Betray and Rebel

Chapter 3: Ticking

Dark, cold, lonely. Those were the only words he could use to describe his prison. His hell. The metal panels sometimes groaned, but it wasn't enough to fill the silence that suffocated him. He should have known that it was all a dream. Gir was dead. Dib was dead. He was soon to join them.

Zim glanced around his prison cell. It was darker than normal. Did the Tallest decide to cut power in the cells for conservation? It wasn't an unlikely possibility. They had done that with their food. Instead of food they reserved those wretched needles full of sweet syrup.

"Sweet syrup" His words echoed throughout the cell. He never did like that, at least when he got here he didn't. It was as if the cell was mocking him.

Zim closed his eyes. He needed sleep. He wanted sleep. It was the only thing that would take him away from this world.

"Zim?"

Zim flinched at the voice and looking around his cell. Of course no one was there. He had heard of people going crazy and hallucinating while in prison. So he could only conclude that what he heard was a hallucination. A very vivid hallucination. He let out a quiet sigh and once again closed his eyes.

"Zim, if you can hear me you have to wake up!"

This time Zim didn't flinch but snapped his eyes open. Once again, no one stood in his cell. It was only him and the darkness in the small cell. Zim stared at the darkness around him. His antennae didn't sense any motions or noises, so no one was there he knew it.

Zim looked at his hands and let out a weak chuckle. He was truly going crazy. Zim sighed closing his eyes and leaned against the wall. The metal wall was cold and felt like it was burning him, but he found that he didn't care.

"Zim please! We need you!"

Zim shook his head. "What do you need me for? I've gone utterly crazy." He commented deciding to entertain the madness within him.

"No you haven't! Please!" Lasers and screams echoed around Zim.

"Clearly I have. Your not real. I'm stuck in a cell with nothing but the darkness and madness." He said waving his hand dismissively.

Zim heard a low growl through all the sounds. It sounded as if it was right next to him, but he knew it wasn't. It couldn't be, no one was allowed in his cell especially, except for the drone.

"Why are you angry with Zim?" Zim asked the nothingness around him.

"Because we need your help to get us out-" Zim gasped and sat up as the world around him began to tremble and break apart. Voices around him screamed in pain. Lasers had stopped firing. And his world began to melt around him.

Flickering in and out of view was the real world. The world he dreamt. The world he assumed was nothing but a filthy lie. He blinked flickering back into his cell he sat astonished at the sight. Again he blinked and there he sat behind cover in the middle of a war. He looked to his left Dib stood there firing shot after shot. To his left Gaz who typed away at a laptop.

"Gaz! Did you figure it out yet!?" Dib yelled over the shots and screams.

Gaz let out a growl, "no! They made it unhackable! Everytime I get past a firewall another one with different codes pops up!" Another explosion sounded causing the world around them to tremble. "Fuck!" Gaz cried her laptop being flung from her lap and into the line of fire.

Zim blinked finding himself back in the cell, but this time it was bigger. Zim stood up his body aching at the sudden change in positions. Dib yelled something at him, but Zim didn't pick it up.