Ha, I said chapter three should be up sooner! It's been over eight months.... Well, I hope nobody really missed this story! Anywho, I'll just shut up and let you read. Sorry if Dib's a little out of character in this chapter. I just haven't watched the show in so long!
Disclaimer: Though I'd like to pretend that I am Jhonen Vasquez, I cannot lie about owning this story. I don't own Influenza (or everyone at Nick would have it right now for cancelling Zim) and I never will own Zim.
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Chapter Three: Starting the Epidemic
Dad didn't believe a word I told him. No matter how many times I tried to explain, or how many details I included about what I saw, he would claim with a laugh that it was "impossible to recreate a virus that has been dead for many years. No, dead is not the right word. We want to call it eradicated, son, for it has been wiped off the face of the Earth, but was never alive to begin with."
"I can't believe Dad won't believe me!" I vented to Gaz the next morning as my toast cooked in the toaster. "Zim is planning to destroy all mankind, and Dad can only go on about how an alien could never make a virus!"
"You have a big head." Gaz replied, sounding disinterested as usual. She pulled a juicebox and a piece of pizza left over from the night before from the fridge, her average breakfast items. Sitting down at the round table, she managed to multi-task: eating the food at the same time as killing vampire pigs on her Gameslave 2.
I sat down next to her, not bothering to butter my burnt toast before chewing the crunchy edges between comments. "Gaz, you really ought to care more about this. If Zim gets this virus out into the world, all mankiiind will die! Does that mean anything at all to you?"
She shrugged, not looking up from the enticing liquid crystal display of the finest handheld game she owned at the moment. "It means that you'll die. Yay. Now shut up, you're ruining my concentration."
"You just don't get it." There I gave up. If I hadn't gotten through to her by now, I never would. Instead of trying to pursue it, I finished my breakfast and proceeded to walk to skool.
Normally, Dad required me to walk with Gaz, least either of us be stolen to hurt his name. Just this once, though, I'd have to go early to keep an eye on Zim, and that meant leaving my slow sister behind to arrive at her usual five minutes before the bell. For only one day, though, I was sure she'd be fine walking on her own.
However, Zim wasn't at skool when I arrived. Before taking aim and beaning me in the head with a ball, Chunk told me he hadn't seen Zim step onto the playground all morning. Worried and confused, I pulled myself up from the moist blacktop and ran up the front steps to check inside the building.
There was no sign of the alien all morning. Gaz came by, ignoring me and nearly knocking me from my perch on the skool's front porch as she went inside. Her muscles could be lethal, and her hand had pushed my face aside like lightning; there wasn't even enough time to ask her if she'd seen any sign of Zim before I was falling with arms windmilling with only one foot at the edge of the top step.
Somehow I managed to bring my foot back in before I fell backwards onto the cement walk below. Those burning laughs would have torn into me like they always did. It really shouldn't have mattered that they laughed- they always laugh at the geniuses- but it always hurt to have my pride and intelligence insulted by them.
Too soon, the tardy bell rang I was forced to retreat from my position to sink into Ms. Bitters's class- two minutes late as usual when I noticed Zim wasn't there. The old routine excuse-giving was no longer necessary, as the teacher had gotten far too used to it to care.
"Let me guess, vampire baby on the way to skool?" she asked, slithering over from her desk in a black swirl. Gulping, I gave her a quick nod and fled to my seat. Everyone knew Ms. Bitters was quite harmless physically, but I still had a very deep fear of her. That was something every student who went through her class possessed for the rest of their natural lives.
Almost immediately, the class sank into its usual stupor. Nothing was going on in the skool, so Ms. Bitters skipped announcements to go straight into her lecture. "Today we'll be 'visiting' Ancient Greece. Since we've spent minimal time covering the history of civilization, we need to go over Athens and the disgusting living conditions they lived in that eventually led to their inevitable DOOM! We'll learn why it doesn't pay to live in times before the inventions of sewers and plumbing!"
I suppressed a yawn and struggled with all my might to stay awake. Not for the lecture- never for the lecture- but for Zim. Halfway through the day's first hour, he still hadn't shown up for class. Very suspicious... he wouldn't try releasing the disease already, would he? There was no time for him to plan what steps he would take in using it. There was no time for me to plan a way to prevent it.
Another thirty minutes and the door finally burst open. I leapt to the top of my desk, finger outstretched accusingly at the small figure that should have been Zim. All that came was laughter when Melvin walked in, face pale, eyes drooped, and hands over his constantly hacking mouth.
"Sorry I'm late," he apologized between coughs and honks, "I feel sick." He removed his hands from his mouth and let loose an almighty cough. I swear that I could see the germs fly from him, launching their tiny, bug forms onto my classmates.
The realization hit in a heartbeat. I was too late, this was Zim's influenza, already sent out into the world. Clutching the neck of my jacket around my mouth, I ran to flee into the hall, for the first time ignoring the orders from Ms. Bitters to calm down and sit. Zita clamped onto my arm as I reached for the door handle, her face white as a ghost's and her eyes a pale grey. She coughed on my hand, a cough that sounded painful and forced.
"Dib, you're a dweeb," she whispered through a hoarse throat, "can't you save me? This... pain! It's this horrible pain! It feels as though a truck ran over me. Save me, Dib, save me!" Horrified by the instant effects of the virus, I shook her off an flung the door from its hinges.
From there, I went as fast as my legs could carry me to the bathroom. "The germs! These horrible germs!" The dirty water flowing from the tap was refreshing, though it fell far too short of sufficiently getting rid of the virus. The deadly influenza still crowded on my arms and kept me from inhaling in the fear it would begin its work on my cells.
Ooh, the very thought of it made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. A shiver of fear trickled down my spine to follow. Shaking off like a dog, I ran from the bathroom in search of something cleaner.
By the entrance of the skool, the newly-installed Poop Cola machine glistened in the low light of a cloudy morning.The green and purple glow drew my eyes, beckoning me into the soda it held inside. It was probably the machine talking through my mind as it was programmed to do, but I was convinced Poop was much cleaner than the skool's water (later, when I thought through it again, it still made perfect sense)
I deposited the sixty cents that clanged deep into the machine's bowels and started the whirring reaction that eventually produced a can of cola sporting Poop Dog and an ad for their fundraiser candies in the slot at the bottom. It flew out, threatening to pop me in the head. Miraculously, I managed to catch it with minimal pain to my palms.
Eagerly, I popped the top and poured the brown, sugar-loaded liquid over my arms, then, as a precaution, over my head. It worked: the green virus germs were swept away. With a great sigh of relief, I fell to the ground and basked in the glory of health.
"Darn, I had hoped you would be among the very first to become infected." I gasped and whirled around where I sat. Zim, globule red eyes glaring from the shadows of the halls, wore a great smile; he was obviously very pleased with what he had done. "Aw, well, I suppose I can't have everything I want."
"What have you done, Zim?" I demanded, leaping to my feet. Black boots thudding on the damp, tiled floor, I prepared my defense in case he did something.
"What have I done, Dib-human?" Zim asked, confidence higher in his voice than usual. "The question is, what have you not done? There's a lot of things you might have done to stop me. Last night, you might have destroyed the power source in my lab- the power source that I found you next to."
My head went into a dizzy reminiscence. Come to think of it, I did remember seeing that. Zim wasn't done yet, though. "This morning, you had a chance as well. Instead of asking around for me, you should have been looking for me yourself. I was only right in here, waiting for some pathetic tardy student to launch the disease upon. I worried you would find and try to stop me, but I worried for nothing."
I growled. "Where's the cure, Zim? I'll make it my business to infect you with the disease unless you make it all stop."
"Ah hah hah!" Zim's arachnolegs shot out of his backpod, lifting him high over my head. One of the four shot out and caught itself in my jacket. "There is no cure, and there never will be one. The virus contains a chemical that helps Irken cells to defend against the rest of it. I'm immune, and the chemical inside greatly speeds up the reaction in humans. No plan in Irken history has ever been so flawless and perfect!"
He was about to start his laugh when a far off door slammed. Startled, he flew into the air vent on his extra legs, dropping me in a heap on the floor.
For several moments, I did not move. It was too late. I was too late. The disease was out, the epidemic had begun. All my fighting and it had all been in vain. Ultimately, I had lost. Earth was lost.
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All right, so it's probably not as good as my earlier chapters. Just go ahead and tell me what you think anyway, supposing you took the time to read it. Who knows when chapter four will be up with how slow I've been? I'll try to get it up sooner, but I won't make any promises this time.
Disclaimer: Though I'd like to pretend that I am Jhonen Vasquez, I cannot lie about owning this story. I don't own Influenza (or everyone at Nick would have it right now for cancelling Zim) and I never will own Zim.
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Chapter Three: Starting the Epidemic
Dad didn't believe a word I told him. No matter how many times I tried to explain, or how many details I included about what I saw, he would claim with a laugh that it was "impossible to recreate a virus that has been dead for many years. No, dead is not the right word. We want to call it eradicated, son, for it has been wiped off the face of the Earth, but was never alive to begin with."
"I can't believe Dad won't believe me!" I vented to Gaz the next morning as my toast cooked in the toaster. "Zim is planning to destroy all mankind, and Dad can only go on about how an alien could never make a virus!"
"You have a big head." Gaz replied, sounding disinterested as usual. She pulled a juicebox and a piece of pizza left over from the night before from the fridge, her average breakfast items. Sitting down at the round table, she managed to multi-task: eating the food at the same time as killing vampire pigs on her Gameslave 2.
I sat down next to her, not bothering to butter my burnt toast before chewing the crunchy edges between comments. "Gaz, you really ought to care more about this. If Zim gets this virus out into the world, all mankiiind will die! Does that mean anything at all to you?"
She shrugged, not looking up from the enticing liquid crystal display of the finest handheld game she owned at the moment. "It means that you'll die. Yay. Now shut up, you're ruining my concentration."
"You just don't get it." There I gave up. If I hadn't gotten through to her by now, I never would. Instead of trying to pursue it, I finished my breakfast and proceeded to walk to skool.
Normally, Dad required me to walk with Gaz, least either of us be stolen to hurt his name. Just this once, though, I'd have to go early to keep an eye on Zim, and that meant leaving my slow sister behind to arrive at her usual five minutes before the bell. For only one day, though, I was sure she'd be fine walking on her own.
However, Zim wasn't at skool when I arrived. Before taking aim and beaning me in the head with a ball, Chunk told me he hadn't seen Zim step onto the playground all morning. Worried and confused, I pulled myself up from the moist blacktop and ran up the front steps to check inside the building.
There was no sign of the alien all morning. Gaz came by, ignoring me and nearly knocking me from my perch on the skool's front porch as she went inside. Her muscles could be lethal, and her hand had pushed my face aside like lightning; there wasn't even enough time to ask her if she'd seen any sign of Zim before I was falling with arms windmilling with only one foot at the edge of the top step.
Somehow I managed to bring my foot back in before I fell backwards onto the cement walk below. Those burning laughs would have torn into me like they always did. It really shouldn't have mattered that they laughed- they always laugh at the geniuses- but it always hurt to have my pride and intelligence insulted by them.
Too soon, the tardy bell rang I was forced to retreat from my position to sink into Ms. Bitters's class- two minutes late as usual when I noticed Zim wasn't there. The old routine excuse-giving was no longer necessary, as the teacher had gotten far too used to it to care.
"Let me guess, vampire baby on the way to skool?" she asked, slithering over from her desk in a black swirl. Gulping, I gave her a quick nod and fled to my seat. Everyone knew Ms. Bitters was quite harmless physically, but I still had a very deep fear of her. That was something every student who went through her class possessed for the rest of their natural lives.
Almost immediately, the class sank into its usual stupor. Nothing was going on in the skool, so Ms. Bitters skipped announcements to go straight into her lecture. "Today we'll be 'visiting' Ancient Greece. Since we've spent minimal time covering the history of civilization, we need to go over Athens and the disgusting living conditions they lived in that eventually led to their inevitable DOOM! We'll learn why it doesn't pay to live in times before the inventions of sewers and plumbing!"
I suppressed a yawn and struggled with all my might to stay awake. Not for the lecture- never for the lecture- but for Zim. Halfway through the day's first hour, he still hadn't shown up for class. Very suspicious... he wouldn't try releasing the disease already, would he? There was no time for him to plan what steps he would take in using it. There was no time for me to plan a way to prevent it.
Another thirty minutes and the door finally burst open. I leapt to the top of my desk, finger outstretched accusingly at the small figure that should have been Zim. All that came was laughter when Melvin walked in, face pale, eyes drooped, and hands over his constantly hacking mouth.
"Sorry I'm late," he apologized between coughs and honks, "I feel sick." He removed his hands from his mouth and let loose an almighty cough. I swear that I could see the germs fly from him, launching their tiny, bug forms onto my classmates.
The realization hit in a heartbeat. I was too late, this was Zim's influenza, already sent out into the world. Clutching the neck of my jacket around my mouth, I ran to flee into the hall, for the first time ignoring the orders from Ms. Bitters to calm down and sit. Zita clamped onto my arm as I reached for the door handle, her face white as a ghost's and her eyes a pale grey. She coughed on my hand, a cough that sounded painful and forced.
"Dib, you're a dweeb," she whispered through a hoarse throat, "can't you save me? This... pain! It's this horrible pain! It feels as though a truck ran over me. Save me, Dib, save me!" Horrified by the instant effects of the virus, I shook her off an flung the door from its hinges.
From there, I went as fast as my legs could carry me to the bathroom. "The germs! These horrible germs!" The dirty water flowing from the tap was refreshing, though it fell far too short of sufficiently getting rid of the virus. The deadly influenza still crowded on my arms and kept me from inhaling in the fear it would begin its work on my cells.
Ooh, the very thought of it made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. A shiver of fear trickled down my spine to follow. Shaking off like a dog, I ran from the bathroom in search of something cleaner.
By the entrance of the skool, the newly-installed Poop Cola machine glistened in the low light of a cloudy morning.The green and purple glow drew my eyes, beckoning me into the soda it held inside. It was probably the machine talking through my mind as it was programmed to do, but I was convinced Poop was much cleaner than the skool's water (later, when I thought through it again, it still made perfect sense)
I deposited the sixty cents that clanged deep into the machine's bowels and started the whirring reaction that eventually produced a can of cola sporting Poop Dog and an ad for their fundraiser candies in the slot at the bottom. It flew out, threatening to pop me in the head. Miraculously, I managed to catch it with minimal pain to my palms.
Eagerly, I popped the top and poured the brown, sugar-loaded liquid over my arms, then, as a precaution, over my head. It worked: the green virus germs were swept away. With a great sigh of relief, I fell to the ground and basked in the glory of health.
"Darn, I had hoped you would be among the very first to become infected." I gasped and whirled around where I sat. Zim, globule red eyes glaring from the shadows of the halls, wore a great smile; he was obviously very pleased with what he had done. "Aw, well, I suppose I can't have everything I want."
"What have you done, Zim?" I demanded, leaping to my feet. Black boots thudding on the damp, tiled floor, I prepared my defense in case he did something.
"What have I done, Dib-human?" Zim asked, confidence higher in his voice than usual. "The question is, what have you not done? There's a lot of things you might have done to stop me. Last night, you might have destroyed the power source in my lab- the power source that I found you next to."
My head went into a dizzy reminiscence. Come to think of it, I did remember seeing that. Zim wasn't done yet, though. "This morning, you had a chance as well. Instead of asking around for me, you should have been looking for me yourself. I was only right in here, waiting for some pathetic tardy student to launch the disease upon. I worried you would find and try to stop me, but I worried for nothing."
I growled. "Where's the cure, Zim? I'll make it my business to infect you with the disease unless you make it all stop."
"Ah hah hah!" Zim's arachnolegs shot out of his backpod, lifting him high over my head. One of the four shot out and caught itself in my jacket. "There is no cure, and there never will be one. The virus contains a chemical that helps Irken cells to defend against the rest of it. I'm immune, and the chemical inside greatly speeds up the reaction in humans. No plan in Irken history has ever been so flawless and perfect!"
He was about to start his laugh when a far off door slammed. Startled, he flew into the air vent on his extra legs, dropping me in a heap on the floor.
For several moments, I did not move. It was too late. I was too late. The disease was out, the epidemic had begun. All my fighting and it had all been in vain. Ultimately, I had lost. Earth was lost.
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All right, so it's probably not as good as my earlier chapters. Just go ahead and tell me what you think anyway, supposing you took the time to read it. Who knows when chapter four will be up with how slow I've been? I'll try to get it up sooner, but I won't make any promises this time.