Everywhere I go I see your face through the crowd
Everywhere I go I hear your voice clear and loud
Everywhere I go you are the light that I see
Everywhere I go you've found me
(Everywhere I Go – Five Iron Frenzy)

Glancing down at the surprisingly well-polished floor, Zim could make out the figure as it approached, his eyes bulging as he studied the still fuzzy reflection of the human.

“Hey!”

With more energy put forth into his leap of startlement than he’d used in months, Zim turned around, looking up into a pale face framed in black hair. And blue eyes. Zim blinked. It was one of the teenagers from before, now staring at him with an odd look of morbid curiosity mixed with slight humor.

Zim’s breath hadn’t time to come back to him as the previous footsteps neared and he found himself spinning around again, this time trapped between the frighteningly stinky teen and the oncoming horrors of a past left unraveled.

The blonde haired boy that stepped around the isle smiled, waving. “Come on, Fox! We found them over here!”

Zim was pushed out of the way without a word of apology as the black-haired teen joined his friend. The store’s door beeped as the door opened again. Zim looked over, watching the scythe-haired man walk out.

Breathing became natural again, his legs tingling beneath him as his mind shouted, “Moron! Idiot! What good is a tracking device if you don’t check it! You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid....” He learned to block the last part out, as it seemed to go on forever.

He suddenly felt something in his hand and brought it up to his face to inspect it cautiously. Chocolate milk. Duh. He laughed lightly at himself, walking to the front of the store with only slight hesitation, exchanging monetary units for his drink of choice and walking out the beeping doorway into the filth encrusted streets.

/Couldn’t have been Dib. Why would he come here?/ Zim’s mind asked, moving on to more relevant thoughts. /He couldn’t possibly have found me again already. Could he?/

Shaking his head, Zim stopped in his stride to open the milk bottle and drink to his close call while his heart drank to sorrows soon to come. /I can’t even see him, or the back of him for that matter, without these feelings coming back. This is utterly infuriating,/ he thought as he screwed the cap back on to keep it fresh for home.

Like the fin of a shark in tall water, a dark mantle of hair jutted up from a crowded crosswalk.

/Dib?/ He could almost hear the “Jaws” theme play as he watched the hair cut through the crowd and pass across the asphalt roads, only to disappear. Zim jogged ahead, looking around cautiously. The corner of his eyes caught a reflection in the store’s window he leaned against, black trench coat fluttering behind him, glasses reflecting the shards of sunlight that filtered through the clouds. Zim turned around only to see empty space. The common, frightened feeling fell back into place with its new accomplice, paranoia. /This is crazy. I need to get back to the labs. I can’t be out in the open like this./ His steps became furious as he ran; the thought that a running goth would probably cause as much attention as he was trying to avoid in his escape. If he was as unlucky as it seemed he was, he’d be pulled over for a suspected mugging. As it would have it, luck played his card again and allowed him to safely slide undetected into the apartment building, making a B-line for the basement and not stopping his descent until he was safely one hundred feet below ground in the security of his labs.

“Analysis complete. Subject Dib is within a ten-mile radius of present position. Begin relocation procedure?”

Zim’s closed fist smashed down on the consul. “Damn it!” He threw his wig across the room, followed by the contacts a few moment afterwards as aggravation and despair floated over him like a dark cloud from the sky above. “I’m tired of running. An Irkin does not run from his problems! He destroys them!”

/But...I could never destroy Dib. And I can’t confront him or he’ll kill me. What else can I do but run?/

Bright crimson eyes opened wide with an idea as thunder clashed above. /If I can’t do one or the other, I’ll just have to do both./