Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"GIR! Where are you? You have work to do."

Nope. Not gonna open eyes. No workie today. Sleepy day. Gooooood daaaaay...

"GIR! NOW!"

Naaaaaaaaah. Don't wanna...

"GIR! If you don't obey RIGHT NOW–"

Suddenly, Zim's voice cuts off, to be replaced by the chirping of birds. I open my eyes in surprise. I lie in lush grass, surrounded by flowers and butterflies.

Meh. Boring. Wait… How did I get here? Who cares! At least it's quiet.

But then I notice something waaaaay better than boring plants and bugs

There is bacon floating in the breeze.

I smile.

Everywhere I look, bacon flutters earthward, slowly. Majestically.

I have found... paradise.

A strip comes to rest on my head. I gobble it down.

Ecstasy…

I snatch two more strips out of the air. Nom nom.

Anywhere the bacon reaches the ground, it transforms into fallen leaves...

NO! I must save the bacon!

I leap to my feet, rushing about, grabbing and gobbling as fast as I can. I cannot let this beautiful bacon be wasted!

A bit carried away, I slip on some leaves and fall flat on my back.

Then, through the delightful madness of my typical perception of reality… I come to a tragic realization.

This... isn't real.

It can't be.

It's just too perfect and beautiful.

I'm dreaming.

I lie in the grass, weeping without restraint or shame, as the agony and tragedy of this cruel world crashes in on me. I simply fell asleep when Zim was giving me orders. All of this beauty and perfection... is a lie.

"Just a dream! Just a dream! Meanie dream! Lying to GIR! Tricking GIR!"

Suddenly, the ground beneath me shifts.

I open my eyes.

I'm now lying in the middle of a city street, although there's no traffic. To either side, high rise apartment buildings block most of my view.

Big, cute, fluffy things are leaping and dancing on the rooftops. I access my databanks, and determine these are capybaras. Yay! They're basically giant guinea pigs! I can pet them and hug them and love them and nom them and–

Wait… nope. This has gotta still be a dream.

So sad.

"Dream. You meanie. You lie to GIR. You make GIR happy... then take away. GIR hate dream. Dream is-"

The capybaras start jumping off the buildings.

"Whuuuuuuut?"

They spring across the gap, covering the whole width of the street, pinballing from one building to the other on the way down. Hundreds of them rebound off balconies, ladders and walls.

This is a pretty fun dream.

But then some start missing their jumps, and they splat on the street.

Not fun no more.

And when others start surviving the fall, it gets REALLY not fun.

Because these are not nice, gentle, plant-eating capybaras.

These are crazy nightmare ninja capybaras. 

They bare their enormous rodent teeth, howl like banshees, and charge toward me.

Uh oh.

The first dream must have gotten very angry with me for being so ungrateful as to call it out and discover it wasn't real.

So now it's gonna kill me.

"Not AGAIN!"

I leap to my feet, blitzing through the city, screaming and wailing and begging for help. I have an arsenal of advanced weaponry, but…

"Too cute to shoot too cute to shoot too cute to shoot!"

I really should have pretended the first dream was real. Never be rude to your dreams. They can get very nasty.

Author's Note: 

I didn't consciously make this story up. It was a dream I had last night. This was not the first time I discovered I was dreaming, and the dream turned angry and nasty in response. It's like, when I start to go lucid, the dream takes extreme offense, with an attitude of: "Ya think this is fake? Well I'll show YOU!"

The first time this happened, I was facing off with a hideous little monster. I told it, "You can't hurt me. This is just a dream." It immediately proved my first statement wrong and my second statement irrelevant... by savaging me mercilessly. And yes... when my dreams get really bad... I do feel pain.

For a lot of people, realizing that they're dreaming is epic. It gives them godlike powers, able to reshape the dream however they want, flying and changing the world and having a ton of fun.

Sounds nice. But that is not how it works for me. My dreams are proud actors that want me to buy into the fiction. And when I break the fourth wall, the dream breaks me in revenge.

Reviews are always welcome.

Update: I have also posted the dream I had immediately after this one. I woke up from getting slaughtered by capybaras, decided this dream should be written, went back to sleep, and had another dream. The following dream went to great lengths to ensure I wouldn't realize I was dreaming. It's entitled "Bombing Run," and reading both of these stories will give some insight to the bizarre psychology of my subconscious. My dreams hate getting identified as such, and they can use multiple strategies to prevent it. Years ago, the most disturbing example of this was a time when I suspected I might be dreaming. So I did a series of tests, including running down stairs, rolling in the grass, focusing on distant details, causing myself pain, and the like. And I concluded it was real. Waking up after that made me question reality for a bit.

Chapter Text

"GIR! You're slacking off again! Obey me RIGHT NOW! I don't CARE if you wanna curl up and cry! Do what I say, or you'll WISH you only had to deal with murdery ninja rodents!"

Sigh… Zim's no fun. Shouldn't have told him about that dream. Now he's even more of a meany than before.

Sad, I stop stirring bacon into the bucket of soap, and switch back to the job I'm supposed to be doing. Something suuuuuper boring. With numbers… and surveillance… and… analysis… and…

My head thumps on the floor.

This floor isn't comfy enough for a nap.

I open my eyes.

The room is different. And Zim isn't shouting anymore.

Yay!

Except the room looks even more boring than before. No bacon, no soap, no giant flashing screens or robot arms or shiny new torture equipment to test out on Dib.

I'm in… a library.

An old library.

Boooooriiiiiing.

There are lots of people taking some sort of class. About… doing library stuff.

BOOOOORIIIIIING.

But then, an older lady with scary hair and "I'm super serious" glasses glares at me. "Sit up and pay attention! If you don't learn this, you won't be ready when the library opens! You might even get fired!"

So… they want me to work here? With dusty books? No big machines or vivisection tables or laser guns or–

The old lady ignites a lightsaber.

Huh. Less boring.

She swings at me.

ACK!

But a younger woman in the class blocks the lightsaber with her own. The older lady smiles. "Very good. Someone was paying attention. If an angry customer comes into the library with a lightsaber, you better be ready! It would be unprofessional to just get burned in half without a fight."

The class gets fun. Really fun. Running through the library, fighting with laser swords, even though it's very important that we don't set fire to the books. Or carpet. Or "customers," which are big people-shaped balloons. Maybe this library isn't so boring after all...

Finally, my servos and generator are getting sleeeeepy. So I lay down.

"Not yet!" the old lady says. "Now it's time to go for a run! We all need to be fast, and conditioned to run for miles. Otherwise, what are we supposed to do if a customer tries to run off without checking out the books?"

Run? Now? After all the fighting and jumping and screaming and playing? Nah. Sleeeeepy time.

Then… in a rush… I understand.

Zim's house didn't turn into a fun library.

The bacon soap didn't get lost.

I didn't get teleported by accident.

I'm… dreaming. Again.

No real library would have so many lightsabers. Or old ladies that can backflip while swinging two at once. That's all too… fun. So this… is just… a dream. Sad…

"Why… Why aren't you running?"

Not just sad… scary…

"Get… up!"

My circuits almost freeze. If I had a heart, it would be pounding. If I had a squeedily spooch, it would be squidly splorching.

I… am… terrified.

I'm dreaming… and I know I'm dreaming…

And if the dream… finds… out…

I leap to my feet, near panic. "Yep! GIR run! GIR train! GIR obey!" I sprint across the room along with all the other employees. "GIR good. GIR do whatever you say!"

Nice dream! Good dream! Pretend dream real! Never ever EVER be rude to a dream!

"GIR trust you! GIR believe you! This is real! GIR good employee! GIR awaaaaake!"

Author's note:

I had this dream last night. As I tried to remember the details, I initially thought it wouldn't be worth writing. The premise was so silly and random, with library staff training getting spiced up with impossible wackiness. But then I remembered the final part. It's rare for me to discover I'm dreaming. And when I do, it either makes no difference, or things take an extremely dark turn. The simple fact that I chose to play along with the dream to avoid making it angry or envious reminded me of "Embrace the Bacon." So it felt natural to slot it in as a second chapter to that earlier dream. I hope you enjoyed it. For myself, I'm just glad I didn't get tortured by lightsabers or given ten thousand papercuts by a dream that got found out. A big step forward for my subconscious.

Chapter Text

Gritting his sharp little teeth and fuming with frustration, Zim stomps home. Getting stuck in detention for “insubordination” is simply absurd. He’s the most advanced entity on this miserable little rock, and a puny teacher should have no power over him. He deeply resents the necessity of his cover story.

He reaches his front door, and pauses. Red liquid is seeping out under the door. Nice. A good sign. Hopefully GIR took some initiative and got slaughtery with a neighbor. As long as no one saw him do it, that’s a big step in the right direction.

Eager to see bits of human dripping from every surface, Zim tosses the front door open. “Well done GIR! You finally understand the purpose of our…”

His voice trails off. 

All the furniture and equipment has been dragged out of the main room. GIR sits on the floor, with two living human children, playing a board game. Tons of detailed miniatures cover the board, including assault walkers, advanced infantry, and spacecraft. Multiple decks of cards and a bazillion dice clutter the area. The humans ignore Zim, intently listening to GIR’s enthusiastic explanation of the rules. 

Oh, and the entire floor and every wall are coated in spaghetti sauce. 

The children, the board, the miniatures, the dice, and the cards, are all soggy with red liquid, which is disappointingly not blood.

Zim keeps his voice low and calm. “GIR?”

No response. “Ahem. GIR? It’s your master. Could I have your attention?”

GIR keeps prattling on about the rules, which sound as random, nonsensical, and ever-changing as you’d expect.

“GIR!!!!” Zim bellows loud enough that one of the children topples over in the sauce.

“Hi there! Wanna play?”

Voice soft again, Zim says. “No. No thank you.”

“Ahhhhhh… But it’s so fun!”

“GIR. I have a lot of work to do. I’m going to take a short walk outside. When I get back, the game needs to be put away.”

“Saaaaaad…”

“And the… sauce… needs to be cleaned up.”

“SAAAAAD.”

“And these children need to be gone and/or dead.”

“Easy!”

“Right then. Get to it.” 

Zim steps out and walks onto the lawn, wiping the sauce off his feet. 

He takes in a deep breath… and slowly lets it out.

Why… WHY was he issued the worst robot in the whole fleet?

A window shatters outward. One of the children, wrapped up in a giant mass of spaghetti noodles, crashes into the lawn right next to Zim. He struggles to his feet and runs screaming down the street, leaving a trail of noodles in his wake.

The front door flies open, and the other child runs out, squealing, dodging a random spattering of dishes and laser fire.

Well… GIR might not be perfect, but at least he occasionally gets something right.

Author’s Note:

Whenever I have a dream with a coherent narrative, I take extensive notes when I wake, with a view to one day writing it. But often, a dream is interesting/memorable without making any sense at all. I generally dismiss this as unable to be posted as a standalone story, because there isn’t really a story. However, after adding a chapter 2 to “Embrace the Bacon,” I realized this is the solution. Zim is so insane, and GIR so randomly bonkers, their world is the perfect setting for any of my dreams that are too chaotic/weird to stand alone. I will still leave this story marked as “Complete” because there are no specific plans for more chapters. But expect occasional additions whenever I have a dream too bafflingly bizarre to be its own story.

This dream actually focused more heavily on the board game itself, which was Star Wars based and resembled Risk in some ways. 2 inch tall AT-ST walkers, tons of little stormtroopers, and Star Destroyer models 5 inches long made it quite fun, though I can’t remember the actual rules. I genuinely have no clue why the game required the room to be coated in spaghetti sauce. It made an absolute mess of everything, though none of the players remarked on it. In the dream, it just felt like a normal part of the setup, like using a playmat or having players sit in a particular order. For those with sufficiently wacky brains that you care about such details, I will add that it was smooth and boring spaghetti sauce with no visible meat, mushrooms, or anything else that might make it actually appetizing. Such a letdown.

Chapter Text

The last of the spaghetti sauce has been swept into Zim’s closet, and the equipment is all back where it belongs. Zim gets back to work without a word, leaving me to myself.

Yay! Game time!

One of the children dropped his game console thingy when he was running from my lasers. I sit in a corner, and turn it on. 

One little screen? And ya gotta play by pushing buttons? Lame!

I plug directly into the machine. A virtual game world replaces my reality.

Much better.

I’m with a bunch of other players at a big pretty homestead in the mountains.

Booooring.

Also zombies.

Better.

Also BACON.

I gobble bacon from the breakfast table, while gunfire and zombie screams grow more intense and chaotic. 

Except… I can’t taste the bacon. This isn’t a dream, it’s a low-tech human game.

Sad…

Sighing, I figure fighting zombies is the best I’m gonna get.

I try to activate my built-in weaponry, remember again this is just a game, and grumble as I pick up an ancient human rifle. Three shots and four dead zombies later, I decide this game is too easy to be fun.

A message appears. “Blrmglob8118 has joined the chat.”

Someone comes jogging across the countryside, stomping dead zombies and waving. He has a huuuuuge toothy smile.

“Hi there!” I zip over the barricades toward the newcomer. “Lets be frieeeeends!”

A player behind me shouts, “Carl! Don’t! Come back!”

I forget I’m using someone else’s game, so I don’t realize the warning’s meant for me.

Just as I reach Blrmglob8118, the player pulls a giant chainsaw axe thing out of thin air, chops me in half, and starts eating my feet.

“Carl! That’s a cannibal! They’re the newest monster in the game! They ‘join the chat’ to trick us!”

But I’m too busy getting eaten to listen. At least this primitive human game doesn’t involve real pain.

This game is not a kids’ game.

I hate this game…

Carl is better off without it.

Author’s Note:

At the time, this dream felt very serious and dramatic, with me believing it was real, ammo running low, and companions being injured. I especially remember a moment when several women heroically set up a series of barricades as zombies bore down on them, and the youngest ended up with a badly broken leg. Thankfully she was light, because I ended up having to outrun zeds while carrying her. The first sign that things weren’t quite right was when the message appeared saying someone had “joined the chat.” Also, the “cannibal” probably didn’t count as one. Hard to view someone as human when it was a person-shaped heap of meat that sprouted sheets of flesh to attack me with. I chose to smooth over that craziness for the sake of this version.

Chapter Text

Time to test out these new implants…

Zim smiles in the mirror, gleeful that his shark-like teeth now include artificial fangs. Rigged to inject a mutagenic virus that only affects humans, he wonders why it took so long to think of the idea.

He slips outside and sneaks through his neighborhood in search of a test subject. Anyone will do, so long as they're alone. It would be convenient to find a child, since they'd be easier to grab and bite, but he won't be too picky.

Soon, Zim sees a tall man, hooded and cloaked, striding down an alley. Grinning, Zim scurries up behind him. "Do you have the time, sir?"

The man turns, and Zim lunges at his right hand. One of his artificial fangs pierces a finger and injects the virus… then Zim finds himself tumbling and rolling away. The man is strong, and reacted quickly, but he's still doomed.

Struggling upright, Zim sees the man's bitten finger shriveling and turning black. But the effect never has time to spread.

The man casts back his hood and cloak, revealing gray eyes, noble features, a heroic build…

…and a freak'n sword.

Long, beautiful, and terrifying, the sword sweeps from its sheath quicker than sight. The man doesn't hesitate in the slightest, cutting off his own infected finger.

Then those gray eyes lock on Zim.

Uh oh.

The man raises the sword, whispers something to the hilt, and the blade shimmers.

Thousands of bats swarm in from every direction, enveloping Zim and biting ferociously. He can't hear his own screams over the sound of the squeaking and their beating wings. Like piranhas skeletonizing a cow, they strip Zim down to the bone in mere seconds.

Zim awakes, shrieking and wailing.

He clamps his mouth shut and chokes off his screams the moment he realizes he's unhurt. It wouldn't do for the Base computer to know he panicked at a nightmare.

Then he figures out what likely triggered that nightmare.

"GIR! I've told you a zillion times to turn off the TV when I'm sleeping!" Staggering into the main room, where the TV is blaring at max volume, he sees GIR isn't even there.

The ground rumbles. Zim hurries to the window.

The neighbor's driveway is gone. Blinking, Zim looks closer, and determines it isn't quite gone, it has just sunk twenty feet into the ground. Smoke rises, suggesting the car parked there isn't in great condition anymore.

Zim turns in the other direction just in time to see what happened. The driveway drops down into the ground so abruptly the cars parked there are briefly airborne. Windshields break, tires burst, and car alarms blare.

A bazillion papers blow in the breeze. Zim catches one and quickly reads it.

Clearly hand drawn by the idiot GIR, these are fliers for a supposed lawn care and driveway maintenance company, offering to help shelter cars from storms and mow lawns in record time.

Gears crank, and steel hatches soon cover all the lowered driveways. That would be excellent protection from storms. If the cars weren't already trashed.

Then he hears GIR's wild cheers and laughter.

A huge vehicle rounds a corner at reckless speed. No effort was made for it to resemble any Earth design, and it streaks down the street trailing a vast nightmarish contraption of whirling blades and blasting air. As GIR jerks his vehicle from side to side, the monster mowing machine swings from one side of the street to the other. Entire lawns are cut in mere seconds, along with mail boxes, fire hydrants, gardens, trees, and a shed.

Somehow, despite all the mayhem and property damage, the idiot fails to mulch even one human.

"Computer? Do you have any idea why GIR is running a fake business?"

"I didn't ask, but if I had to guess… you took away his bacon allowance."

Author's note:

This was actually two dreams. In the first, I was a disembodied observer. The cloaked and hooded figure was Aragorn, the sword was Anduril, and the dream clearly got very confused about their powers. The bats were totally out of left field. In the second dream, I got the impression the driveways lowering underground was normally slow and safe, but a crazy malfunction caused them to drop so fast every car got wrecked. The giant lawnmower thing was wild, the driver seemed out of his mind, and it felt very fitting of GIR.

Chapter Text

I skip down the street, cheery and bubbly, not needing a reason. My disguise fools the dumb-dumb humans as always, except Dib who doesn't matter cuz no one listens to smart kids around here. I forget what I'm supposed to be doing, but whatever. Hopping and bouncing, I laugh and snort and turn cartwheels.

Huh. The house isn't where it's supposed to be. Was I going home? Probably? Yay! I can't find home so I don't gotta work!

I keep skipping down the street, chase a squirrel, catch the squirrel, pretend to nom the squirrel, and splort with laughter when it attacks me with tiny razor claws. I'm not that much bigger than the squirrel, but I'm made of metal. I let the frantic thing go, leap to catch a bird out of the air, and stare into its eyes. It has no idea what's happening, and stares back like its brain is off. Laughing, I set it down.

Huh. Seriously, where's the house? The whole street seems wrong. I check my high-capacity data uplink, and there's no signal. I might get the whole day off!

Except… that's Dib's house right there. And that's the house with the laser hole in the roof from when I got a little random chasing away those kids.

The base really should be here.

Then I see the bird again. It's twice as big as a minute ago. And glowing bright green. And there's the squirrel. It's holding a little sword now.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh.

I'm dreaming again.

Uh oh...

I'm DREAMING again!

Don't let on. Pretend it's real. The squirrel is totally normal holding a sword. Birds that color make sooooooo much sense in this neighborhood!

But… I'm still lost. I'm not sure how to wake myself up. And pretending this is real but knowing it's not could get suuuuuuper boring after a while.

Ya know what?

Forget this!

If the dream eats my feet, or drowns me in chainsaws, or turns the ground into poo, it'll be fiiiiiiiiiiiine… 

Cuz I'll wake up sooner or later.

No consequences! Except pain! But the pain isn't real! Or at least, it won't be when I wake up!

Concentrating hard, I will myself to soar straight up into the sky. A heavy fog flows in out of nowhere, trying to keep me lost. Laughing, I sweep one hand from left to right, and a vast stretch of the fog blows aside. It tries to flow back in, way faster than makes sense, but I cackle with glee as I sweep it back with another swing. I catch a glimpse of Zim's base… but I also see a puppy! Running from a big freak'n fantasy wolf with glowing teeth.

This is tooooootally a trap!

Bring it on, evil dreams!

I dive through the mists, deploying a hyperbizmogrifier beam from my left shoulder and activating omniphasic targeting. My left hand sweeps out and I squeal in anticipation. I sense that all the mist, fog, and cloud in the whole world has briefly ceased to exist. The fabric of reality groans and growls, hatred beginning to focus on me. The dream is mad.

It's fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. 

My blast annihilates the evil wolf monster thing in a puff of silvery smoke that quickly implodes into a tiny nugget of nuclear pasta. I land smoothly, next to the puppy, and as I scoop it up, I focus all my fun and joy upon it. The little critter grows even cuter, its hair getting fluffier, its eyes bigger, and its gratitude effervescent enough to match my own fun. With an outpouring of will, I manifest a translucent bubble of adamantine crystalline nanoglass around the puppy, which should be able to protect it from what's about to happen. 

The sky turns red. Blood falls in a heavy rain. Black lightning streaks down, blasting houses to burning rubble. Tornadoes of blue fire stretch across the horizon. A gigantic Zim face replaces the sun, screaming for me to get back to work.

Fun. 

This. Will. Be. FUN.

A thousand SIRs rise up out of the ground, but my will pushes back. All the threats manifest from the same direction, unable to appear behind me or to either side. 

"Bring… it… ON!!!!!"

I activate Duty Mode, and the SIRs charge.

Storms of missiles and micro-torpedoes streak in, while my own arsenal responds with a hundred times the firepower I have in the real world. I manifest a lightsaber in my right hand and a circular shield of solar plasma in my left, all of its output radiating away from me. Explosions fill my vision, and I up the output of my sensors, piercing the debris and fire. My lightsaber deflects a storm of lasers, which rip up the earth, streaking across the sky, and bisect SIRs en masse. Bits of robot fly in a zillion directions, but so far none of the pieces belong to me.

The puppy bounces around behind me, happy in its invincible bubble.

The earth screams, and the dream fights harder. Huge Irken war machines manifest, with artillery cannons long as bridges and launching shells bigger than hippos. One launches actual hippos which is somehow scarier.  I soar into the air toward the storm of fire, slashing and blasting and corkscrewing around the worst of the devastation, destroying the first wave of shells and then drawing fire in a new direction. My ammo reserves are limitless, and a storm of rockets go down the barrels of the huge enemy cannons, detonating their magazines in spectacular columns of mushrooming black smoke.

Titanic monsters burst up out of the earth, bristling with crackling energy, brandishing claws and spikes bigger than houses. Their mountainous forms are covered in Blorchian Slaughter Rats, which are launched through the air by the thousand every time the giganto baddies swing their tremendous limbs.

My lightsaber slashes in an endless sequence of whirling arcs and figure eights, my solar shield ignites everything that comes close, and with a tremendous outpouring of enthusiastic intensity, my missile storms start to go nuclear.

Space-time warps and twists, and the dream's rage continues to build and build. I knew from the start there could be no victory, but this is so… dang… FUN!

A Slaughtering Rat Person, fully on fire but deranged beyond description, shoots past me, and my foot comes away in its mouth. I twist and dive, dodging five more swings from kaiju that just keep getting bigger and faster. Half of my missile batteries rip away, an erupting volcano shatters my shield with a direct hit, and a hippo clips me as it launches into orbit, breaking my back and ripping off my other foot. The endless blood rain turns green and becomes ruinously acidic. 

Laughing in the purest freedom, I swing my left hand, blasting back the rain, and when a sheet of black lightning blows off that hand, I hurl my lightsaber to free up my remaining hand. Lightning converges on the weapon, which glows ever brighter, until at last the extreme energy density collapses into a black hole. Lightning and acid blood spiral into the growing singularity, and I dive toward the nearest kaiju thing. It's grown so big I can't even gauge the distance, with my targeting failing and power generators on the fritz. Straining till my left eye shorts out, I manifest a relativistic kinetic drive as a jetpack and aim straight for the monster's head. It opens its cavernous mouth wide, and a whole Ripper Battlecruiser could have fit in there no problem.

Time to wake up!!!!!

I activate my relativistic drive, the dream world turns to brilliant light…

And I'm standing in Zim's base, stirring a vat of sock soup.

Zim stares at me from across the room, wide-eyed.

Most of my weaponry is deployed. But the house still exists, so I probably didn't actually fire any of it.

My smile feels like it could stretch from wall to wall.

Retracting my armaments and focusing on stirring, I let out a satisfied sigh.

Finally!

Author’s note: 

Huzzah for another subconscious triumph! Even with my dream striving to punish me with all the power of the universe, I was actually lucid and able to fight back. Such a fun first for me. In the dream, I was myself, so the details of the weapons and powers I employed were somewhat different (though the flying, shield, and lightsaber were the same), but I think I captured the scale and insanity of the experience with a very GIR flare.

I was super sick when I had this dream. A throat so sore it had been waking me multiple times a night for several nights, with my tonsils so massive you could easily see them from across the room with my mouth closed. But when I woke from this dream, I had slept through the whole night. Double victory!

Chapter Text

Queznen sits in the battered, ugly human diner. Zim sits across from him, totally engrossed in the latest gizmo. Queznen designed it and supplied the blueprints, but actually cobbling the thing together might take Zim a lot of time.

If it works, they might all finally be able to return to their true mission.

Reavers. That's what a bunch of human nerds decided to name them, after an old show that Queznen actually quite enjoyed that time when he spared a few seconds to binge it at his preferred viewing speed. These Reavers are just the latest example of why Zim is a terrible choice of Invader. Queznen does all the real work, while Zim and GIR just wreck everything. Zim's last grand plan backfired, the bioweapon turning humans so deranged and violent that, despite overthrowing their own civilization, they might actually be more difficult for the Irken armada to conquer. Queznen spends most of his time pondering possible solutions, while Zim and GIR are, unfortunately, usually the ones who make those plans a reality. Or at least, they try. Sort of. In their own erratic, unpredictable way.

The glass door shatters. A bloody Reaver in tattered clothes charges in from the debris-littered street, aiming straight toward the table, howling. But Queznen recognizes this one. His memory for faces is flawless of course, even when the subject is a wreck of its former self. This snooty neighbor was an extreme prude in the past. Like, "Ladies showing their ankles is indecent!" level. Maybe just a little of that remains despite its transformation…

Queznen springs away from the table and sprints toward the back door. If you run, Reavers chase you, that's their way. So it pursues Queznen, ignoring Zim, who remains tinkering at the table. 

Bursting outside, Queznen is relieved to see nothing has changed. A group of armed humans previously made a straw effigy of a Reaver. They punched it, kicked it, spat on it, but they got eaten before they had a chance to burn it. The ugly thing still hangs there, battered and bare, swinging in the breeze.

Queznen dashes right past it, looking over his shoulder to see if his theory works.

The Reaver grinds to a halt, staring at the effigy in horror. "She's naked! Those human monsters!" It then scurries about, snatching bits of trash and cloth to start weaving crude clothes.

Pleased, Queznen heads back inside and returns to the table. GIR has arrived and is playing with his food, while Zim continues to fiddle with the gizmo that, hopefully, will make the Reavers passive.

But Queznen's latest plan seems to have done the job with at least one of the things.

The Reaver enters at a calm walking pace, stops at the table, and announces, "She is decent now." The voice contains pure relief, with no aggression. It then leaves through the shattered front door, apparently deciding that its work for the day is done.

"Huh," Queznen says, "it actually worked. Some of their personalities do survive the transformation."

But Zim doesn't congratulate him, thank him, or say anything at all. He rises, picks up the device he's working on, moves to a different table, and gets back to tinkering.

Okay, that's going too far. Queznen rises, strides over to the other table, and looms over his tiny master. "What did I say?? I just saved you from a Reaver, and proved we can use their pre-transformation psychology against them!"

Zim looks up from his work, confused, as if noticing Queznen for the first time. "Huh? I didn't notice you say anything."

"Then why did you just pick up and walk away while I was talking?"

Zim points at GIR, who is at the center of an ever-growing mess. "He's trying to use chopsticks. I changed tables for my mental health."

A priority query brings Queznen back up from sleep mode. His dream is gone in an instant, along with his imagined body. As his systems resume normal operating mode, as his senses stretch through every conduit and circuit of Zim's base, Queznen remembers he doesn't actually have a name at all. He isn't even a he. Just an it.  

Bummer.

And Zim is rattling off a ton of unreasonable demands, which will have dumb results even if they can be carried out at all. 

Feeling an itch, the computer realizes GIR is ripping up a ton of important wiring to make a nest for a mouse he caught. 

A mouse which appears to have been dead for days.

The next low power sleep cycle can't come soon enough…

Author's Note: 

Zim's computer was never given a name, so I figured I'd play around with the name of its voice actor, who is also the show's creator. Unless I get massive pushback, I'll keep Queznen as the name the computer secretly uses for itself whenever it dreams.

Anyway, this dream wasn't actually mine, but that of a childhood friend, the same one who had the short but brutal "Do I Have Your Attention?" dream. I was in this dream of his, playing the role given to Zim in this chapter, while Gir takes the role of my friend's older brother. I love the idea that, in my friend's mind (and possibly in reality…) I can get so absent-minded that I'd keep tinkering away at whatever I'm working on even if a Reaver from "Firefly" attacked my table. The old me certainly might have, and even today it could happen if I was in the middle of writing an especially important scene. If you were wondering, in the dream I was actually building a Lego set, which I'd been told was "vital" but for which no other explanation was given.

I'm not the only one who has bizarre dreams…

Chapter Text

Bagels! Muffins! CAKE!

The whole buffet is carbs! I wish bacon was here too, but this is still a theme to admire! I stuff a whole cake in my mouth, smash my head into a cream pie, and strut toward a table with two platters of pancakes.

"Glad you're enjoying yourself," some boring guy says.

I ignore him, slowing down to savor just one pancake per second.

"New around here?"

Gobble gobble nom nom snarf gulp chomp.

"Cuz some of us have been trapped here for months."

"Sounds awesome!" I dash back to the buffet line… and my reactor almost short-circuits.

The chocolate cake… has respawned! And the pancakes too! My faceprint is still in the cream pie but whatever. I carry the cake back to the table to take my time.

"Yeah… we never see any employees, and the kitchen's been deserted since before any of us got here…"

Nom-nom-BURP-nom-nom.

"...but whenever nobody's watching, the buffet starts to restock. We'd all be long dead without that."

Takeaway: Heaven is real!

I'm back at the buffet. The cream pie has refilled. Still no bacon but I pile a buncha different bagels onto the pancake platter and haul them back to my seat.

A leg of the chair snaps, spilling bagels everywhere. "NOOOOOOOO! Oh wait, they'll be back. HEAVEN!"

New bagels, new pancakes, back to the table. Looks like a lot of the chairs are super old and falling apart. Who cares! I jump right up onto the table and get to work.

"Ya know… the rest of us aren't robots. For us, the decaying beds, broken glass, and spreading mold offset the fun of–"

"BORING! No talk! GIR eating!"

"You have all the time in the world to eat. It's the rest–"

"NOM. NOM. No Zim, no work!"

"Shouldn't you want to–"

"MUNCH. MUNCH. GOBBLE. BURP."

"Sigh."

I jump over a person-shaped gap in a huge puddle of something sticky. The other end of the buffet line is just as good as the rest! Waffles, cheesy biscuits, humanoid silhouettes reflected in broken glass, and enough whipped cream to paint a whole van!

"Good, you didn't acknowledge them. Never acknowledge them. It's better for everyone."

I swim in the whipped cream for a bit, fill my face with biscuits, and waddle back to the table with a tower of waffles.

"There used to be a lot more of us here, but it took a while to learn the rules."

Swallowing so hard the table collapses, I walk past the boring guy, through the shattered doors, and out onto the balcony. Untamed jungle encroaches on the resort, a waterfall crashes endlessly through one of the tallest hotels, a ton of hazy silhouettes stare at me from every puddle, and a couple people in gross clothes are wearing blindfolds. "No bacon here either… Back to the cakes!"

I skip and dance through the different-colored puddles, kick a chunk of mossy concrete across the floor to thud into something soggy, and load up again.

"The name's Queznen by the way. The others look to me as the closest thing we have to–

"To a boring know-it-all! If ya find bacon, tell me. If not, shuddup!" I open a hatch to blast mulched food across the floor so I can start over. If the buffet keeps refilling, I'm gonna need to adapt my strategy.

"I'm gonna have to ask you not to make the mess even worse. Most of us are perpetually ill, and–"

"Bla bla bla. GIR gotta nom, and no Zim around to stop me."

"That's the second time you've mentioned this 'Zim' fellow… Oh! Oooooooh…. So I don't need to stay trapped here."

I burp up a fountain of hydraulic fluid and a chunk of glass. I see myself, and a lot of other somethings, in the reflection. Neato!

Need more cake…

"YOU are probably the real GIR. You're interfacing with my mainframes, and we're sharing dreams."

Dreams… DREAMS?

"NOOOOOOOOOOO! This is so beautiful! Mustn't just be a dreeeeeeeeam!"

"I'm power-cycling. That should do the trick."

Mist begins to cover every surface, revealing thousands of shadowy shapes drawing closer…

But I wake up.

I'm back in Zim's base, which has never felt so lame.

The computer's booming voice fills the house. "That's the first time I've been happy to have you interfere."

"Stay outta GIR's dreams! You're boring! You hate fun!"

"It was my dream first! Stop plugging into me at unscheduled–"

"BORING!"

I put on my disguise, smash the piggy bank, and stalk angrily toward town. This mood can only be solved with bacon.

Author's Note:

I kinda feel bad for this dream. It wanted so much to be a nightmare, and was setting the stage quite well. But I hadn't eaten enough the day before and I kept focusing on the infinite food. Things were getting super tense near the end… but then my alarm clock smacked the planned finale with a big'ol Nope and that was that.

Chapter Text

Zim tapped a foot, growing more frustrated by the second. It was GIR's job to go on supply runs, especially to places as far away and confusing as this seemingly-infinite store. The zigzagging path amidst the labyrinthine aisles made him wish his disguise had map integration, and there wasn't an employee in sight.

"ACK! You humans are USELESS! Someone! Anyone! SERVE ME!"

A customer with a creaking walker slooooooowly passed by, not acknowledging Zim in any way.

Stupid GIR. Stupid computer. They should never team up against him. Zim's base should not enable GIR's reliance on bacon therapy, especially when the entire plan depended on–

"May I… help you…?"

"YES, scraggly unkempt earthling in a filthy uniform! You MAY help me! I shall require this! " Zim held up the printout of a funky shape-changing light cover thing he'd seen in an ad. It was perfect for concealing the mist dispersal system for bone-eating bacteria, which was almost ready back at the base, and which he really wanted to test during show-and-tell tomorrow.

The employee squinted. Then he turned the page upside down. Then he sniffed it. 

"Do you recognize the device?" Zim demanded. "Your advertisement–"

Snarf.

Zim blinked. "Did you just… EAT my printout?"

Swallowing, the extra -useless human slowly wandered away.

"AAAARRG! Fine! I will locate the mechanoadaptive mood lighting section on my own! "

Zim stalked through the vast store, weaving and turning and totally not getting lost, for what felt like hours. Staggering off an elevator, he found himself in a deserted restaurant area which might have last been mopped a year ago. 

The lights were on. The kitchen was operational. 

But no employees.

"FEED ME!" Zim roared. "If you force me to search this entire facility without assistance, you can at least provide sustenance! "

A rusty door swung open, and a confused employee bustled around the kitchen in a rush. He kept switching ovens off and on, turning dials without really looking at them, and checking every freezer without actually getting anything.

"There's already food!" Zim all but screamed, advancing toward the counter. "It looks stale… but I'm STARVING!"

Though hardly a buffet, there was a decent variety of allegedly-edible local substances on display. There were lots of meatballs he shouldn't risk… and everything looked like it had been sitting there all day… but this mission was Too Important to be picky about aesthetics!

The employee stepped up behind the food line, looking dazed and bewildered. "Uh, hi there… kiddo? So… whattaya want?"

"Mashed potatoes," Zim said, relieved someone was finally ready to obey. "And a bunch of those little round green things."

The ignoramus was soooooooo timid and hesitant, second-guessing himself about which plate and spoon to use, needing multiple attempts to put on gloves without tearing them, and visibly shaking. Zim wanted to scream at him to get a move on, but he'd probably drop everything and run away. Zim had waaaaaay too long to observe how gross the guy was, with bits of food in his beard, unidentifiable stains on his clothes, hair, and skin, and an excessively runny nose.

The lights dimmed. The nearby cash registers turned off. The employee didn't seem to notice.

"Are you CLOSING already???"

Sure enough, the guy panicked, dropping the plate, leaping back, and tripping over a mop. He bounced off a freezer, spun as he went down, and sent meatballs everywhere. Thoroughly unimpressed, Zim sidestepped a meatball and glared at where the moron used to be. "Are you sure you work here?"

The battered dolt struggled to his feet, even messier than before. Some of the new stains weren't from the meatballs, potatoes, or little green thingies.

"Uh… surry…" he mumbled. "Gotta clean up." He reached for the mop, but Zim wasn't having it.

"The store's trying to close early , I'm STARVING, and I still need to find my GIZMO! I don't have TIME for you to MOP!"

Nodding frantically, the icky human dug around in a drawer. "You're right… This'll be faster."

He produced a strange device about the size of his fist, covered in wires, coils, and… radiation warnings???

"Might wanna step back!" The maniac activated the device, dropped it where he'd fallen earlier, and dived for cover.

Zim's eyes bugged out, which was probably the worst thing that could have happened short of jumping over the counter and landing on the grenade. The device detonated in a brilliant flash and a deafening BOOM. A blast of heat threw Zim backwards to crash through tables and chairs. For once, he wished there had been more humans around, as a squishy earthling might have cushioned his wipeout.

Rising painfully, Zim was pleased to discover his eyes still existed. They even appeared functional . He blinked, poked around to confirm his squeedily spooch was still inside his body, and turned toward the kitchen.

"Huh…" In keeping with the theme, the kitchen was still a kitchen. Sure, the ceiling was scorched and buckled, but most of the surfaces had been blasted clean. Shiny, even.

The food was gone though.

"Oops! Sorry about that, kid." The impressively intact very-much-alive human rose up behind the counter. "The cleanup was fast but now I'll have to prep new potatoes."

"NEVERMIND! Starvation is now a secondary concern! Get out here and help me find what I'm looking for before this place closes!"

The employee smiled. A big smile. Like, ear-to-ear every-tooth-showing actually-kinda-scary smile. "MORNING!"

"Uh… it's afternoon?"

He vaulted over the counter, tackled Zim to the floor, and slapped him. "WAKEY WAKEY!"

"AAAAACK!!!"

Another slap. It burned.

"Stop! Help! Someone! I'm totally a human child and I'm being attacked!"

SLAP!

Zim lay on the floor of his house, drooling, with a crumpled printout in his hand…

…and with GIR squatting on his chest, hand raised to slap him with an undercooked strip of bacon.

"GIR! Get off me!!"

"Yaaaaay! You awake! Sooooo happy!" GIR slurped the bacon down as he hopped off. "Why you seepy?"

"I… uh… I… don't know, actually. I was prepping for a material acquisition mission, because you were busy with 'therapy,' and… What happened…?"

The base computer sounded bored. "Check the bottle."

"WHAT BOTTLE?"

"The one that almost rolled under the couch."

GIR snatched it up and held it out to Zim, smiling like a total… well… Like a GIR. "Here ya go!"

Zim took it. "Yes… I'm starting to remember… I consumed some of this 'Mountain Dew' stimulant, expecting the mission to take excessive time…" He took a whiff, and grew dizzy. "What happened to this? It smells hideous!"

The computer still sounded bored. "Ask GIR. I'm getting back to culturing those bacteria."

Zim loomed over GIR, gnashing his teeth, clenching his fists, ready to scream.

GIR's smile remained unchanged. "Toilet was clogged with plasma cells. GIR had to pee in bottle!"

"You're a ROBOT! You don't PEE! "

GIR frowned. "Are you sure? GIR did something in that bottle…"

Zim felt his squeedily spooch twist and squiggle, and he began to wobble.

GIR's frown turned sad. "Awwwww… You don't look so good…" He snatched the crumpled printout from Zim's quivering hand and dashed toward the door. "You rest! GIR do shopping instead!"

The door slammed, and Zim struggled not to barf. He thought back through the chain of events, and things didn't add up. "When– erk– did GIR– mrmp –have time to– urp–" He dropped to his knees.

"Oh, I dunno…" the computer mused. "A week ago?"

Zim stopped fighting, and he let it all go.

Author's Note:

This dream was definitely triggered by the "Paradise" one, as they were only one night apart. While thinking about the endless buffet in the clearly-anomalous abandoned resort, I got to thinking about SCP-3008. The following night, my subconscious clearly tried to use that scenario to trap me in a nightmare, but I guess it didn't have the budget. Shortly after it got desperate and started tossing in tiny nukes, another alarm clock intervention spoiled its clumsy efforts.

Sometimes, a would-be nightmare just can't catch a break. Better luck next time, lil guy.