Hello. Is now time for next chappy. Yippers!
First, as always, response to my lovely reviews:
Point Blank: You've been printing out the chapters?! Well, cool! In response to your other comments: 1. Yes, it does seem like he would act like this in the show, wouldn't he? That's what I was aiming for. I try to keep characters as IC as possible. Which is pretty hard for Zim, seeing as he's in the middle of a life-altering OOC event... 2. Thank you. I believe this is one of my best plots. Actually, it's a combination of two separate fics I was previously going to do with no connection to each other: The Truth, which contained the mind-voice Mur, and the original fic Quifosenkis, with a disease that really DOES mess with your IQ. If anyone wants to know the plots of the original fics, lemme know in review and I'll post it next chapter in the author bios. Don't expect me to write either fic out anytime soon, though. In the other fics, Mur was an unintentional Mary Sue and the original Quifosenkis was kinda cliché. 3. I'm glad you liked the head-voice-brainwashy-thingy. I thought it was pretty cool myself. And finally, answering your last questions, Mur doesn't really have a conscious of her own so she doesn't know she's human, she IS indeed VERY evil even if she's not real and doesn't know it, and yes, I am going to tell you. I just did. Wow, that was long.
Pirate Monkey: The thing on Zim's back is an ID Pak? Uuuuh... Be right back! *runs off and whacks Mars for telling me that it's a Nanopak* Sorry about that mistake... I think I've got it fixed... ^.^;;
Elendil Star-Lover: Thank you.
Ashsema: Yeah, it's good that Red found one of his kids, I'm glad I explained Quifosenkis well, even though there is OH SO MUCH MORE to be learned! I'm glad you pitied the janitorial drone; he lives a sad sad life. Even though in about half a year he'll strike it rich by auctioning off his almost-blessed mop on Irk-Bay (bad E-Bay rip-off). So, yeah. Glad you like.
Silent Knight I: I'm glad you liked the info list. And I'm glad you liked how I tied the chapter to The Nightmare Begins. I worked hard on that. I had to go back and forth from thescarymonkeyshow.com like five times to get all the lines right. Of course, I COULD have just copy/pasted... but where's the fun in that? I'm glad you like Nakay, she will become very important later in the fic. And SKI, don't call off the "drooly smeets". Leave 'em on Zim. Just don't let them kill him, 'kay?
Infuriated: No it doesn't!
Lard Nar: Don't go down to infuriated's level by insulting him/her back. But I do like the support. Good name! Lard Nar ROXX! And glad you like the fic!
I also discovered some... errors in the previous chapter. Nakay changed to Nayak halfway through the chap (it's Nakay, believe me), there was a mix-up as to whether the Tallests' beverages were smoothies or slushies (smoothies), the title of the chapter was Eyes but in the actual document it was called On Earth With Mur-Zoids (it's Eyes), and there was that whole ID pak/Nanopak issue. Yeesh. I don't even WANT to look at my other chapters! Anyway, that's pretty much been fixed... I hope...
There are some things that happen that may seem... unexpected. Don't believe anything until you finish reading the chapter. Nothing is as it seems.
This chapter happens on Thursday the 8th, the missing day of The Wettening. There was Wed. 7, then "the next day" Fri. 9. So, this happens in the missing day. That's because this chapter is kind of like a Twilight Zone deal, and the missing day is kinda like a Twilight Zone deal, and when you have two deals you've either got a business partnership or a treaty! Well, this doesn't have to be on Thurs. 8. It's just something random I thought up to make this story more interesting...
Okay, now, with that with, on to chapter... which chapter is this? Umk. I think it's five. Yeah. Onto chapter five! WH00T!
Disclaimer: Hey, what can I say, I like writing these! *Ahem* I don't own Zim. If I did, Zim would take over the world, Lard Nar would take over the Irken Empire, Dib would marry Gretchen and help Zim rule Earth, Gaz would marry Lard Nar and rule Irk, and there'd be whole eppies following the random lives of non-Invader or Tallest Irkens! Thank slark I'm not in charge.
***
Delusional School
"Zim!"
Zim's gaze left the calendar to his right, which read Thurs. 8. "Whu?"
"What did I just say?" Mrs. Bitters snarled.
Zim blinked. "Um..." He thought hard. He hadn't been listening! He'd been trying to remember the name of a band. Bitter... something. Was "bitter" spelled weird? Maybe it was "bitterr"... no...
"Were you even listening, Zim?"
"I bet Zim was coming up with some other horrible plan to enslave us all! Or maybe he was concentrating on reading our minds!!" Dib suddenly paled. "Wait a second... Zim, you can read MINDS?!?"
"No, I can't--!" Zim cut himself off. "Wait, yes, I CAN! I know exactly what you're thinking! You're thinking... eh... about protecting your brain- meats from my mind-reading amazingness! Yes!"
Dib's eyes widened. "We're all doomed now..."
"The question still stands, Zim!" Mrs. Bitters interjected.
"I know exactly what you said," Zim said carefully, biding for time. "Yes, exactly what you said... You said..." An idea hit Zim, and he smirked. "You said 'Zim! What did I just say? Were you even listening, Zim? The question still stands, Zim!'"
Mrs. Bitters blinked, then growled and slid back behind her desk.
"Oh, by the way, we have a new student," Mrs. Bitters said grumpily. "That was what I was about to say when Zim interrupted us."
"But I didn't interrupt--"
"SILENCE!" the demonic teacher roared, then calming quickly, waved at the door. "You can come in now."
Zim glanced boredly at the door, then sat bolt upright when the new student walked in. "M-mur Woods?" he stuttered, and his mind-voiced stared back in shock.
"Hey, Zim, how'd you know her name? Huh? Huh?" Dib yelled. "Is she one of your ALIEN friends?"
"Eh... no!" Zim said quickly. "I knew it because... I read her mind! Like I did YOURS!" The look on Dib's face almost made Zim forget about Mur.
"Alright, enough!" Mrs. Bitters shouted. "Zita, we need a seat for Mur. You're fired."
"B-but, I don't have a job!" Zita protested.
"Would you like to be a student aide, Zita?"
"Sure, Mrs. Bitters!" Zita said, smiling dumbly.
"Okay. Now, you're fired! Out of my classroom!"
Zita burst into tears and ran out of the room. Mur watched her go. "O... kaaay..." Walking passed Zim to her new seat, she whispered, "You're right. This planet IS crazy."
Zim smirked and whispered, "Told ya."
"Zim!" Mrs. Bitters barked. "Is there something you'd like to share with the class?"
"No, not really," Zim said, oblivious. "Why do you ask?"
"What did you say to Mur?"
"Oh! I said 'Told ya.'" Zim grinned innocently. There was no way he could get in trouble for that!
"In that case, you're getting detention for using the word 'ya'."
The grin fell off Zim's face. "WHAT?!"
"'Ya' is a slang term. If you start using slang terms, you'll start cussing, and if you cuss, you'll become a rapper, and if you become a rapper, you'll go to jail, and then you'll be DOOOOMED!" Mrs. Bitters paused for effect. "It's for your own good, Zim."
Zim gaped at Mrs. Bitters. If Irken law were as strict as Mrs. Bitters was, the Resisty never would have been formed. That was one tough human.
"I'm not tough, I'm just doing my job," Mrs. Bitters said, flipping through her papers to find a detention pass for Zim.
Zim leaned back involuntarily.
"Apparently you're not the only one who can read minds, Zim," Mur whispered jokingly. Zim nodded.
***
"There's no way you can get into my head now, Zim!" Dib said. Zim turned around, looking away from the ugly sight of his skool lunch to the uglier sight of Dib's head. Which was now in a helmet. "What on Irk is THAT, stink- beast?"
"It's a helmet, lined on the inside with aluminum foil!" Dib smirked. "You can't read my mind now!"
"Say, can I borrow that?" Zim asked. Dib narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
"So Mrs. Bitters can't read my mind," Zim explained. Dib opened his mouth, but before he could speak Zim said, "You would benefit too. If I have the helmet on, I can't read anyone else's minds." Dib thought it over, grunted, and threw the helmet in Zim's face.
Mur sat down with her skool lunch just as Zim was putting the helmet on. "What is that?"
"The best thing I've ever got from Dib," Zim said simply. As an afterthought, he added, "Besides the film I made him forget about. There may have been one picture of me on it, but the picture of himself was priceless!" Zim and Mur started laughing at the memory. If you had seen the picture, you'd be laughing too. 'Cause, you see, the picture was of... never mind. I could never describe it good enough for you to imagine to its full extent of funniness. Sorry.
And thus, Zim and Mur talked through lunch. Then they went to class. And after skool, Zim went to detention and Mur went home. Joy. So, let's skip past that boring stuff, shall we?
***
"Gir! I'm home!" Zim yelled, coming into the base and throwing off his helmet, wig, and contacts.
Gir ran into the room with a bird taped to his back and a hula-hoop in his head. "IMA ANGEL!" Gir yelled, and kicked Zim in the foot. "Slark hath bless-ed ye."
"Riiiiiiiiiiight," Zim said, walking around the "angel," who was busy trying to consume the helmet. "Gir, what are you doing?"
Gir pulled the helmet out of his mouth. "Everyone needs more iron in their diet!" he declared, before shoving the helmet back in his mouth and finally managing to swallow it. "YEE!"
Zim sighed. "I'm going to be downstairs. Close all the doors and windows, don't make any phone calls, stay in the house, and don't burn anything down. Got it?"
"YES SIR!" Gir said, saluting. Zim nodded, walked into the kitchen, and flushed himself down the toilet.
"Well, today was exciting," Zim said, sitting down in front of a computer terminal that wasn't occupied with either watching the base's security or stabilizing on of Zim's many experiments. Turning it on, he logged onto the Irkennet. Going to a search site, Zoogle (so many bad puns...), he typed in "band" and "bitter," hoping to find out what the name of the music group he couldn't remember was. But before the results appeared, Zim fell asleep.
And as I have told you before, Irkens don't sleep.
***
*On Irk again*
"So, how can you tell if someone has Quifosenkis? I mean, if you didn't know them before they got it?"
Red and Nakay were sitting in the hospital ward. They had gotten tests to prove that they were, indeed, father and daughter. Now they were just waiting for the results.
"Well, there's not many ways. But if it's gradual, the Irken might seem stressed or depressed some of the time for no reason. That's the stress of having to keep the act up. They also might seem depressed, or accidentally start to act the way they used to. It's a little bit more difficult to see it with sudden Quifosenkis, but it is possible. The Irken might talk to the people it saw in the future from PQMR. That's a sure-fire way to tell. But, there are some freaks who just talk to themselves." Nakay leaned forward. "Wanna know a really cool way to tell?"
"Sure."
"Okay," Nakay began. "This is a pretty unreliable way to tell, but it's really neat. It only happens to people with sudden Quifosenkis, though. You know what our optikos are, right?"
"Our what?"
Nakay snorted, but she was smiling. "Optikos are the two shiny spots in our eyes, the non-translucent parts. We see out of those parts. They're kind of like what some alien species call pupils."
"I see... I didn't know they had a name."
"Well, they do, and they're important to discovering sudden Quifosenkis. You know that our optikos expand and contract?"
"Sure, in different temperatures, right?"
"Right. In the cold they expand and in the heat they contract. When it gets cold or warm enough, they can expand or contract to their full extent. If it gets much colder or hotter after that, you could go blind."
"I don't see how that connects with Quifosenkis."
"Well, if you have sudden Quifosenkis, your optikos bi— that's the smaller optikos— might expand and contract at a high speed. They will, in effect, vibrate."
Red's eyes widened. "Wow."
"Yeah, except this doesn't work very often. They'll only vibrate if you have green or red eyes, are a male, are less than five hundred years old, and have reached either the maximum heat or cold your optikos can take. And even then, you only have a thirty percent chance of vibrating."
Red whistled. "And I thought it was hard to become Tallest! Getting your eyes to vibrate seems a lot harder."
"Sure, but would you want them to?" Nakay asked. "It would mean you have sudden Quifosenkis."
Red thought this over. "Good point."
"Optikos are useful for other things. For example, the translucent non- optikos parts of the eyes— the post oculus— have a kind of "fingerprint" that's used to tell if two people are related."
"Really?" Red said. "So that's why that doctor grabbed my head, inked my eyeball, and pushed it on a piece of paper? He needed to do that to find out if we're related?" Red blushed. "Great. Now I feel guilty for throwing him out the airlock.
Nakay laughed.
***
Zim woke up in the living room. "Eh?" he mumbled. "What happened to Zoogle?"
He sat up, and heard Gir singing behind him. "I don't want the grand tour, just show me the back door, I'll explore your sick mind next week!"
Something inside Zim recognized the tune, vaguely. Shrugging it off, Zim turned around to face Gir. "What am I doing up here? Wasn't I downstairs?"
Gir shrugged. "You fell asleep here last night." He continued the song. "'Cause you're a... Sicko-Weirdo-Killer-Psycho! I wish I'd never even met you! You're a Sadistic-Masochist, an' you got Qui-fo-sen-kis, and I wish I'd never met you!"
Zim stood up. "I'd better be getting to skool," he said, thinking, 'What is that song??'
"Don't drag me to your imagination, with dreams of death and mutilation, save your thoughts 'til the invention, of the Padded Room version 2!"
"Where did you hear that song, Gir?" Zim asked.
"Ooooh, that? I heard it on the raaaadio! I gots the signal from Irk!"
"From Irk?" Zim mused, leaving his base. "How come I can never pick up any Irken stations?" Zim started walking down the street. "That's right. Mur always insists we listen to Earthen stations.
"I wonder why?"
***
Zim was working on a plan at his desk when the tardy bell rang. Strange, Mur wasn't there yet. She had never struck Zim as the type of person who'd be late.
Zim looked up at the door. 'Maybe she slipped past me when I wasn't looking.' Turning around to see if Mur was in the seat behind him, he saw...
...Zita.
"Eh?" Zim said. "What're you doing here?"
Zita blinked. "Uh, this is my desk? Hello?"
"No it's not!" Zim protested. Now the kids around them were starting to look. "You were fired yesterday, remember?"
Now Zita looked really confused. "I was what?"
"Fired! Kicked out! What're you doing back, and where's Mur?"
"Mur who?" Zita asked, perplexed.
"MUR!" Zim screamed, grabbing Zita's shirt in both hands. "MUR WOODS, the girl who took YOUR seat!!"
"What the heck are you talking about, Zim?" Dib asked cool. Zim spun around to face Dib. "Dib-stink! You know who I'm talking about, right? Mur?"
Dib snorted and shook his head, smirking. "And who's Mur, one of your alien friends?"
"NO!" Zim said, exasperated, and starting to feel a little scared. "The girl who moved in yesterday! On the eighth?"
Now Dib looked confused. "Thursday the eighth?"
Zim grinned at Dib despite himself, glad he was finally getting through. "Yes, Thursday! Yesterday!"
Dib pointed at the calendar. "But, Zim, today's Thursday."
Zim stared at Dib, then slowly turned around to face the calendar. A horrified shock went down his spine. The calendar clearly read Thurs. 8.
"Th-there must be some mistake!" Zim insisted. "Maybe someone forgot to change it!"
"I change the calendar every morning," Dib said. "I still have yesterday's date." Dib pulled the crumpled up paper out of his pocket. Everyone crowded around to see it. It said Wed. 7, in clear black letters.
"Well, maybe you pulled that paper yesterday," Zim reasoned, his voice shaky. "I don't know."
"My planner for Wednesday is filled," a voice at the back of the classroom said. Everyone turned to look at Lora. Indeed, her planner was filled in with homework assignments for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but not Thursday or Friday. All the other kids looked in their planners too. A disquieted murmur filled the room, all waiting to see what Zim would find.
With shaking hands, Zim pulled his skool planner out of his ID pak, and opened it to the week of May 5-9. Despite the fact that Zim remembered writing down yesterday's assignments, the fourth column was empty.
Zim stared at the planner, stunned. He was a little scared my now. Okay, he was terrified. Very slowly, so his shaky hands wouldn't drop it, Zim zipped the planner closed and put it back in his ID pak. "Well," he said carefully, ignoring the fearful knot in his throat, "it looks like you were right, Dib. It's Thursday."
Outside, lightning flashed, the rain continuing from the storm that had been going off-and-on since two days ago— sorry, the storm from yesterday.
***
Zim wasn't even paying attention to his so-called "food." He was busy using a computer pad (think Irken laptop shaped like a tray) to look up "missing time" on Zoogle. Obviously, something strange had just happened, but what?
Zim was about to click on a link that said "mental disease," when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up. "Mur!" he said, louder than necessary, but he was relieved. "Where were you?"
Mur shrugged. "I was a little late. Whatcha doin'?"
"Looking up missing time," Zim said. "It seems the other kids don't remember you moving in yesterday."
Mur sat down beside Zim, and noticed what he was about to click on. "Why don't you go to that one instead?" She gestured to a link that said "Great Foodening."
"Why?" Zim asked. "What does stuff that happens on Foodcourtia have to do with missing time?"
"Well, there's that twenty-year time warp thingie, isn't there?" Mur said. "Just, don't go into that mental stuff."
"Why?" Zim repeated.
Mur shrugged. "This is about science. Not some quack's theories. How is learning about how to cure depression going to find our missing day, hmm?"
Zim thought about it."I guess you have a point..."
"Hey Zim!" Dib yelled. Zim turned to face him, turning Mur to his back.
"What is it this time, Dib-stink?" Zim yelled in response.
"Why are you talking to empty air, huh?" Dib demanded. "An invisible allie?" Dib smirked. "Or an imaginary friend?"
Zim's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about? Isn't it clear that I'm talking to—" Zim turned around. "—Mur?"
She was gone. Even her lunch. There was no evidence she'd ever been there. Zim pressed his palm against the place she had been sitting on. Even through his glove, Zim could feel the cold of the wooden bench.
Slowly, Zim looked up at the rest of the room. Every child was staring at him.
"What's going on here?" Zim whispered.
~*~
And so ends chapter... um... five! Riiiight. It's thirteen pages. Which is good. Thirteen is my lucky number.
Now, a recap of what's going on, for my slower fans. Zim can now see his mind-voice, he has imagined a whole day, and is freaked out. Also, notice how Mur carefully made sure Zim didn't go to a site that explained mental problems. That's so he doesn't find out he has Quifosenkis. Also, in case you were sondering, the song Gir was singing is, indeed, a bItter hOpe song.
Remember that stuff about the optikos. It'll soon be important!
This is line 13 of page 13! Wh00t! ~Ciao
First, as always, response to my lovely reviews:
Point Blank: You've been printing out the chapters?! Well, cool! In response to your other comments: 1. Yes, it does seem like he would act like this in the show, wouldn't he? That's what I was aiming for. I try to keep characters as IC as possible. Which is pretty hard for Zim, seeing as he's in the middle of a life-altering OOC event... 2. Thank you. I believe this is one of my best plots. Actually, it's a combination of two separate fics I was previously going to do with no connection to each other: The Truth, which contained the mind-voice Mur, and the original fic Quifosenkis, with a disease that really DOES mess with your IQ. If anyone wants to know the plots of the original fics, lemme know in review and I'll post it next chapter in the author bios. Don't expect me to write either fic out anytime soon, though. In the other fics, Mur was an unintentional Mary Sue and the original Quifosenkis was kinda cliché. 3. I'm glad you liked the head-voice-brainwashy-thingy. I thought it was pretty cool myself. And finally, answering your last questions, Mur doesn't really have a conscious of her own so she doesn't know she's human, she IS indeed VERY evil even if she's not real and doesn't know it, and yes, I am going to tell you. I just did. Wow, that was long.
Pirate Monkey: The thing on Zim's back is an ID Pak? Uuuuh... Be right back! *runs off and whacks Mars for telling me that it's a Nanopak* Sorry about that mistake... I think I've got it fixed... ^.^;;
Elendil Star-Lover: Thank you.
Ashsema: Yeah, it's good that Red found one of his kids, I'm glad I explained Quifosenkis well, even though there is OH SO MUCH MORE to be learned! I'm glad you pitied the janitorial drone; he lives a sad sad life. Even though in about half a year he'll strike it rich by auctioning off his almost-blessed mop on Irk-Bay (bad E-Bay rip-off). So, yeah. Glad you like.
Silent Knight I: I'm glad you liked the info list. And I'm glad you liked how I tied the chapter to The Nightmare Begins. I worked hard on that. I had to go back and forth from thescarymonkeyshow.com like five times to get all the lines right. Of course, I COULD have just copy/pasted... but where's the fun in that? I'm glad you like Nakay, she will become very important later in the fic. And SKI, don't call off the "drooly smeets". Leave 'em on Zim. Just don't let them kill him, 'kay?
Infuriated: No it doesn't!
Lard Nar: Don't go down to infuriated's level by insulting him/her back. But I do like the support. Good name! Lard Nar ROXX! And glad you like the fic!
I also discovered some... errors in the previous chapter. Nakay changed to Nayak halfway through the chap (it's Nakay, believe me), there was a mix-up as to whether the Tallests' beverages were smoothies or slushies (smoothies), the title of the chapter was Eyes but in the actual document it was called On Earth With Mur-Zoids (it's Eyes), and there was that whole ID pak/Nanopak issue. Yeesh. I don't even WANT to look at my other chapters! Anyway, that's pretty much been fixed... I hope...
There are some things that happen that may seem... unexpected. Don't believe anything until you finish reading the chapter. Nothing is as it seems.
This chapter happens on Thursday the 8th, the missing day of The Wettening. There was Wed. 7, then "the next day" Fri. 9. So, this happens in the missing day. That's because this chapter is kind of like a Twilight Zone deal, and the missing day is kinda like a Twilight Zone deal, and when you have two deals you've either got a business partnership or a treaty! Well, this doesn't have to be on Thurs. 8. It's just something random I thought up to make this story more interesting...
Okay, now, with that with, on to chapter... which chapter is this? Umk. I think it's five. Yeah. Onto chapter five! WH00T!
Disclaimer: Hey, what can I say, I like writing these! *Ahem* I don't own Zim. If I did, Zim would take over the world, Lard Nar would take over the Irken Empire, Dib would marry Gretchen and help Zim rule Earth, Gaz would marry Lard Nar and rule Irk, and there'd be whole eppies following the random lives of non-Invader or Tallest Irkens! Thank slark I'm not in charge.
***
Delusional School
"Zim!"
Zim's gaze left the calendar to his right, which read Thurs. 8. "Whu?"
"What did I just say?" Mrs. Bitters snarled.
Zim blinked. "Um..." He thought hard. He hadn't been listening! He'd been trying to remember the name of a band. Bitter... something. Was "bitter" spelled weird? Maybe it was "bitterr"... no...
"Were you even listening, Zim?"
"I bet Zim was coming up with some other horrible plan to enslave us all! Or maybe he was concentrating on reading our minds!!" Dib suddenly paled. "Wait a second... Zim, you can read MINDS?!?"
"No, I can't--!" Zim cut himself off. "Wait, yes, I CAN! I know exactly what you're thinking! You're thinking... eh... about protecting your brain- meats from my mind-reading amazingness! Yes!"
Dib's eyes widened. "We're all doomed now..."
"The question still stands, Zim!" Mrs. Bitters interjected.
"I know exactly what you said," Zim said carefully, biding for time. "Yes, exactly what you said... You said..." An idea hit Zim, and he smirked. "You said 'Zim! What did I just say? Were you even listening, Zim? The question still stands, Zim!'"
Mrs. Bitters blinked, then growled and slid back behind her desk.
"Oh, by the way, we have a new student," Mrs. Bitters said grumpily. "That was what I was about to say when Zim interrupted us."
"But I didn't interrupt--"
"SILENCE!" the demonic teacher roared, then calming quickly, waved at the door. "You can come in now."
Zim glanced boredly at the door, then sat bolt upright when the new student walked in. "M-mur Woods?" he stuttered, and his mind-voiced stared back in shock.
"Hey, Zim, how'd you know her name? Huh? Huh?" Dib yelled. "Is she one of your ALIEN friends?"
"Eh... no!" Zim said quickly. "I knew it because... I read her mind! Like I did YOURS!" The look on Dib's face almost made Zim forget about Mur.
"Alright, enough!" Mrs. Bitters shouted. "Zita, we need a seat for Mur. You're fired."
"B-but, I don't have a job!" Zita protested.
"Would you like to be a student aide, Zita?"
"Sure, Mrs. Bitters!" Zita said, smiling dumbly.
"Okay. Now, you're fired! Out of my classroom!"
Zita burst into tears and ran out of the room. Mur watched her go. "O... kaaay..." Walking passed Zim to her new seat, she whispered, "You're right. This planet IS crazy."
Zim smirked and whispered, "Told ya."
"Zim!" Mrs. Bitters barked. "Is there something you'd like to share with the class?"
"No, not really," Zim said, oblivious. "Why do you ask?"
"What did you say to Mur?"
"Oh! I said 'Told ya.'" Zim grinned innocently. There was no way he could get in trouble for that!
"In that case, you're getting detention for using the word 'ya'."
The grin fell off Zim's face. "WHAT?!"
"'Ya' is a slang term. If you start using slang terms, you'll start cussing, and if you cuss, you'll become a rapper, and if you become a rapper, you'll go to jail, and then you'll be DOOOOMED!" Mrs. Bitters paused for effect. "It's for your own good, Zim."
Zim gaped at Mrs. Bitters. If Irken law were as strict as Mrs. Bitters was, the Resisty never would have been formed. That was one tough human.
"I'm not tough, I'm just doing my job," Mrs. Bitters said, flipping through her papers to find a detention pass for Zim.
Zim leaned back involuntarily.
"Apparently you're not the only one who can read minds, Zim," Mur whispered jokingly. Zim nodded.
***
"There's no way you can get into my head now, Zim!" Dib said. Zim turned around, looking away from the ugly sight of his skool lunch to the uglier sight of Dib's head. Which was now in a helmet. "What on Irk is THAT, stink- beast?"
"It's a helmet, lined on the inside with aluminum foil!" Dib smirked. "You can't read my mind now!"
"Say, can I borrow that?" Zim asked. Dib narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
"So Mrs. Bitters can't read my mind," Zim explained. Dib opened his mouth, but before he could speak Zim said, "You would benefit too. If I have the helmet on, I can't read anyone else's minds." Dib thought it over, grunted, and threw the helmet in Zim's face.
Mur sat down with her skool lunch just as Zim was putting the helmet on. "What is that?"
"The best thing I've ever got from Dib," Zim said simply. As an afterthought, he added, "Besides the film I made him forget about. There may have been one picture of me on it, but the picture of himself was priceless!" Zim and Mur started laughing at the memory. If you had seen the picture, you'd be laughing too. 'Cause, you see, the picture was of... never mind. I could never describe it good enough for you to imagine to its full extent of funniness. Sorry.
And thus, Zim and Mur talked through lunch. Then they went to class. And after skool, Zim went to detention and Mur went home. Joy. So, let's skip past that boring stuff, shall we?
***
"Gir! I'm home!" Zim yelled, coming into the base and throwing off his helmet, wig, and contacts.
Gir ran into the room with a bird taped to his back and a hula-hoop in his head. "IMA ANGEL!" Gir yelled, and kicked Zim in the foot. "Slark hath bless-ed ye."
"Riiiiiiiiiiight," Zim said, walking around the "angel," who was busy trying to consume the helmet. "Gir, what are you doing?"
Gir pulled the helmet out of his mouth. "Everyone needs more iron in their diet!" he declared, before shoving the helmet back in his mouth and finally managing to swallow it. "YEE!"
Zim sighed. "I'm going to be downstairs. Close all the doors and windows, don't make any phone calls, stay in the house, and don't burn anything down. Got it?"
"YES SIR!" Gir said, saluting. Zim nodded, walked into the kitchen, and flushed himself down the toilet.
"Well, today was exciting," Zim said, sitting down in front of a computer terminal that wasn't occupied with either watching the base's security or stabilizing on of Zim's many experiments. Turning it on, he logged onto the Irkennet. Going to a search site, Zoogle (so many bad puns...), he typed in "band" and "bitter," hoping to find out what the name of the music group he couldn't remember was. But before the results appeared, Zim fell asleep.
And as I have told you before, Irkens don't sleep.
***
*On Irk again*
"So, how can you tell if someone has Quifosenkis? I mean, if you didn't know them before they got it?"
Red and Nakay were sitting in the hospital ward. They had gotten tests to prove that they were, indeed, father and daughter. Now they were just waiting for the results.
"Well, there's not many ways. But if it's gradual, the Irken might seem stressed or depressed some of the time for no reason. That's the stress of having to keep the act up. They also might seem depressed, or accidentally start to act the way they used to. It's a little bit more difficult to see it with sudden Quifosenkis, but it is possible. The Irken might talk to the people it saw in the future from PQMR. That's a sure-fire way to tell. But, there are some freaks who just talk to themselves." Nakay leaned forward. "Wanna know a really cool way to tell?"
"Sure."
"Okay," Nakay began. "This is a pretty unreliable way to tell, but it's really neat. It only happens to people with sudden Quifosenkis, though. You know what our optikos are, right?"
"Our what?"
Nakay snorted, but she was smiling. "Optikos are the two shiny spots in our eyes, the non-translucent parts. We see out of those parts. They're kind of like what some alien species call pupils."
"I see... I didn't know they had a name."
"Well, they do, and they're important to discovering sudden Quifosenkis. You know that our optikos expand and contract?"
"Sure, in different temperatures, right?"
"Right. In the cold they expand and in the heat they contract. When it gets cold or warm enough, they can expand or contract to their full extent. If it gets much colder or hotter after that, you could go blind."
"I don't see how that connects with Quifosenkis."
"Well, if you have sudden Quifosenkis, your optikos bi— that's the smaller optikos— might expand and contract at a high speed. They will, in effect, vibrate."
Red's eyes widened. "Wow."
"Yeah, except this doesn't work very often. They'll only vibrate if you have green or red eyes, are a male, are less than five hundred years old, and have reached either the maximum heat or cold your optikos can take. And even then, you only have a thirty percent chance of vibrating."
Red whistled. "And I thought it was hard to become Tallest! Getting your eyes to vibrate seems a lot harder."
"Sure, but would you want them to?" Nakay asked. "It would mean you have sudden Quifosenkis."
Red thought this over. "Good point."
"Optikos are useful for other things. For example, the translucent non- optikos parts of the eyes— the post oculus— have a kind of "fingerprint" that's used to tell if two people are related."
"Really?" Red said. "So that's why that doctor grabbed my head, inked my eyeball, and pushed it on a piece of paper? He needed to do that to find out if we're related?" Red blushed. "Great. Now I feel guilty for throwing him out the airlock.
Nakay laughed.
***
Zim woke up in the living room. "Eh?" he mumbled. "What happened to Zoogle?"
He sat up, and heard Gir singing behind him. "I don't want the grand tour, just show me the back door, I'll explore your sick mind next week!"
Something inside Zim recognized the tune, vaguely. Shrugging it off, Zim turned around to face Gir. "What am I doing up here? Wasn't I downstairs?"
Gir shrugged. "You fell asleep here last night." He continued the song. "'Cause you're a... Sicko-Weirdo-Killer-Psycho! I wish I'd never even met you! You're a Sadistic-Masochist, an' you got Qui-fo-sen-kis, and I wish I'd never met you!"
Zim stood up. "I'd better be getting to skool," he said, thinking, 'What is that song??'
"Don't drag me to your imagination, with dreams of death and mutilation, save your thoughts 'til the invention, of the Padded Room version 2!"
"Where did you hear that song, Gir?" Zim asked.
"Ooooh, that? I heard it on the raaaadio! I gots the signal from Irk!"
"From Irk?" Zim mused, leaving his base. "How come I can never pick up any Irken stations?" Zim started walking down the street. "That's right. Mur always insists we listen to Earthen stations.
"I wonder why?"
***
Zim was working on a plan at his desk when the tardy bell rang. Strange, Mur wasn't there yet. She had never struck Zim as the type of person who'd be late.
Zim looked up at the door. 'Maybe she slipped past me when I wasn't looking.' Turning around to see if Mur was in the seat behind him, he saw...
...Zita.
"Eh?" Zim said. "What're you doing here?"
Zita blinked. "Uh, this is my desk? Hello?"
"No it's not!" Zim protested. Now the kids around them were starting to look. "You were fired yesterday, remember?"
Now Zita looked really confused. "I was what?"
"Fired! Kicked out! What're you doing back, and where's Mur?"
"Mur who?" Zita asked, perplexed.
"MUR!" Zim screamed, grabbing Zita's shirt in both hands. "MUR WOODS, the girl who took YOUR seat!!"
"What the heck are you talking about, Zim?" Dib asked cool. Zim spun around to face Dib. "Dib-stink! You know who I'm talking about, right? Mur?"
Dib snorted and shook his head, smirking. "And who's Mur, one of your alien friends?"
"NO!" Zim said, exasperated, and starting to feel a little scared. "The girl who moved in yesterday! On the eighth?"
Now Dib looked confused. "Thursday the eighth?"
Zim grinned at Dib despite himself, glad he was finally getting through. "Yes, Thursday! Yesterday!"
Dib pointed at the calendar. "But, Zim, today's Thursday."
Zim stared at Dib, then slowly turned around to face the calendar. A horrified shock went down his spine. The calendar clearly read Thurs. 8.
"Th-there must be some mistake!" Zim insisted. "Maybe someone forgot to change it!"
"I change the calendar every morning," Dib said. "I still have yesterday's date." Dib pulled the crumpled up paper out of his pocket. Everyone crowded around to see it. It said Wed. 7, in clear black letters.
"Well, maybe you pulled that paper yesterday," Zim reasoned, his voice shaky. "I don't know."
"My planner for Wednesday is filled," a voice at the back of the classroom said. Everyone turned to look at Lora. Indeed, her planner was filled in with homework assignments for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but not Thursday or Friday. All the other kids looked in their planners too. A disquieted murmur filled the room, all waiting to see what Zim would find.
With shaking hands, Zim pulled his skool planner out of his ID pak, and opened it to the week of May 5-9. Despite the fact that Zim remembered writing down yesterday's assignments, the fourth column was empty.
Zim stared at the planner, stunned. He was a little scared my now. Okay, he was terrified. Very slowly, so his shaky hands wouldn't drop it, Zim zipped the planner closed and put it back in his ID pak. "Well," he said carefully, ignoring the fearful knot in his throat, "it looks like you were right, Dib. It's Thursday."
Outside, lightning flashed, the rain continuing from the storm that had been going off-and-on since two days ago— sorry, the storm from yesterday.
***
Zim wasn't even paying attention to his so-called "food." He was busy using a computer pad (think Irken laptop shaped like a tray) to look up "missing time" on Zoogle. Obviously, something strange had just happened, but what?
Zim was about to click on a link that said "mental disease," when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up. "Mur!" he said, louder than necessary, but he was relieved. "Where were you?"
Mur shrugged. "I was a little late. Whatcha doin'?"
"Looking up missing time," Zim said. "It seems the other kids don't remember you moving in yesterday."
Mur sat down beside Zim, and noticed what he was about to click on. "Why don't you go to that one instead?" She gestured to a link that said "Great Foodening."
"Why?" Zim asked. "What does stuff that happens on Foodcourtia have to do with missing time?"
"Well, there's that twenty-year time warp thingie, isn't there?" Mur said. "Just, don't go into that mental stuff."
"Why?" Zim repeated.
Mur shrugged. "This is about science. Not some quack's theories. How is learning about how to cure depression going to find our missing day, hmm?"
Zim thought about it."I guess you have a point..."
"Hey Zim!" Dib yelled. Zim turned to face him, turning Mur to his back.
"What is it this time, Dib-stink?" Zim yelled in response.
"Why are you talking to empty air, huh?" Dib demanded. "An invisible allie?" Dib smirked. "Or an imaginary friend?"
Zim's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about? Isn't it clear that I'm talking to—" Zim turned around. "—Mur?"
She was gone. Even her lunch. There was no evidence she'd ever been there. Zim pressed his palm against the place she had been sitting on. Even through his glove, Zim could feel the cold of the wooden bench.
Slowly, Zim looked up at the rest of the room. Every child was staring at him.
"What's going on here?" Zim whispered.
~*~
And so ends chapter... um... five! Riiiight. It's thirteen pages. Which is good. Thirteen is my lucky number.
Now, a recap of what's going on, for my slower fans. Zim can now see his mind-voice, he has imagined a whole day, and is freaked out. Also, notice how Mur carefully made sure Zim didn't go to a site that explained mental problems. That's so he doesn't find out he has Quifosenkis. Also, in case you were sondering, the song Gir was singing is, indeed, a bItter hOpe song.
Remember that stuff about the optikos. It'll soon be important!
This is line 13 of page 13! Wh00t! ~Ciao