Ib (invader zim)

Ch.3

Chapter Three

Upon realizing there was no sign of the Irken even making an attempt to get into his house, Dib felt it were safer to be in there now than outside so he rushed towards it in quite a hurry. Once he had burst in the door, he slammed it furiously behind him and turned to lock the door for an extra sense of security. Hopefully Gaz had a key to the house so she wouldn't bother him with her obnoxious banging as she did quite often.

After locking the door, Dib turned his back to it and leaned against it, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself after all of the stress he had endured that day. Unfortunately, he could only think of Zim as he stood there, images of that haunting grin flashing in his memory.

The boy let out a groan of both agony and frustration as he headed towards the downstairs bathroom, pulling out a first aid kit to bandage his wounds before heading up to his bedroom hoping that some relaxation would help to clear his mind. Of course when he flicked the light switch on the wall next to his door, the light bulb in his ceiling fan had burnt out, leaving the room dark except for the cracks of light filtering in through the window. This only led to shadows playing against the wall and moving around on the paint as people walked down the sidewalk or when cars drove by.

Dib just paused where he stood now, almost as he did when he was faced with the Irken, watching the shadows dance along the wall. Finally he was able to move towards his bed and sit quietly on it, though his eyes only returned to the shadows along the wall. He stared at them intently as he adjusted himself towards the headboard of the bed and brought his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. For a split second, one shadow seemed to take the form of Zim. He blinked and shook his head as if trying to shake off the image. The boy began to chuckle very softly to himself now, though the tone of it was rather eerie and almost deranged.

"It's not real.." Dib whispered out loud to himself.

It was eerily quiet now compared to the loud screeches of Zim at both school and when near Dib. There was no telling when the demented little Irken would make another attempt on him when he was in a state of vulnerability equal to his own mental vulnerability.

Dib was growing more anxious and paranoid by the minute though as he continued to watch the shadows with such intensity. Eventually he had gotten himself out of the bed and began to pace along the floor, reaching up the rub his temples rather roughly as he continued to glance at the shadows almost every five seconds. "You're being ridiculous, Dib." He thought to himself.

That was until one particular shadow on the wall took Zim's head shape pretty straight on. It stayed that way for a while too, even when he blinked. Only when he looked to the window could he see those vacant eyes staring in on him now as he paced, as if he were a starved zombie helplessly watching his prey and unable to break the glass.

The boy closed his eyes in distress for a few seconds, hoping the shadow would be gone by now. Once he had opened his eyes, he found the shadow still lingered, and it seemed to grow more lifelike and horrifying by the second. This sent Dib sliding down to his knees on the floor, almost as if this really were Zim in his bedroom and he was accepting the fact that the other would be tearing him to shreads, letting out a low and drawn out whine as he did so.

Of course then there was the howling of the wind as it picked up in a breeze. It sounded very similar to the rush of air Zim had to let out each time he was recovering from a blank trance, and the harsh force of air out with each word. The sounds resulted in Dib's head snapping around to glare wildly at the window, pulling himself up to get a better look as if expecting Zim to be on the other side of the glass. Of course, there was nothing.

After another intense moment of staring, Dib turned his attention back towards the wall where the shadow had been, and there was no sign of anything that looked even remotely like the deranged Irken. It had all been a hallucination.