Im Not INSANE (N̶u̶t̶j̶o̶b̶!̶Dib AU; Original AU)

The Clock Strikes One; You have nowhere to run

[14/Jan/20**:00:00:30;23:00]

It's well past midnight, as always. Right now, I hear him up in his room typing away at his massive pc collection. Its DISTRACTING at this time of night, why doesn't he do this much 'research' during the day? I wish he would get over this newfound obsession. Nobody knows about this except for me, I worry about Zim, his latest victim. It's been about a month I think? I feel like he should have gotten over it by now, he has to realize it's all in his head. That prank I pulled was a mistake, I should have never influenced him. I play along, though I've always played along. nowadays I feel it's making it worse. That poor guy... both of them I mean.

Gaz pulled herself away from her journal, at last having released her frustrations onto the now written page. She felt a cold breeze kiss the back of her neck from an open window while kicking out of her covers. The thirteen-year-old had dealt with this situation before, hopefully, this time it wouldn't be fatal to her nose. It is nearly thirty minutes away from 1, she grabbed onto enough courage to go into Dib's room. Gaz silently slipped outside into the upper hallway. Her footsteps creaked against the old hardwood floor near her brother's bedroom, then stopping at the barrier. The loud tapping on the other side was exacerbating her now growing headache. Gaz opened the door.

Dib was playing his keyboard like a grand piano, typing sentence after sentence into an unnamed Word file. His hair looked a bit greasy, so much so it would appear he had been at this for hours, additionally, his facial expression had stuck in a solemn glare. On his computer was a video, but not just any video, Live camera feed. The camera open on his desktop showed a bedroom with a fairly strange interior to that of a child's, though nothing too out of the ordinary. In the view of the camera were two children with a vast age gap sitting on a mattress made up with a purple bed set, each minding their own business. One was a boy around dib's age with a messy black bedhead and abnormally green skin, who was now watching doomtube videos on a laptop. An icepack laid strew on his head as it melted, he was obviously not well. Laying belly-down on the foot of the bed was a small child around eight or nine wearing doggy pajamas while playing with a stuffed pig.

Once gaz had a good look on what was happening, she broke her speechlessness "DIB what are you doing?" She had never seen her brother do something this extreme before. This was illegal. This couldn't be happening. "GAZ!" he shouted in shock, while minimizing both applications. His sister rushed over to stop him. "Dib- I saw what you did... Why do you have a camera set up in their house, Are you insane?!" Insane  The word quietly echoed throughout his mind, echoed throughout his body. His blood ran cold, then so did his thoughts. Dib shook them away. "No! Gaz, this is to help with my studies on Zim. Once I gather enough proof, everyone will finally know the truth. Earlier today while I was setting up cameras, I managed to grab this!" He pulled out a painted anti-theft backpack made of metal. It was decorated to look like a bug rather than its bleak, original design. "I always thought his backpack was suspicious, but I realize what it is now- It's some kind of... device that keeps Zim alive! He calls it a 'pak' "

Gaz's anger shot her nerves. "dib, 'pak' is short for backpack. I'm getting tired of your late night antics, and i'm especially NOT okay with you breaking into this kid's house and leaving security cameras, need i mind that you stole from our dad, to SPY on them." InsaneInsaneInsaneInsaneInsane "Zim isn't an alien, he is a normal kid like you and me, he just has Hypocronic anemia! He's getting better slowly, but you aren't helping at all! Just because he has green skin doesn't make him an alien dib." InsaneInsaneInsaneInsaneInsane  After a moment of silence she realized she lost her temper a bit, understandably so, but she couldn't make things worse. "Dib, Are you okay?" No response. "di-" "i'm not insane." "what? Dib what are you talking abo-" The backpack dropped to the floor, expectedly a loud clatter echoed around the chamber. A dark aura soon swept through the room "stop saying i'm insane Gaz." The look that dib had given the screen before was now being put onto his sister. "Dib... calm down, listen to me." The crazed look in dib's eyes didn't vanish, they kept staring. Deep into gaz's soul, staring. They were dead, heartless, bloodthirsty. "He's controlling you- yeah... no wonder you don't believe me... you can't understand what i'm saying because he's brainwashed you with one of his.. Devices. Don't worry gaz... i'll make things normal again. Once I put that- irken on a dissection table, things will go back to normal" "what?! Dib- no! You're not well in the head, you have to snap out of this fantasy !" The look deepened. The coldness deepened. Fantasy. Dib was insaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsane-

It was a normal day, like any other. Dib, being the six-year-old he was, he loved adventure. He would play pretend in the backyard, pretend to have friends, pretend to have a life. He pretended he was a famous renowned paranormal investigator, pretended he was a scientist, pretended he was the captain of an alien rebel alliance. When he would come in from a long day, telling his dad of his adventures. All his father would say was, "my poor insane son is living a fantasy". Insaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsane. Dib one day decided to take his explorations down into his father's lab; He rarely came up to spend time with him, so why not go down? Downdowndowndowndowndowndown. He snuck down the staircase, each step with a creak. Creakcreakcreakcreakcreak. So many tubes, everything was perfect, something out of a dream. Science seemed like a great path for him. Science was- no. no. Test tubes filled with things, such horrible things. Creatures? Humans? No... they were him. A line of test tubes row by row- A line of test tubes row by row- A line of test tubes... row by row. Babies, adults, teenagers. All of him. Replaceable- Replaceable. He was replaceable. Dib didn't move, he didn't feel, this was real. He dashed up the stairs and tried to forget what he saw. It was real, was he real? He was real, or is he not? Is this fiction, or nonfiction, am i a person, or am i a monster? Am i me? Am i him? Am i no one? Am i real, or am i Not? He had told his father what he saw later that day, hoping for him to say he was real, he was him, he was right. But... Insaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsaneinsadeinsaneinsane. Insane. "My insane son, you're living a fantasy."

"I'm going to fix you." The room grew cold. The room grew darker. The clock struck one.