Failure of the World
(A/N): I wanted to tell someone else's side of the story and thanks to the paranormal context in this universe, I realized that this is completely possible to do. If anyone wanted it to end on the last chapter, feel free to not read this.
-"A folded flag, a purple heart. A family all but torn apart! And I fought with courage to preserve, not my way of life, but yours! Carry on, don't mind me. All I gave was everything, and yet you ask me for more. Fought your fight. Bought your lie. And in return, I lost my life. What purpose does this serve?" –Rise Against, Survivor's Guilt
The wraith saw it all, he always did.
He could always catch onto details that others missed or completely ignored without any real problems, but whether or not it was intelligence or just a pure talent of perceiving the truth had escaped him. Even discounting the existence of the supernatural or the bizarre, the sheer number of inconsistencies clogging up this world was enormous. What person aware of these things wouldn't question them? Who wouldn't stand up and ask why things were the way they were? Maybe if someone else had spoken up sooner, seen what he'd seen, this scenario would have never even come to pass.
They had torn themselves apart, driven like dogs to tear and rip each other to shreds. Humanity reduced to rabid animals motivated by nothing more than a combination of mad fear and survival instincts. First they had destroyed the one trying to help them and now they turned on each other. What happened to human compassion? To dreams and beliefs? Companionship? ...Love?
In a horrible and twisted kind of way, the ghost on the sidelines was far more human than they were.
The last enlightened human of a doomed planet watched the world he both loved and hated burning, caught between regret, despair and cold fury. No one could see him anymore. No one could hear him anymore. Between life and death, caught in a limbo of purgatorial wandering, Dib was alone.
Watching them die and kill was unreal, breaking certain beliefs while solidifying others. All of them...were just traitors and monsters just waiting for death, stewing the results of the seeds they'd sown. Dib despised them, but he was still compelled to step forward to help them. To save these diseased children of Earth from themselves, even now that he had no presence in their eyes. A mantra teased on the edge of his battered mind, mocking the fact that even after the end and when it was his own race who murdered him so shamelessly, Dib still truly desired to be their hero.
Even if they never deserved it. It's a thankless job, but...someone had to stand up...
I guess it's true then...the one nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
Drawn to a presence that fed the fires of the only bitter emotions he dared to himself feel, he followed it to the sky, where the alien satellite and its empty pilot watched impassively the end result of his conquest of the little blue planet. Dib walked without thought soundlessly, the transparent whiteness of his figure floating like a specter of death as he considered his one true enemy.
I hate you...
The wraith placed his hands around the Zim's neck, fingers curled into claws with the need to hurt him and exact revenge—justice—for what was done to his home, but the alien remained unaware and unfeeling. Dib's hands possessed no substance to the living; he may as well have not been there at all. Still he continued to squeeze at nothing, venting to nothing and no one. He wanted to scream in rage at the top of the lungs that he no longer possessed, but no one would be able to hear him anyway.
I hate you!
Shaking and trembling, Dib drew back, pulling his ethereal hands from the enemy before him. Dib knew much of the dead, studied them with a fascination and passion that now seemed so painfully ironic, and his racing mind could come up with numerous reasons why his actions hadn't the slightest effect. He had no "unfinished business," or task that could be done now that Earth was no more, nothing to interact with anymore. What he possessed was hatred.
Hatred that let him continue staring into those scarlet eyes that made him want to do something incredibly violent, and in the process making those emotions grow ever stronger and shackle him to this broken method of half living. It was an endless cycle of undeath and for some demented reason, Dib saw no reason to try to break it down. The helpless sense of despair and pity for his fellow humans was buried under a ferocious wave of anger and stinging bitterness that kept him with the desire to share his feelings with another. He couldn't allow Zim to be happy and content in his victory, not while his mind continued to exist. If Dib had to be trapped in this prison of hate, then his enemy MUST be made to feel the same. If he could not obtain the chance to be at rest, then neither would Zim.
The lenses of Dib's glasses glowed like twin moons as he gave his nemesis that judgmental stare that could no longer be returned in kind. Because he wanted to be acknowledged by Zim, especially if he got the chance to tell him just how much he wanted to tear the destructive alien apart.
Suddenly, Zim whipped around, staring into the confines of his ship as if in search of something. At first, Dib thought that the alien had seen him, but the feelings was rather short-lived when he caught the clear aura of disappointment present in those huge, foreign eyes as he faced the monitor once more. Zim didn't see him, but he wanted him to be there.
Interested despite himself, Dib wished again to see deep inside this creature, but in the psychological sense instead of with sharp, cutting instruments like normally did. Placing his unseen hands on the alien's shoulders, the human leaned forward so that he could catch the nearly silent words of hatred and the trace of forced respect escaping from Zim's mouth.
A thrill coursed through the body formed from the ether in response, the dark anti-matter of the dead vibrated to a fever pitch in excitement of what those words meant. The foggy, pale whiteness of the specter darkened to black smoke, still unknown to the living. However, the coldness the angry wraith emanated was now real. The room instantly lost several degrees of warmth and Zim shivered, his clawed hands finding his shoulders as he contained his body temperature. A victorious smirk found its way to Dib's lips and he paused to whisper one more piece of knowledge into his dropping antennae.
I may not have won, Zim. But you will never win either.
Zim may not have heard the words or felt their meaning, but the chill seeping into his flesh made clear the fact that he would never escape from this hatred. The alien turned around slowly with widened eyes, staring viciously into the empty space station as the unseen rival glared him down once more.
(A/N): I have been writing lots of angst-filed stuff lately and I don't know why. I think the next one will the different though...