-Catch me as I fall. Say you're here and it's all over now. Speaking to the atmosphere, no one's here and I fall into myself. I'm frightened by what I see, but somehow I know that there's much more to come. Immobilized by my fear, and soon to be blinded by tears, I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away.-
Summary: Humanity is so over rated. So convinced that they're superior, so ignorant, that they forget to listen to those who are different than what they perceive as normal. But one day, their "superiority" will be their downfall. Those who are different are not always insane.
I know that I just updated this not too long ago, but I really love writing this. I really want to get farther into the story because I feel like I write best when I'm writing about the characters under stressful situations…Maybe I should update my Jimmy Neutron fanfic, but…it can wait I guess.
Dibsthe1- Yeah, well I guess you could call it help. More like fight alongside of him, though. Yes, she is still a Swollen Eyeball agent. Why wouldn't she be? Hmmm…I never really thought about that…Zim isn't going to be the only threat in the story, just watch-err…read.
The Maine Coon Cat- You'll find out in this chapter, although I don't write out all of it. The just of it: Her step-mother yelled at her because her step-mother mistreats her all the time, and the rest in the chapter!
Here's the clincher…I mean, disclaimer…I've got Chevelle stuck in my head right now, sorry. I don't own Invader Zim. Only the almighty Jhonen Vasquez and the less mighty than Jhonen but still mightier than me Nickelodeon do. Oh how I wish I was mightier than Nickelodeon…but don't get me started. I also do not own Ben Moody, Anastacia, or their song Everything Burns.
Everything Burns
She sits in her corner,
Singing herself to sleep.
The snow, falling slowly and softly to the ground, depicted an almost perfect winter season. Being that the present time was unsuitable, no one roamed the streets or sidewalks making the night peaceful and serene. Every few minutes a car would drive by with the headlights shining brightly against the opposite side of the room. Though those drive-bys were few and far between, the light was taken graciously in by the blue, scared eyes of the girl underneath the sheets of the bed.
A shadow passed by the crack at the bottom of the door to her bedroom and stopped in the center. An angry fist pounded on the door, and the girl sat bolt upright. Legs shaking as she pulled the covers off of her, she removed the garment that was given to her(which she was planning on wearing to sleep because it kept her very warm) and stuffed it in between the two mattresses that sat on the bed-frame. The banging came from the door again, this time harder and more assertive. Swiftly shuffling over to the door so as not to make her footsteps known, she fell to the floor and pressed her cheek to the floor so she could get a decent view of the hallway on the other side of the door.
A pair of pink, fluffy slippers waited on the other side, left foot tapping away impatiently. She lifted herself back up and placed her hand slowly on the doorknob, letting it hover there until another threatening pound on the door forced her to turn it. A middle-aged woman in a bathrobe that matched her slippers stood with her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes at the fifteen year old Goth who stood before her. The girl, who particularly despised the color pink and anything that was fluffy while being pink, mirrored the glare back at the woman.
Wrapped in all of the promises,
That no one seems to keep.
The woman pushed her way past the girl with her shoulder and settled in the middle of the room. She held a black bundle of cloth with various metal pieces clanking together with the slightest of her movement. She looked suspiciously around the dark room for a moment, and then turned to face the girl. Standing in the doorway with the light from the hallway streaming past her, the girl's face was shadowed to a point where her expression could not be read unless you examined her face from up close. The woman began to tap her foot again, a habit of hers that she did when she was angry.
The Gothic girl studied the wrinkly woman, whose face always seemed twisted in that permanent glare when she was alone with her. Her fluorescent red lipstick and her bright blue eye shadow made her face look like it was made of wax. Her bosom was wide, as was her hips, and she swayed them when she walked as if it made her look attractive. She was a little on the stumpy side, and had always reminded the girl of those ladies in documentaries on the Travel Channel who lived in Hollywood and got botox injections to make them look younger.
"Ami!" The woman yelled, shaking Ami from her thoughts. Noticing her dazed disposition, the woman smiled and used it to her advantage. "Sorry, but you seemed a bit distracted. Anyways, I was just coming to see that you got to bed."
Ami wrinkled her nose up in disgust at the woman's sickeningly sugar-coated voice, and then she remembered that she was right in front of her. She sighed out of relief as she realized that the darkness cast on her face restricted the woman from seeing her.
"So how was your first day at school?" The woman asked, trying to sound motherly.
She no longer cries to herself,
No tears left to wash away.
"It was okay, Britney," She muttered.
"Oh, why can't you just call me mom? Or at least Brit…" Ami twinged at the mere thought of calling that…thing by a nickname, let alone her mother. "Did you make any friends at school?"
She hated to let this woman into her personal life, however slightly nonexistent it was, but it seemed that she had no choice. "Yes. One."
"Well, that's good. What's her name?"
"His. And why should I tell you?" She hadn't meant to put the hatred in her question, even though in her mind she had.
"I just wanted try to have a civilized conversation with you…my daughter," Britney knew that Ami hated it when she called her daughter instead of her name. "So what is his name?"
She sighed again. "Dib."
"Hmmm, what an odd name."
"It's not odd! I happen to like it." She had no idea where this sudden outburst had come from, but she felt the need to stand up for the boy.
Her step-mother remained silent for a few seconds. "Do you like this boy?"
Just diaries of empty pages,
Feelings gone astray.
"Maybe. He walked me home, but my business is none of your business," A scowl came across her features, and their conversation had suddenly gone from slightly friendly terms to terms of foes.
The woman's eyebrows scrunched together as she asked the next question. "Were you asleep before I knocked on your door?"
"…Yes."
"That's funny, because I thought I heard voices up here. Guess my hearing is not what it used to be." She placed the bundle in her hand on Ami's bed, locking her eyes to Ami's. "Here's your trench coat. I had to wash it because it smelled of that awful perfume that that woman used to wear."
'That woman' that she was referring to was Ami's biological mother, and Britney had spoken of her as if her hatred was deeper than Ami's hatred for herself.
"Don't you dare talk about my mother that way!" Although Ami had meant to exclaim it, she suppressed her voice so that it came out just a little above a whisper.
"Sounds like someone has a soft spot!" Her step-mother smiled in an evil way and walked up to her hesitantly.
"You just need to shut up. You never knew my mother!"
But she will sing.
"Oh, I knew your mother. An annoying little bitch, she was, but that's beside the point. Haven't you ever wondered how she died?"
Ami didn't move any part of her body and continued to shoot daggers at the woman with her eyes.
"I wouldn't expect you to know how, right?" Not waiting an answer, she looked away from the curious girl. "She died from an experiment performed on her by a scientist. Professor Membrane, I think his name was."
All she got in return was silence.
"You know, I wouldn't trust that Dib boy."
"…Get out. Now," In one motion she pushed the chubby lady out of her room and slammed the door behind her, leaning up against it to brace the door in case she tried to get back in.
Leaning her cheek against the cold wood of the door, her breathing slowed down a bit, and the wave of tension she was harboring left somewhat. Then the Ami's vision was blurred as she remembered her mother's funeral.
She was a little girl, no older than five, and she recalled standing next to her father as she grasped his hand. They walked up to the casket silently, and there her father was threateningly talking to a man in a long, white lab coat. The man had two kids with him, a girl whom was being held in his arms and a little boy with black hair who was standing a few feet away from him, staring at something on the ground. Her father had told her go play with him because he was around her age.
She pouted and didn't listen to him. What she wanted to do was find out why her mother was suddenly not with them anymore.
"Ami, don't do this to me. Not now; just do as I say!" Her father kneeled down and looked into her eyes.
"Not until I know what happened to mommy!" She crossed her arms across her chest and turned her head up in a snooty, persistent way.
"I'll talk to you about it later. Now go!" Taking the threatening tone in his voice seriously, she uncrossed her arms and turned away as her father stood back up to the man in white.
She knew that he was only trying to get rid of her so that he could tell the man off. She had walked over to the little boy in a cautious fashion, and almost went back over to her father when she saw that the boy was crying. But it was too late, he had already seen her.
Everything burns,
Everyone screams.
"Hi…" He said in a monotone.
"Um…hi," She replied unstably.
"That's my mom's head stone," He stated blandly, pointing to the stone on the ground that he was examining.
"Oh."
"I'm really sorry about you mom. You were probably really close…"
He was the first person who had ever spoken to her like she was an equal, of course, they were equal it seemed at the time, but that's not the point. Mentally, Ami was about eight years old, and this kid sounded like he was too.
"We were…" Fresh tears sprang to her eyes and the boy turned to her sympathetically, his black hair swaying in the breeze.
Out of nowhere he embraced her, tears sliding down his cheeks as well. She hugged him back and they just stood there, sobbing and hugging as if it were the ends of their short, five year old lives.
Burning their lies,
Burning my dreams.
She was now sitting in the farthest corner of her room, no longer crying. Her head rested on her arms, which were crossed over her knees. Come to think of it, that boy in her memory seemed really familiar. She rose to her feet, too tired to care anymore. Her trench coat lay on her bed where Britney had left it, and Ami placed it on the chair by her desk. Then, after assuring the placement of Dib's trench coat, she slipped herself under her black bed sheets. All the happiness of finally finding a friend, someone that understood her, drained from her eyes in the form of one solitary tear as she laid her head on the pillow and fell into a fitful sleep.
She was lying on the ground, staring up at the crimson sky. Dib towered over her, staring at her with an amplified sadness. The immense pain that she felt in her side caused her to gasp for air. She reached down to feel the warm blood dripping down. Dib looked as if he had no idea what to do.
"Please, please don't leave Ami," He said, kneeling down as tears streamed down his face. "Now that I know what I'm without, you can't just leave me. I don't think that I could live without you."
He gripped her hand gently with his and she kissed it lightly. Her eyelids were slowly drooping down until all she could see were silhouettes of the world before her. He stood back up and glared at the world, a glare so full of hatred that she couldn't think of a word to describe it. It was very clear how emotional his deep, brown eyes were even though her eyes were halfway closed.
He looked down at her, his expression changing drastically to a softer, caring one. "I love you, Ami."
"I love you too," He almost smiled, and would've if it wasn't such a broken moment.
All of this faith,
And all of this pain,
He glared at the sky again, and then the darkness completely closed in on her vision. It surrounded her and she felt as if she were floating in water. The chillness of the air around her grew still. The next words she heard were, "You killed her! You killed her, Zim, you killed her!"
Usually that would've been the last thing that she heard, but another voice chilled her thoughts.
"Stupid human; letting your emotions get the best of you. Guess what Dib," The arrogant voice called. "I win."
Burning all down,
Cause my anger reigns.
Walking through life unnoticed,
Knowing that no one cares.
To consume and then masquerade,
No one sees her there.
And she still sings.
Everything burns,
Everyone screams.
Burning their lies,
Burning my dreams.
All of this faith,
And all of this pain,
Burning all down,
Cause my anger reigns.
Everything burns.
Watching it all fade away,
Everyone screams.
Everyone screams,
Watching it all fade away.
Everything burns,
Everyone screams.
Burning their lies,
Burning my dreams.
All of this faith,
And all of this pain,
Burning all down,
Cause my anger reigns.
I hope everyone liked this one, it only took me two and a half hours to write it. And that was considering that I stopped to eat and to talk on the phone. Anyways, I put that flashback in there to make it seem like they really did know each other before they met in this story. Hope it doesn't make the story too dramatic. She had the same dream again, I just made it a little bit more detailed.