Fueled only by his anger and his sorrow, Dib ran through the dark night, splashing through puddles along the way. He ran away from everything he knew, he needed to be anywhere but there. He needed to be away from his family, away from that miserable city, away from where he was and had always been.
The rain beat down on him, both harsh and brutal. Both rain and tears blinded Dib as he pressed on through the cold night. Blue sparks shot out from his body as he ran and emotions ran wild in his mind, but he found that he could not stop for anything. No matter how tired he became, Dib's legs carried him further and further.
In only a moment's notice, the rain poured down even harder than before, and it began to sting Dib's skin. Electricity flowed through his veins like blood and every drop of water began to burn. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dib feared that he might short circuit somehow if he stayed in the rain.
Dib didn't care about that though. If anything he liked the pain the water brought. It made him feel human in an odd way. Within the confines of his broken mind he enjoyed the singeing pain and welcomed it with open arms.
Eventually though, the mental and physical exhaustion got the better of him and he found that he needed to stop or else he would collapse. Dib ran beneath a tall oak tree and breathed heavily, desperately trying to catch his breath. His hair was matted down from the rain, but was quickly drying from the electrical current flowing through him. Once his breath had returned completely, he opened his eyes and looked around for just a moment, before shutting them again.
He was standing in the cold rain in front of his old elementary skool. It was a place that he had sworn he'd never go back to and yet there he was, his old battlefield. Some horrible memories resided both within and outside its brick walls. There was still an innocent aura surrounding the place though, seeing as it was where Dib spent his childhood.
However, thinking about memories and childhood dreams left him as weary as an old man. In some ways he felt like one, as though he were an old war veteran looking bitterly on the world he'd tried to save.
Dib didn't want to sit there crying, but he couldn't help himself as his knees gave out beneath him and he slid down against the tree trunk. The rain poured down in sheets around the tree, which had become his personal sanctuary. It drowned out his loud sobs as he cried like a child. The tears felt dirty, too dirty for a thirteen-year-old, but Dib supposed that didn't matter anymore.
" I'm…" he choked on his words while hugging his knees. " I'm not…"
There was no need to finish, because the calm rain understood. It wept beside him, bleeding its cool heart for Dib. It was not the night that was cold and dark, but the beings that hid it its shadows.
Dib wanted to remain underneath that tree forever. He wanted to stay there until the day he died and he wanted it to rain forever, so the world would know his sorrow as it flooded. He hated feeling that way though, because it wasn't the world's fault he did not belong among them. That was really the worst feeling of them all.
He wasn't human. He was not human. That thought ran through his head many times, over and over like a broken record. He was some kind of animal, or even worse, some kind of monster.
Dib didn't want to be a monster. He wanted to be human and he wanted to go on saving the world. Somehow though, as he remembered his father and the way he had lashed out at him; that made him feel more like a monster than anything. He had no control at all. In just that bout of anger, his newfound abilities and fired up enough to put Bloaty's in the dark and burn his father's arm.
Every time he thought of his father though, he cried because he wasn't. Professor Membrane never was his father either. He was his creator and Dib was his creation. There was nothing more than that between them. There never had been, and now Dib knew why. He wished he had never found out. For just a moment, he wanted to be an ignorant child again. He wanted to go on saving the world from aliens, but he couldn't, because now he was an alien himself. At least, it felt that way.
Dib rubbed his eyes, as he was running out of tears to cry. The sky all but made up for that inability, pouring down its own tears of sorrow and empathy. He had grown rather tired again, as stress of any kind can be very tiring. Dib knew he needed to press on, but his legs wouldn't move. Dib found himself unable to stand at all.
If Dib didn't leave his elementary skool soon though, he would be found. Surely his father was searching for him by now. Dib didn't want to be found though. If he went with his father, he would turn into a lab rat, a real animal.
Sadly, Dib found himself wondering if his father would care enough to search. Then he remembered that he was a project now, some kind of experiment. His father wouldn't want him to decay out in the rain, which made him want to destroy himself even more by running away from the skool. Somehow though, he couldn't move a muscle.
A piercing fear struck him as lightning painted the sky. If his father was searching for him now, he wondered what would happen to him. His mind raced in panic as he came with one horrible end after another, from being a lab animal to being torn apart by his father's bare hands. The thoughts left him terribly frightened, but that fear was a crutch for him to stand upon. Soon enough he was running again.
The dark fears in his heart seized him and pulled him along. The pain of the acidic rain was nearly double that of before, perhaps because he had become even more aware of it. He couldn't remain under the tree though. His father would have seen him from the road and then where would he be? He would be in a laboratory, being experimented on, or even worse dead.
Dib didn't want to be dead. He wanted to be human, he wanted his ignorance, but death was not something that soothed his weary mind. This was the main reason he found his feet pulling him off the streets and through backyards.
His fears also created a spark within him, giving him the adrenaline to keep running even when he was ready to collapse. Had he paused to notice, Dib would have seen a light, blue aura around him. There were more important things to worry about though, like evading capture. Each step pained him greatly though and climbing fences was a nightmare in itself. His monstrous likeness was chasing him down though and rest was no longer a privilege he held in his grasp.
Street after street, yard after yard, fence after painful fence he ran for his life. Dib was near out of breath and yet still he ran from the horrors that not another soul was aware of. He was blind to the scenery around him and his movements were quick and panicked like a frightened animal, like a rat in a maze. Every time he tripped or fell down he would spring to his feet and start running twice as fast.
Soon enough though, even with extra energy flowing through his blood he grew tired from the pain. His vision grew foggier and black spots appeared before his eyes in weary succession, but this did not stop him. Still Dib dragged himself further on through the rainy night, hoping that by some miracle he would make it out of the city by morning.
That miracle would never come though, as he tripped yet again after hopping another fence. Dib stumbled a moment or so, trying desperately not to fall over. The searing pain overwhelmed him though and just like that his feet gave out beneath him and he landed face down in the grass.
Dib's presence went unnoticed for several long moments. Infact, it was almost midnight by the time someone creaked open the door to gaze into their front yard. That someone was small and metallic, with big blue eyes. It shoved open the door with little force at all, an amazing for such a tiny robot.
Within the house, his precious master, Zim, had stomped into the room with a fierce glare. He looked about his pitiful excuse for a human home in disgust. He realized long ago that it was not really a good enough representation of human living, but he couldn't be bothered to change it. He reserved the right to complain though.
" GIR!" he shouted at his robot, " Shut the door! You're going to let that filthy RAIN in!"
Zim arched an antenna in curiosity when his minion disobeyed. Unbeknownst to his master however, GIR gasped and then grinned wider than a small child on Christmas.
" IT'S THE BIG-HEAD BOY!" it shrieked loudly, forcing Zim to press down both of his antennae in auditory pain.
" GIR! What are you-" Zim stopped mid rant when he noticed GIR was gone.
Zim sighed, heading for the doorway. He refused to chase out after his companion, but he did peek outside just to see if it was within eyeshot. GIR was rather like a human child in that way, if left on its own too long it would cause cars to crash in the streets and mass chaos would ensue.
GIR was in eyeshot, infact it was still in the front yard. Zim felt a twinge of annoyance watching it playing in the rain, pulling around some large thing or another.
" GIR! Get back inside!" Zim shouted, " I told you already, we don't go out in the rain!"
His robot ignored him yet again. It was humming and singing a little random song as it tugged at a body, pulling it through the mud and up the paved walk way. The creature moaned just a little, but quickly went silent.
" GIR! AS YOUR MASTER I ORDER YOU TO-" Zim began, but he paused.
GIR hoisted up the body it found to show his master. The body was sparking rapidly and in it's unconscious state it slumped over but GIR didn't seem to notice or mind. Zim's red eyes widened in recognition.
It was the Dib human.
" It's big-head boy!" GIR grinned again, " The big head boy came to play!"
With those words GIR promptly dropped Dib where he was in the rain and ran inside muttering something about a tea party. Dib moaned as he hit the cold wet pavement and began to spark once again in the water.
" What on Irk?" Zim muttered under his breath.
To his knowledge humans didn't spark, except when you put a tazer in their backs but that was a whole different situation altogether. The human boy looked hurt badly, by something other than Zim.
Zim huffed in annoyance that something else would dare try to hurt his rival. He wanted to be the one who crushed Dib. It was this and nothing else that made Zim dash out quickly into the rain and throw Dib's unconscious body into his house. That was the only reason he had for saving his foe.
What other reason would there be?
(A/N: Thank you for all of the excellent reviews! I'm sorry it took so long to get this up, but with the holidays and all…yeah. XD I hope all of you had a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah…killer Kwanzaa or whatever it is you celebrate. XD So please R&R and I'll try to update really soon.: ))