Title: The Beginning
Summary: Did you ever wonder what Dib was doing during the six months that Zim spent traveling from Conventia to Earth?
Disclaimer: All the characters are property of Jhonen Vasquez. They are not mine.
Notes: I used two constraints on this piece. The first (and the most obvious) was not very difficult to incorporate, but the second caused me immense difficuly. The first three people who e-mail me with the correct guesses for what my two constraints are will each win...something cool. Maybe even a muffin
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Lying on a roof, a bespectacted youth gazed into the foggy, silent night sky. The night's atmosphere was cold, and the air seemed completely still, as if frozen.
The youth pointed an antenna at a piece of the clouded sky and curiously adjusted several knobs, attempting to tune in the strange melodic signal that the radio had been recieving for the past six months. Steadily over those months, the constant signals had begun to shed static. Now, the youth could almost make out the words, or perhaps the same word repeated over and over again in different musical tones.
From inside the house, a low, threteaning voice broke the youth's concentration and called.
"Dad says get downstairs for dinner. NOW!"
The youth nearly fell off the roof in alarm, the voice was so sudden. With a sigh, the youth switched off the sound of the musically unearthly static. "There's always tomorrow," the youth said to no one.
Little did the youth know, tomorrow would be the day that the signals finally came in clearly.
Over the course of the night, until dawn, the youth was repeatedly assaulted by the fitful beginnings of a nightmare, in which a ruby-eyed being with light green skin screamed in heavily provoked annoyance. The target of the being's violent anger was a smaller creature with cyan eyes who was singing and dancing. The cyan-eyed creature looked so innocent and unoffending, yet somehow the song seemed to immensely annoy the other being. The youth was aware in the dream state that the voice and words of the song seemed so...familiar.
The dream's details faded in the morning, but the nightmare stayed with the youth for the rest of the day. That music had been heard before...somewhere. The youth was determined to know why. The youth could no longer recall the melody or the words, but the sense of déjà vu remained.
In the evening, the youth returned to the house's roof. The sky was clear and a vast multitude of stars and galaxies were visible. There was even a bright light near the zenith of the heavens that could have been a distant supernova, or perhaps a meteor. After the various pieces of radio equipment were set up, the youth carefully adjusted the knobs to receive the mysterious transmission. This time, the words and melody were clear.
"Doom, doom, doom...DOOM! Doomy, doomy, doomy..."
The youth made a sound of both fear and excitement. This was the song from the dream, and the voice of the radio's transmission was the same as that of the cyan-eyed creature from the nightmare.
"Doomy, doomy, doomy...DOOM!"
The youth could only listen in shocked amazement as the signal got louder and clearer by the second.
"Doom, doom, doomy doom..."
Suddenly, a more menacing voice filled the background of the singing. "We're here! We're finally here!" This voice belonged to the nightmare's angry ruby-eyed being.
Looking up, the youth realized that the growing light resembling a meteor in the sky wasn't one. The object was clearly seen to be a spaceship.
The nightmare was coming true. The strange alien beings were coming. In the silence after the song's culmination, the determined youth would vow to fight against this invasion to save humanity and the precious planet, Earth.
"Doom, doom, doom...The end!"
Thus, the true nightmare began.