The pale seventeen year old stepped boldly into the classroom, and winced. His teacher's diamond-cutter gaze was something to be feared on a good day, but it only got this bad when she was preparing for a rather bleak lecture. And judging from the gloomy aura circulating in the classroom, it was definitely going to be another doomsday lecture. Hitching his breath, the teen trudged doggedly across the vast stretch of linoleum-floored hellhole (doing his best to ignore the 'endearing' look the Bitters-demon was shooting him; he didn't see why she should bother since they were all terrified of her anyway) and slouched into his cold seat. He saw the teacher's eyes glint for a second (a spinechilling second it was) before she turned her dark eyes to the rest of the class. Here it comes, thought Dib.

"Now, which one out of you miserable spawn has enough intelligence to tell me how much time the Earth has left of its futile lifetime?"

The class stared at her warily, but none bothered to raise their hand. Why bother? Dib sighed, cast a bleary eye around the dull interior, finding nothing of interest, before resigning himself to his usual classroom routine which was to sit silently and straight-backed, pretending to be an attentive pupil.

As usual, after several minutes of the droning "doom…doom….doom…doom…" it became rather hard to concentrate on being attentive, and the boy would rather resort to Plan B, which was slouching heavily in his seat while he stared at the desktop, the ceiling, the outside fence (iron, with barbed wire), the mildew, that piece of dirt on the floor - anything remotely interesting - while assuming a heavily-practised jaded look. Today he was drawing meaningless lines on the desk with his index finger (the normal routine for Friday!). He scribbled out the middle names of all his classmates, all his chupacabra sightings in the past year, and then listed all 498 known elements in order of discovery. He was still bored.

He'd been bored for the past three years.

Why that was? He couldn't say. Or more accurately, wouldn't let himself think. That was, until some dark sleepless night when his fingers would unconsciously snake out of his bed, reaching for that small scrap of paper stuffed down the back of the headboard. He didn't know why he'd held onto that. He just felt…like he had to. To remind himself that the past was gone; that part of his childhood was over. And he was no longer a child.

And for the oddest reasons, he would stare at that paper, stare at it long and hard, until his hands started to shake and he broke down completely, snatched up the paper violently and stuffed it back into its resting place. Then would follow a long, long night with his face buried in the pillow trying to forget that he'd ever remembered.

Ridiculous.

Utter.

Bull.

There was no doubt about it – he was crazy like everyone said. Completely lacking in the marbles department. Though maybe now for a different reason, than when he was young.

His finger hit an unusually deep scratch, and he looked down to see something he'd rather not. A crude stick figure drawing done by him. Two years ago, if he remembered correctly.

Buggy eyed, with two odd looking stalks atop the head.

No! The boy squeezed his eyes shut, snatching up his textbook and slamming it heavily down on the desktop, regardless of the weird looks it was getting him. He groaned softly and drooped until his head was resting on the book. No good, he'd seen the drawing now. The one he'd been trying to forget about, to destroy.

His hand started to dip down toward his pants. No, not that! The hand disobeyed his will. It slid inside his jean pocket, where the fingers brushed against something thin and fragile. Dib's stomach dropped. Why had he decided to bring that with him?

Well, he may as well get it over with. Closing his fingers around the scrap of paper, he wrenched it out (carefully, as not to break it) and stared at the faded ink with his heart in his throat. A bold black headline blazed up at him.

Life claimed in flash fire tragedy.

Dib didn't read on. He couldn't bear to. It would only tell him what her already knew. He didn't need any more accusing reminders.

It was his fault.

Even if the victim was an alien - an evil, moronic, conceited one - the fact remained. He had lost his life because of Dib. Dib, the saviour of Earth, was a murderer.

Dib folded his arms over the book, dropping his large head onto them and trying to be absorbed in the white noise surrounding him. Faulty lights humming. Children muttering and sniggering next door. The teacher droning on about the imminent apocalypse. Pah, if it were true, at least everyone else would die with an innocent conscience. As innocent as these thick-skulled twats got anyway. They had to be cut slack for their stupidity. Maybe a race as stupid as his deserved to be destroyed.

The boy's eyes snapped open. What was he thinking? That was something his enemy would say!

He sighed and drooped further into his arms.

But he was the one who saved me.

Where did invaders go when they died? Maybe to some heavenly space station somewhere. Maybe the deceased soldiers would sit around, drinking some soda-like beverage and trying to top each others' stories about the planet they tried to conquer.

Zim, wherever you are now, I hope you're happy…

aka. The Generic Classroom Scene

A/N: This chapter's a bit of a dud, sorry. I jumped on the bandwagon and wrote the cliche 'Generic Classroom Scene' that seems to appear in every Invader Zim fanfic (I'm giving it an official name, people). Except there's one difference. No Zim!
Not much happens. I wrote it a while ago; it's basically Dib being all angsty and stuff. After three years, he's still having trouble adjusting to the fact that there's no Zim to argue with across the classroom. AND HUMANS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ADAPTABLE, DIB. poor thing.

Lol, apparently Word spellcheck doesn't recognise the word 'chupacabra'. Go look it up, Microsoft.

Oh, and I intentionally led you on with that sneaky little ZADR reference I inserted in there. See if you can find it. That was on purpose. Because I'm evil (:

EDIT: MY GOD, iTunes. PLEASE STOP PLAYING DAVID BOWIE. (lol, why is he in my music library?)