EARTH FRIENDLY Ch 5

Chapter Five

   Zim-

I trusted the scan to work…mostly anyhow. I swallowed as I waited for the light to finish scanning us. Dib seemed more interested and focused on me, instead of his own fate. I mean I DID tell him that nothing would happen to him…which it shouldn't, but still he held no hesitation to just sit there and watch me. Then I felt the morph begin. The sting of the light that blinded my vision was strangely invigorating. I felt that my eyes were being rinsed of all there color then suddenly grew back but a smaller tunnel of vision like my lenses. All the while, my skin was burning. Not like the cooking burn of rain water, but like my skin was melting inside out. I felt my lekkus split at the end and unravel into threads that felt like they were growing all over my head. It did NOT feel good. Thankfully, sense my lekkus have always been damaged to sensitivity from my experimentation days on Irk, it probably hurt a lot less than it could have. The tips of the soft new dark thick threads blew together in the whirlwind inside of the pod. Then my insides turned into fire, a burning flame that ate and coiled around inside, ripping and tearing my organs apart to make new building grounds for the earthling organ plants that needed to grow to finish the transformation. I held my breath as the painful part passed over. The light soon after, drained and the pods were back to normal. Dib's tube was set to open by itself, but mine seemed to jam. It was no matter though, there was an escape pod button, but when i went to take in a breath to tell Dib to get it...nothing happened, but a screeching pain. I quickly covered my new face as i bent over in anguish. 'WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON?!' was all that was really going through my mind. I couldn't stop bending over, hunched in anguish as the ripping pain in my chest began to suffocate me. Dib asked me something but i couldn’t understand him through the pod or my panic. I shook my head and my eyes widened in fear, trying to plead to him. My throat felt the strange new need to expand as well as my chest, but i wasn't familiar with the motion. The lack of ability made me focus and panic at the same time. I leaned against the back of the pod, unable to stand any longer. The void of silence in the tube was shattered as i suddenly felt the sharp sprinkle of glass shards grazing my clothes and landing at my feet. Before i knew what was going on, Dib had lifted me out of the tube and carried me out and into his lap. I tried to do what I could to show him what was wrong, even though I wasn’t completely sure myself. I began to beat on my chest and hold my throat, the areas in which there was so much pain. I felt myself begin to drift off, the lack of the forgotten earth element necessary for human survival draining my being. Before I really knew what he was doing, the Dib settled my back to the cold metal floor and leaned over. His black hair began to rest along my face as he leaned over me and pressed his mouth to mine. Panic first stuck me, but surprise took over as he began to pump air in me like a deflated child pool toy. He removed his mouth and I felt like a balloon. Suddenly, Dib placed his large hands flat on my chest and squished me into the floor, making my insides feel like they were going to pop. All the air rushed out of me and before I could try to breathe on my own the same way, the Dib had once again pressed his lips against mine and blew fiercely into my new organs. He repeated the almost practiced looking procedure until I finally began to cough, breathing on my own in gasps of breaths.
He seemed relieved and keeled over next to me. I didn’t get up at first. I wondered if the new organs were used to the transaction of the muscle movement of “breathing” yet. My Pak used to do everything my body needed. It seemed there was still much to learn about the uses of the human body and its needs. The Dib began to laugh, even though this seemed hardly the time for such foolishness. “Way to scare the shit out of me, Zim. Damn.” He continued to laugh that I found a bit sarcastic. In humor, I smiled back at him. As I smiled I felt my face shift differently than before. The new smelling organ on my face scrunched up a bit as I grinned, as did my cheeks change with sunken dimple like spots appeared as my smile grew. I was such a genius. This transmutation really did operate just as I had designed it. My now flat tongue pressed against my new teeth I felt myself disgusted. “Ew…my teeth are flat- oh wait these ones aren’t; why are the ones in the back sharp and flat?” I asked him in confusion as I investigated my new mouth, sticking my fingers inside. Instead of answering my damn question, the human made a cute snorting sound through his nose and began to laugh at me once more. I demanded that he stop laughing at me. ‘What’s his deal? He should be as fascinated as I am…’ I thought this to myself until I envisioned Dib’s fingers poking around in my mouth and body. I blinked and shook the thought from my mind. ‘Maybe not…’ I thought when my mind went around it twice. He apologized, but just as I had just feared, he began to touch me.  His long thin fingers twisted in my new hair. It was like having a head full of super thin lekkus and I could feel everything he was doing. I blushed, feeling the studious attention from the Dib’s wondering eyes. Suddenly, he removed his hand, a little pink faced himself and tucked his body inwards. It was strange to see him sit like that, being as tall as he was. His face was hidden behind his tall knees. He proclaimed the experiment as a success before standing up and reaching his hand out to me. I looked up at him for a moment, but took it gladly even though I didn’t need it. When we stood next to one another on level ground, I began to grumble. I stated that I had hoped to be close to his height…which I was NOT. I was still lacking a good half a earth foot measurement to be even close to his level….sadly maybe even a hole foot. He looked so giddy that I thought he was going to laugh at me again, but instead the Dib jumped away from me, snatching his hand out of mine. I blinked in surprise after jumping a bit myself. Only when he snatched his hand away did I realize I had still been holding it. I adverted my eyes past him and that’s when I saw my precious pod with developed visuals. I screamed and pointed. “What have you done!?”
The Dib began to give Zim the “attitude” that appeared to be apparent in all Earth teens. He explained the scenario in which I had just survived, justifying bashing my pod in. I stomped my way over to the tube and turned to make eye contact with him, glaring, as I pointed to the release button and pressed it. What was left behind of my broken glass pod door shattered and hit the floor at my new feet. I felt rage coarse through my body and continued to glare lethally at the stupid brute. He then had the nerve to yell at me! “Why the fuck didn’t you say something?!”
“Excuse me for being too busy with suffocating to answer you!” He screamed back, walking towards him to put my finger in his big dumb face, but a sharp pain splintered from the bottom of my soft new foot. I jumped upon my good foot and cried out to the Dib. “Damn your species squishy weak skin.” He shuffled over to me and offered me an arm with a sweeter face than before. I sighed, just exhausted from all of the fuss. I demanded he get me upstairs. The wound was small and not much blood showed yet, but it was an unfathomable pain from something so small. When Irken are hurt with an injury that’s not life threatening, our Paks release a numbing fluid into our system to nullify the annoyance. This pain was neither numbed or life threatening and it made me quite feverous with irritation. Thankfully, the Dib picked me up in his arms without a taunt. I was relieved to know adding insult to injury was in bad taste for his character. He let my head fall on his chest as he carefully squished us into the elevator, the both of us a little cramped together with my size grown now. I felt myself blush as my face was cradled into his neck. He was sitting on the floor of the elevator with me in his lap. His back hunching over made my face level with the nape of his throat. I studied its smoothness and touched my own. ‘His genetic structure is mine too now… its feels more bizarre than it sounds…’ I thought to myself as we reached the house level of the base. Without much difficulty, the Dib carried Zim to the couch.  
The Dib had begun to inspect my foot and the cut. His calm tone made my pain ease a little since he said it wasn’t as bad as if felt. I mocked him, pretending I already knew everything was fine. I shamefully did this a lot, even now that I was a little older. True, Irken aged slower than humans, but my growth had been developing strangely the longer I stayed here on this wretched planet. I had gotten taller than most irken, but nowhere near the Tallest, I don’t think. I mean, they’re the ALMIGHTY Tallest, it’s probably not even possible to become taller than them. If it was though I’m pretty sure the Dib would come close. His height was completely entrancing. So much so that when he knelled before me to study my wound I blushed a little. For someone so tall to bow before a tiny thing such as me was beyond flattering…not that I’d ever let him know that.
When the Dib suddenly left to the kitchen I paid it no mind. I flipped the foot that he was looking at over my knee and studied the cut for myself. True, it was tiny, but dear Irk did it hurt “like a bitch” as I’ve heard the Dib describe such injuries. As I stared at my new detailed appendage my eyes couldn’t help, but wander the new part of my body. My now light pink toned fingers pinched a hold of a couple of my now numerous toes. How could I NOT be amazed with myself?! All I could think was that ‘I’ve done it…I, Zim, have turned myself into an alien!’ This was on a whole new level of disguises though. I was cell for cell, someone else now. I felt a smile grow over my face, ‘Finally…Zim has a chance for a new life now.’
Suddenly I heard a strange noise and snatched my head back to the doorway of the kitchen where Dib stood there stiff and looking a tad bit guilty. Embarrassed I was caught admiring my own foot, I blushed and stuffed my hands at my sides. Seeing the washing cloth in his hand, I folded my hands and demanded he make himself useful and clean my cut. Dib looked strangely at me, almost like he was taking my image into his mind for storage. His face was flushed a little with the pink color on his face cheeks. I noted his face had kept only a few of the freckle like specks that used to be there when he was younger. I knew a lot of the Dib’s physical make up from when we were children. Technically, I was nowhere near adulthood for my race, but the Dib was at an age where he was known as a “young adult”. I was still getting used to his much larger size.
As he bowed once more to clean my foot, I studied him further. I hadn’t really gotten this close to him in a while. Not to just study him anyhow. His ebony colored hair stayed the same mostly, except it seemed his face was starting to grow the same kind of substance. The way it was stubbed makes me believe he must shave it off or something. He looked seriously at my foot and feeling as though I was being too quiet, I noted a loud in a bit of wonder that we now had the same color of blood. HE didn’t seem as fascinated as I was, but I looked at the color closer anyhow. My species actually didn’t contain fluids like the Dib’s did. Our actual skin was a thin layer that is almost tube filled with a healing substance that our Paks pump regularly through our bodies. This made me think even harder as I patted my back for my missing Pak. “My pak was supposed to still be there….but humans have their own process for energy…so…where..?” I informed the Dib, but alas on my own I wasn’t having any luck looking for my vanishing Pak.
“Let me look.” He demanded of me, making my eyes zap to his.  I was nervous to just SHOW the Dib my body, but considering the situation I smiled nervously. “Okay, tell me what you see, ‘fellow’ earthling.” I joked and giggled uncomfortably, turning around on the couch and showed my back to him. I pulled my hoodie off accidently taking my shirt off with it. I blushed as his cold fingers pressed softly against my new skin. He seemed to only barely touch me, but everywhere his fingers traced made my skin burn with anticipation. “Well…?” I asked, hoping he didn’t hear the shiver in my voice from him touching me.
He explained to me in a smooth voice that my skin had grown over the Pak and where it used to be had sunken into my body. Thinking about this concept for a moment, I wondered what would happen if I tried to use it at all. Dib then place his large palm flat on the head of my Pak. His pressure helped me feel where it was, but I blushed as I felt his whole hand on me. I took a deep breath and tried to flex my spider legs. Not expecting it to hurt nearly as bad as it did, I hissed in pain with a yell. . “It hurts when I try to use it. I’ll work on that in the programming next time.” I explained to the Dib as I mentally wrote side notes on how I would fix this certain bug in the system programming.
“That’s crazy…It’s like you grew over and around it. Does anything else hurt? I can’t believe that’s in you and it’s not messing with any of your organs or skeletal structure…” Dib suddenly sounded extremely interested in my body. I don’t think he realized it, but he started to feel all over my back, poking and rubbing all over me. I stared into the cotton pattern of the cushion I was faced towards as I waited for him to get over his spazz of amazement. I tried to act like it didn’t phase me that his hands were all over me. In all reality though…I didn’t really understand why it made my face warm like it did.
“I’m suppose I’m going to have to get used to not using my Pak for a while.” I sighed a little saddened that I wouldn’t be able to use my favorite thing in the whole world. The Dib stared at me blatantly. I could see him in the corner of my eye as I turned my head just slightly to him. He was suddenly really quiet in deep thought. His face was soft, but I could tell he was thinking as deeply as he could manage. His hands slowly laced off my back, sending my new spine up in a cold chill. Deciding I needed to act normally to get his mind back on Earth, I slunk back into my clothes and glared at him, yelling. “At least until my TUBE’S fixed! You know, Dib? Since you BROKE IT!” He rolled his big brown eyes at me through those circular glass shields and cleaned the last bit of blood off of my foot.
After the blood kind of stopped, the Dib reached into his own pocket and pulled out a paper slip. I felt my face contort as he peeled it open and stuck it on my foot. “So it’s a medical device? Do you always carry things like this around?” I noted as I touched the tape like substance myself. He smiled, but it didn’t look happy for some reason. Human’s facial expressions always confused me, even now. We Irken are very straight forward. A smile equals happy. A frown equals not happy. Human’s didn’t work that way. ‘Does that mean I don’t work that way anymore…?’ I pondered to myself as Dib spoke about his parental unit for some reason. He gazed at my foot like it was a smeet and gently put it on the ground before he looked back up at me with a kind expression on his face. My face still confused on how bandage tape had anything to do with his “mother” unit. “Zim didn’t really understand any of that.” I admitted, not embarrassed for the information wouldn’t have made sense to anyone. The Dib sighed at me, like Ms. Bitters used to when I didn’t get the stupid earth point of her faulty learning program. Then he sat on the couch beside me, stretching out with one arm behind me. “Yeah, I figured. You are still an alien, after all.” As he said this, Zim came to the terms that no matter how much I change my cellular build…there will always be things on Earth I will never understand.