Book of One-Shots

Unfinished IZ Thing

Zim felt useless. 

Every single thing he'd ever done, from going to Earth, to going to school and disguising himself as a human, it was for the sake of the Irken empire; it was all worth nothing because he was worthless.

A heavy sigh escaped his mouth as he rolled over onto his spooch and stared at the wall, his gaze blank and without expression. An Irken existed to serve their Tallest, and without that, without a purpose, they were nothing more than a waste of space, a burden that didn't need to exist.

The memory of his last call with his Tallest slowly crept its way into his mind. How their laughter had echoed around him as their words echoed in his head about how useless and worthless he had been, and how miserable he had felt. They weren't his Tallest anymore, he noted, as he tried to force the memory into the back of his mind, they were just the Tallest.

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. His chest felt heavy, and yet he felt emptier than the deepest, darkest corners of the universe. What was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to lie around on the living room floor for another two weeks, continuing to let this replay in his mind? Let his mind constantly remind him of how pathetic he is?

Defective. That's what Zim was, nothing more than a defect that would never succeed in anything, a creature that would do better off dead.

Zim sucked in a harsh breath as the words became engraved into his mind and repeated themselves over and over again, until his head was pounding, and a faint ringing sound had found its way inside the back of his mind.

He would be better off dead.

It physically pained him to know that his continued existence was only going to hold everyone back. That's why his, no, the, Tallest had sent him here; they wanted to get rid of him because they hated him and wanted him dead. The Almighty Tallest, rulers of Irk and the entire Irken empire, despised him and every ounce of his being, and it hurt.

Zim let out a slight groan as he rolled over on his back once again, the ceiling a blur of colors as his head continued to ring and pound. Time seemed to become increasingly warped the longer he lied there, seconds becoming minutes and minutes becoming hours until time seemed to stop existing altogether.

“This is ridiculous,” he hissed, his words slurring together as he spoke, “all the work I’ve done, all of it, it was all for nothing. To even think, I, the amazing Zim, would be so stupid as to fall for this pathetic little trick." 

He raised his hands up in the air and shook them for a moment before letting them fall limp to his sides once again. Trying to convince himself that he was some kind of gift to Irk and all of his species was futile because he knew he was the complete opposite of that: a disgrace. The biggest disgrace ever to step foot into this universe, only managing to hold on because of the mission he had been given.

The only thing keeping him together had been his mission to Earth. He thought he could've finally had a chance to prove himself to the Tallest and show that he could do something right for once, but it was all a lie; a lie he was too stupid to figure out when it should've been obvious what it was.

"Master, are you okay?"

Zim's breath hitched as he heard Gir walk up to him, concern lacing the robot's typically ecstatic voice. "You've been lyin' there for a while, Master, you feelin' alright?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine, Gir," he grumbled. "Now leave me alone so I can wallow in my everlasting misery."

"Oh, okay!" Gir hesitated before speaking, his concern being overshadowed by his usual child-like demeanor once more. "I'm gonna go watch the Scary Monkey Show," he stated as he ran off, leaving Zim alone with his thoughts once more.

For a moment, there was silence. Zim was certain that, if it was possible, he would've heard every ounce of what was holding him together crumble beneath him. Every bit of happiness, hope, any positive emotion his Irken brain had the capability of feeling, had evaporated into thin air; nothingness.

He pushed away the only one that cared about him. God, how stupid could he get? Of course, Gir was worried about him, he'd been lying on the floor for two weeks and hadn't moved other than the occasional shift in position. Did he really think that, despite how ignorant and oblivious Gir was, he wouldn't have noticed something had been off?

He wasn't going to deal with this anymore.

He was going to make things right.

Zim slowly sat up from his spot, a slight fuzziness in his vision as his head pounded from the sudden change. He immediately felt the urge to lie back down and continue his sulking, but he knew it would've done no good. No amount of lying down on the floor was going to make anything better. 

He let out a sigh and slowly turned to look at his Pak, his body finally adjusted to his position. His Pak had held everything about him: his personality, knowledge, his mistakes and defectiveness, it was all inside of there, and he hated it. From the moment he entered this world as nothing more than a mere Smeet, his Pak was filled to the brim with mistakes that only proved his entire existence was wrong.

An Irken couldn't live without their Pak, and their Pak couldn't stay active without the Irken. Ten minutes was all it took for an Irken to die, and the Pak would soon follow, deactivating if it was unable to attach itself to another host in time. Deactivated Pak's were useless, nothing more than a reminder that the Irken was truly gone.

His gaze remained fixated on his Pak as he hesitantly moved his hand towards the self-destruct button that had appeared in the middle of his glove. Zim sat there, his finger hovering over the button, in silence, before there was a faint click.

He watched as his Pak detached from his spine and clunked to the ground, a low ringing filling his antenna as his lifeclock appeared in the corner of his eye. His vision became hazy as his lifeclock had slowly begun to decrease, each second feeling longer than the rest.

It was barely a minute before it had begun to feel like someone had taken a whacking stick and whacked Zim in the squeedilyspooch repeatedly until his insides were nothing but mush. He continued to stare at Pak, realizing that the holes that connected the Pak to him had been blocked off, which prevented it from being reattached to his body.

He scoffed, "that's what the infamous self-destruct button does?! Bah! Pathetic!" Had he realized that the result of hitting the self-destruct button had been as anticlimactic as it was, he would've found another way to get rid of his Pak. "Zim could've made a better design than that sorry excuse for Irken technology!"

Indeed, if Zim ever had the chance to choose how the self-destruct button worked, he would've chosen an actual explosion. Of course, though, that was only a fantasy; he was much too small and too much of a defect to have a say in any sort of decision in the Irken empire. Not to mention that the self-destruct option had existed long before he did, and so it wouldn't have mattered, anyway.

Nonetheless, he still expected something explosion-inducing instead of the removal, and locking, of his Pak. A locked Pak was unable to be reattached to the Irken, and the Irken was unable to have another Pak connected to them. It made sense in some scenarios, but…

Zim lost his train of thought as he felt a sudden jolt of pain across his entire body. He let out a low whimper as he fell onto the floor, spooch-first. Unable to even do as much as move, Zim closed his eyes, letting his mind slowly become empty as his entire being was, metaphorically, fading into nothingness.

As the lifeclock slowly reached seven minutes, Zim slowly opened his eyes once again, ignoring the low ticking sound that played in the back of his mind. He slowly moved his arms and pushed himself up off the floor, grunting as he immediately fell back down.

(A/n) This was something I started back in March during the beginning of my Invader Zim hyperfixation. Ultimately, I lost motivation before I could continue it and my OK K.O.! hyperfixation has returned in place of my Invader Zim one

This was about halfway finished with a lot planned, and I'm upset I didn't finish it, but I wanted to post it for you guys. Shares and comments are appreciated~

Thank you ^^