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Hope	By : LadyNephero Category: +G through L > Invader Zim > AU/AR-Alternate Universe-Alternate Reality Views: 1600 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim, nor do I make any money from this work.

Chapter List
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The sound of buzzing in Dib’s ears was overwhelming. He couldn’t see, he could barely breathe, and no matter where he turned or how fast he ran the buzzing just grew louder. He felt a tickling sensation on his face and as he moved to scratch it he realized with horror that the blackness surrounding him was an endless swarm of flies. They surrounded him, they covered him, they filled his mouth every time he tried to yell for help, they pressed against his ears and soon even his muffled screams were drowned by endless buzzing.
                In his panic, he tripped, and the buzzing dissipated for a single moment as his form crashed to the floor. He groaned, and soon the flies were back, in his hair and on his neck as he tried to get to his feet again. He pushed at the ground, and his hand landed in something warm and sticky. He couldn’t see through the cloud of flies, but as he pulled his hand closer, he could smell the familiar copper sweetness, the subtle song of rot flooding his nose in a way the flies couldn’t.
                Again, he screamed, and this time he didn’t care that the flies got into his mouth, not when blood was soaking into the knees of his jeans and his hands were covered and the smell, oh God, the smell.
                The buzzing suddenly stopped. The flies dropped out of the air and onto the sticky floor, creating a carpet of twitching black limbs. Dib coughed and choked as more flies fell from his lips, and he spat again and again to get the last of them out of his mouth. So focused was he that at first, he didn’t hear soft bootsteps, didn’t hear the subtle crunch of tiny insect bodies being squished into the already sticky floor. He only noticed when those boots stopped just short of where he knelt, and as he looked up he wished he was still blinded by the flies.
                Because it was himself who stood there, and it was himself who grinned down at him, thin face warped by the faintest spatters of blood, and it was his own eyes that pierced his very soul, and it was those eyes he knew had killed the flies, and now they would kill him too, just like another insect in the endless room.
                Dib’s throat was dry. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t swallow, and as that thin hand reached out for his face, he found he couldn’t even scream.
                He awoke with a start, gasping and covered in sweat. The scratchy sheets of his hotel bed were pooled at his feet, kicked off, no doubt, in the throes of his nightmare. He fought to get his breathing under control. He pressed his hand to his mouth, and stifled a gag as he remembered the feel of flies against his tongue, and his palm came away covered in the thick drops of sweat that clung to his upper lip.
                There was a sharp clicking noise, and he nearly jumped right out of his skin as the bathroom door swung open, Nazca stepping out of a cloud of steam and smelling strongly of citrus. She plucked at a wet tendril of hair, sniffed it, and gave a sigh.
                “I can’t get the smell out.”
                At first, Dib couldn’t say a thing, his heart still running a mile a minute as he ran his hand through sweat-soaked hair. He took a breath, and rolled out of the bed. A shower sounded pretty good, the memory of the dream clogging his nose with the smell of rot despite how many lemons they had cut and peeled in their hotel room to bathe with.
                “You smell fine. It’s psychological.” Dib murmured, a recitation of facts rather than actual conversation as he reached for one of the lemon halves that sat on the dresser.
                “You okay, Moth? You… look like hell.”
               “Bad dream. I’m okay,” he tried to force a smile, but one look at Nazca’s face and he knew it wasn’t at all convincing. She didn’t look much better, and though Dib still thought she looked as pretty as ever, he could see the ashen tone to her skin and the puffiness underneath her eyes. She hadn’t slept well either, she must have gotten up long before Dib did.
                “What time is it, anyway?” he asked, looking over his shoulder to the nightstand between their beds and the digital clock perched on top of deep cherry wood.
                “A little past seven-thirty.” Nazca said, her brows knitting as she sniffed at her hair again. “We’re meeting with Sheriff Williams at the station. Looking over pictures…” her sentence trailed off, and she dropped her hair in frustration. “You want coffee? I’m gonna go get coffee.”
                “Yeah, that’d be great.” Dib said, and he stepped into the still-steamy bathroom. Through the door, he heard Nazca rummaging through a drawer, before her footsteps disappeared out of the room. Left in silence, Dib pressed his palm to the bathroom mirror and swiped it over the glass.
                He really did look like hell. While he had always been pale, it seemed more heavily pronounced, accented by dark purple splotches under his eyes. He rubbed at his face, feeling the stubble and wondering if he had the energy to shave. Probably not. He was honestly just more interested in a searing hot shower at this point, and scrubbing his skin raw for the third time since they got back from the crime scene on the side of the road the previous day.
                His skin now a rather brilliant shade of pink, he exited the bathroom just as he buttoned the top of his shirt. Just as the button slid into place, he reached out to his right, and his mouth jerked into a smile of thanks as Nazca handed over his paper cup full of some unidentifiable sludge. All that mattered, though, was that it was caffeinated, or at least that was what Dib told himself right up until he took a swig and nearly choked.
                “Sorry, there wasn’t any sugar.” Nazca grimaced, and too late he noticed her own cup was still full, albeit nearly cream coloured for all the milk she must have put in it.
                “Is it even legal for them to sell this?”
                “You really gonna argue with someone who has to work a coffee bar in the middle of nowhere at eight in the morning?”
                “Point.” Dib grimaced, and forced down the rest of his cup. All that mattered was that it was caffeinated. He just had to keep telling himself that. Oh God, but denial was a sweet thing. Nazca chose to ignore hers, instead focusing on packing up their laptops and other files into a thick bag, while Dib threw on his jacket, precariously holding the paper cup by the edge of the lip in between his teeth.
                They took a moment to collect themselves, Nazca giving a slow nod before they left the hotel room with a do not disturb sign swinging on the door’s handle.
                Williams was already at the station, and looked as if he might have slept there. His uniform was wrinkled and the stubble on his cheeks seemed to have grown even more, but his eyes were as alert as ever as the two agents stepped into the room. He gave a curt sort of nod at the officer beside him, and soon the three were alone in the room together, with only a thin window separating them from the rest of the station.
                The sheriff sighed a bit, and took a swig from a dirty mug that looked as if it had been repeatedly refilled without reprieve.
               “Okay. Okay,” he said, slowly, mostly to himself. He gave another nod, and then fixed the agents with a sharp stare, gesturing at the two seats in front of his desk. “What are we dealing with.”
                Nazca licked her lips, and then pulled a stack of manila folders out of the bag. Those she set down, flipping each one open, various images of mutilation staring back up at them. Dib did his best not to flinch, remembering just how vivid flesh had looked in the baking sun. Williams didn’t even blink.
                “…We can narrow it down.” She started, slowly, glancing up before continuing on. “The obvious things, you know. The… uh. Stupid things.”
                “You know, I’d normally be one to agree with the ‘stupid’ statement, but I’m not sure I’m prepared to think that a human being could do this, either.”
                “We reviewed the photos from the scene. The… pieces further out in the field had evidence of claw marks. Specific ones. There’s only three lines per blow. Which… could mean a number of things. Have you gotten anything back from the autopsy?”
                “What little there was to autopsy, you mean.” Williams said, and his face suddenly seemed to sag. He stood up from his desk and paced the room. “Three things. One being that it was… highly unlikely the marks were made by a tool. Reminiscent of animal maulings.”
                Dib scribbled a quick note into his pad, putting a heavy underline under claw marks.
                “…The second being that the pieces that were recovered, the ones that were thrown… were intact.”
                “Whoa, wait, what?” Dib asked, jarred from his focus by this piece of information.
                “You heard me, kid.” Williams picked up his mug, went to take a sip, only to realize it was empty. He slurped at it anyway, attempting to get some lingering flavor out of the air in the mug. “They were intact. Everything was there. In pieces, but nothing was missing.”
                Nazca, to her credit, seemed to be thinking this through. “This wasn’t for food. It’s likely that whatever did this was either threatened territorially, or…”
                “Killed three people for sport.” Dib finished for her.
                “Which brings me to the third thing. Mrs. Wilson is missing.” The sheriff took another half hearted slurp at his mug, this time out of mindless automation.
                “What? I thought you said the bodies were all there.” Nazca asked, her brows knitting tightly together.
                “No, I said that what was recovered made up entire bodies. But only two of them. The husband and son. Mrs. Wilson wasn’t anywhere to be found. We’re still waiting on DNA to see if… if she’s part of the scene.”
                Dib was floored, and Nazca was forced to sit. He could see the faint tremble in her fingertips, and so he leaned forward, rubbing at his mouth.
                “Claw marks. No… consumption of the bodies. But they took a minivan and a woman with them.” He frowned. “Why?”
                “I ain’t interested in why, I’m interested in catching this bastard.”
                “No, hear me out on this. It didn’t need food. It tore apart two grown men and then kidnapped a likely hysterical woman, while simultaneously removing an entire minivan. Why would something go to all that trouble?”
                “Why not kill Mrs. Wilson, too?” Nazca asked, her face regaining some pallor now.
                “Exactly. What makes her important enough to keep alive?”
                “We don’t even know if she still is.” Williams argued, but Dib waved his hand.
                “Important enough to take, then?”
                “…Kill the males… take the female.” Nazca whispered, and she swallowed hard. “…Eliminate competition, possible protection. It wasn’t sport, it was necessity. No one to come after her, no one to defend her, and… no one to witness what took her.”
                “…This is the third case in how long?” Dib asked, his stomach twisting as he pulled the files closer to himself, flipping through the information. The largest one was on the Wilsons, since the previous two only involved single murders, the men found torn to pieces at a gas station and outside of a bar. But now, Dib wasn’t so sure.
                “A month. That’s just in this state, though.” Williams offered, though he was staring hard at Dib, as if they were thinking the exact same thing. “…I’ll contact the surrounding police departments.”
                “Try to focus on missing women.” Dib offered, and he went back to staring at the three open files. Nazca pulled her chair closer, staring down at the photos even as the sheriff left the office, his empty mug finally forgotten. Dib and Nazca sat in silence for a long moment, before Dib took a breath.
                “What do you think? Weres?”
              “…I want to say no. There had to have been more than one of them, but the MO is all wrong. And the claw marks…” Nazca grimaced.
                “Do you know anything with that kind of structure?”
                “No, not… not from here, anyway.”
                “Shit…”
                “Moth?”
                “I’m… not saying it was aliens. But. I think it was aliens.”
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Hope