Not a Monster Anymore (Double Crossed Book 2)

Chapter 26

I burst into Mr. Zeraf's office, ignoring the shocked look of the lady at the desk outside. He looks up from his desk, where he has papers piled up. Does he ever stop writing? He looks startled, for good reason. I wonder if I left a hole behind the door with how quickly I opened it.

"Zim," he says, sounding a bit exasperated. "Why are you-" he stops in the middle of putting away a stack of papers, noticing my flushed face, stained with tears. He places the papers down, straightening himself and leaning forward. "Are you okay?"

I cross my arms. "If I'm being completely honest," I mutter, "no, I'm really not."

"Well," Mr. Zeraf says, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk, "why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

I sit down slowly, wiping at my face. I have no clue where to even start. Not to mention I have to keep out the parts about my base, which would beg for questions that would reveal I'm an alien. I decide to start where everything went wrong. "Do you remember when I was here last, and I was talking to Dib?" I feel awkward asking; he must think I sound insane.

Mr. Zeraf's gaze hardens a bit. "Yes." His voice is hard too. "What about it?"

"I... stopped hearing his voice."

Mr. Zeraf's subtle glare goes away, replaced by a very slight turn up of the corners of his lips. "You have? And... is that the problem?"

Upset that he seems happy about this, I roll my eyes. "Um, yes," I answer, annoyed. "He was the only one that bothered to talk to me. I'm kind of upset that he just left."

Mr. Zeraf raises an eyebrow. "Zim, I know this might not sound right to you, but that wasn't actually Dib."

"Of course it was," I argue. "Who else would it be? It sounded exactly like him, and he knew everything that we did together, and..." I trail off, scared that if I say more, I'll start to cry. "It couldn't be anyone else."

"What I mean, Zim," Mr. Zeraf says, leaning forward and placing a hand on my shoulder, "is that the voice in your head isn't actually there. It's in your head. Like we've been saying."

I push his arm away. "Well then why did it just go away?" I know that arguing with him would bring us nowhere.

"The pills," Mr. Zeraf says. Then he leans back, looking down, seeming confused. "But that shouldn't have..." he mumbles, almost entirely silent.

He turns back to me. "Did you take pills today?"

"Yeah," I answer. "Wasn't I supposed to?"

Mr. Zeraf shakes his head, but at the same time, his lips curve up a little bit. By the time his head stops moving, he's back to his neutral expression. "You were supposed to start taking them tomorrow. I said Friday."

"You... you did?" I ask, worried that something will happen as a result of the extra medication. Unless it already did. Dib's voice disappearing was most likely because of the pills, which were for schizophrenia. The voice was created by me, technically another personality that I was keeping up, to keep myself from going mad. But the primal personality didn't disappear. Speaking of which...

"Were the pills supposed to keep me relaxed too?" I ask.

"Technically, yes. That's not essential to cure the schizophrenia, but you seemed quite stressed about it, so I thought it would help you," Mr. Zeraf says.

"Well, I... I don't think it worked quite as well as you thought it would."

He looks at me, confused, yet something in his eyes tells me that he knows what's going on. "How do you mean?"

"That bad part of me is still there. It was a lot less... destructive," I mutter, my face growing hot as I remember what happened, "but it was still there, and I couldn't control myself."

Mr. Zeraf's lips curl up a little bit again. I harden my gaze.

"What the hell?" The words are out of my mouth before I can think. Mr. Zeraf's eyebrows shoot up.

"Excuse me?" he asks, his voice strangely calm.

"You keep smiling," I point out. I'm already in the rabbit hole, might as well continue. "Do you find this funny?" I feel some of the diluted pressure in the pit of my stomach again. I want to ignore it, but the fact that it's not supposed to be there makes it pretty much impossible.

Mr. Zeraf's face falls, back to neutral. He stands up. "Here, follow me."

"You still haven't told me why you were smiling at me," I growl, staying put.

"I can't tell you. I have to show you."

---

I follow Mr. Zeraf begrudgingly, aware now of the pain of my missing antenna. The shock has since passed.

We've left the office, and are walking through the snow. We have been for about five minutes. I cross my arms over my body, trying to stay warm. Little snowflakes have started to fall, matting my wig. I'm just about to start complaining when Mr. Zeraf turns, walking down a path to a run-down looking house. Is this his house? I can't imagine him living here.

I walk inside, where it's surprisingly neat, despite the impression I got from the outside. The door closes, even though I haven't touched it. It's a very flimsy door though, so I don't doubt that it's just been blown closed.

"So?" I ask, uncrossing my arms. "Can you show me now?"

"I would have thought you'd figured it out by now," Mr. Zeraf says, his back still turned to me from when he walked in.

"What?"

He finally turns. "The medicine. You took more than you were supposed to."

I shake my head. "Still don't get it." Mr. Zeraf raises an eyebrow.

"The medicine was made to get rid of the voice. It just... happened faster than we thought it would," he says, shrugging.

"What? But I said that there wasn't anything wrong with me! How could you possibly have known?" I ask. Mr. Zeraf's gaze hardens.

"We knew that the voice was something you created. Because you were lonely, and you missed it."

"It?" I ask.

"Oh yeah. 'Dib'," he says, rolling his eyes at the name. I glare back at him in response. "We were just trying to get you away from that attachment. It's something only a defective would feel." His tone gets harder with the last few words.

"Defective?" I ask, my pulse racing. "But that's..." I look up at Mr. Zeraf, who smiles slyly. A sinking feeling grows in my stomach. "You're an Irken," I whisper. "Why the hell is everyone an Irken? First Tak, now-"

He slams his fist down on a table next to him, cutting me off. I jump, and his image flickers, replacing his human image with an Irken, dressed in a soldier uniform. "My name is Zeraf, and I am to escort you to The Massive for you to be reprogrammed once again. I suggest that you don't resist."

"Yeah? Well I suggest you shut your lying mouth and fuck off back into space," I growl, crossing my arms.

Zeraf's glares back at me. "If you don't comply, there will be punishment."

"More punishment than being brainwashed?" I roll my eyes. "I'll pass, thanks," I say, each word dripping with venom. "Just go tell the Tallest to-"

Zeraf suddenly lashes out, ramming a Pak leg into my stomach, causing me to fall to my knees. I look up at him, his gaze piercing into me. "You will come with me."

"No... I won't," I argue again, wincing at the sharp pain in my stomach. "I don't care how much you hurt me. I don't care how much you tell me I'm defective," I start, standing up weakly and glaring up at him. "I will not come with you. I will not go back to the Tallest. I am staying here. Even if you kill me trying to take me away."