Dear god, that was one long hiatus. I should have at least had the characters get in a boat as a warning first. At first, it was because my beta reader was busy. She's still pretty busy, moving into a new place and she hasn't been online recently. The other reason is... I forgot about this fic 8I
Also, this might be a little hypocritical of me, but I've actually been working on a ZIM fic. A actually serious one, or as serious as IZ can be. It's nearly at 60,000 words right now, and it's just closing up on the second act. Also, it's just the first draft so who knows what will change, and what I got done in the first draft was the result of three years of work. I don't know, I guess I'm just kind of testing the waters before putting my money where my mouth is. Maybe someone will write their own epic fic, taking the piss out of my stupid fic.
That's enough rambling! Time for the next chapter of Requiem of Doomed Dreams!
ZIM was in the living room, watching Youtube videos. He was bored, and Dib still wasn't back yet. Where had Dib gone anyways? To space? To the hospital? To the end of the universe? To Burger King? ZIM didn't want to go back and read years worth of story just to remember what his love was doing. The fact that it was less than ten thousand words meant nothing to him.
There was a knock on the front door. Light, delicate, just loud enough to be heard over the sound of his favorite Lets Player's soothing voice. It couldn't be the Professor, he would just burst in, like the neglectful jerk he was. Curious, ZIM got up, and checked the door. On the other side of the peephole was a young woman, with aqua hair, and a long lab coat.
"Who are you?" ZIM asked, cautiously opening the door.
"I'm here to work for Professor Membrane, but I do not know where the lab is, so I went to his house.
She was cute, with pale skin, and shoulder length hair that flipped out at the ends. That voice of hers though... ZIM had never heard anything so soothing. He was sure she was a singer, probably of some genre like opera, or operatic rock, but not a rock opera, because that's a different thing than 'operatic rock' you ass. In fact, her voice reminded him of his favorite singer, who's songs had helped him through many hard times. The lead singer of Simple Plan, what ever his name was.
"Well, this is his house, and I am his-" ZIM began to say son-in-law, but changed his mind. "Friend. A friend of the family. Please, come inside, miss-?"
"Muse. My name is Muse." She said with a smile.
"Make yourself at home, Muse." ZIM said, going back to his laptop.
He had left the video running, also leaving autoplay on, so now, instead of a nice, lighthearted lets play, it was showing something very different. ZIM watched in shock, starting at the darkened screen.
"Thousands of trees are cut down, just to make toilet paper! Do you know what happened to Florida and Alaska? You should ask what happened to the ice caps. And that laptop you're using to watch this video? It's battery burns down nine hundred and half acres of rain forest. The Environment! Protect it! Or suffer..."
The video stopped, going to the next lets play, but ZIM's eyes were glazed over. How could this happen? How could humans pollute? It was unthinkable!
"It's so sad." Muse said. "A forest near my home was torn down a few years back to make room for an oil rig. I used to play in that forest all the time as a kid."
"I'm taking a stand!" ZIM cried, standing up.
Muse's eye widened. "Really?"
"Yes." ZIM said, and turned to the camera. "Recycling and reducing your carbon footprint is very important! Even an invader from a planet like Irk knows how important it is! Earth is beautiful, lets keep it that way!"
His speech was so moving, a tear felt from Muse's amber eye. ZIM, this man she had only just met, was so passionate about nature and the environment. Her reason for joining Membrane Enterprises had been to get him to become more eco-friendly. The lab produced so much pollution, she was hoping she could help reduce it, but he treated the environment as poorly as he treated his sweet, beautiful, handsome son.
"You must have a reason for your feelings." Muse said.
"Yes." ZIM looked at the floor, his bangs shadowing his face.
"When I was young, Irk was a beautiful planet. It was full of trees, flowers and nature. Irken's were one with our planet. Until the Vortian's came."
ZIM could still see the bombs, the explosions, the trees and flowers going up in smoke. Irk did have labs, but they were all underground, and the Vortian's knew that. They took joy in destroying nature and the homes and families on Irk. ZIM remembered how his home burned. He had been taking a swim in the pond in the back yard, the water protecting him from the heat and fire. ((A/N: Bet you can't tell what I was watching XDDDD ))
As he broke the surface of the water, it hit him, how bright and hot everything was. The water fell away from his face, leaving him with a clear vision... Of sadness! Everything was on fire! His house! His neighbor's house! The house across the street! That other house! The forest! The tree by the front of his house! Though the smoke, he saw one thing that was not ablaze, something beautiful in a world of pain, but now it only looked tragic and forlorn. His favorite tree, with his tire swing, it was untouched in the inferno. He remembered the many times he walked to that tree, too far from the houses or the other trees. It was safe, but ZIM knew it would simply look even more sad, standing untouched among the ruins. Until it went up in flames as well, completely spontaneously!
"No! Nooo!" ZIM cried at the sheer pain of seeing his favorite tree go up in smoke. "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
All the smoke and horror caused ZIM to pass out, and he later awoke, still in the pond, floating in his inter tube. It had been his favorite pool toy, yellow with brown spots, with a cartoony giraffe head at one end. Now it was blackened by soot and broken dreams.
ZIM got out to see if his family was okay, but found his home had been burned to ground. No one answered his calls, which became more and more strained by his tear full sobs. He was about to cry, falling to his knees, but then he heard something.
"Look at this little baby." Said a pale pink Vortian, his red eyes glaring at the young boy.
"Please! Don't hurt me!" ZIM cried, tears falling from his ruby eyes.
"Shut up." The Vortian said, pulling out a stick of gum. "You're not worth it."
ZIM lowered his arms, and looked up at the Vortian. The fiend popped some gum in his mouth, and did the worst thing he could think of... Scarlet eyes widened in horror as the vile Vortian... Dropped the wrapper! He purposefully tossed it to the ground, letting it flutter down and he turned to walk away. ZIM looked on in terror as the tiny piece of paper fell to the ground, another tear falling from ZIM's eye. ZIM hardly noticed as the Vortian spat out his gum, muttering something about "I can't believe it's mango flavored, ew".
When ZIM opened his eyes, he was in Muse's arms, sobbing. She held him gently, petting his hair ((A/N: Remember! He'd got hair now! Just thought I should remind everyone )) as he cried.
"I'm sorry that happened to you." She said. "But... What's an Irken?"
"They took everything!" ZIM sobbed. "They ruined my planet! He didn't even pick up after him self!"
"What we're saying is: Please don't pollute." Muse said, looking at the camera. "Next time will talk about how important vaccines are and why animal abuse is bad."
Now that this after school special, dressed up as a ZIM fic, is over here's hoping the next chapter doesn't take over a year to write.
In all seriousness though, don't drop your gum wrapper on the ground.
