C'est moi. This monster is a Dib deathfic, told from Gaz's POV.

Disclaimer: I do not, never did, and probably never will own Invader Zim or the characters involved. I do, however, own the nasty-looking cat mentioned further on.


I walk down the road from school in the middle of the street.

I walk with my arms spread out, so I can feel the air hit my fingers as cars swerve wildly around me, trying to avoid running me down.

More likely, they're trying to avoid denting their ugly cars. I hate them all.

I hear a screech of metal on concrete as one collides with a building and I smile.

I tried to wear black today, for mourning, but no one noticed. They just assumed I was being more Goth than usual. I thought about shaving my eyebrows, like the Egyptians did for their dead cats, but decided against it.

Dib wasn't a cat.

A bus rounds the corner and comes toward me, the driver's tiny eyes set past me in an uncomprehending stupor. He doesn't slow down.

This one might be it, I think.

I stop walking and bring my arms back down to my sides, still in the path of the bus.

Still, it doesn't turn.

Maybe this will be the one.

It can't be more than twenty feet away, still speeding at me. The driver's hands are loosely on the wheel, his ugly blank stare somewhere off behind me.

This might be it.

Someone on the bus screams.

Suddenly, a passenger slams the beast-driver out of the way and yanks the wheel, her desperate eyes on me, to make sure the bus and I don't become acquainted.

I feel the blast of air as the bus's grimy sides rush past me. It's a close call; the metal can't be more than a foot from my face. Violet hair fans like fingers, reaching for the bus as it zooms on past, barely missing me.

I turn and look back at the fleeing vehicle, pale faces scarcely visible through the filth on the rear windows. Their expressions are concerned but blank.

I reach into the pocket on my black jacket and pull out a notebook and a pen with tiny skulls on it. I flip it open to the second page, past a doodle of an obese pig and a scribbled list of numbers and names.

Bus, I write. Blue, filthy, old. License plate 44XD563HG9. Fat driver.

Maybe this was the one that killed him.

I put the notebook and pen back and I keep walking.

Various pedestrians stare, and someone shouts something about the bus. People strain their necks to see where it went, then look back at me. A small crowd gathers and mindless chatter fills the air like wasps as people try to figure out what happened.

Likely, they only want to know in case an information reward is offered.

I hate them all.

I round the corner the bus came from, my arms back in the air. There aren't any cars here, just a hobo and a nasty-looking cat. I relax my arms again but stay in the road. If I'm lucky, a car will come up behind me and crash.

A few more blocks, I think.

I round another corner in the dingy labyrinth of apartments and pawn shops. Another purple-haired girl is at the other end, leaning on a streetlight and chattering on a candy apple-red phone. It stands out like a pinprick of blood against the gray of the city walls.

I have to pass her to get where I'm going, so I shake my shoulders out and keep walking.

She gives me a vague wave as I pass. What's her name? Zita? She is- was- a classmate of Dib's, and that's all I know about her.

I go to turn the corner, but stop myself and turn back to look at her. She's wearing a pink and brown striped dress and dull white sneakers. There's a polka-dotted headband in her hair.

"That's, like, what I said, but he doesn't listen," she whines, popping a bubble with her gum. It's loud and echoes off the sordid walls. Somewhere on a second floor a window slams down.

I lean against a telephone pole and watch her carefully. Does she know that Dib is dead? Does she care?

"Well, yeah, but it was, like, my dress in the first place," she squeals.

I hate them all.

Two more streets pass, all filthy. Sometimes people try to brighten them up with flowers or banners, but in time they all fade to gray.

Everything in the city is gray. There is no exception.

I turn the final corner and see it.

A bright green house with crooked walls and industrial cables in the apartments next to it towers at the end of a crumbling turnaround. An oversized garden gnome in the front lawn turns to watch me with its misshapen eyes.

And right across the cul-de-sac from it is the juniper bush where Dib liked to hide, one side flattened by tire marks. Everyone thought it was his secret fort, like a little kid's playhouse.

I knew that it was really just where he went to spy on Zim.

I kneel down and touch the crushed branches and leaves where the car went over. The tire marks are big and the path is wide; that's why I thought it might have been a bus.

It's not like I got a lot of details about it anyway. The day it happened, Dad's projection screen came on and told me.

"Your poor, insane brother was crushed to death by a vehicle today. There's leftover pizza in the fridge if you want it. Now, back to SCIENCE!" he said.

That's it. No tears, no mourning, no caring.

The funeral- all twenty minutes of it- was just the same.

I stand back up and look at the pitiful memorial. There are three flowers and one card; the flowers are all lilies and are from me. I knew lilies were his favorite; that was our mom's name, Lily. He always liked her best.

The card, however, is not from me, and it wasn't there yesterday. It's an irritating shade of green, with fancy gold letters on the front that say "Congratulations on Your New Baby!"

What the hell?

I pick it up, my skull pendant swinging down and smacking the card disapprovingly. The paper is rough and it smells of ham. I open it and the inside is a mass of black scribbled writing that looks like it was done by someone who didn't know how to hold a pen.

Dib-Stink, the scribbles read, Now that your filthy Earth body rests in your filthy Earth dirt, the mighty ZIM is free to conquer your pathetic ball of demon water and trees! Know that I will use your demise to my advantage and have this planet in the claws of the Armada by next Tuesday! Tuesday, I say! I AM ZIM!!!

There was a horrible cartoon of a buglike Zim standing on top of the world and, strangely, holding a slab of bacon.

Nevertheless, the card continued in a smaller note at the bottom, you were a decent foe for the mighty Zim. Not decent like me, but still decent. Rest in peace with your disturbingly large head.

P.S. I am normal.

Well. No prizes for guessing who the author was. I crane my head around the bush to watch Zim's house for a moment. It hasn't changed since the accident at all; in fact it seems nothing has. It's like a tiny piece of the world broke off and stopped itself in time, and everything else went on without it.

Maybe I'm on that piece. Maybe Zim is with me.

I let the card drop from my fingers and turn to the exact spot where Dib like to sit. You can tell by the scattered candy bar wrappers and the way the grass is gone in little patterns that look a lot like crop circles. That was how he doodled, I guess.

"Hey," I say. My voice is low and raspy, and I don't try to sound to sound cheerful. "I found another one. A bus. Blue and filthy with a fat driver. The tires looked like they might fit the tracks." I gesture vaguely to the squashed bush, then take a deep breath.

"I will find the person that hit you, Dib. I will find them and plunge them into a never-ending nightmare world from which there is no escape! I will pick out their eyeballs and chew on their skull and fill their veins with needles and thorns! I will find them, Dib! I will find them and they will suffer!!"

My voice had risen to a scream by the end. I look around, and the uncaring gray city stares back. Go ahead, it says. Be crazy. Look where it got your brother.

And I imagine that it laughs, high and cold and dark.


Flames (legible ones), reviews, comments, suggestions all welcome.

Also thanks to Invader Becky and Clad for the biscuit.