A/N: I really should update my profile… it's not summer anymore.
Dib's fingers trembled nervously around his juice cup. He hadn't wanted to say those words, hadn't wanted to feel disgust rising up in his throat. He was used to taking all that was wrong with the world… was used to the pain that was inflicted. So why had he…?
The dreams from the crazy home, and the dream of being inside M's house. Did they mean something? Dib glanced sideways at the blonde girl through his thin eyelashes. If she died next, did that mean…?
Dib cut the last half of class that day, knowing that not only did Ms. Bitters care one way or another, but that his father's accountant would vouch for him being ill if he asked. The truth was, he did feel ill.
Perhaps he'd done something, unleashed some horror in his investigations. If that were true, then why didn't he have a missing chunk in his memory? Something didn't seem right… and he had to figure out what it was.
He suspected Zim on some level, but he wasn't quite sure exactly what Zim could have done to him. The dream-controlling machine seemed likely enough, but was Zim brutal enough to kill just to make Dib feel insane? To lay the guilt on him, perhaps, and send him away to prison? More importantly, could Zim even bring himself to touch human body fluids to the point where he could handle killing someone in a way that would cause them to eject blood?
There'd only been a little blood on the scene. Maybe that had been accidental. Maybe Zim had tried to beam the family up and one of them had resisted… yes, that seemed more likely than Dib really wanted to think about. A family just vanishing? What explanation was more obvious than alien abduction?
Then there was the chance that they weren't dead. They could be saved, if Dib could figure out where Zim was holding them. Zim could even be the reason why M had gone insane. Yes, the very strain of having to admit that Dib, one of his favorite victims for taunting, was right… the strain of having to admit that Dib wasn't wrong, wasn't crazy, wasn't….
Dib paused on the sidewalk and hit himself, a little too hard, in the forehead. "Go away!" he found himself screaming out loud, trying to make the cruel thoughts leave. A woman walking a baby carriage paused, then quickly turned the plastic wheels around and darted across the street to the other sidewalk.
Dib lowered his hands, feeling resignation. Don't be afraid of me, he thought. I'm not crazy… he felt a cool wetness against the sides of his head. In his frustration, his pale fingers had ripped into his skin right at the hairline, sending a single sad drip of reddish blood down the side of his face.
He couldn't go to the police. They wouldn't listen to him, no matter how much evidence he brought them. He didn't want to go home, despite the fact that he felt rather ill and the feeling was growing. He didn't really want to go to Zim's place only to puke up on the alien scum's front door, either, so he stumbled to the park and threw himself down on a concrete bench, drawing concerned looks from an elderly lady feeding the pigeons.
"Dib? Dib, is that you?" a man's voice asked. His eyes opened slightly. He felt like he was burning up all over with fever, like someone had taken a hot iron to his skin. His throat was parched, and the very air seemed to burn in his lungs.
A brown-haired man with fish-belly pale skin stood over him, pushing nervously back on thick glasses. "Jesus, kid, you're burning up. I know your father doesn't pay me to look after you, but he should. Your skin is all red. How long have you been sleeping in blistering sunlight?"
"Accoun-tant?" Dib asked.
The accountant set down his briefcase and removed a mini-bottle of an expensive brand of "mountain spring" water from it, handing it over to him. "Here, drink this. You sound horrible. What the heck are you doing sleeping in the park? You should be home. It's getting late."
Dib felt embarrassed. The man was being so kind, and he didn't even know his name. He would have asked for it right then and there, but he felt that he'd look rather silly accepting an invitation for a ride home from a man he only knew by face, not name.
The accountant's car was small and tidy, and smelled of cheap pine air freshener. He turned on the air conditioning, which did wonders to cool Dib's sunburned face. How the hell had he managed to fall asleep outside on a hot day wearing all black, anyway? His hands were raw and hurt to touch. He knew he was in for one hell of a fun ride when the burns would start peeling.
The accountant brought the car to a hault outside the atrocious blue house that Professor Membrane owned. "Kid, can I ask you something personal? Are you doing any drugs?"
Dib choked slightly. "No, sir. I wouldn't. They ruin your mind."
The man sighed and adjusted the volume on the soft-rock music coming out of the radio. "I worry about you. When your father says you're crazy… well, you do funny things, but you don't seem crazy. I was kind of worried you'd turned to them as a replacement for your father. I mean, without a father, who's there to tell a kid not to get into that kind of mess…"
"I told you, I'm not on drugs," Dib said angrily, shoving open the car door. "If you'll excuse me, I have a sunburn to treat."
The accountant frowned. "You know, maybe it'll turn into a tan. You could use some color."
Dib resisted the urge to reply "you should talk," and instead stalked up the walkway to the front door as quickly as he could. The accountant drummed his fingers on the car's steering wheel, wanting to say more but not daring to. He'd been able to feel the boy's tormented feelings radiating across the interior of the car.
Haven't I done enough for you, Dib, the man thought to himself as he pulled out and sped down the mostly abandoned road. Haven't I done enough?
Apparently not.
Tae, his gray hair sticking up in what he thought to be a trendy hairstyle, was heading home from a late night at some sports practice or another. What sport it was, wasn't important. His mother had pushed him into it, he didn't like it, but he'd keep doing it to get a college scholarship one-day. At least, that's what his mother told him, and being young he just kept on believing it.
His headphones were playing something trendy off a popular Internet radio station, he didn't know the name but it had a nice beat that went something like da-deeh-da-deh-drum solo. It was catchy. He'd have to figure out what it that he'd downloaded onto his Ipod.
The street was virtual empty other than one car. Tae walked alone the sidewalk, ignoring it, wishing he'd rode his bike to school. He wasn't going to be home in time for TRL with the way practice had gotten out late.
The car's engine revved unnaturally, drawing Tae's head up. Bright white round eyes, like the eyes of a demon, were leering down on him. The car had jumped up onto the sidewalk, diving between two meters, and was bearing straight down at him. With a shriek of horror he launched himself sideways. His fingers lost their grip on the Ipod and he felt it falling a different direction as he fell forward.
The car's right headlight shattered into jagged pieces as it hit the Ipod, sending white plastic and computer chips flying through the air. Tae hit a tree and rebounded off it. Despite the racing of his heart and the knowledge that he was in mortal danger, his first thought was for his mp3 player. His parents would never believe what had happened to it… had he gotten a grass stain on his pants?
He struggled to his feet to find the car had turned itself around, and was purring like a feline about to pounce. Then, with a squeal of black tires, it tore forwards towards him. Tae felt his back hit the tree again as he struggled to get out of the way. He felt his foot giving way, and realized there was a ravine behind the tree. He fell backwards, letting his body tumble down the small hill.
He heard the crunch of metal and glass against wood, and the crack of a tree trunk breaking. The sound of the engine didn't die away, and one bright spotlight cut out through the falling twilight, like a search engine intent on finding him.
He forced himself to his feet, a nasty bruise on his head, his pants shredded by brambles past the point of salvation. He staggered forward, not caring if the branches cut his hands, hearing someone pushing through the weeds behind him. He didn't dare turn around, didn't dare look at their face. Something inside him told him he'd die if he did.
He could hear sounds of more cars whizzing by ahead. The freeway! If he could just make it across the freeway, he'd be safe from who or whatever was following him. There was a housing development there, someone would be able to call the police, save him from the insanity following at his heels.
His blood dropped on the ground. His breath became visible, moist pants in the cooling night air. The wind stung his eyes and made his tears fall. He was almost there, despite his cut fingers and legs. He was almost safely out of the brambles.
Running across the ditch towards the freeway, his head reeled with joy… until his foot hit a patch that had sunk from drainage. He stumbled, landing hard on his side. Branches broke behind him. He couldn't move, trembling in a curled up ball on the side of the freeway, a concrete barrier between himself and salvation.
A passing smoker had the window of his car down. He normally wouldn't have paid any attention to the scream, thinking it was just kids playing with water guns filled with ice water, but there was just something about it. It sounded like someone was hurt. It sounded like someone was afraid. He pulled his car over onto the soft shoulder, gravel throwing up rocks against the underside of his car.
He stepped out of the car and looked back in the direction that he'd heard the shriek. Someone, a slender adult, stood up on top of a sewer drain. The person was too far away for him to see if they were hurt or not, but he or she didn't seem to be in too much pain as the stranger strode in leggy steps back across the grass and straight into the woods lining the roadside.
The motorist frowned. There had been something familiar about that person, even from a distance. Like he'd seen that face in a newspaper article a long time ago. Like he or she'd been a big deal at one time, but time had thrown this stranger into obscurity.
He turned around to find a child huddled beside his car, shaking and rocking himself. His arms and legs were covered in bruises and small, bramble cuts. He had headphones on that led to no music playing device, only a plug dangling loosely beside him. "Are you… okay?" he asked, cautiously advancing on the boy.
Tae, his eyes blank and his pupils as wide as they were capable of being, merely stared back at the man, any trace of recognition gone from his soul.
The motorist didn't know at the time that he hadn't been the only one to witness the stranger walking off into the woods before the boy appeared, but the other person who had seen it wouldn't talk. That's because first, they weren't actually a person, and second, talking about what they had seen would require them to revel how they had seen it… and how does one explain to the police that you saw a person that left no traces of his or her existence… while flying in your space ship?
Dib went to Skool the next day despite his burn, knowing he'd be taunted for it but not really caring. He never expected to take a rock on the side of his head, knocking him to the ground. His wound screamed with fresh pain as he fell onto his side, looking up to find the blonde girl from the day before, looming over him. Her eyes were lit as though with an internal fire, and two of her friends were barely holding her back.
"You freak!" she screamed, hair flying wildy. "You killed my cousin! You killed my cousin, you freak of nature, you murderer!" Her pupils had become tiny slits, and she screamed out the words like a wild animal tearing at meat.
Dib skittered backwards, confusion in his round eyes. Zita, standing against a wall, uncharacteristically offered an explanation. "Her cousin, Tae, was found in a ditch by a motorist, all cut up and screaming like a howler monkey. He killed himself last night in the crazy home."
"I see, but what does that have to do with me?"
"She says you said he was going to die."