The Loss of Hope: Part 3
By Laki
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author's notes! I've been absoultely thrilled at the response I've been getting the past several days! *bows* I thank you all very much, even those of you that have read and not reviewed. The next two chapters (including this one) will cover some more flashbacks from our favorite characters. What will come after that...I know the plot but we will all just have to find out now won't we?? Muahahahaha!! Anyways, again, flames will be used to keep the poor souls warm, they need it..it's gonna be pretty chilly soon.
Gaz and Zim are slightly out of character in this chapter, I know this. I am also taking into context their surroundings and that they have aged 8+ years in my fic. Thank you.
~blah~ = song lyrics "yes ladies and gentlemen, this is a song fic chapter"
"blah" =duh, talking
/blah/ =thoughts
that's it for now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~Will you walk me to the edge again? ~
Gaz sat quietly by herself in the now deserted circle. Zim had left about an hour ago to repair GIR and had invited her to come along, but she declined, saying that she wanted some time to think. Depression is a very difficult thing to get rid of, especially in a world like this where one is constantly surrounded by misery, starvation, and other such ailments. Disease is preavailent, and most medicine has been used up by this point, herbal remedies are almost the only cure, and life expectancy is at about 40.
All these subjects ran though her mind like a slow, old train. In addition to all of this she thought of her situation with her new little "family"-- Dib, (the only one of blood relation, and the only other human), Zim, and GIR. They called this shit hole their home now, all of them had now lost almost everything they took for granted when they were younger, and the memories of her childhood were slipping from her mind. She wondered how long it would be before this was the only life she knew....
*~Six months earlier~*
~Shaking moaning and I am drinking again
Woke up tonight and no one's here with me ~
Gaz shot up in her bed, woken up from a horrible dream. The details were fuzzy even at this point. She recalled only the very end, laying on a cold table, strange instruments all about her, large scarlet eyes peering over her body, the knives...the metal...the sounds of screams coming from various other places in the complex... It was a fairly frequent dream for her, and one of the worst nightmares she'd ever had in her life.
Her breath was heavy and rapid, sweat trickled down her face and onto her night shirt. Her hands groped around in the dark to find a match to light a home made candle, she felt the little book and ripped one out to strike it. Gaz lit the candle to see a form on the floor beside her bed, he turned over in his sleep, and she could see thin antennae jutting back from a light green scalp. /Oh..it's just Zim...when'd he drag out of bed? Hmph..he probably got paranoid that Dib would walk in...he knows full and well that Dib always knocks before entering...hmm...oh well.../ He was normally asleep right beside her, and of course, Dib was completely oblivious to the fact. This had started when her nightmres had picked up, he would just fall asleep, opposite the bed from her, to be there when she woke from another illusion.
She whispered, "Zim? Are you awake?" He turned over again, making a light grunt type noise and muttering something in Irken. /He must be asleep, he never speaks anything but English when he's awake.../
The dim light illuminated a poorly made glass bottle in a drawer Gaz had just opened upon knowing of Zim's current lack of conciousness. A deep amber liquid sloshed back and forth slightly in it's container as Gaz reached a hand inside the drawer to retireve it. /I can forget this easily.../ She padded over to the opposite side of the room, where her position would not be visible should Zim wake up. She popped a cork out of the bottle and tipped it back...going until it was almost half gone...
She sat there for almost an hour, just letting the memories of the past several minutes flow out of her mind. The room was spinning, and everything was suddenly beautiful. The swirl of colors...the light seemed to illuminate everything.
She took another, much shorter swig of the burning liquid. It was almost sweet on her lips, but it burned as it went down her throat and into the rest of her digestive tract. She blinked a few times, wearily, before she realized exactly how much she had drunk. She held the bottle a few inches from her face to check the level, before taking a tiny sip and popping the cork back into place.
She could scarcely remember her dream now, this was good to her. She began to get up to step to her bed when she passed out where she sat, bottle rolling out of her hand onto the floor.
Zim, upon hearing something drop onto the floor from across the room, woke up from his sleep. His eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light and he could see from his place on the floor that Gaz was leaning against the wall asleep, and not exactly in a comfortable position. A bottle rolled across the room, just past half-empty. Zim felt as if he was going to spit just from the smell of it in a closed bottle, liquor had never really appealed to him, and that was the only alcohol left in this world. /She's drinking again.../
~I'm giving in to you
Take me under
I'm giving in to you
I'm dying tonight~
Zim walked over to the opposite end of the room, to see that Gaz had, indeed, passed out just after closing the bottle, probably to save it for another night. He sat there for about two hours, until something startled Gaz awake before he could fall asleep himself. Her eyes fluttered open, she looked shaken and startled for a second before knowing that she had been caught again. "Zim, forgive me, but..but.." she sobbed heavily.
"Gaz, there are other wa..." he was cut off by a sudden harsh tone in her voice.
"No...don't even tell me that again!"
"Gaz!"
"NO!" she was on the brink of screaming at him, but held the tone of a harsh whisper one uses when they wish to yell, but needs to keep the quiet, "I can do what I please!" she glared at him "Do you even know why I do this? You don't, you don't understand! It helps me, I can sleep easier because of it...if YOU had stayed in bed, none of this would have happened...I only get nightmares when I feel alone, when I'm vulnerable..."
~I'm giving in to you
Watch me crumble
I'm giving in to you
I'm crying tonight
I'm giving in to you~
"...and if you're going to leave me here alone then just get out of my room." Zim had been compassionate until this point, she was going too far. He knew that in the past few times she's done this, a matter of hours later they would make up again. Not this time, he was showing her right then that he didn't need to deal with this. He would come back, yes, but give it some time...if she wanted him out so bad, she had it.
~Caught up in life
Losing all my friends
Family has tried to handle my addictions
Tragic it seems to be alone again ~
"Fine then Gaz, you've told me this every time you get drunk, and I'm not putting up with your shit anymore. When you feel like you can have some respect for me as well," he glared directly at her, "and when you stop doing this to yourself, " he looked away to find a shirt for himself, "I will come back." He picked up a red tee and threw it on, and not bothering to change out of his night pants into some jeans, stormed out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.
~I look forward
To dying tonight ~
Her face wretched in a painful emotion, Gaz eyed a knife in the kitchen, shortly after Zim stormed out, but something caused her to slam it into a nearby wall, intead of using it on her wrists like intended. She sobbed openly now, /why am I so weak! I have no need to live through this anymore.../ Her sobs became more fierce, and she ignored the knife in the wall, before making herself get up and walk back to her room.
Dib peered out of his door, and seeing Gaz crying as violently as she was became too much for him. "Gaz!" he called out after her, "What's going on?..."
She glared back at him, eyes just slightly crossed, "I'm going to bed." She turned around to begin heading back to her room again.
"Where's Zim?"
"He's gone." With that she slammed her door shut.
Dib just stood there in bewilderment. GIR awoke, opening the lids on his robotic eyes, "What's going on Dibby?"
Dib began walking back to his room to sleep, he would handle this in the morning, "Nothing, just go back to sleep GIR."
With that the tiny bot fell back sound asleep, completely oblivious to the reality of the moment.
~Drains over myself
Life's harder every day
The stress has got me
I'm giving in....giving....giving ~
About a week had passed. It seemed that Gaz was in her room ninety percent of the time since Zim had dissappeared. Dib had seen him out of the corner of his eye sometimes, he was there for a second and gone the next, almost like he was never there at all, but Dib had a feeling that he was still there...waiting for something.
Dib had had his scrawls with the Irken, and still wasn't paticularly fond of him, but that thing broke his sister's heart, and he was determined to either find out why and make him come back, or make him leave forever.
~Take me under
I'm dying tonight
Watch me crumble ~
Gaz had made several other suicide attempts, even in front of Dib and GIR once. She was just sitting down on the floor with Dib and GIR when she decided the dinner knife looked like a good idea. She reached for it and began to eye it slightly, before gouging at her wrist. Dib had managed to leap over thier dinner and stop her in time to keep her from making a deep enough cut to die from loss of blood.
They still hadn't gotten that stain out of the carpet. Dib had a harsh reminder every time he walked passed it and happened to look down. He went out to the dump site again, alone, to find a rug. He found one, promptly washed it and threw it over the stain because it made Gaz break into tears almost every time she ever laid eyes on it.
~I'm crying tonight
Take me under
I'm giving in to you ~
Her room was darker than usual one afternoon. Clouds covered every inch of the sky thicker than usual and it was threatening a thunderstorm. Gaz was alone in her room again and Dib was outside, talking to the usuals about the state of the world now.
Gaz was laying in her bed. She had stopped crying over anything anymore, but this time was different. This time tears flowed freely across her cheeks, but she did not sob. She simply sat on the edge of her bed, arms crossed, staring into empty space.
There was a rapping at the door...it continued for several minutes before Gaz even really realized that there was a sound at all. She made her way out of the room to the door. It creaked loudly as it opened, and her eyes welled up once again when she saw just who was standing there, under a drenched coat, but completely dry himself. Zim.
She lost all words..she had planned for some time what she would say to him once he ever came back, but she lost all words when he stepped forward and just held her. She leaned into his embrace and let the tears flow freely once again...
*~End Flashback~*
By Laki
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author's notes! I've been absoultely thrilled at the response I've been getting the past several days! *bows* I thank you all very much, even those of you that have read and not reviewed. The next two chapters (including this one) will cover some more flashbacks from our favorite characters. What will come after that...I know the plot but we will all just have to find out now won't we?? Muahahahaha!! Anyways, again, flames will be used to keep the poor souls warm, they need it..it's gonna be pretty chilly soon.
Gaz and Zim are slightly out of character in this chapter, I know this. I am also taking into context their surroundings and that they have aged 8+ years in my fic. Thank you.
~blah~ = song lyrics "yes ladies and gentlemen, this is a song fic chapter"
"blah" =duh, talking
/blah/ =thoughts
that's it for now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~Will you walk me to the edge again? ~
Gaz sat quietly by herself in the now deserted circle. Zim had left about an hour ago to repair GIR and had invited her to come along, but she declined, saying that she wanted some time to think. Depression is a very difficult thing to get rid of, especially in a world like this where one is constantly surrounded by misery, starvation, and other such ailments. Disease is preavailent, and most medicine has been used up by this point, herbal remedies are almost the only cure, and life expectancy is at about 40.
All these subjects ran though her mind like a slow, old train. In addition to all of this she thought of her situation with her new little "family"-- Dib, (the only one of blood relation, and the only other human), Zim, and GIR. They called this shit hole their home now, all of them had now lost almost everything they took for granted when they were younger, and the memories of her childhood were slipping from her mind. She wondered how long it would be before this was the only life she knew....
*~Six months earlier~*
~Shaking moaning and I am drinking again
Woke up tonight and no one's here with me ~
Gaz shot up in her bed, woken up from a horrible dream. The details were fuzzy even at this point. She recalled only the very end, laying on a cold table, strange instruments all about her, large scarlet eyes peering over her body, the knives...the metal...the sounds of screams coming from various other places in the complex... It was a fairly frequent dream for her, and one of the worst nightmares she'd ever had in her life.
Her breath was heavy and rapid, sweat trickled down her face and onto her night shirt. Her hands groped around in the dark to find a match to light a home made candle, she felt the little book and ripped one out to strike it. Gaz lit the candle to see a form on the floor beside her bed, he turned over in his sleep, and she could see thin antennae jutting back from a light green scalp. /Oh..it's just Zim...when'd he drag out of bed? Hmph..he probably got paranoid that Dib would walk in...he knows full and well that Dib always knocks before entering...hmm...oh well.../ He was normally asleep right beside her, and of course, Dib was completely oblivious to the fact. This had started when her nightmres had picked up, he would just fall asleep, opposite the bed from her, to be there when she woke from another illusion.
She whispered, "Zim? Are you awake?" He turned over again, making a light grunt type noise and muttering something in Irken. /He must be asleep, he never speaks anything but English when he's awake.../
The dim light illuminated a poorly made glass bottle in a drawer Gaz had just opened upon knowing of Zim's current lack of conciousness. A deep amber liquid sloshed back and forth slightly in it's container as Gaz reached a hand inside the drawer to retireve it. /I can forget this easily.../ She padded over to the opposite side of the room, where her position would not be visible should Zim wake up. She popped a cork out of the bottle and tipped it back...going until it was almost half gone...
She sat there for almost an hour, just letting the memories of the past several minutes flow out of her mind. The room was spinning, and everything was suddenly beautiful. The swirl of colors...the light seemed to illuminate everything.
She took another, much shorter swig of the burning liquid. It was almost sweet on her lips, but it burned as it went down her throat and into the rest of her digestive tract. She blinked a few times, wearily, before she realized exactly how much she had drunk. She held the bottle a few inches from her face to check the level, before taking a tiny sip and popping the cork back into place.
She could scarcely remember her dream now, this was good to her. She began to get up to step to her bed when she passed out where she sat, bottle rolling out of her hand onto the floor.
Zim, upon hearing something drop onto the floor from across the room, woke up from his sleep. His eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light and he could see from his place on the floor that Gaz was leaning against the wall asleep, and not exactly in a comfortable position. A bottle rolled across the room, just past half-empty. Zim felt as if he was going to spit just from the smell of it in a closed bottle, liquor had never really appealed to him, and that was the only alcohol left in this world. /She's drinking again.../
~I'm giving in to you
Take me under
I'm giving in to you
I'm dying tonight~
Zim walked over to the opposite end of the room, to see that Gaz had, indeed, passed out just after closing the bottle, probably to save it for another night. He sat there for about two hours, until something startled Gaz awake before he could fall asleep himself. Her eyes fluttered open, she looked shaken and startled for a second before knowing that she had been caught again. "Zim, forgive me, but..but.." she sobbed heavily.
"Gaz, there are other wa..." he was cut off by a sudden harsh tone in her voice.
"No...don't even tell me that again!"
"Gaz!"
"NO!" she was on the brink of screaming at him, but held the tone of a harsh whisper one uses when they wish to yell, but needs to keep the quiet, "I can do what I please!" she glared at him "Do you even know why I do this? You don't, you don't understand! It helps me, I can sleep easier because of it...if YOU had stayed in bed, none of this would have happened...I only get nightmares when I feel alone, when I'm vulnerable..."
~I'm giving in to you
Watch me crumble
I'm giving in to you
I'm crying tonight
I'm giving in to you~
"...and if you're going to leave me here alone then just get out of my room." Zim had been compassionate until this point, she was going too far. He knew that in the past few times she's done this, a matter of hours later they would make up again. Not this time, he was showing her right then that he didn't need to deal with this. He would come back, yes, but give it some time...if she wanted him out so bad, she had it.
~Caught up in life
Losing all my friends
Family has tried to handle my addictions
Tragic it seems to be alone again ~
"Fine then Gaz, you've told me this every time you get drunk, and I'm not putting up with your shit anymore. When you feel like you can have some respect for me as well," he glared directly at her, "and when you stop doing this to yourself, " he looked away to find a shirt for himself, "I will come back." He picked up a red tee and threw it on, and not bothering to change out of his night pants into some jeans, stormed out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.
~I look forward
To dying tonight ~
Her face wretched in a painful emotion, Gaz eyed a knife in the kitchen, shortly after Zim stormed out, but something caused her to slam it into a nearby wall, intead of using it on her wrists like intended. She sobbed openly now, /why am I so weak! I have no need to live through this anymore.../ Her sobs became more fierce, and she ignored the knife in the wall, before making herself get up and walk back to her room.
Dib peered out of his door, and seeing Gaz crying as violently as she was became too much for him. "Gaz!" he called out after her, "What's going on?..."
She glared back at him, eyes just slightly crossed, "I'm going to bed." She turned around to begin heading back to her room again.
"Where's Zim?"
"He's gone." With that she slammed her door shut.
Dib just stood there in bewilderment. GIR awoke, opening the lids on his robotic eyes, "What's going on Dibby?"
Dib began walking back to his room to sleep, he would handle this in the morning, "Nothing, just go back to sleep GIR."
With that the tiny bot fell back sound asleep, completely oblivious to the reality of the moment.
~Drains over myself
Life's harder every day
The stress has got me
I'm giving in....giving....giving ~
About a week had passed. It seemed that Gaz was in her room ninety percent of the time since Zim had dissappeared. Dib had seen him out of the corner of his eye sometimes, he was there for a second and gone the next, almost like he was never there at all, but Dib had a feeling that he was still there...waiting for something.
Dib had had his scrawls with the Irken, and still wasn't paticularly fond of him, but that thing broke his sister's heart, and he was determined to either find out why and make him come back, or make him leave forever.
~Take me under
I'm dying tonight
Watch me crumble ~
Gaz had made several other suicide attempts, even in front of Dib and GIR once. She was just sitting down on the floor with Dib and GIR when she decided the dinner knife looked like a good idea. She reached for it and began to eye it slightly, before gouging at her wrist. Dib had managed to leap over thier dinner and stop her in time to keep her from making a deep enough cut to die from loss of blood.
They still hadn't gotten that stain out of the carpet. Dib had a harsh reminder every time he walked passed it and happened to look down. He went out to the dump site again, alone, to find a rug. He found one, promptly washed it and threw it over the stain because it made Gaz break into tears almost every time she ever laid eyes on it.
~I'm crying tonight
Take me under
I'm giving in to you ~
Her room was darker than usual one afternoon. Clouds covered every inch of the sky thicker than usual and it was threatening a thunderstorm. Gaz was alone in her room again and Dib was outside, talking to the usuals about the state of the world now.
Gaz was laying in her bed. She had stopped crying over anything anymore, but this time was different. This time tears flowed freely across her cheeks, but she did not sob. She simply sat on the edge of her bed, arms crossed, staring into empty space.
There was a rapping at the door...it continued for several minutes before Gaz even really realized that there was a sound at all. She made her way out of the room to the door. It creaked loudly as it opened, and her eyes welled up once again when she saw just who was standing there, under a drenched coat, but completely dry himself. Zim.
She lost all words..she had planned for some time what she would say to him once he ever came back, but she lost all words when he stepped forward and just held her. She leaned into his embrace and let the tears flow freely once again...
*~End Flashback~*