was terrified. She . . ."
Zim glanced at her side. Sure enough, even through her black shirt, blood stained through.
"She stabbed it right at my side. It was the most physical pain I had ever felt in my life." She trembled.
"Oh my God . . ." Zim realized it was the second time again he had used that human phrase. HE couldn't understand. How could of Gaz changed so much? How did she become so cruel? He remember that just before he got warped into this mess, Gaz had smiled at him. A smile that warmed every inch of his heart and mind. How could she have done that? "Why . . . Why did you do it?"
"Human nature, don't you remember me mentioning that?" Kree retorted.
"Well, in my opinion, what I've seen of the human nature doesn't give me the best impression."
Kree sighed. "Some humans are different. Some humans will do anything because of, well . . . it does sound kind of gay, but what they're fighting for. If I gave any hints that I LIKE this empire, I don't. I want an end. I want a change and another chance to change this."
They were both silent for a moment. Perfect silence. Zim, flabbergasted, because never in his entire life on Earth, had he seen a human act the way she did. A few minutes passed.
"So, are you ready for tonight?" Kree grinned.
"Ready as ever." Zim returned the grin.
"I'll come at 12:00, midnight, tonight. We'll sneak down to my lab and get the time machine running. So, what part in time shall we go to?"
Zim though for a moment. He could go back in time and destroy the Time Object Replacement Device . . . but what if something goes wrong? What if Dib happened to be sneaking at the time? What if GIR caught him? What if the Zim at that time destroyed him? What if he blew up the lab? The house? Or killed himself? The Time Object Replacement Device was already messed up as it is, and it kept on doing funny things.
No, Zim had to go to the point in time when Dib was murdered. He had to stop him from being killed.
"When Dib . . . When Dib was murdered." Zim finally answered.
"Okay." Kree's voice quieted. "I'll show you how to use the Time Machine as well, just in case something happens."
"Okay." Zim replied.
"I couldn't bring down a regular meal, so I brought some chocolate, is that okay?" Kree changed the subject.
"Chalk-O-Latte?" Zim asked, unfamiliar with the term.
"Chocolate, a kind of human "snack". It's really sweet, but very good. Not like the dirt in a wrapper Poop Dog Cola Bars." Kree dug through a pocket and brought out a rectangular chocolate bar and handed it to Zim.
Zim opened the wrapper carefully, examining the food. He sniffed the brown rectangle of chocolatey goodness and broke off a piece. He took a bite of it and smiled. It was so wonderfully delicious.
"Thank you." He said.
"No, prob. I'm gonna go now, try to recover before tonight. I'll see ya later." Kree walked out of the jail door and closed it.
"Yeah, see ya later."
"Bye." Her strength was obviously coming back because she was able to walk out with hardly any limping.
Zim began to count the minutes until 12:00, midnight . . .
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kree slipped on her black trenchcoat over her black shirt. Unsurprisingly, her pants and boots were black as well. She opened the door to her room very quietly, cautiously, and then sneaked out. She closed the door gently, so that nobody who lived next to her would hear.
Hardly anyone in the "Membrane Building", as so it was called, was awake and working at midnight surprisingly. Kree knew that the stairs to the top floor would waste their time, walking up 27 flights of stairs from here would definitely, so she took the elevator. She pushed the top button and waited until the elevator came to a stop. The elevator doors opened and she walked out. The wooden door was a few yards away from where she was know and she cautiously neared the wooden door and opened it.
She immediately heard a loud snoring. She scanned the prison and spotted a guard, sleeping on the floor. She turned her eyes to Zim and she began coming towards his cell. She opened his door and Zim stepped out.
"We have another obstacle now." Zim glanced at the guard.
"We'll be quiet enough for him. He can sleep through anything." Kree remarked. "Come, on, let's go to the lab now."
Both stealthily went out the prison door, but Kree also locked the guard in. They took the elevator to the basement, to her lab. After a minute, the elevator stopped and the doors opened.
Her lab looked very similar to Zim's lab. There were more buttons and levers, but despite that, there were computer and everything. Kree pushed a few buttons in code and a low rumbling was heard. One of the computers that leaned against the wall; the wall turned to reveal the Time Machine.
"Okay, here is how it's done." Kree began to explain. She pointed over to a button on the machine that said "Subject". "Push that first. Then, whomever's point in their past, which in our case, is Dib, we type in "D-I- B M-E-M-B-R-A-N-E."
Zim typed Dib's name in quickly, wanting to rush the process.
"Okay, then you push the "Time Button"." She pointed to an orange button. She pushed that button. "Do you know the exact time that you went to in Dib's life?"
"Well, no. But I know what was happening, and I'll know if that is it when I see it." Zim replied.
"Okay. Sure, it would have been easier and faster if you remembered the exact point in history, but we can do it the long way."
They narrowed down their search first. Since he was four years old exactly in that point in time, they looked in the year after his fourth birthday and before his fifth. It took about fifteen minutes, but they did find it. They passed it a little first, but they quickly went back to it. There was Dib, right before the knife or the ball supposedly was supposed to be thrown at him.
"Put on this helmet." Kree instructed handing him a helmet with a wire attached from it to the Time Machine. He did and fitted the strap under his chin. "Now . . . for the last step . . ."
"There they are!!!" yelled a voice. More than 2-dozen guards surrounded them, armed with laser guns along with their leader, Gaz.
"I thought something might be going on." Gaz chuckled evilly. "Now the both of you, either surrender now, or prepare to die."
Kree didn't answer. She just reached into her pocket and pulled out a gun. "Zim," she ordered flatly, not taking her eyes off Gaz and the guards. "I want you to hurry up and find the "ACTIVATE" button. It will take you to the past. When you are there, you can't come back. You must do, what you came there to do, understand?"
Zim was startled and took awhile for everything to process through his head. "You . . . You carry a gun with you?"
"Guns are survival out here, bud." She loaded the bullets into the gun. "Now start searching for the button.
"If you surrender peacefully, maybe I won't kill the both of you." Gaz sneered.
"I'll die first." Kree shouted.
"That can be arranged." Gaz glared right in Kree's eyes.
Lasers started coming toward Kree. She kept on dodging them, all at the same time, shooting her own gun at the guards. Another guard was even brave enough to come one foot away from her but she killed him right away and grabbed his gun and began shooting again.
Meanwhile, Zim was having a hard time trying to find which button was the activate button. For some reason, the human language seemed blurred to him, and he knew that he had mastered it long before this. Glancing from red buttons to blue and circular buttons to square, it all seemed to be a mish mosh, but that didn't matter when-
Kree screamed as the red hot fiery laser burned against her back. She fell to the ground, in a weak daze. A few more lasers ran across her back.
"KREE!" He gasped horror-stricken.
"God dammit, Zim. Leave me! Find the Activate button and get yourself out of this mess!" She moaned.
"No . . ."
"It will be better for the both of us, I promise." Kree smiled.
Zim tore off the helmet anyway and ran to her side. She closed her eyes and drifted off to an endless peaceful sleep.
"Get him and lock him up." Gaz ordered gruffly.
*Did you like it??! Plz review!*
Zim lay his head in the itchy, uncomfortable hay, fast asleep, dreams flowing into his head. All of a sudden, he heard a soft creaking noise in the background. Looking around in his dream in the mists of space, he tried to figure out what that sound could be. He grimaced, terribly disgusted that he had to wake up and spend the whole day in that hell hole. But then, he realized . . . It was the door!!!!! Right away, he broke himself from his dream and perked his head instantly.
"Kree?" He called out anxiously, hoping that he wouldn't bore to death, yet. "Kree?"
"Kree?" Questioned a startled voice. "Kree?!" That's when Zim realized it wasn't Kree. Gaz stepped out of the doorway where Zim recognized her in plain view. "Kree Sever? My little scientist and inventor? Has she been coming down here?" She snickered.
Zim remained silent, using a human phrase and thinking, "Oh God, oh God, oh God."
"You sounded like you were really anxious to see her . . ." She smirked. "I was really hurt that you didn't want to see me."
"Oh, but I'm awfully pleased that you came up to see me." Zim said sarcastically.
"Anyway . . . " Gaz started toward the bars of Zim's prison. "So, has my little scientist been coming down here?"
"Little? When has she been considered little?"
Gaz glared at him.
"And when did she become yours?"
"Answer the god damn question."
"Is it any concern of yours?"
"It will be."
"And how?"
"You'll see." Gaz laughed in a way that chilled every bone in his body to the top of his skin. "I'll see you later, Zim."
She left the room in a way that froze his body and left his mind screaming with fear. She slammed the door, and he heard her rush down the stairs. Oh God, what was going to happen, he thought in his mind. She hadn't beat him, that was true, but somehow, this seemed worse. He was left with so many questions and painful fears. And it is worse, to not even know what will happen next.
These horrible feelings filled with terror pounded in Zim, and each second seemed to last forever, waiting for the door of his putrid prison to swing open . . . .
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The door swing open; even if it was weak and slow to drag about, it did open. It was maybe several hours after Gaz had come into his prison. It was still daytime, but it was dark outside, just like a regular night that was clouded with gray disgusting clouds of smoke. Zim cautiously leaned to one side and the other trying to see who it was this time. He had to be careful that it wasn't Gaz or someone else who worked for her, besides Kree.
Fortunately, it was Kree, but she was different.
Bruises decorated her cheeks along with the scratches across her face. In fact, her arms were covered with blood-dried cuts and so were her legs. They were like chicken pox on the body of a child. One of her hands held her side, right near her stomach while her other hand held on to the walls to hold her up. She was limping, that was for sure. Her left leg seemed to be dragging behind, looking like it was tagging along, but couldn't catch up. She was breathing heavily and tried to catch her breath. Zim knew she couldn't have been running. He saw her go through the door, and by studying human movements before; he knew she had been limping. Her once confident-filled eyes were filled with weakness and pain.
What had happened?? She was the last person out of all his acquaintances for him to picture to be weak. In pain. Seeming to be powerless.
"I'm . . ." She tried to catch her breath. "I'm . . . I'm sorry . . . I . . . I couldn't . . . . . . . . . . . . come earlier . . . . . . Something . . . . Something came up." She leaned against a wall of the prison.
Zim was dumfounded. No words couldn't be forced out of his mouth. He just stared, stared in horror at what he saw.
She glared at him, but weakly still. "It's human life, Zim." She couldn't force snapping or a mean tone in her voice. She was too exhausted.
Zim still couldn't talk. He just stared at her for another few minutes as she jadedly limped to Zim's prison bars and held on to them. She opened the prison bar doors and dragged her feet inside. She tripped over the plate she brought in earlier and fell to the ground. Zim caught her, and she weakly sat up.
"Thanks . . . ." She exhausted.
"What . . . What happened?" Zim trembled, trying to keep a steady voice.
"Nothing that an Irken like you should be concerned with."
"Oh?"
"You really don't give up, do you?"
"Irkens never give up. Even when death's breeze surrounds our souls and bodies, we'll never give up. Surely, you don't think I'll let this pass by?"
"I guess not." Kree weakly smiled. "Before I do tell you what happened, I have to tell you the reason for my actions: human nature."
"This should be interesting." Zim rolled his eyes sarcastically.
"Gaz found out. You know, about me coming up here and all. Well, she questioned me about coming up here and if I was helping you at all. I told her about coming here, but not about helping you. Then, she told me not to come up again and for me to give her back the keys to your prison door and I refused . . ." She paused.
"And?" Zim questioned.
"She was furious and she called up her thickheaded guards. They held me and Gaz . . . Gaz beat me. With a whip. For a long half an hour of painful agony. Finally at the end, she took a knife out. It was a short knife, but still a knife. And for once in my life, I was terrified. She . . ."
Zim glanced at her side. Sure enough, even through her black shirt, blood stained through.
"She stabbed it right at my side. It was the most physical pain I had ever felt in my life." She trembled.
"Oh my God . . ." Zim realized it was the second time again he had used that human phrase. HE couldn't understand. How could of Gaz changed so much? How did she become so cruel? He remember that just before he got warped into this mess, Gaz had smiled at him. A smile that warmed every inch of his heart and mind. How could she have done that? "Why . . . Why did you do it?"
"Human nature, don't you remember me mentioning that?" Kree retorted.
"Well, in my opinion, what I've seen of the human nature doesn't give me the best impression."
Kree sighed. "Some humans are different. Some humans will do anything because of, well . . . it does sound kind of gay, but what they're fighting for. If I gave any hints that I LIKE this empire, I don't. I want an end. I want a change and another chance to change this."
They were both silent for a moment. Perfect silence. Zim, flabbergasted, because never in his entire life on Earth, had he seen a human act the way she did. A few minutes passed.
"So, are you ready for tonight?" Kree grinned.
"Ready as ever." Zim returned the grin.
"I'll come at 12:00, midnight, tonight. We'll sneak down to my lab and get the time machine running. So, what part in time shall we go to?"
Zim though for a moment. He could go back in time and destroy the Time Object Replacement Device . . . but what if something goes wrong? What if Dib happened to be sneaking at the time? What if GIR caught him? What if the Zim at that time destroyed him? What if he blew up the lab? The house? Or killed himself? The Time Object Replacement Device was already messed up as it is, and it kept on doing funny things.
No, Zim had to go to the point in time when Dib was murdered. He had to stop him from being killed.
"When Dib . . . When Dib was murdered." Zim finally answered.
"Okay." Kree's voice quieted. "I'll show you how to use the Time Machine as well, just in case something happens."
"Okay." Zim replied.
"I couldn't bring down a regular meal, so I brought some chocolate, is that okay?" Kree changed the subject.
"Chalk-O-Latte?" Zim asked, unfamiliar with the term.
"Chocolate, a kind of human "snack". It's really sweet, but very good. Not like the dirt in a wrapper Poop Dog Cola Bars." Kree dug through a pocket and brought out a rectangular chocolate bar and handed it to Zim.
Zim opened the wrapper carefully, examining the food. He sniffed the brown rectangle of chocolatey goodness and broke off a piece. He took a bite of it and smiled. It was so wonderfully delicious.
"Thank you." He said.
"No, prob. I'm gonna go now, try to recover before tonight. I'll see ya later." Kree walked out of the jail door and closed it.
"Yeah, see ya later."
"Bye." Her strength was obviously coming back because she was able to walk out with hardly any limping.
Zim began to count the minutes until 12:00, midnight . . .
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kree slipped on her black trenchcoat over her black shirt. Unsurprisingly, her pants and boots were black as well. She opened the door to her room very quietly, cautiously, and then sneaked out. She closed the door gently, so that nobody who lived next to her would hear.
Hardly anyone in the "Membrane Building", as so it was called, was awake and working at midnight surprisingly. Kree knew that the stairs to the top floor would waste their time, walking up 27 flights of stairs from here would definitely, so she took the elevator. She pushed the top button and waited until the elevator came to a stop. The elevator doors opened and she walked out. The wooden door was a few yards away from where she was know and she cautiously neared the wooden door and opened it.
She immediately heard a loud snoring. She scanned the prison and spotted a guard, sleeping on the floor. She turned her eyes to Zim and she began coming towards his cell. She opened his door and Zim stepped out.
"We have another obstacle now." Zim glanced at the guard.
"We'll be quiet enough for him. He can sleep through anything." Kree remarked. "Come, on, let's go to the lab now."
Both stealthily went out the prison door, but Kree also locked the guard in. They took the elevator to the basement, to her lab. After a minute, the elevator stopped and the doors opened.
Her lab looked very similar to Zim's lab. There were more buttons and levers, but despite that, there were computer and everything. Kree pushed a few buttons in code and a low rumbling was heard. One of the computers that leaned against the wall; the wall turned to reveal the Time Machine.
"Okay, here is how it's done." Kree began to explain. She pointed over to a button on the machine that said "Subject". "Push that first. Then, whomever's point in their past, which in our case, is Dib, we type in "D-I- B M-E-M-B-R-A-N-E."
Zim typed Dib's name in quickly, wanting to rush the process.
"Okay, then you push the "Time Button"." She pointed to an orange button. She pushed that button. "Do you know the exact time that you went to in Dib's life?"
"Well, no. But I know what was happening, and I'll know if that is it when I see it." Zim replied.
"Okay. Sure, it would have been easier and faster if you remembered the exact point in history, but we can do it the long way."
They narrowed down their search first. Since he was four years old exactly in that point in time, they looked in the year after his fourth birthday and before his fifth. It took about fifteen minutes, but they did find it. They passed it a little first, but they quickly went back to it. There was Dib, right before the knife or the ball supposedly was supposed to be thrown at him.
"Put on this helmet." Kree instructed handing him a helmet with a wire attached from it to the Time Machine. He did and fitted the strap under his chin. "Now . . . for the last step . . ."
"There they are!!!" yelled a voice. More than 2-dozen guards surrounded them, armed with laser guns along with their leader, Gaz.
"I thought something might be going on." Gaz chuckled evilly. "Now the both of you, either surrender now, or prepare to die."
Kree didn't answer. She just reached into her pocket and pulled out a gun. "Zim," she ordered flatly, not taking her eyes off Gaz and the guards. "I want you to hurry up and find the "ACTIVATE" button. It will take you to the past. When you are there, you can't come back. You must do, what you came there to do, understand?"
Zim was startled and took awhile for everything to process through his head. "You . . . You carry a gun with you?"
"Guns are survival out here, bud." She loaded the bullets into the gun. "Now start searching for the button.
"If you surrender peacefully, maybe I won't kill the both of you." Gaz sneered.
"I'll die first." Kree shouted.
"That can be arranged." Gaz glared right in Kree's eyes.
Lasers started coming toward Kree. She kept on dodging them, all at the same time, shooting her own gun at the guards. Another guard was even brave enough to come one foot away from her but she killed him right away and grabbed his gun and began shooting again.
Meanwhile, Zim was having a hard time trying to find which button was the activate button. For some reason, the human language seemed blurred to him, and he knew that he had mastered it long before this. Glancing from red buttons to blue and circular buttons to square, it all seemed to be a mish mosh, but that didn't matter when-
Kree screamed as the red hot fiery laser burned against her back. She fell to the ground, in a weak daze. A few more lasers ran across her back.
"KREE!" He gasped horror-stricken.
"God dammit, Zim. Leave me! Find the Activate button and get yourself out of this mess!" She moaned.
"No . . ."
"It will be better for the both of us, I promise." Kree smiled.
Zim tore off the helmet anyway and ran to her side. She closed her eyes and drifted off to an endless peaceful sleep.
"Get him and lock him up." Gaz ordered gruffly.
*Did you like it??! Plz review!*
