little bit more gore in this chapter, thought it's only in a short dream sequence, and not very detailed.

The world seemed to be folding in on itself.

Tak breathed in, and could feel the rattle and rasp of the air as it dragged its way down her damaged esophagus. She breathed out, and she could feel flecks of blood fly out from her mouth. Far off, as if on the other side of a long tunnel, she could hear the wailing sound of sirens, and the shouting voices of creatures that were bustling about, all panicked and confused. Her head was pounding. The world phased in and phased out, and she realized that her eyes were open, but dry and flaking, and when she tried to lift an arm to clear them, she found that she couldn't. Not yet. Her arm was heavy, like it was made of lead, and it was unwilling to move. Her head was screaming, throbbing with a sharp pain that came in waves, and Tak closed her eyes with difficulty as she attempted to roll over, to crawl away and hide somewhere if she needed. It was too bright here, there were too many lights flashing on and off, and dark shapes were moving around across her vision, peaking in and out as if watching her, waiting for her to die.

She struggled to move, then her body twitched violently for a moment, seized with the effort of healing such an extensive wound, and the world turned black. It returned and it was sharper, louder, more vibrant. The lights were blinding, the sirens deafening, and outside she could hear the unmistakable sounds of a ship lifting off, and the shouts of the creatures became more distinct, less like gibberish and more like words. They were yelling to one another, but Tak couldn't understand them, not yet. Her PAK was whirring violently, her limbs were pulsing angrily. She tried again to lift her arm, and found she could move it an inch, and when she struggled to roll over, she managed to lay on her side. The world went out, came back, and went out again. There was blood everywhere. She flung her arm around, as if attempting to move something that was lighter than she thought it was, and it slammed onto the floor, sending a jolt up to her shoulder. She ached.

Get up. Jolts of pain, waves of discomfort surged through her, but she jammed her palm onto the hard, smooth floor of the Earthling home and pushed, shifting so she could put weight on her other arm. She drew up her legs with difficulty, forced them to take the weight of her torso, struggled into a crawling position. Get up, screamed her limbs, screamed a voice in her head, and Not yet, her brain screamed back, but still she pushed and gasped, coughing up blood and bits of damaged flesh. She blinked repeatedly, and then, with a mighty force of will, she dragged her hand up to her face and ripped the flakes of shedding skin from her ocular implants. She blinked, and the world was clearer, but still seemed as if it wanted to fade away, and, gritting her teeth, she pulled her leg up and forced herself into a kneeling position.

She had always worked for everything. Life was pain, and life was hard. She would not let a traitor and a human take it away from her, not as long as she could still draw breath, not as long as her PAK still worked. She would claw and fight and scream until she could no longer hold a weapon, until her legs would not allow her to stand.

"Get. Up!" she yelled, and staggered to her feet, crying out as her limbs screamed in protest, and her PAK whirred even louder from her back. Her vision swam, her senses shot in and out, and she stumbled forward and tripped, landing heavy on her knees. The sirens roared, the creatures yelled. She looked around dully, trying and failing to gather her thoughts, and saw laying only a few feet from her her discarded antennae. Cold, clear rage, like a shot of adrenaline, rushed through her veins, and she reached out and seized it roughly. She grit her teeth hard enough to crack them, and pushed herself to her feet again.

The humans were in the garage. This, she could gather immediately. She could hear them rushing in, in the moment it had taken her to regain herself, they had come from the yard to the garage. Her ship was still cloaked in the yard, and she could reach it now, but needed to do away with the evidence of her presence here before she could leave. Stumbling and swaying, she tripped over to the wall, using it for support as she gathered her surroundings. The humans were tearing apart the garage, yelling to one another about this and that. She winced against the light, which was suddenly far too bright, and then squinted as the world dulled once more.

Absently, as if on impulse, she reached around herself and hit one of the smaller purple panels on her PAK, and let drop five small sticky bombs into her hand. She dropped one at her feet, tossed one towards the broken table, and flung the rest through the open door to the garage. With as much grace as an injured smeet, she let herself trip out the door, and, jamming her antennae back into her skull, she detonated the bombs.

The Earthling law enforcement would have seen the bombs, of course, would have noticed her leaving the house. It would be too late, however, and Tak would board her ship clumsily, and with exhaustion weighing down on her she would lift off as the smoldering house burned behind her, off to lick her wounds and recalculate somewhere far away from here.

...

Dib was pacing around his small room, and though he had only been there for a few hours, it felt like an eternity. He had examined every inch of the small space, even looked under the bed for something he could use (to escape? To defend himself? He wasn't even sure what he was looking for), but the only things of interest were the table-sized box (which had turned out to be something like a mini-fridge, to Dib's surprise, as it was cold when he opened it, and full of strangely-colored things that he assumed were food and drink. He had eaten and drank some of it, more hungry than he realized.) and the large panel next to the door, with four buttons and one small switch. He had been eyeing it as he paced, thinking of Gaz and also, to a lesser extent, of Zim.

Where had they taken him? He thought as he paced, and had they just killed him right there in the hangar? Was his mangled corpse now floating out in space, beyond the asteroids? Or would that be too telling? Dib shook his head. There's no way they'd launch an Irken corpse into space outside of such a well-hidden base. It'd be like hanging up a sign that said "Rebels have been here!" in all capitals with flashing neon. They might burn it instead, dispose of the ashes. That would be much less conspicuous. Perhaps he was still alive, though, and then Dib wondered, with a shiver, if they would torture him. Could they be torturing him now? Would they torture Dib, as well? Zim had seemed convinced that they would kill him as soon as they set foot in the base, that they would want to steal his PAK. What information could they gather from Dib, though?

Dib thought of Skoodge, and of his father's cameras.

Well, it's not like they couldn't figure those out their selves. He dismissed that line of thought immediately, and instead thought of Gaz again, as he had been since they had shut the door on him. He wondered if she was safe, and wished they had let him stay with her, instead of locking him up here. Brief excitement fluttered vaguely in his gut when he thought of the Grey who had spoken English back in the medical ward, then faded away again, seemingly unable to stay. His mind was like a beehive- constantly buzzing with one thought or another, restless, and when he sat down for a moment, he found he could not sit still, and stood up almost immediately, as if the mattress had burned him.

His gaze lingered on the door again, and the panel beside it.

"Well- why not?" he murmured out loud, and walked over quickly to flick the switch next to the buttons, shocked when the room was plunged into pitch darkness. He flipped it up again, quickly, then pressed the first button.

The door swished open immediately, and Dib froze as four aliens- two of which who appeared to have been guarding the door, and two who seemed to have been just passing by- startled and looked at him at once. There was a moment of tense silence, and then Dib, reacting a tad belatedly, laughed nervously and jammed his finger on the button again. The door swished shut.

He exhaled, his heart beating rapidly in his chest, before he made his way back to his bed. Feeling drained, he laid down.

Then, he was lost.

He didn't know how long he had been wandering the halls, didn't know how he had even left his room without being stopped by the guards. His legs ached, but he pressed on, almost running to try to find someone- anyone that could tell him where he was. All of the hallways looked the same, but suddenly the Grey was there, running beside him.

"Where is she?" he blurted out when he noticed them. Their mouth moved, but he couldn't hear what they were saying, and then he heard it-

Screaming.

"Keep your voice down," the Grey was saying quietly, their wispy voice coming from every direction at once, "Keep running."

The screaming had stopped. At the end of the hallway was a set of double doors hanging open off their hinges, and Dib rushed into the room, not even noticing that he was no longer accompanied by the Grey. On the table nearest to the door was Zim, his chest splayed open in a gruesome display. Zim turned his head, and startlingly blue and absurdly large human eyes, as if pasted onto Zim's face, settled on Dib. He started laughing, the sound loud and hoarse, and green spilled out of his chest as he sat up, holding his PAK out towards Dib.

"Take it!" he shouted, and Dib grabbed it from him, watching as his face split into a wide, deranged grin. He fell back on the table, still grinning as he watched Dib back away from him.

"Where is Gaz?" he asked, but Zim did not answer, and then the room shifted, as if everything had moved just slightly. Zim was laying dead now, his eyes closed, and the green blood on his chest had crusted over and was much darker now, almost black. The entire room was derelict, with lights hanging down and broken, some of them flickering. Dib jumped when he noticed Skoodge standing in the center of the darkened room, his grin just a little too wide, "Where is she?" he repeated.

Skoodge opened his mouth as if he were speaking, but no noise came out, and Dib began to back away, suddenly afraid. He fumbled with Zim's PAK, tripping backwards over some stray debris, and he flung one arm behind him to catch himself, but it sank straight into Zim's open corpse-

His eyes snapped open.

"Get up! Dib! Oh, good, you're up!" Skoodge was standing over him, grinning, and Dib stared at him, still looking mildly horrified as he sat up. Two aliens stood behind Skoodge- a tall alien in a purple cloak that shrouded their features, and the same satyr alien from earlier. He blinked a few times, taking a deep breathe as Skoodge spoke, "Sorry to wake you like that."

"It's fine," Dib forced out, rubbing the sleep from his eye and shifting to sit on the edge of the bed, "I'm actually glad to see you- you're the only one who speaks English," Skoodge beamed at him, then helped him to his feet.

"Well, the Captain can speak a little English," he said, as the other two aliens filtered out of the room, "but he's not good enough to understand a fluent human," he gestured for Dib to follow him as he turned to leave, and Dib paused.

"Are we- are we going somewhere?" he asked, hastening to follow Skoodge as he went through the door.

"We're going to see the Captain- remember?" he said, glancing back at Dib as they walk, the two aliens falling in step a few feet behind him. He felt very much like a prisoner being escorted, but he tried to ignore his nerves, struggling to remember when Skoodge had told him they were going to meet with the Captain.

"Uh- right," he said, looking around as they walked. The hallway was empty aside from them, and he recognized the route they were taking as leading back to the elevator, "S-so, have you seen Gaz, or anything? How is she?"

"I did check in on her, actually," Skoodge said, as if admitting to something, "She's stable, but Faelon said she hadn't woken up yet. She's lost a lot of blood, but we're doing all we can."

"Oh," he said, trying not to sound too disappointed, "And- um. Zim?" he asked tentatively, and Skoodge glanced back, his expression mildly irritable.

"He's Zim," he said bitterly, shaking his head as they reached the elevator, "He's difficult, irritating, and a hassle to work with. When I got back, the Captain made me fix his PAK. If you ask me-" he paused when the elevator dinged open- just as empty as the hallway, to Dib's surprise- and then cleared his throat as they all walked in, "Well, never mind. He's healing."

"Oh!" Dib said, this time trying not to sound relieved. Skoodge shot him an odd look, which he tried to ignore, "S-so where... is he?" he asked hesitantly, and Skoodge turned to look at him this time.

"Prison," he said, "Why are you so concerned about him? He's not a danger to you anymore, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Dib said, looking away and trying not to think about the eerie version of Zim he had seen in his dream, "I'm just curious."

This seemed to be enough for Skoodge, and he turned away again, facing the doors. After a moment, the elevator came to a stop and they continued on. Dib was growing unnerved by how empty the halls were. Was it late, and everybody was asleep? Then again, shouldn't they have people working at all times on a base like this? Maybe it was just the few hallways he had seen that had been cleared out, though, since he was a prisoner. Or maybe it was because he was so odd it was distracting. Many of the aliens he'd encountered earlier had acted like they'd never seen a human before- which made sense, he supposed. They hadn't even left their solar system yet.

Well. As a race, anyway. He felt a vague sense of pride at being one of the first humans who had gone this far out into space. Then, his pride melted away when he remembered the trouble Earth was in. He glanced around at the aliens following him, hope surging up in his chest for the first time since he'd left home. Was this meeting going to be about saving Earth?

He bumped into Skoodge as he came to an abrupt stop in front of Dib, and hastened backwards, apologizing profusely. Skoodge merely grinned.

"It's fine, it's fine. We're here," he gestured at the large double doors before them, and leaned forward to knock.

They swished open almost immediately, revealing an enormous conference room lined with floating chairs that surrounded a raised, steel table. At the back was a tall throne and seated in it, like a human king, must have been the captain, leaning his head leisurely against his curled fist. He was a satyr alien, like the one who was with Dib now, though there were many slight differences, like his skin being a light grey rather than tinted with purple, and he wore large, green-tinted goggles over his eyes. He gave a toothy grin and stood as they entered, his high-pitched voice ringing through the room. Skoodge began translating.

"Hello," he said grandly, mimicking the Captain's tone in a way that Dib thought was a touch unnecessary, "I am Lard Nar, leader of the Irken Resistance. I'd like to formally welcome you to Base Zero-One-D of the Resisty."

bit of a cliffhanger, but maybe not really? maybe? coming up next: dib angst, the movie. and after that, zim angst 3: revenge

anyway, i hope you enjoyed this chapter! i know zim wasn't here, but he'll be around next time.

as always, thank you for reading.