A.N. Well, here I am with chapter one, or two, however you wish to view it. I should explain that I am not completely aware of the whole story of Invader Zim, and that this alternate universe if from my own perverse mind. - Any character anomalies are from my twisting of the story line. No like, no read. -

Disclaimer: ……….. yes. Yes, I do own it! It is mine! Zim flies low and cuts Mora's head off with a metal leg from his PAK. You own nothing, you filthy stink beast!

Get the picture?

Project D.I.B.

Chapter: 01

The room was silent for all but the dull hum from the starships engines. The white walls bright against the doubled pained window that showed the dark vastness of space, stars slowly gliding by the 'Membrane'.

The ship was a floating science lab, built and commanded by Professor Membrane himself, not too long after the planet Earth had been destroyed by the attacking Irken race. What remained of the human race, now floated as a fleet, set on destroying the creatures that had annihilated their home world.

Large amber colored eyes gazed out into the darkness, blankly staring out at the only world he'd ever known. He felt small in comparison to the never ending darkness of space.

Then again, he was a very small being.

A pale white hand reached out, trailing three digits over the cool glass, shivering at it's icy feel. Space was very cold, something he wasn't used to.

The metal grind of his door opening, caused the tiny boy to turn, two grey antennae raising up in slight joy that anyone was coming to visit him.

The tall woman stood in the doorway, her purple hair cropped short against her face. Her narrowed eyes didn't move as she shifted her clipboard in her arms, causing her white lab coat to wrinkle slightly.

"Good morning, Dib, awake again I see." She said in a bored tone, and Dib's pale antennae drooped a bit.

"I can't sleep, Gaz." Dib said quietly, turning back to the window and away from the annoyed twenty-six-year-old woman. Gaz Membrane was only ten years older than he was, and from the time he could remember, had been his only playmate, though she seemed less than thrilled to spend her time with him.

Dib knew from early on that the man they both called father, paid little attention to the girl, and it had made her angry and jealous of Dib. She used to beat him when he'd been younger, but she'd grown out of it when she was able to watch him with the doctors.

Dib never knew why it was that he was the only one the doctors had to monitor. He had assumed long ago it was because he was different. He had three fingers, not five. He had no nose or ears that could be seen. No pupils in his amber colored eyes, hidden behind large wire rimmed glasses and no hair, and his genitals where hidden with in his body, in a slit between his legs.

His father muttered lots of things, words that Dib had a hard time understanding. Albino, unaltered, preemie…the words were so different from what he was taught, and when he asked about them, no one would answer.

No one, but Gaz.

Dib realized that sometime ago, Gaz had started to pity him. She protected him in a sick way. Harshly telling him things, that he didn't want to hear, but knew were true. After all, Gaz was the only one who never lied.

Was sarcastic and cruel, but never lied. It was an odd feeling of dislike and child-like love that he felt for the girl that made him both disappointed and happy to see her. She was the closest thing he had to a mother, even if she was his older sister.

No… not my real sister… because I'm… not human.

Dib looked sadly at his own wisp-like reflection in the dual window. His red and black striped T-shirt making his white skin almost pearl-like. He dropped his eyes to his lap staring at his white shorts, a shade made cream-colored by his own skin, same with his bobbed socks.

"Let me guess, the nightmares again." Gaz said with a bored expression, stepping into the room, the door hissing closed behind her. "Tell the doctors and they'll monitor you again." She threatened in a cold, emotionless voice. Dib shivered, knowing what that would mean. He didn't like the dark, and that was what they put him in; the dark. With wires connected to his head and antennae, tapping into his brain and learning all that could be learned from his horrible night terrors.

Which was nothing.

"You should get over it. It's not like it's real. When are you going to grow up Dib?" Gaz bit out harshly, and Dib scowled, sticking out his slender tongue at her, the blue blood vesicles in it standing out drastically.

Gaz just glared.

Dib was about the size of a human child, reaching just up to Gaz's hip. A height she had said to be that of a toddler's at best. She had often told him to "grow up," the words holding a double meaning.

It always annoyed him.

"Dad, wants you to come down and eat something." Gaz said, obviously bored with Dib. He cringed at the thought of eating anything. The food always made his stomach ache, or whatever he had in his middle that digested his food, and the water burned his skin horribly.

Gaz had found it hysterical when she'd dared him to drink some of her juice when they had both been younger. He still had the scar from his surgery.

"I'm not hungry…" Dib said in a small voice, knowing that he was in a precarious position at the moment. Gaz let out a heavy sigh and stalked over to his bedside. Dib glanced up, fearful of her anger, when she bent down and hauled him up by his arm, placing him on the floor and practically dragging him from his room.

The doors locked from the outside of his room, and the personnel scanner was placed way above Dib's head. Making escape without assistance impossible. Not that he had anywhere to escape to.

"You are skinny as a fucking rake Dib, and I'm not taking the blame for you dying of malnutrition." Gaz grumbled as she stalked down the long hallways her steal-tipped boots making awful clacking noises on the ground.

Dib pursed his lips together in a pout, but followed along, the bottoms of his white socks stained black from the junk that littered the metal-ridged flooring. Dib stumbled slightly a few times in his effort to keep up as the much taller female dragged him along to the cafeteria.

Dib kept his eyes focused on his feet so he wouldn't trip and hurt himself. He was used to the stares he received from those around him when he was allowed out of his room. Most would look at him and give a nod or smile, but some glared at him with a deep rooted hatred that Dib had yet to understand.

He knew it had something to do with how he was treated like a "normal boy," as he'd heard the term used. That something about him being treated as one of them, offended those few, but his wariness was usually pushed aside when Gaz would threatened to break their "pencil necks" if they didn't shut "the fuck up."

Dib gave a small smile at the memory, and reach up to hold Gaz's wrist with his own smaller hand. If she noticed the gesture, she made no move to show it.

The room was filled with doctors in white coats, and Dib recognized a few from some of his tests. He didn't mind them so much, they were only slightly annoying, the way they always poked and prodded at him, taking blood samples and making sure that he was kept clean and away from viruses.

Though sometimes they gave him a sickness, calling it a "vaccination."

Dib wasn't stupid, he knew that they wanted to see if they could find a cure in him for the disease that they were testing. Though it often hurt, Dib never complained.

After all, this was all he'd known.

"Stay right here, and don't move. You got that?" Gaz asked as she placed Dib in a chair at an empty table. Dib nodded and slumped in his chair, kicking his legs back and forth.

"Yeah…"

Gaz looked at him for a moment longer, before turning and disappearing into the line, returning moments later with food. It was different from what the other's were eating, Dib noticed, as he usually did. It looked as though Gaz had been telling the truth, about the professor being worried for his health.

There was not a dollop of human food on his tray this time, Dib gave a wiry smile, and indulged in the flavorless food-substitute his "father" made for him. Gaz, sat down beside him, glaring blankly around the room at the other doctors.

She had been the only child on board aside from him. In a way, they where alike in their separation from the others. Now, he wondered if Gaz even wanted to remain here, or if she stayed for the same reasons as he did.

Because they had no where else to go.

"So, was it the same dream as before?" Gaz asked sounding annoyed, and not particularly interested. She had once told Dib that his voice annoyed her, and he'd stopped talking.

She started asking questions soon after.

"Yeah… the same." Dib said between food as he slurped down a drink their father had made from something other than water.

"So, nothing new? God, what can be so scary about a nightmare that never changes. You are so stupid, Dib!" Gaz snapped, though her tone remained quiet so that the other doctors would not hear her words.

Dib rolled his eyes, and continued to munch. Obviously, you've never seen the bloody corpses of everyone you knew, and faces you don't know yet, staring blankly at a fiery vortex of doom, red eyes burning into your soul, hands choking the life from you… Dib thought sullenly, but didn't say a word. Last time he'd mentioned it, the doctors thought he was seeing the past of earth, and had done endless tests on him. And Gaz was the only one who explained why, to Dib, thinking the doctor's hypothesis was complete shit.

Dib didn't even want to think of what he saw when she'd touched him, pulling him from the testing unit, after saving him. He'd blanked out for a moment, as though he were watching a movie, and saw a memory that could only be from Gaz.

Dib shivered, one of the corpses in his dream had been Gaz's mother, he soon found out. Sometimes, Dib could see things when he touched a person, if they where thinking of it "loud" enough. Images from another time.

He didn't like it.

And he never mentioned it.

"You're going into the playroom today." Gaz said after a long moment's pause. Dib looked up at her curiously, his plate cleaned. "So, be ready."

Dib nodded once in understanding. The playroom was a simulation of Earth, and each time he was put inside, the scenery was different. It was a way to see how he would react, and what he would do. So far he'd been a disappointment in there, doing nothing extraordinary, acting like any other kid. "You think they'll get bored soon?" Dib asked, both hopeful and saddened at the thought. Earth had been a beautiful place, and he liked to pretend that he belonged somewhere like that, but at the same time, he didn't like being observed as he played.

It was like being watched when one peed.

"Okay, Gaz." Dib said, and the girl rose once more, taking his tray and disappearing. Dib sighed, drawing symbols on the tabletop with one pale finger.

It was just another day on the Membrane.

And some how, it made Dib sad.

It was a valley this time. Tall grass rose from the ground, with flowers swaying in the afternoon breeze. It was comforting, and Dib smiled, sitting down in the grass, now completely hidden from view.

A few green stalks brushed passed his antennae and Dib shivered, feeling a hot tingle travel down and through his stomach. They had always been ultra-sensitive, another thing Gaz used to use against him. Dib cringed at the memory of pain as she'd yanked on them.

Opening his amber colored eyes, Dib looked up into the endless blue of the sky. He wished he could truly be in such a place, where the stars where hidden from view, where he was no longer just a small thing, floating endlessly through the vastness of eternity.

A part of him ached to belong, and he wanted it to be here, on this planet called earth, but he knew that he could not, for it no longer existed. The wind smelled sweet, and Dib grinned, stretching his arms above his head, before relaxing on the ground, quite content.

The sun felt warm on his skin, and even though he knew it was a simulation, Dib was pleased and comforted by it. He closed his eyes, watching the color that stained his lids from the sun and let his mind wander away. He drifted through unconsciousness and reality, his mind drawing back to images he knew he should not know of. Images of a home, of earth.

Suddenly the warmth was gone, and the light vanished. Dib made a face, surprised that the test had ended so quickly.

They usually don't get bored for at least and hour… Dib thought, opening his eyes slowly. He bit back a scream when he found himself in his nightmare from before. Fires burning around him, people screaming as they died, falling lifelessly into piles. Several of the doctors were there, in the piles, their eyes void of all life. Dib bit back a cry, stumbling backwards, away from the massacre.

He felt sick, and gave a whimper, trying not to breath. The stench of death and decay was rising up and smothering him. Dib placed his hands to his face not knowing how to block the smell, and ran straight into someone. Jumping, Dib flung himself around, and choked on a scream when he met cold, blood-red eyes. Pupil-less, like his own, glaring down from at least a foot above himself. The being glared in hate, and reached out, gripping Dib around the neck, squeezing until he started to choke.

This is a dream! It's all just a dream! Dib kept screaming in his own head, but he knew it was all to real to be a nightmare.

The hand clenched tighter, and drew Dib close, hot breath fanned against his face as the being whispered to him, but Dib could no longer hear the words. I'm going to die… Dib thought faintly, and the person before him grinned maliciously.

Dib screamed.

Dib shot up from his bed panting hard. Beads of moisture escaping from his pale skin to run down his face and back, making his clothing stick to his body uncomfortably. His heart pounded angrily in his chest, and he shivered from the cold sweat.

Dib blinked his eyes reaching out and retrieving his glasses from the table by his bed. Placing them on he looked outside the window at the darkness. From the lack of light in his room, Dib knew that it was now "night." The rest of the ship was most likely asleep, the night crew on duty.

Dib shivered pulling his blankets up and around his figure as he looked at his own reflection in the glass. I fell asleep in the simulator. Gaz must have carried me back. Dib thought with a shiver, trying to push the dream from his mind. He placed a hand to his neck, rubbing it, still remembering how it had felt to be choked.

"So many stars…" Dib whispered, and some part of him leaped with joy at the sight. "… so many places that might be like the earth was. I wish I could be there." Dib sighed, placing his fingertip over the brightest star, covering it as if to draw in it's warmth.

It did nothing.

"I wish I belonged…"

Dib dropped his finger and moved to lean against the wall to wait for morning to come, not wanting to sleep again, and noticed with shock, that the bright star seemed to be getting bigger.

What…?

Dib squinted his eyes, his heartbeat picking up pace. Something inside of him was afraid, deathly so, and somehow he knew that he didn't want that star near him, but at the same time he did.

I can't… I can't get to anyone… Dib began to panic realizing that there was nothing that he could do, as he watch the growing star with awe and panic.

The star was moving closer.

A.N. Well, end of chapter one… another very short chapter. Let me know what you think, and I may update. But for now I have to get to work, so, till next time.

Mora