Corrupt Dib - An Invader ZIM AU fanfic

Dib trudged along the sidewalk, his boots scraping gently against the pavement. The sound of the world around him, mixed with the heat from the sun, was getting to him. Was the walk from his house to Zim's base always this long? Why did he feel so ill all of a sudden? A  chill struck his spine out of nowhere and he shivered. It'd just been hot as hell, why was he so cold now? Dib pulled his trench coat tighter to his body. It couldn't be much farther now, could it? Where was he going again? He shook his head, his scythe-shaped hair ruffling at the movement. The sun was dimming. 'Is it sunset already? But it was just noon!' Dib blinked his eyes once, then twice and he realized that the dimness wasn't going away, no matter how hard he tried focusing. He looked down at his feet, they were still in motion but they were wobbly. They were holding him just fine but when he looked at them they wobbled in and out of his vision. That wasn't right. As he watched himself take another step, he felt the world around him shift and tilt. He shut his eyes then opened them again and watched the world cascade down onto its side before he felt himself hit the ground.

An ache in his back startled him into focus. He wasn't on the sidewalk anymore. But, where was he? The area surrounding him was stark white, like snow or paper. He'd been in rooms like this before, for a plethora of reasons including being labeled insane or as part of one of his father's experiments. This couldn't be one of the experiments, could it? Dib shuddered at the memories of said experiments, how could his father have subjected him to be a lab rat? Without a second thought, he turned around to look behind him, greeting another white area. He tried finding the walls of the room, but there were none. The young boy was quite literally just standing in a white void of nothing. Well, not nothing. He'd noticed, slowly but surely, that there was a creeping shadow forming not far from where he had been only a few minutes before. The shadow crouched then morphed into some sort of humanoid shape and stood upright. Dib could almost feel its eyes boring into his head. Was that his father? Feet brushing the ground, he ran as fast as he could toward the shadow but no matter how fast he ran, he could not catch it. He paused, panting, as he tried to catch his breath. He took a glance at the shadow. It was still looking at him, watching him as though it was a tiger and he was its prey. A sudden image flashed in his mind, his father had had a similar look in his eyes when he was testing on Dib, like a look of determination to reach the end goal of satisfaction. He knew what he had to do. "Hello? Who are you?! Dad, is that you? This isn't funny, you know!" The shadow blinked for the first time, and then it smiled, a devilish grin that sent a real shudder down his spine. The shadow moved closer to him, and then it paused about 15 feet away from him. The strange creature lifted its arm up, its index finger was up, and gently placed it against what Dib could make out as a very small pair of lips. The creature drew in a breath. "Shhhhhh..." it hushed, and it did so for an uncomfortably long amount of time. Gradually, the hushing grew to a crescendo and Dib realized that the white world around him was crumbling. Pieces of the floor he had stood on not long ago were now hurtling down into a dark abyss. Fear edged Dib's mind. "Stop! You...You can't! You're going to kill the both of us!" But the creature kept on and on with the hushing. The floor beneath him began to crack. Dib could feel the shift of the pieces under him, they couldn't support his weight for much longer. Behind him, however, there was more white area that was untouched by the sound. Triumphantly, he ran towards it and when he noticed the shadow figure wasn't there anymore, he let out a breath of relief. He would be safe here, for a while. 

It couldn't have been more than 10 or 15 minutes before Dib heard a sudden hushing noise, which startled him. The shadow figure had caught up to him. He turned around to see it, a path of destruction in its wake. What once had been a bright white area was now a desolate dark abyss. A lump of fear climbed up his throat and it took a good amount of effort to swallow it down. He felt sick. Anxiety churning in his stomach, Dib tried to make a run for it. There was still plenty of white area to run to, he'd be fine! That shadow couldn't get him in a million years! But, speaking too soon, he ran into a wall. 'Of course, now there's a wall! I should've known-' His thoughts were cut off as he felt the shift of the ground under him. Stray pieces of white floor were falling mere feet in front of him. He tried to call out to the shadow figure to stop once more, but it resulted in a hacking cough where Dib was spewing out the same liquid that dripped from his eye.  Soon, there was only a small gap between him and the shadow figure.  There was a loud crack under his feet and then he felt himself plummeting down. He looked down into the dark abyss below him and wailed, a shrill sound that reverberated  around him in the emptiness. As he looked up, he could see the outline of the shadow figure above him. It was still hushing as he felt the emptiness under him rise to meet his body. 

As soon as he felt the impact of the ground, he blinked into consciousness. He didn't know where he was for a second. When he came around to his senses, he realized he was at the front door to Zim's base. How did he get here? He hadn't walked here all the way, and no one was around to have carried him. That was the first peculiar thing. The second was the fact that he wasn't actually standing, but was dangling slightly upright off the ground. Alarm shot through him and as soon as it did, he fell down onto the porch. Whatever had been holding him up disappeared. Dib's brain was still foggy from his strange dream that it took him a second to realize where he'd recognized something similar to that. Zim's PAK legs. They always seemed to carry Zim around when he'd needed them to, perhaps the PAK was reacting to what his brain was requesting and brought him to Zim's. He couldn't worry about the logistics of that now, though, there might be time later for it. Now he just needed to ask him enemy for help. He let out a grunt of disgust and proceeded to swiftly knock on the door. He repeatedly knocked until someone opened it. It was Zim, and he looked pissed. "Why are you here in MY base, Dib?!" 

"I'm not in your base." 

"You're lying!" Dib gripped Zim's collar at this and looked urgently into the alien's false eyes.

"Just shut up and listen, Zim! I need your help, it's important and you're the only goddamn creature on this planet that can help me, alright! Just please, for once!" Zim growled at Dib and activated his PAK legs to make himself slightly taller to get out of Dib's grasp. Instinctively, Dib's own PAK legs extended to compensate for this. Zim looked at his enemy in alarm, then lowered himself and retracted his legs. Dib's PAK legs followed suit after Zim's and Dib brushed his coat off. 

"Alright, Dib." 

"What?" Dib didn't understand.

"I'm going to help you. But only because I should be the one to destroy you, not that." Zim pointed a sharp finger at Dib's PAK. A sudden shiver of fear ran down Dib's spine. He did not like the sound of that.