Author's Note: I don't quite know where this came from, but I really wanted to capture Zim's character well; because I had recently written another story for this fandom that was completely and hideously OOC, I thought I should write something better, to show you people that I CAN write stories that are actually Invader Zim. I hope I expressed Zim's character here a little better than I did Dib's and Gaz's before...I needed to remind myself that mindless angst and fluff are not what those characters represent. They are not bunnies.

Again, I own nothing, as IZ and all related titles, logos, and characters belong to the undeserving Nickelodeon Studios. And, as usual, I am as sorry for this as I have always been.

For some

It is hard to walk into death.

The feeling

Is complex, aching and screaming, a boiling rage and an empty, hard feeling

Of anguish

Trying to be felt through numbness. It can be hard to walk a street that once

Was familiar

Knowing that, at the end, your own demise awaits. It makes the street feel foreign

Enough

That you cannot remember where you are, or why, or the reasons

That they

Forced you to walk alone. You could cry, could scream, could laugh,

Could wish

That you had stopped it, that you had known. But you do not. You walk, and wait

For death.

For others

The walk they take is easy.

It is harder

To believe that it can end. And so they don't. They walk into to death not quite

Letting go.

Of the adrenaline-induced haze they took on when the final battle began.

They think

That if they keep on fighting, they cannot go down. That if they keep on walking,

Their souls

Will remain bright, strong, and eventually, everything will end. They think they

Are invincible.

Zim was one of those people. He walked into death

Believing

That somebody would save him, or that he could save himself. Thinking that

His soul

Was too special to be destroyed. Zim died thinking that he

Could be saved,

At least

He died the way he lived; determined, exultant, passionate. At least

He died

Fighting. That's more than most people could say. Zim died

Without

The pain with which most people leave their lives. Zim died feeling no anger, no fear, no

Regret.

I don't know how Zim dies. But I guess that's a story for another day...