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February 26th 1998 was a calm night, nothing out of the ordinary was happening to us. My wife, Cynthia, was just in the middle of cooking dinner when it happened. Her water broke. I was just in the lounge reading a book, A Quest of Kingdoms, when I heard her call out for me.

"Henrik," The call from the kitchen pierced the silence of the house, it took me some time to respond as I had initially thought it was just my beloved asking for help.

"Henrik!" The cry came again, it was more shaky, more urgent, that's what made me realise something was wrong.

"What an absolute crock of shit," a scoff rang out to no one in particular, "you really expect me to believe this?" The question that was raised was left unanswered as the owner of the voice was alone for once. And what does he decide to do with his free time? He just sits there in his room, and reads the journal that was left to him in his father's will.

It was a month earlier when Zim had received the news of his father's passing and he had only just recently been able to claim his inheritance which didn't consist of much. He was given a savings account which he could only access upon his 25th birthday with no knowledge of the amount of money that it contained and the journals his father wrote. When he had first obtained the box, Zim counted fifty leatherback diaries, all of which were completely filled with writing, pictures and doodles. For some reason, Henrik Wattson was just avid about keeping his life recorded and documented. All up until he was at the wrong end of a mugging that cocked up, resulting in him getting shot.

"Fuck it," Zim sighed as he turned back to the small book in his hands, "I don't really want to revise anyway."

I rushed into the kitchen to see a pool of colorless liquid pooling around Thia's feet.

"Shit," is all I managed to say as I stood frozen, my eyes darting between the water and her. It was ages before I managed to jump into action, but as soon a I did I darted over to the key rack on the wall and pulled the car keys off of one of the pegs. My paws were shaking so much I pulled at least three sets off, I didn't have time to stay and count them.

Everything from then was pretty much just a blur. It's hard for me to completely recall what happened in the following 45 minutes. But what I do remember, I remember in spots. After getting in the car I completely blanked apart from when Cynthia's groans and occasional screams at me to "hurry the fuck up!" But I managed to make it to the hospital nevertheless.

I can't recall how long I was in the waiting room for, or even how long I was asleep after I dozed off. But I was awoken by a rabbit wearing the doctor's uniform telling me that I could come through to Thia's room and that someone else was waiting for me inside.

It was almost impossible for me to contain myself as I followed the man to the room, I kept reminding myself that it would be rude if I kept telling him to hurry up. After all, I knew that the suspense would make this reveal even better.

And how sweet the reveal was. Cynthia was sitting underneath the bedsheets, a few pillows behind her kept her propped up, and in her arms was a small bundle of blankets. Now from where I was standing all I could see was the small brown muzzle of my child. I was stood frozen in the door, a stupid grin plastered to my face as I imagined what my new child looked like.

I was so happy that my darling wife was able to find a sperm donor. When we had first found out that I was infertile, I think I cried more than she did. I was completely destroyed, ever since I was young I had wanted a baby, and now thanks to Trochnol Inc. my dream had come true.

Finally I forced myself to move to my family's side when I had heard the rabbit announce "It's a boy." And with the same smile I looked down on my brand new son with my paw resting on Cynthia's shoulder, squeezing it in absolute joy.

"He has wings," Thia sighed contently, "I guess the donor was a bird."

"That's just great," my words were pure, no ounce of mockery was present.

There was then a new presence in the room, the feline midwife. "Your wife has already thought of a name for him," she stated, "Zim. What do you think of it?"

"Absolutely perfect!" I cried out, attempting to hold my tears back.

The boy let out a loud huff and placed the book on his desk facedown with the pages open. There was only so much that he could read at any given time. And now that it's turned sappy he could read even less of it. So instead of forcing himself to procrastinate and power through the pages, he decided it was time for him to placate his cravings for a cigarette. Zim stood up, pushing the chair he was sitting on away with the back of his knees. It was a shame for him, and all the other smokers at his boarding school, that it was against the rules to have any smoking products or lighters on their person. But his actions seemed to say "fuck the rules".

That makes him sound like a punk anarchist who disregards whatever people tell him to do, but that is far from the truth. As a matter of fact, the fox was usually very supportive of rules, but only ones that he agrees with, the prohibition of smoking not being one of them.

When he first started smoking, he would always find great spots to hide his cigarettes, like underneath his bedside table, or nestled in with his pants in his sock drawer. But now he would keep them in the drawer right next to his desk so whenever his cravings did hit him, it wasn't too much effort to actually retrieve the sticks.

So that's what he did, opened the drawer and pocketed the nearly empty pack of Camel Cigarettes and his trusty Zippo which his father gave to him on his fifteenth birthday, three years prior. His paw also moved to his phone once his drawer was closed, just to see if anyone had been trying to contact him during his downtime.

Alas there was no one. But usually he found that was the case. It wouldn't be correct to say that he was unpopular, he just didn't talk to loads of people. Just the ones he actually cared about. That being said, he knew who would just love to come and join him for the small breath of fresh air he was about to take. His best friend Danielle.

The walk to her room wasn't the longest journey Zim ever had to make, but it was it was more than a trek at this time in the evening when his body would just start to get tired. He hadn't even made the third knock on the veneered door when it flew open to a reveal small otter seemingly already prepared for his arrival by sporting a canvas jacket, a loose fitting Def Leopard's t-shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms.

"I just knew you were going to come by," she spoke quickly, "are you doing alright? Are you going out? Let me come with you!" Danielle was always speaking at twice the speed of anyone else, which was odd compared to most other 17 year olds. Although Zim spent most of his time with her, she would have to repeat herself two maybe three times before he understood what she was actually saying. But this time he had no problem understanding the girl at all.

"Oh. Uh... That's weird," he muttered at the first statement before answering her questions, "yes I'm fine and yes I'm going out, hence why I came over here in the first place." Zim always found the interactions of the two animals quite amusing, purely based on the fact that he was a good head taller than she was. "I can blag you a cigarette if you want. I know that you're running out of baccy," the fox offered on the basis of being polite, he already knew the answer to the question which was...

"No! Not at all!" The response was at much higher pitch than he expected. It was actually more of a shriek than her normal voice. "I just know how much you need your cigarettes, especially at this time."

"Dani, calm down, it's been a few days since the memorial. It's fine. I'm fine."

"Fine, if you insist," the small otter huffed and quickly slid her arms around the foxes and tugged him away from the door to her room, "we better hurry up if we want to be back for sign in."

Sign in. That dreaded time where once you finally signed in for the night you weren't allowed back out of the boarding house. Granted it made no difference to him as his room was on the ground floor, making it easy for him to escape out of his window if he so desired.

Soon enough the duo was outside in the warm June evening, although it was 10pm the sun had only just started to dip below the horizon which painted the sky in dark colours. Zim paused once he had stepped through to doors to admire the gradient of colours that shifted from a dark orange to a light blue to a deep purple where the first stars had already started to make their appearances. The few clouds that did linger in the atmosphere had been coloured with a tone of copper.

"Are you just gonna stand there?" the sharp voice cut through the silence and yanked Zim out from his reverie.

"Christ, Dani," the breathed out in slight annoyance, "I said I was fine, but still cut me some slack!"

With a roll of his eyes Zim broke into a small jog to close the distance between the two and playfully bumped into the girl when he finally reached her which resulted in her stumbling forward and coming dangerously close to falling over. But before the otter could retaliate zim lunged away from the girls range so she couldn't shove him in return.

"Do you want me to smoke with you or not," Dani growled in an attempt to be intimidating. Zim found it cute more than anything which caused the otter to go deeper into her pit of annoyance.

Once the had arrived at a small entrance to the forest nearby Zim swivelled his head around to make sure there weren't any other people that might let a teacher know where they were. It was always better to be safe than sorry, he wasn't really in the mood to get put in detention for smoking. As soon as he verified the coast was clear, he gave Danielle a small nod to let her know that it was safe to enter.

The otter had no problem passing through the branches as she was too short for them to cause any hinderance, but for her canine companion however they were just tedious obstacles. The boy had to duck underneath the interwoven natural gateway to gain entrance to the beaten path that he and other smokers had helped create by the constant use of it.

Up ahead was the unofficial smoking spot which was inside of a large bush, which was known to the smokers as 'The Bush'. The middle of The Bush consisted of the trunk which split into different directions as soon as it had poked out of the ground, a few of which were at the perfect height to be used as seats by some people.

With a small grunt, Zim retrieved the packet of cigarettes and the lighter from the pocket of his dark skinny jeans and promptly sat down on one of the branches.

"So how's the love life?" the boy asked in an attempt to make some sort of conversation whilst he picked a cigarette out of the battered box.

The otter provided a small scoff in return as she pulled her roll-up from the pocket of her jacket, "how about you give me a light and I'll tell you."

After the lighting of the cigarettes, the two friends kept talking about this and that until it somehow broached the topic of the scars that Zim has on his left ribcage. As a matter of fact he hadn't really told any of his friends how he had come to acquire them. It was always a sensitive subject to him, but he had decided it was about time that he told Dani about it. After all, she knew about most of the other important events in his life.

"There was a car crash," Zim let out a long sigh, "I told you that my mother died, didn't I?" The otter just nods in agreement to him, not saying a word so she can let him continue with the story. "Well that's what took her. We were just getting back from the movies, we went to see Madagascar. I loved that film. But, yeah, as we were getting onto the freeway, someone was on their phone and going way too fast, we hadn't even straightened out by the time the car smashed into us.

I was about eight, so my mum would always make me sit in the backseat of the car in a booster chair, 'cause apparently that was the law in South Carolina. But that's what saved me. But she..." The fox took another drag on his cigarette as he started to feel his voice waver slightly. Ten years later and the event still felt like it was yesterday. The cigarette didn't help, in fact, taking a break from speaking pushed him over the edge. The tears that were welling up in his eyes finally decided to break their confinement and tumble down his cheeks, matting his fur.

"Hey," Dani said in a soft tone, much slower than normal, "it's okay, you don't have to say the rest." She changed her position from standing in front of him to joining him on the brach. In a gesture of sympathy she wrapped an arm and her tail around his waist, giving him a small squeeze.

"No no," Zim finally choked out, "I want to finish. You're the first person I told, besides the paediatrician... The carseat in the back of the car is what saved me. But... But the airbags didn't deploy in time. She left painlessly." It was the end of the story of how Zim had lost his mother, but he didn't really mention how the scars came into play until Danielle asked him again.

"O-oh... yeah," he muttered after he attempted to take a final drag on his cigarette, only to find that the cherry had decided to abandon ship. "Basically the car rolled a few times which caused the windows to smash. Some of the glass was ripped right through my side. It was bad... Blood was everywhere. My dad was so happy to find out I was okay. But I was marked for life."

"Shit," Dani breathed whilst she stubbed the end of her cigarette out on the branch before letting it tumblr to the mixture of leaves and small plants below, "Zim. I am so sorry. Why didn't you tell anyone else before?"

The fox turned to look at the younger girl and wrapped his arms and wings around her, pulling her close in a friendly embrace. Zim remained silent as he rested his chin atop the girls head. His tears fell silently from his eyes, even though his breathing was still shaky he was trying his best to calm it down before they left. The last thing he wanted was unnecessary attention when they both reentered the house. And that was the reason he gave her, "I just don't like the false sympathy. People say 'oh my god, I'm so sorry,' because they feel obliged to."

The conversation was left there as Zim attempted to recollect himself by finally controlling his breathing and wiping the tears from his eyes and cheeks. Once he felt like he was ready to return he gave Dani a small nod and they both backtracked the route that let them to The Bush.

When they emerged onto the path back to the house, Zim tilted his eyes upwards to admire the sky which had become increasingly darker with an even larger amount of starts that had appeared. With a small content nod, he wrapped his arm around the otters shoulder and they both walked back to the house. They both had separate things planned, Zim for one planned to actually revise a little bit for the exam he had in two days time. Dani was most likely going to binge an obscure TV show on some dodgy streaming site in the sake of 'art'.