A/N: Wow.. That took a while.. My ZADR friends on Gaia practically kicked me in the butt and threatened me with stones to pelt me with if I didn't do this.. so.. Yeah- please don't pelt me!

Disclaimer of Fan-ficcy doooom: I made a discovery! Jhonen does NOT own Invader Zim, but Nickelodeon. He's simply the creator, and unfortunately for us fans, nothing more. So right! I do not own Invader Zim, Nickelodeon does.

Warning: This fanfic is toxic. Do not put near mouth, nose, or eyes. Should keep out of the way of older and younger- wait, didn't I do this joke last time? Crap!!

O-o

The Doom that Binds Us

5.) Broken Trees, Broken Minds

The two sighed under the protection of the tree. Traffic was booming. Where exactly were they? The rain continued to pour, and every once in a while thunder would boom, sending the two-in-one creature jumping every time.

Dib... Zim knew his fear was leaking over to the human, but he didn't quite want to admit this yet. You've been here before, right? You know the way home, right?

Zim had used the word 'home', and he had meant it in Dib's since talking about his own home. This caught Dib a bit off guard, and he paused before answering. "No, no I don't. Dad drove me home and I wasn't paying too much attention out the window to remember." Dib answered quite calmly until another bit of thunder startled the two.

You are futile, hyuuman! Truly futile! Zib hissed, a true action from Zim's shared heart.

"What, just because I cant simply memorize my way home from a creepy building?" Dib griped back.

No! It's because all you hyuumans are the same. You never take into consideration the future- like maybe you're escape from such an asylum of ultimate stupidity. To make things worse you--

Lightning flared the air, creating a loud high crash, leaving Zib's antennas vibrating in pain. A tall, nearby tree in the park lit up in response to the lightning, catching fire.

Zib quickly looked at the wounded tree, glowing red in embers and flame. Their feet were glued to the ground, unmoved, unknowing of what to do exactly. "Zim..." They muttered, Dib really commanding Zim to help but him in action.

The two just watched the tree as it seemed to be swallowed up in fire. The wood cracked, and spat embers. Twigs crumbled, falling on the wet floor, letting itself die out in the puddles. "What.. do we do exactly?" They didn't quite want to run away, the rain would hurt, yet it seemed like a natural response from the fiery tree ahead.

The tree seemed to roar with the sparks until it seemed to be getting closer. It wooshed in the wet wind as it began to fall, letting the burnt flaming leaves of the bushy tall wooden plant hover over Zib.

Zim's brain quickly responded, and with no help from the deer-in-the-headlights Dib, he pulled out his spider legs, and swiftly hopped into the rain for protection from the fire, which ironically, burned almost as bad.

The tree smashed itself against the ground, now catching the second tree they were hiding under first on fire.

The two panted, their giant red-and-white eyes widened at the destruction laying near them. The heat was still radiating from the fallen over tree. They were mere inches away.

Dib lowered them on the legs, retracting the spider-like structures back into the PAK. He took shared steps back in shock.

That's another thing, hyuuman, why you're so futile. You cant even save yourself. Zim sighed in disgust.

"You.. saved us.. both, just like that, while I was rendered useless..." Dib made them mutter.

Brilliant observation, Dib-beast. You win this 'cookie' I've been hearing so much about. Zim replied, quite sarcastically in his thoughts. The rain was burning their flesh bad, causing them to back up more and more, keeping their eyes on the flames ahead, but leaving them vulnerable for protection.

Damn this heat! Dib cursed mentally, causing Zim to make them laugh out loud.

"That was quite an amazing feat, strange green-kid!" came a voice from behind them.

Zib whirled around to take in the sight of a very tall, dark stranger, with beautiful boots and a weird hair cut, that reminded Zim of awkward antennas, and Dib of strange hair-like horns. "Y-yeah." They replied, they're will blending together slowly. Their eyes traced all around, everywhere but the pale creature before them. Really, looking for the best shelter and the fastest way to get to it, all other trees being too weak.

"You seem scared. Surely, not because of me, hum?" The figure asked, letting the words leave his mouth like warm air begging to escape his almost dead-like cold body.

Zib hissed in pain, growing a strange shade of purple on their skin. Dib took the incentive to shake his head 'no' roughly, while he left Zim to do all of the 'smooth talking'. "Of coarse not, -hiss- worm-baby! The amazing.. uh... ZIMDIB... -hiss- almost got crushed by that burning tree, you see!" Zib glared at the stranger, now inwardly blaming him for their horrible current pain, hissing more.

The tall person with dangly hair simply took a look behind the strange green person, seeing the tree again. "Right, that. That's amazing. Hi, my name is Johnny! You can call me Nny though." He smiled politely.

Zib groaned, falling to their knees. "Thats... great, Nny... but... I really need shelter." The pain was becoming unbearable. They looked back and forth quickly for any sign of help. Why in the world is he so calm?! Dib wondered to Zim, hoping he had a remedy for the pain.

Johnny smiled down, bending over to examine the strange head of Zib better. "I know a place you can go near by here." He said cattishly.

Zib's head shot up. "Where?!" He panicked.

The tall man's eyes narrowed, grinning slightly. "It's in this restraint that nobody's in." Johnny replied slyly.

Pain rushed harder through the two's shared body, causing them to moan in agony.

Sweet, sweet agony, to Nny, but that was aside from the point. "Let me show you the way."

O-o

Zib ran into the building, not waiting for Johnny to try to be polite and hold the door any. When they looked around, though, they noticed something very wrong about this picture.

"Zim, why is there blood and dead bodies everywhere?" Dib asked his body hijacker, frighteningly. His eyes bouncing from body to body, all current pain forgotten, fear paralyzing his body completely and utterly.

I'm.. sure.. this is an early Halloweeny party? Zim feared as well. Oh how he feared. Could this have been done by the very person who brought them here? It must have been.

"You sound calmer than I expected." Johnny's voice rang in as he quietly shut the door behind them, leaving all traces of the rainy sound to a bare muffled rushing noise.

Despite Zim's urge to turn around to face the culprit, Dib's intense fear kept him as was, staring at the blood leaking from the bodies. "What... happened here?" Dib's words echoed out of their mouth.

"Some of them made me mad, so I had to kill them. The others couldn't live after watching that though, so I had to destroy them as well." Johnny said, nonchalantly as he went and took a seat in at a table.

"But.. why?" The question rang. Zim took this opportunity to look down and noticed red hyuuuman liquid soaking their already wet boots.

Johnny shrugged. "They hated me right away because the way I looked, despite how nice I tried to be. The world simply do not need people like that. Don't you agree?" He rested his head on hand, looking at the curiously strange green person with antennas and just a patch of hair. Even his eyes looked strange, red and almost soft like jello. "I'm sure you, being born that way, get that all the time."

Zib's knees shook in Dib's fear. Their eyes watered at the sight of all of these dead people. Dead human beings, Zim! Dead! People just like me, motionless at the hands of this man! Dib was obviously overcome with fear, making Zim roll their red soft eyes.

He made a point to Dib to walk over to that table, despite the watery eyes and shaky knees, and sit across from Johnny. "Yes, yes, Zim knows perfectly all of that, very well." He flipped their clawed hand in the air, circulating it a bit to demonstrate the difficulties it was to be him.

"Zim!" Dib made them retort back.

"What? There's no reason for you to get angry." Zim growled back.

Johnny watched in pure amusement. "There's two of you! How strange!" He seemed rather delighted by this new-found information.

Zib stiffened, watching him carefully. Dib made this chance to speak. "I'd think most people... would just assume we're schizophrenic." He watched his words carefully, not wanting to offend the crazy person.

The man across from them grinned toothily. "No, I'm not like 'most people', you see."

"I see." The green person looked at the bloodied floor.

"I'm going to go in the back... in the kitchen to pull out something rather delicious. You wait here." The tall figured stood, grinning nicely. "Though, just to get this straight, I will help you out, weird thing, but you must also know the expandability of human life." He walked off, stepping over some lump pieces of flesh scattered around, and disappearing off to another room.

"Z-Zim! W-what should we do?! Should we escape? What if he's getting a knife!" Dib panicked, forcing their heart to pump blood quickly.

Zim sighed. Wouldn't you think he already has a knife on him or something to be able to do this to all of these people? We aren't leaving.

"Why not?" This felt horrible. Fear rumbled in the pit of their stomaches.

Because it's still raining, and this guy has a grip on things.

"A grip? Zim! He killed all of these people. I think the last thing he has is a grip on things!"

You don't get it, do you, Dib-beast? You aren't one of these splattered up dead bodies. You are a living Dib-stink! You should get over your 'dead-hyuuuman-phobia' pretty quick, too. Before you know it, this will be all you see for miles to come on your filthy dirt-ball of a planet. Do you hear me? I'm going to obliterate you all. Zim thought angrily at Dib, forcing them to stare at a dead teenage girl who's eyes were clamped open. It almost looked as though she was staring at them. It made Zim feel sick to his stomach that 'Nny' would let her keep her eyes at all, yet made him feel strangely happy that there was so many dead bodies in the first place. Get use to it, Dib-stink. It'll be all you know soon.

"You're horrible, Zim!" Dib clenched their fists tight, gritting their fangy teeth. "How can you take so much enjoyment out of this?!"

This, Zim thought. Is a glance into the future for Zim. It makes me happy to see what awaits him.

"I found steaks." Johnny came back with two plates of the meaty substance.

"Nny, why are you doing this?" Dib brought their body to ask, looking up a bit scared.

Johnny smiled, setting down one of the plates for Zib and one for himself. "Because it's nice."

"Oh."

Zib looked back from the bodies to the steaks. It seemed as though their apatite wasn't quite there anymore.

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A/N: I'm allliiiive. -this is the part where I die!- Okies! Say hi to the Nny cameo. HIII NNY CAMEO!! Nny is sort of important to the plot, so don't tick him off, because I -really- don't feel like cleaning up after him, ya know:O Oi. Well. Done with this chapter. Till next time