The Sickness

Part Sixteen

Time seemed to come and go as Dib, Gaz, and Gir continued on their way to find the Massive. Even with the speed they were going, it was very difficult to tell how much time had actually gone by. It had been many hours since they had left Earth and there would be no sign of the true time that had passed within the black vastness of space. For all they knew, it could have been only a day that had gone by and there still would have no way for them to truly know how long it had been. The turbulence has began to go down as the ship slowed its pace. Dib; who had been gazing out the window soon noticed this and spoke up.

"Um... Ship?" He asked. Tak's voice gave an aggravated sigh.

"What do you want now?" She asked, a bit annoyed.

"Why did we slow down?" Dib asked.

"Oh, so you want the ship to shake and possibly break up in space because of the velocity it's going?" Tak asked, her words dripping with sarcasm.

"No, I was just wondering why." Dib replied, getting annoyed by Tak's harsh words.

"Well, if you must know," Tak started. "The ship needs to take a break from the high speed it had been going for a possible day and a half." Dib was shocked by this.

"It's been a day and a half already?"

"Yes, you big headed twit." Tak snapped back. "And by my calculations, we should be there in about another twenty-seven hours."

"Thanks Tak." Dib stated, ignoring the fact that she had just said his head was big.

"Whatever." Tak replied.

Dib soon relaxed in his seat, He was relieved that the journey there was almost over. As Dib rested himself in his seat, he could feel his eyes were growing heavier. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he had gotten a good night's sleep and he was nearly fighting to keep his eyes open. After a few more moments, his eyes drifted closed as he began to dose off. Just about ten minutes after he closed his eyes, he felt a sudden jolt and the ship came to a sudden stop. Dib groaned as he sat up. everything around him was dark and all the lights in the ship were off.

"What the..?" He trailed off as he looked around to where he was.

There was a metal floor beneath the ship that hadn't been there before. Dib went to open the glass windshield, which he saw wasn't there but had somehow fallen off the ship when they had landed. As Dib got out he soon saw that part of the ship was dented and scraped from the impact. Dib was slightly confused as to why it hadn't woken Gaz or Gir when it had for him. 'They must be heavy sleepers' Dib thought to himself before getting another look around. The place they had ended up was a large rusty colored ship. As Dib made his way down the dimly lit hallways, his footsteps seemed to echo faintly off the walls around him. He suddenly heard a faint noise coming from down one of the hallways.

"Hello?" Dib called, his voice sounding a bit dry.

The noise came again, which now sounded more like someone calling to him. 'Dib.' Dib looked around. The voice sound vagely familiar. 'Dib!' It came again.
"Zim?" Dib said. "Zim! Where are you?"

The twelve-year-old ran toward the voice. 'DIB!' It yelled again. Dib continued to run taking different corridors to find where the voice was coming from. He soon stopped as he found himself in a dark place.

"Hello?" He called again.

Just then, he heard something to his left.

"Zim?" Dib said.

Suddenly an eeire light came from the corner of the room where Dib was now standing. In the corner, he could see a pale green figure chained to the wall. Dib could tell it was Irken as he could see a pair of limp antennas on the top of its head. It was wearing a tattered pink shirt, black pants, boots and gloves. It seemed to rest against the wall as if it were asleep.

"Zim?" Dib asked. "Are you okay?"

As he got closer, an extremely strong and pungent smell reached his nose. It was a strong smell of old vomit and rotting flesh. Dib stumbled back from the lifeless being realizing that it was actually long past death. As Dib scrambled back, he soon ran into something behind him. He looked up to see the evil smiles of the Tallests staring back at him.

"Such a shame you missed the event." Tallests Red grinned.

"Yeah, he was great entertainment for us in his last days of life." Purple sneered.

"What did you do to him?" Dib demanded.

"Oh, did the little defect mean something to you?" Red leered, towering over him."Well, isn't that sweet?" He smirked but soon scowled. "Too bad you'll be joining him."

Dib gaped in awe as the Tallests soon activated their PAK legs.

"Say Goodbye." Red hissed and he swung his legs down.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Dib screamed before his eyes snapped open.

He looked around to see he was in his seat aboard Tak's Ship. Nothing was dented or scraped. All of the lights to the ship flickered on and off indicating that the controls were up and running. Dib's face was lined with sweat as he let out a sigh of relief. "Dib!" Said a voice from behind him, to which he turned around. To his surprise and relief he saw his younger sister sitting there.

"Ugh! Finally," She groaned. "I've been trying to get your attention for a while but you just sat there sleeping like an idiot."

That was when Dib realized that Gaz had been the one calling him.

"Well, what is it Gaz?" Dib said, finally finding his voice again.

"We're about seven hours away from the Tallests' Ship." Gaz replied. "But if we use the boost again, we'll probably get there in two to three hours."

"Okay," Dib said. "Thanks."

Gaz only stared at him for a moment as she saw Dib going back to looking out the window. 'Don't worry, Zim.' Dib thought to himself. 'Everything's going to be okay.' And with that, the rest of the time was silent and Dib quietly prayed that they would make it in time.

Okay, I know this part is kinda short, but don't worry, the next part with the Tallests should come some time soon :) And sorry for the really long wait ^^; With the holidays coming up and other things on my mind I have been having a hard time working on anything ^^;^^; But either way, I'll try to get more up soon :D So Happy Early Christmas everyone! :D:D I'll try to get more up by tomorrow :) So later days! :D:D

PS- I think I might've overdid this part a little bit ^^; I hope you aren't mad at me for it :(