Rejection

Chapter Eight

DISCLAIMER: All characters except Selphy and Libby belong to the almighty Jhonen Vasquez. Sorry about this chappy's shortness.



He'd done it. He had run through the streets carrying the dead alien, blood dripping onto the pavement. People had stared and some had tried to stop him, but he kept going.

And he made it.

All the way across town to where Mysterious Mysteries was broadcast from, carrying the bloody corpse. He had burst into the room where the show's host was, and presented him with Zim's dead body.

Later that night, it was made public to the world. Something many people already knew.

Aliens existed.

The next day, they tracked down and found Selphy. They ran tests on her, further verifying the evidence. She died in the laboratory, the same one where Zim's autopsy was broadcast live. Missy was deactivated and taken apart, as was most of Zim's lab. The rest became a UFO museum.

But little of the credit actually was given to Dib. He had his spotlight for awhile, but then the world's attention turned back to the scientists and he was forgotten.

But he sure taught his father a lesson. Dib had enjoyed his apology and press release after he had examined Zim's body and base, as well as Selphy.

That was seven years ago.

Now, the twenty-two-year-old Dib sat looking out the window of his apartment. It was raining extremely hard, and he had to stay here all day. As if he had anywhere else to go. He decided to check his e-mail, for lack of better things to do.

"What'cha doin'?" shouted Gir as soon as Dib sat at his computer desk. He had kept the little robot since Zim had died, and he proved to be very good company. He needed it, after Libby suddenly moved away without warning, seven years back.. Her disappearance and Selphy's death had occurred on the same day, October the ninth. Dib's birthday.

"Nothing, really, Gir." "YAY! Can I watch?"

"Yeah, sure."

Dib signed onto AIM, but no one was online. Not surprising, considering how few contacts he had. He checked his e-mail. Nothing but the daily compilation of messages from his paranormal MSN communities. If Libby was still alive, he'd have gotten something from her by now.

But then he remembered. Shortly after her disappearance, he'd changed e- mails. There was no way she'd have known. Quickly, he logged into the site under his old screen name, one he barely remembered. There were ninety new messages, most junk mail. But after he'd deleted all the junk, he'd been left with about twenty e-mails, the most recent being three years ago. He clicked the subject line, and it came up.

Dib,

I want to know why you haven't been responding to my e-mails. I'm coming back to town on your birthday, and I was hoping we'd meet.

Libby

He closed the window, jerking his arm so suddenly that he nearly knocked Gir off his shoulder.

"HI FLOOR! LET'S PLAY CHESS!"