Chapter One
I roll out of bed and land with a loud band. I put a hand to my head. I have a fever.
"I was fine yesterday," I mumble to myself.
"DIB, ARE YOU READY FOR SCHOOL?" a feminine voice calls. But it's definitely not Gaz.
"I'm staying home today! I have a fever!"
A minute later a woman with violet hair walks into my room. "Oh, my baby!"
"And you are...?" I have no clue who she is!
"I'm your mother. You're worse than I thought."
I'd rather go to school today. "No, I'm fine. I feel better now."
I grab some clothes and backpack and go into the bathroom. I quickly change and dodge out the window. I run over to Zim's house and kick down the door.
"Zim!" I yell. "Something weird is going on and I know it's because of you! I don't know how or why, but I know it was you!"
He looks up from his video game and puts his piece of taffy on the table. "What do you want, Dib? I have the right to call the authorities!"
"You're playing a video game? And your skin isn't green? And GIR isn't making waffles? And you're playing video games and eating Earth food? And you're...going to call the authorities and not try to use me as a test subject?" I'm confused, so very confused.
"What are you talking about, Dib?"
He just called me Dib! "Just Dib? Not Dib-worm or Dib-thing?"
"Are you feeling alright? Because if you're not, you should be in bed resting like a normal kid."
"Zim! This isn't funny! Tell me what's going on!"
"What's not funny?" He looked genuinely confused. "I'm not playing any tricks."
"Give it up, Spaceboy! I know this is your fault!"
"Spaceboy? When did I get that nickname? I've never been called that before." After a couple moments he asks, "it's because I love astronomy, isn't it?"
That's when I realized what was wrong. Either my whole life from soon before I heard about Operation Impending Doom II to the moment I woke up this morning had all been a dream and everything is completely normal, or I'm in a coma or one of Zim's things had backfired. What the question is now: Which one of those things was it???