Going Sane In A Crazy World
by Matt Garner

Chapter 2
New Friendships

"Helloooooooo, you three... Are we having a good day today?"

The two organic lifeforms in the small, padded room stared resentfully at the doctor standing in the doorway. The little robot occupying the room giggled innocently and squealed "We SHO' is! How 'bout'choo?"

The doctor, a tall blonde woman with a gentle tone of voice, smiled and laughed softly. "I'm doing very well, thank you!" she answered, "I'm Dr. England, and who are you three?"

"Dib Casil, sole protector of the planet Earth," muttered the young man in the corner, while giving her an indecipherable look.

"Invader Zim! Most valued soldier in the Irken Armada and SCOURGE of the human FILTH of Earth!" shrieked the little boy (with a skin condition) seated beside him.

"GIR! Reporting for duty, madam doctor!" finished the little robot with glowing red eyes and the unexpected appearance of an attention span.

Dr. England giggled softly again as one does when listening to a child with an overactive imagination. "Well!" she chirped, "I'm VERY happy to meet you! And I just know everyone else here would be just as happy to meet you!" She smiled warmly and clasped her hands together. "Would the three of you like to meet your new neighbors?"

"YAY! NEW FRIENDS!" GIR cried out in rapturous joy while Zim and Dib grumbled to themselves.

"Now don't be such a couple of grumpy-pants!" Dr. England chuckled as she helped Zim and Dib to their feet. "You won't have much fun stuck here in this little room all day! Come on, now!"

With that, she led the odd trio out of their padded cell and down a number of hallways, ultimately reaching a very big, wide room. The room seemed to be a large cafeteria/rec room of some sort, but with an unearthly sort of feel to it. Maybe it was all the bright, happy colors used to paint all the pictures on the walls of various animals all looking far too happy than should be allowed. Maybe it was the fact that it seemed that the room was devoid of any sort of object that might even be remotely harmful; no sharp edges on the tables or electrical outlets or anything. Or maybe it was because the entire place was full of very obviously insane people. ... probably the third one.

"What IS this place?" Zim demanded in shock.

"This is the cafeteria!" Dr. England answered, still over-cheerfully. "The people who stay here come to this room to eat and to relax a little sometimes. Would you like to relax?"

"What I'd like to do, good lady..." wheezed the Irken, "would be to escape from this straitjacket and rip your insidiously happy face off!"

GIR's voice was heard squeaking "Then we'd get to see who the villain REALLY is!"

Dib snorted. "Big talker..." he mocked, "You and your threats. You're all talk, Zim! You don't have the GUTS to do something like that!"

"SILENCE, DIB-WORM!!!" Zim screeched, "You know nothing of Irken military training! I have subjected countless victims to unspeakable tortures, the likes of which your feeble brain could never begin to comprehend!"

"Now, now!" said Dr. England firmly, but still way too nicely, "Tenants who don't play nice don't get to socialize! Now let's put on a happy face and make some friends!"

She then shoved Dib and Zim forward into the teeming sea of insanity. As the two enemies disappeared into the crowd of lunatics (followed obediently by the dysfunctional robot), Dr. England's smile drooped and she leaned wearily against the wall. "Criminey," she groaned, "I need a smoke..."

Meanwhile, Dib was sulking in torrents of self-pity as his Irken counterpart argued yet again with his robot servant.

"I wanna' ride da' fat lady!" GIR whined miserably, pointing at a rather obese woman who, apparently under the belief that she was a pig, was walking on all fours and snorting wildly.

"GIR! NO! You don't know where that THING has been!"

"Awww, okayyyyy... OOH! Ah'mo talk ta' that skinny guy with the red hair an' glasses!"

Zim hissed with disgust as his robot ran off to make... eugh... "friends" with someone... How revolting! Determined not to speak to any more humans than he was already being regularly forced to speak to, Zim marched proudly (or as proudly as one can when wrapped in a straitjacket) back to Dib's side and promptly began to pout.

"They can't keep me in here," he complained, "They have no idea who or what they're toying with! I am ZIM! I am IRKEN! Irkens do not give up without a fight!!!"

"Would you shut up?" Dib snarled.

"You DARE to silence ZIM?" the alien fumed. He hopped in front of Dib, crimson eyes staring up murderously at the man's pale face. "Count your blessings, boy! If I wasn't in this jacket, I'd... do... not nice things to you!"

"Listen, you obnoxious little roach..." Dib snapped, "I know we're not crazy... you know we're not crazy... Well, I'm not crazy at least. The point is, we both know we don't belong here... But if we keep acting like you're an alien, there's no chance of us getting out... I say we just try to act like everything's perfectly normal with us, and try to get along with everyone, and maybe the doctors will think we've regained our senses."

Zim barked a raspy sort of coughing laugh. "ZIM? Take orders from a HUMAN? Let alone YOU? I think not! No! Rather, I will return to my former plan of attempting to blend into human culture. Eventually, the authorities will note just how 'normal' I am, and I shall be set free... free to destroy your worrrrrrld..."

Dib blinked down at the Irken and pondered over whether or not to point out the fact that Zim had just repeated the very same plan right back at him. Before he had a chance to make up his mind, though, a deep scratchy voice spoke up from behind him.

"Hello, friends... you must be new here..."

Startled, Dib and Zim whipped around quickly to find the owner of the voice, only managing to find... nothing. They looked at each other, then turned back around to find an unstable-looking man standing before them with a pale purple complexion, sparse black hair, and two small horns jutting from his forehead. He stared deeply at them as if into their souls.

"AAAAAAAAAAAGH!" they said intelligently.

"Hello..." the stranger repeated, staring even more intently (if possible) at them.

"Who the heck are you???" Dib tried to scream, but managed to croak out in a whisper.

The stranger gazed distantly for a few seconds, smiling demonically. Finally, he spoke again. "I am known by many names... Son of the Dark Prince... Child of Darkness... the Second Coming of Damnation..." Dib and Zim looked fearfully at each other and actually huddled together for protection. The stranger stared a few seconds longer and whispered "My mother called me..." The two rivals whimpered like babies and each breathed a silent prayer to their respective gods. "...Pepito..."

Crimson and amber eyes alike bulged open. PEPITO??? Sure, something like Damien or Belial would have worked, but... Pepito? Both of our heroes were slightly unsure of whether to laugh or not at this. The better side of their judgment suggested to keep their traps shut since this Pepito fellow's straitjacket was not strapped and he looked like he wasn't the type to take a joke very well. An awkward silence fell upon the trio until another asylum tenant stepped in and stood close beside Pepito.

"Oh, yes..." Pepito said, motioning to the newcomer, "This is Johnny..."

He was a very tall man with waxy greyish skin, wide staring eyes, short hectic dark hair, and an unpleasant scar running across his forehead. On his face was plastered a very hollow, joyless, drooling grin that stretched from ear to ear. He, too, was given the permission of having his arms free of the jacket straps.

"...we all just call him Nny..."

"What's HIS problem?" Dib squeaked nervously.

"Johnny's a lobotomy patient," Pepito answered. Johnny giggled stupidly and squinted his eyes a bit.

"... would that be why he looks so... dead?" Zim inquired.

Pepito laughed. A cold, high, mirthless laugh that chilled the soul.

"No," he rasped, "He just doesn't sleep. Ever."

Johnny leaned forward and smiled distantly at Zim. "Th' monsters come at me in my dreeeeeeeeams..." he babbled. Suddenly, he turned and stared intently at Dib, his face a twisted combination of painful memories, fear, sadness, anger, sudden recognition, and many other unknown emotions, possibly including indigestion.

"squee...?" he whispered, barely audible. In fact, Dib wouldn't have even heard him had not Johnny been very literally nose-to-nose with him at this point.

Dib's glasses slid down his nose and he cursed his inability to push them back up. "P-pardon?" he stuttered as Johnny's ragged breath fogged his lenses.

Johnny immediately seized Dib by the shoulders and shook him around, screaming "DIDN'T I TELL YOU TO LOOK OUT FOR THE MONSTERS? DIDN'T I TELL YOU NOT TO LET THEM #$IN' GET YOU? WHY THE #$ DID YOU THINK I TOLD YOU ALL THAT #$, SQUEE??? WHY--"

"Johnny!" Pepito snapped his fingers and snagged the back of Johnny's jacket, calming the maniac down and pulling him away from Dib. "It's not Squee. I can sense something familiar about him... but it's not Squee..."

Johnny nodded, then shivered and mumbled something under his breath, then smiled stupidly and showed no more signs of his dangerous outburst. Zim simply gawked in confusion at the tall man.

"Wh-who is Squee?" Dib stammered.

"You already know who he is, Dib..." was Pepito's cryptic response, "though you may not realize it..."

"Wh... wha... I..."

"How did you know his name?" Zim asked quickly, covering for Dib's sudden inability to grasp the English language.

"That is not important now, friend Zim," Pepito answered with a strange smile. "What IS important is the friendship I sense we are soon to form... Welcome to our destiny..."

Seeming to be engulfed in a pale flame, Pepito cackled deviously as Johnny leaned over towards his strange friend. Drooling, Johnny mumbled distantly "We gunna' be goooooooood friends..."

In another corner of the room, GIR was carrying on a lovely conversation with someone who was apparently some sort of cartoonist... though the fellow really didn't seem too eager to talk about it.

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In case you didn't notice, it was midnight when I wrote this chapter.