I was awakened from my slumber by a loud slammy…door noise.

I suppose I had fallen asleep reading another one of Dib's stupid Earth books for the trillion and fifty-first time over. By then the plot had become just too predictable and bored me to tears. I had awoken slumped awkwardly against the windowsill. I knew I had dreamed, but I couldn't remember what of. I had never been able to since I had come to be Dib's…come to live with Dib. It made me wonder if they were nightmares. I can't say I would be surprised.

Dib was the one who looked like a nightmare however, standing dangerously in front of the door, drenched to the bone and glaring dangerously. He had obviously returned from one of his "outings".

The Dib-thing went "out" very frequently. Sometimes the "outings" would last a few hours and sometimes they would last a few days. Even so, he always came back more miserable than when he had left.

Those were the days he shut himself away with his research and wouldn't come out for hours. I never asked him to. It was none of my business what he did outside of this apartment. Nothing beyond this apartment was my business. Why should I care about what things he did in the hell-streets of this stink-hole? I knew he never expected me to comfort him and I knew I never would. That was just the way we were between us, I guess.

I had to admit though…I wondered occasionally what it was angered him so much. On some really hard nights, he would throw things around the apartment, just to hear their loud clanks and shatters. Sometimes he would throw me, to see what kind sound I made. If I would wail or cry or scream or whimper.

I never did. Not even once.

Whenever I looked out that one window though…I just saw the rats of the street and wondered how they could be angering him so. I didn't know what else could be. I didn't know what else there was. I had never seen the aliens that Dib's notes said plagued the Earth. For all I knew, he could be out getting tippy on a daily basis. " Drunk" is what I believe humans call it.

Dib never really told me just what it is he does. It wasn't really something I needed to know I guess. I had found out about the alien fight after reading some of his notes on various species they had beaten. Stupid stink-beast. He could have easily hidden it from me, but he left it out for anyone who cared to discover. Foolish human.

As foolish as he was though, I still hated those days more than any other. Those days made me remember what he was like when I was in my hell. The horrifying monster that he had morphed into whenever I was "bad". Like the sort of vile creature that slept in wormbaby's closets, waiting for the most opportune moment to suck out their souls. As much as I hated to admit it, Dib could be utterly terrifying when he wanted to be.

He always had something on his mind. It was like some…parasite was crewing on his brain-meats. Some sinister, evil idea floated in his large head whenever he looked at me on those days. Those days he it seemed he was lurking behind every corner and that he loomed millions of miles over me, ready to skin me and eat me alive.

One day he told me he wondered what I tasted like. For the rest of the day, I made sure I kept my distance from him. Something in his voice has sent shivers all the way down to my squeedly spooch

I hated what he had turned me into. If Dib had ever done any of this to me before the impact, when he was a child, I would have torn him apart. I never would have hid from the Dib-human or…or feared him before. I would have taken his assaults head-on as he came at me with another punch.

Does this happen to all of the dirt-children when they reach adulthood?

The Dib-human had changed greatly since The Impact. He had transformed into an obsessive monster, who had claimed me to be nothing more than his pet. I was a toy to a beastly boy-child. He would rip and tear me and throw me around, but he would never throw me away. I was his.

" Forever," He said, with a strange curvy smile that I wasn't sure how to describe in human words. 'Sick' comes pretty close though.

In my mind, I always held on to the thought that I was not his. The thought that maybe one day I would escape this filth-hole and leave. The truth of the matter often blocked the fantasy from view however. There was no escape from that cage. My pack was as broken as I was. I could hear the rain as well. It almost always rained that filthy human poison…water. I wouldn't last a nanosecond out there. I knew it too.

Somehow, I wondered if Dib had let me out of my hell just because he had wanted to be able to beat me harder. On really bad days, I could hear more than just my fingers crack. I could feel the blood run down my body. I felt every punch, kick and slap a billion times harder than they actually were. It HURT.

The days that surprised me the most however, were the ones where the monster died for an afternoon or so. The ones where we were actually able to co-exist without him screaming like one of those ghost-things he always used to talk about, and without me lying in a red puddle of…red goop. I had never known Dib as a human capable of such things, even before the impact, so I was completely unprepared for anything he had in store when he wasn't raging on and on.

Of course, the monster was always resurrected eventually. Much to my disappointment.

So I sat up on the windowsill, watching the newly reborn Dib-monster as he watched me. The stare down of the century. I could tell he was trying to rip me apart with his eyes, like a mad dog-beast. It was funny in a strange sort of way. We used to fight with lasers and water balloons and now we fight with glares and words. Of course, I usually wind up beaten in our word games, in a most literal sense.

Finally, Dib surrenders with a sigh, giving me a final disgusted look and retreats to his precious research. I won. I beat him.

As he moves around the corner, I let out a small hollow laugh that only I could hear. I'd won. I'd finally won.

…So why was it that I felt like I'd lost everything?

(A/N: Finals are coming up, so I won't be able to update again until after next Friday. Sorry! I'll be back after next week, definitely. )