Author's Note: Welcome back to the zombified ZAGR story! Because, if you didn't know, I just brought this back from the dead! Thanks, all you random commenting/favoriting people, for motivating me and stuff :) I promise I'll try to finish this, even if I've kind of already moved on from the whole Invader Zim thing. So without further ado, I present Slave to Games, chapter 4!

Hours passed in silence. I just wouldn't talk to him. Why should I? He had what he wanted—me, by his side in this stupid pointless quest—because he took it by force, without even asking. If he didn't care what I thought, why should I bother with pointless small talk? Not that I would even bother striking up a conversation. Not like I should care.

Hours later, I kinda had to care. Because I really, really needed to pee. I asked, he told me where the bathroom was, I went, came back, and sat curled up in the seat as far away from him as possible. That was the extent of our conversation.

I glared out at the stars for a while. Far off in the distance was the blue glimmer of Neptune, so faint in the darkness. This was so boring. Even a road trip through some boring place with endless rolling grassland had more sights to see, more distractions in the passing view. Not that we had ever gone on many family road trips. Maybe once, twice, to some science convention somewhere.

Dad… Do you even know I'm gone yet? Would you even notice how empty the house is? Do you even care where we've gone?

"Awwwh," GIR's tinny voice interrupted my thoughts as he rubbed his cold, hard tin-can head against my shoulder like a cat. "'Choo so happy you're crying!"

"Shut up." I pushed him away with my knee and leaned my head against the window. In the reflection from the glare of the lights inside the ship, I could dimly see Zim's wide red eyes gazing in my direction. I breathed a shaky sigh and looked away.

I'm just so good at playing the ignore-the-world game. Maybe a week passed with no excitement, and barely even a word from me. Yes, I was bored out of my mind, but I didn't need to let him see that.

Zim has never been the most patient person. Once a day or so, he would work himself up into a rant, going on and on about "Dib this" and "Dib that" and glory and the victory so easily within his reach. I only listened because there was nothing else to listen to, besides GIR's endless singing. But most of the time, I just zoned out, dozed off, half-enjoying the dark mazes my dreams laid out for me.

It was a path I'd traced many times. It was a hallway in a castle, dark, cathedral-like windows letting in the little light that filtered through storm-tossed clouds. I could hear voices in the distance, but I knew all they had to say was nonsense that I would forget as soon as I woke up anyway.

But now the stone changed to tile, the windows growing narrower and disappearing, dim and flickering fluorescent bulbs the only light now. The musty scent changed into something more chemical, the voices becoming harsher and even more unintelligible.

The part of me that I couldn't really reach, not this far in the dream, shuddered.

This was where the real nightmares always begin.

Dib's never here. This isn't his world. Neither is Zim. Neither are any of the other characters from my waking life. This is Dad's domain, always has been.

The walls are white, the doors are marked with letters or numbers that jumble together. I pause where one hallway runs into another.

And now I hear the footsteps. And now I have to run.

It's always a gentle hand, gripping my shoulder whenever the lab worker catches up to me. They say something, maybe commanding, maybe reassuring, but all it causes is fear. And even if I don't struggle, that grip turns to steel.

I'm led down some hallways, led into a room, and now it's always the same room.

I sit in a chair, an automatic movement, living out the pattern of days and days, years ago, days that I don't care to remember, I don't even try, but suddenly it's all so easy.

Lights come on, blinding me, and I can't move because I'm tied down somehow.

Metal flashes, knives or hooks or needles or something, cold and pressing against my skin.

My wrist.

I can suddenly see metal against my wrist, where it wasn't there before now

Metal legs, metal claws

And then I realize

Remember this is real-fake-dreaming-memories like watercolors melting together, mixing and changing, dissolving and reforming

When I wake up from a nightmare, I don't scream. I just let out a small whimper. Usually I'd hold my blanket or my pillow, breathe a few moments, hardly daring to look too far into the darkness of my room.

But right now it's bright, and I'm in a bubble of light, with the darkness of deep space like a curtain behind me. I force my breathing to go back to normal and uncurl my body, shifting into a different position on the seat.

Zim's watching me. I glare at him, and for a moment it looks like he's going to say something, but he half shrugs and turns away, fiddling with something on the computer.

"Well, Gaz-human. Look's like we're going to have to stop for supplies, and… information. Since, of course, you have no idea where your brother is." One eye is wide and the other squinted in suspicion, and it makes him look crazy. Oh, right, he already is.

"I don't," I mutter, looking down at the hem of my dress.

"Yes, well, I'm not taking any chances of you trying to escape. So, you are coming with me. Of course," he continued, when I gave him a look, "The planet should be safe for you without any sort of spacesuit." He chuckles. "I'm not dragging you to a pointless death."

"This whole thing is pointless," I grumble. His antennae twitch but he doesn't say a thing.