Okay everyone; this is another Update to you. :)
Phew, I can't believe I'm halfway to finishing this story *sniff* good times. TT_TT
Zim: -_-
ALRIGHTY THEN! Here's the skinny, I do not own invader Zim or Coraline.
Chapter 14 The Dark.
Somewhere inside him Zim could feel a huge sob welling up. Shaking his head, he stopped it, before it came out and continued to pound on the wall desperately; trying desperately to find a way out.
Zim eventually gave up. His antennae drooping and his eyes squeezing shut.
'Don't panic,' he thought, 'just sing that song Pur, taught you… extend your hands...'
With a sigh, Zim stretched out his arms in order to touch the space in which he was imprisoned, and started to sing.
"Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same." Sang Zim, going around the room.
The room was twice the size of a walk in closet: big enough to hold an old bed, which had a large hole in the middle of the mattress. Obviously, this room was not meant for anyone, just things forgotten.
"There's a pink one, and green one, and a blue one, and a yellow one. And they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same."
A strange thing about this place was that one wall was made entirely of glass. Zim took off his gloves in order to feel the cold smoothness.
"And the people in the houses all went to the university where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same. And there are doctors, and lawyers and business executives and they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same. And they all play on the golf course and drink their martini's dry, and they all have pretty children, and the children go to school."
Zim went around the tiny room a second time, running his hands over every surface that he could reach, feeling for doorknobs or switches or concealed catches. Something, anything that could get him out, but he found nothing.
"And the children go to summer camp and then to the university and they're all but into boxes and they all look just the same. Boys go into business and marry, and raise a family in boxes made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same. There's a pink one, and green one, and a blue one, and a yellow one and they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same." Sang Zim, finishing his little song as he returned to what he assumed was his starting point. Singing only made him miss his brothers more. Who cares if Red slapped him, If Pur ignored him. It was better than being inside this dark place.
'I miss them so much…I hate being here. I don't like being alone," thought Zim.
A spider scuttled over the back of his hand at this point and Zim choked back a shriek, but apart from the spider, he was completely alone in this place.
Or was he?
Behind him, Zim heard a sorrowful moan. A sound that quickly ran it's way up his spine and brought a chill into his heart.
"Who's there?" said Zim nervously, turning and keeping his back to the wall.
Reaching out once more, Zim touched something that felt like somebody's cheek and lips, small and cold. Before Zim could scream in horror, a voice whispered in his ear.
"Hush! and shush! Say nothing, for the beldam might be listening."
Zim said nothing, only pressed himself against the wall even more as he felt a cold hand touch his face, fingers running over it like a gentle beat of a moths wings.
Another voice, hesitant and so faint Zim wondered if he was imagining it, said, "Art thou- art thou alive?"
"Yes," whispered Zim, trying to calm down.
"Poor child," said the first voice.
"Who are you?" whispered Zim, his entire body shaking.
"Names, names, names," said another voice, all faraway and lost, "Don't know our names, but I 'member my true mommy."
"The names are the first to go," said a new voice.
"After the breath has gone, and the beating of the heart, we keep our memories longer than our names. I still keep pictures in my mind of my governess on some May morning, carrying my hoop and stick, and the morning sun behind her, and all the tulips bobbing in the breeze. But I have forgotten the name of my governess, and the tulips too." Said the second voice.
"I…I don't think tulips have names," said Zim, "They're just tulips I think."
"Perhaps," said the second voice, sadly. "But I have always thought that tulips must have had names. They were red, and orange and red, and red and orange and yellow, like the embers in the nursery fire of a winter's evening. I remember them."
The voice sounded so sad that Zim put out a hand to the place where the voice was coming from, and he found a cold hand, and he squeezed it tightly.
His eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, now Zim saw, or imagined he saw, three shapes, each as faint and pale as the moon in the daytime sky. They were the shapes of children about his own size, all of them with horrified, pained or confused expressions. The cold hand squeezed his hand back. "Thank you," said the voice.
"Are you a girl?" asked Zim, "Or a boy?"
There was a pause. "When I was small I wore skirts and my hair was long and curled," it said, doubtfully. "But now that you ask, it does seem to me that one day they took my skirts and gave me britches and cut my hair."
"'Tain't something we give mind to," said the first of the voices.
"A boy, perhaps, then," continued the one whose hand Zim was holding. "I believe I was once a boy." And it glowed a little more brightly in the darkness of the room behind the mirror.
"What happened to you all?" asked Zim "How'd you get here?"
There was a pause among the darkness before the three voices spoke at once.
"The beldam," they said.
"She spied on our lives, through the little doll's eyes," said the third voice.
"And saw that we weren't happy." Said the one that thought it was a boy.
"So she lured us away with treasures, and treats and games to play, gave all that we asked. Yet still we wanted more." Said the first of the voices.
"So we let her sow the buttons," hissed the three voices.
Suddenly something cold passed through Zim's body, and images of blood and children's horror passed through his eyes, screams of agony rang through his ears as he himself felt cold buttons cover his eyes. Cold and unloving.
"Told us that she loved us, but she left us here," said one of the voices. "She stole out hearts, and she stole our souls, and she ate up our lives. She left us here, and she forgot about us in the dark."
"How long have you been here?" asked Zim.
"So very long a time," said the first voice.
"Yes. Time beyond reckoning," said the third voice. Zim thought maybe this one could be a girl.
"I walked through the scullery door," said the voice of the one that thought it might be a boy, "and I found myself back in the parlor. But she was waiting for me. She told me she was my other Mommy, but I never saw my true Mommy again."
"Flee!" said the very first of the voices- another girl, Zim fancied. "Flee, while there's still air in your lungs and blood in your veins and warmth in your heart. Flee while you still have your mind and soul."
"I tried, but she brought me here," said Zim.
"Ah, she'll keep you here while the days turn to dust and the leaves fall and the years pass one after the next like the tick-tick-ticking of a clock." Said the third voice.
"No," said Zim "she won't. She can't keep me in the dark forever. Not if she want's my life."
There was silence then in the room behind the mirror.
"Peradventure," said a voice in the darkness, the first girl, "If you could win your freedom from the beldam, you could also free our souls."
"You could find our eyes," said the second girl, in a hopeful voice.
"Has she taken them?" asked Zim, antennas twitching.
"Yes, and hidden them. That is why we could not leave here, when we died. She kept us, and she fed on us, until now we've nothing left of ourselves, only snake-skins and spider husks. Find our secret hearts, find our eyes."
"What will happen to you if I do?" asked Zim, his eyes closing, making the darkness that surrounded him seem darker.
The voices said nothing.
Silence.
"What will happen, if she sows them in? What will she do to me?" asked Zim, antennae swaying in worry.
The pale figures pulsed faintly. Zim could imagine that they were nothing more than afterimages, like the glow left by a bright light in your eyes, after the lights go out.
"Agony, fear, and blood," whispered the third voice. "Then life vanishes."
Zim shivered as he remembered the images that he saw earlier. Could that have been memories of the ghost children?
"And…?" Zim couldn't finish his sentence. His blood ran cold at the mere thought of what came after the pain.
"It doth not hurt," whispered the boy's voice, very faintly; trying to comfort the scared Irken.
"She will take your life and all you are and all you care'st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog," Said the third voice, "She'll take your joy. And one day you'll awake and your heart and your soul will have gone. A husk you'll be, a wisp you'll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten."
"Hollow," whispered the first voice. "Hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow."
"You must flee," sighed a voice faintly.
"Can you tell me how to get out of this room?" asked Zim.
"If we knew we would tell you," said the voices in unison.
"Poor things," sighed Zim,"When she lets me out, why don't you three come with me?"
"we wish we could," they sighed to him, in their barely-there voices. "But she has our hearts in her keeping. Now we belong to the dark and to the empty places. The light would shrivel us, and burn."
Zim shivered again, his eyes snapping shut in thought he felt a ghost kiss his cheek, tenderly, and a small voice whisper into his ear, a voice so faint it was barely there at all, and a gentle wispy nothing of a voice so hushed that Zim could almost voice he was imagining it.
"save our souls, please!" begged the voice.
"Is there anyone, anyone at all other than you that will help me?" asked Zim.
"The one that got away," said the third voice, her tone rising.
"He came through the door, challenged her, and won," said the boy's voice.
"Then what happened?" asked Zim, alarmed. If someone won, they would be set free, right?
"She never keeps her promises…The one before me, as punishment serves under her," said the third voice, "Had I only listened to his warning, I would not be here…Please, Set him free too!"
"set us all free! Let us be saved!" said the voices together, pleading.
Zim felt his chest tighten, and tears starting to well. This place was a nightmare, this place was a hell.
"I'll…I'll try." Promised Zim, Closing his eyes before he felt something cold suddenly grab him from behind. Zim screamed into a cold hand as he felt his body being pulled through the mirror.
"NO!" screamed Zim, his voice muffled by the cold hand, "IT CAN'T END LIKE THIS! I WON'T END LIKE THIS!"
SET ME FREE!
Well ladies and gentlemen, you know the deal. Leave a review and an opinion.
Sorry for any misspellings, and grammar.
The song in this chapter is called 'Little boxes' by Walk off the Earth
TOUCH MY AWESOME BUTTON
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