Wow, guys. I am so sorry. Haven't updated in a while, and here I am tossing out a little bitty scrap for you all. : Waaah. This is only part a, Imma' write up a part b a.s.a.p., I promise. Do be patient with me, lotsa' stuff going on in my life right now.
Disclaimer: Invader ZIM and all its characters are copyright Jhonen Vasquez & Nickelodeon Studios.
On the outside, it was cool, still, collected-- a confident boy, sure of his split second decision.
On the inside, it was hell.
Dib's hand twitched, and without even realizing it, he lifted his hand, fingers spread just barely in that innocent, longing gesture, reaching for the paneled wood of the door. When flesh finally made contact with the coarse surface, Dib recognized what he was doing, and instantly ripped his hand from the air, clutching it to his skinny body as if to protect it from some cloaked danger. Glaring bewilderedly at nothing but the harmless door, Dib finally spun on his heel and marched for his room, bypassing any further judgment from his contemptuous sibling. Striding faster than usual into his room, the fragile body bent over the desk, palms down on the field of softly lit white papers.
How could he? How could he even dare? Questions raced through Dib's wracked brain like runaway train cars. This is so stupid. I should have never even allowed him through the door, I should have just shut it on his damn face—
So why didn't you?
Good question. I'm still trying to figure that one out.
Maybe he still cares about you—
NO. I am not going to believe that, I am not going to allow myself to even consider than for an instant! There is no reason, there is no excuse, there is no logic capable of convincing me that he ever cared one bit about me. He just wanted to do his job-- to get close to me and "cure" me.
He just wanted a pay check at the end of the week.
A minute passed in this dead silence. Dib hadn't even noticed that he'd stopped breathing—his hollowed chest vibrating with the heavy beat of his heart. His eyes were open, but he didn't take in anything, not the scatter of words beneath him, printed neatly on clean ivory paper, ever-faithfully ready to be explored, accepting his baffling stories and rants with open arms.
All at once, he moved again-- at first the tips of his fingers jerked in, crumpling the perfect white sheets beneath the digits. A blunt shout spilled from his throat, as Dib threw his arms to the side, hands taking piles of papers and notes with them, creating a flurry of rustling white as the papers flew through the air, each swinging from side to side, trying to reach the floor faster than the others.
Fists clenched at his sides, Dib stood shaking among the floating debris of his momentary temper flare. His frail body quivering with the effort of holding the rest of the tantrum in, Dib moved to swing around, and abruptly caught his foot in the leg of his father's old office chair. Flailing, his arms flapping wildly for balance in the air, Dib arced backwards through the air, heading inevitably towards the floor-- but not before he slammed his elbow on the nice hard surface of the desk.
The pain was instant, a searing agony that tore up his nerve endings in a relentless effort to make him feel every bit of this collision. His eyes flying wide, Dib seized his throbbing forearm—
--the ensuing shriek bouncing off the grimy tile of the bathroom. Clinging to his injury, the counselor slid to the floor, cradling the swelling limb between his chest and his free arm. He didn't need to inspect the damage to really determine the full extent of the injury—it was immediately apparent that something beneath his flesh was fractured, basing his logic solely on the force of impact his arm had made with the solid mass of bone that crowned the head of the alien.
Hearing the dull thud of fleshy toes collide with the floor, Dwicky's head jerked up in time to meet with the alien's-- a grotesque perversion of something that might have been human once.
Yelping, he backed against the disgusting wall, trying to be as friendly with the mold and filth as possible. Tiny critters of all shapes and sizes, but mostly composed of squishy insides with rigid exoskeletons crawled out and skittered across the filmy surface of the wall behind him, the color of the tile long since covered by a fine layer of grime and dirt. Whoever cleaned this public restroom had either retired or died a very long time ago, and their disappearance had never really been registered in the country office. Which wasn't too uncommon—the state was always looking for a way out of handing more pretty green paper into the hands of needy citizens.
The alien's maw recoiled into something that should have been a grin-- but Dwicky really couldn't tell. From its spit-lacquered mouth spilled a grungy language, resembling the sound of bare skin raking concrete, swearing children and voiceless cigarette victims. Dwicky could barely translate what the creature spoke, between the flinching and cowering it spurred him to do.
" 'been searchin' a highn' a low fer this'sun. " Following the mutilated sentence, the beast gave a brutal grunt to punctuate the triumph of the situation to his companion, simultaneously causing a thick dribble of snotty drool to spill over its lower lip and ooze repulsively in between the dirt-caked crevice of its toes.
Completely unaware of this nauseating occurrence, the second monster, in turn, spoke.
" 'shore did take'een awhile, eh? Din'think 'ed evar set'lle. " Twelve sets of wide-set, narrowed eyes gleamed in the dim, fluttering light of the fluorescent tubes, focused eerily on him. The closest beast reclined back on its haunches-- a momentary relief for Dwicky. For a heaven-sent moment, he basked in the cool air that rushed onto his glistening face, damp with sweat, savoring the taste of partially clean oxygen, as compared with the unnaturally vile breath of the alien.
Unfortunately, the moment was short lived, when the second beast stepped forward, swinging terribly close to Dwicky, coming nearer even than the first monster. Feeling the thick heat radiating off the fleshy body of the alien, Dwicky managed to lift his head enough and open his eyes, only to be met with malevolent eyes, boring intentionally into his own deer-like expression with merciless pleasure.
" tissa'ard thing t'go abut hunnin' mices-- always a'scurry 'nna scuttlin-- but once'er got'er caught--" At this, the creature gave a foul snarl, laced in with the word, disfigured teeth coming frighteningly close to Dwicky's delicate cheek. " Thenn'ums good as done'fer. "
Shaking, Dwicky opened his mouth in a feeble attempt to argue his rights-- but all that emerged was a frail whimper. Instantaneously, both beasts rolled back on their haunches, roaring with laughter at Dwicky's complete and utter helplessness. Still chuckling with vehement amusement, both the creatures began to advance on him, misshapen, lewd fingers groping out for his fragile, skinny limbs.
Eyes shut, Dwicky didn't even realize how long it was taking the creatures to grasp him, wherever they were reaching. When a moment longer passed, he opened his eyes, to see both creatures, stopped mid-action, their disgusting, half-gnawed ears perked up in the murky air, their heads facing the only entry into the rest room, which doubled as the exit. Growling softly, one of the aliens threw an intensely hateful glance at the cringing man below them, before straightening up and cracking its neck from side to side. Beside it, the beast's companion followed suit.
When the middle aged man entered the revolting excuse for a lavatory, he was rudely shoved aside by a scrawnier man. Turning around to watch as the other made a rushed exit, the newer occupant suppressed the want to flip off the still-swinging bathroom door—a rather silly habit among most human beings. Sneering instead, to better justify his end of the run-in, the man didn't even notice the other two burly figures in the room as he made his way to one of the pitiful renditions of a toilet—honestly, someone had to have some serious bladder problems, be blind, or just simply be stupid enough to use these restrooms.
The two towering monstrosities of human beings stood abnormally motionless in the corner, eyes shaded by curved, polarized sunglasses. Though completely unnecessary in the grimy, dirt-green lighting of the bathroom, their beady eyes could still be felt through the shiny plastic, enough to make one's spine curl—those pupil less irises constantly gleaming, seeking with a voracious, underfed craving.
Even when the man emerged form the stall, washed his hands under a lovely brown-grey torrent of water from a rusting sink, and dried his hands on a crusty, suspiciously brownish-red splattered towel, he never even thought to glance to the corner where they stood, gigantic, finely dressed walls of flesh and muscle, faces set in stone, unmovable, and intimidating. But the man wasn't all to be blamed for his inevitable ability to be oblivious.
It wasn't often people noticed bouncers in local bathrooms, anyway.
Short, I know. Patience is a virtue, heh! Hope it was enjoyed.