A/N Sorry the update was so late today! I decided to make some large, last-minute edits on this chapter. There are some pretty important events happening in this Dreamtime, so I wanted to make sure everything made sense (or at least, everything will make sense by the end)!

Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim, Squee, JTHM or any related franchises. I do own a fidget spinner. That makes me cool with the youth, right? R-right?! Please validate me!

DREAMTIME

The Wall saw everything.

As I sat in front of it, replaying words I could never take back, I didn't cry. All of my tears were on my pillow, so far away they might as well be in another world.

"Ironic, isn't it?" I asked. "I've spent so much time hunting monsters and now I'm becoming one."

The Wall said nothing.

… but we both knew it was listening.

"Maybe it's not ironic." As I spoke, I could taste the scent of burning metal in the air like a hot coin simmering on my tongue. "Maybe it's just unfortunate. I don't know. I just… I thought I was so much better than all of this! I was supposed to be the hero!"

Hero.

The word made my stomach twist into knots.

It was true that the game that Zim and I played didn't have any spoken rules. He aired my disgusting workout footage across the galaxy. I pretended to be his intern for several weeks. He tried to turn me into baloney. I abandoned him to the mercy of The Halloweenies. He stole my lungs. I ran off with his PAK.

But somehow, I had crossed an invisible line. My enemy had been vulnerable; he was asking me for help and what had I done? I stabbed him and twisted the knife. How could I call myself a hero after that? It was vicious and cruel…

… and I had loved every second of it.

I leaned forward, nauseous. What was wrong with me? I replayed the scene again and again in my mind, recalling the dizzying elation that had taken over my body as I fired off words like bullets. Idiot! Pathetic! Alone! It couldn't have been me saying those things, could it?

I wished I could deny it but the truth was that something had awakened inside me; it had been as quick as flicking on a lightswitch. The residue, as Zim had called it, really was driving me insane. What happened if I snapped like that again? And what if it wasn't just emotional pain next time?

What happened if I really, truly hurt someone?

"Are you okay?" asked a small voice.

I stiffened in surprise and turned around. The little boy was illuminated by the bare bulb- swinging back and forth, back and forth, back and forth- as he hugged the strange bear to his chest.

"I…" My cheeks burned with shame. How could I tell him what I did? Pulling together my shattered confidence, I forced cheerfulness into my voice. "I-I'm fine! Everything good with you?"

He stared at me and I wondered if he had spotted the terrified thoughts seeping through my skin.

But then, he just shrugged. "I guess so. I don't like skool, though. My teacher is old and scary..."

"Geez, sounds like my teacher."

That earned me a small, trembling smile. The boy took a couple hesitant steps in my direction and then- nodding as if he was psyching himself up to dive off a cliff- he sat next to me. I tried not to move, afraid I would startle him away like he was a butterfly that had just landed on my sleeve.

"You're Dib Membrane, right?" The boy asked.

This caught me off-guard. "How did you-?"

"I saw you on TV." He glanced down, suddenly shy. "You and your dad were making a baking soda volcano with puppets."

Of course. Poking the Membrane of Science was my Dad's educational show for kids. In addition to going to all of Dad's press conferences and major events, Gaz and I also guest-starred on the show every once in awhile. It wasn't unusual for children to come running up to us on the street, however, a glare from Gaz often sent them screaming in the other direction.

"Geez, that episode was embarrassing." I shook my head. "That was the Thanksgiving special, wasn't it? Dad said they used to celebrate with turkey and family dinners in the past, but now it's all about volcanoes."

"Yeah, that's weird. I guess it's better than the 4th of July, though."

"Ugh, don't even get me started on that! Like who thought launching beavers into space was a good idea?"

To my surprise, the boy laughed. It was a soft little giggle, so slight I almost mistook it for a cough.

"Squee." He said.

"What?"

"That's what people call me, but my real name is Todd." He held up the stuffed animal for me to see. "And this is Schmee!"

"Oh… uh, hi Schmee."

The bear's grinning expression didn't change.

"That's not nice, Schmee." Squee frowned at the bear, "You shouldn't tell people that they have big heads!" Then, he looked up at me. "Umm, I'm sorry I ran away when you showed up at skool yesterday. I just… I thought that you might be mad at me…"

"Why would I be mad at you?"

Instead of answering, he fiddled with a piece of fluff that was poking out of one of Schmee's seams.

"Squee," I tried again, keeping my voice calm. "What are you hiding?"

Squee squirmed under my gaze. "You won't like me if I tell you."

"What is it?" When he still didn't answer, I lightened my voice. "Are you secretly the homicidal maniac?"

"No!" His face went slightly pale.

"Then it can't be that bad, right?" When he still said nothing, I added. "Come on, Squee. I promise I won't get upset."

"It's…" He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut, like he was about to jump out of a plane. "It's… it's my fault you're here!"

The universe stopped for a second. I couldn't have heard him right, could I? My heart pounded in my chest but I didn't ask any of the questions that bubbled up in my mind. Instead, I waited for him to continue.

"I started having these creepy dreams a few months ago," Squee stared ahead at The Wall, his face pale in the darkness. "They really scared me so I stopped going to sleep. I got real tired, more tired than the time I stayed up all night watching the Floopsy Bloops Schmoopsy marathon. One day I got so sleepy that I accidentally fell asleep in during class and had the nightmare again. I screamed and fell out of my chair." His cheeks flushed red. "Everyone laughed at me, except Pepito. He pulled me out into the hallway and asked-"

"Wait, who's Pepito?"

"He's… um… sortoftheantichrist?"

My voice stuck in my throat. "You're friends with the…"

Squee shrugged. "His mom makes good lasagna! Anyway, Pepito asked what was wrong and I told him about the dreams. He was real worried and said there was a powerful monster after me. I got scared, but he said he was going to talk to his dad about it."

"If Pepito is the…" I fumbled for words, "Then his dad is the…"

"The next day at skool," Squee continued, oblivious to my amazement. "Pepito was angry. He said that he talked to his dad and his dad didn't want to do anything. Something about it 'already being decided'? I didn't understand that part. But Pepito said he was going to talk to his grandmother instead…"

"Grandmother?!"

"Yeah. Pepito said they fight a lot about skool and stuff, but he thought she would help. Anyway, he went to talk to his grandmother and when he came back he said it was all taken care of!"

"What does that even mean?"

"That's what I asked Pepito! At first, he wouldn't tell me but I kept asking him over and over until he turned around and said 'it has to pick someone, amigo'. Then he told me not to worry about it anymore. He said I would keep having the nightmares for a while, but if I stood back and stayed quiet that the monster wouldn't hurt me. I was just a Plan B now."

Plan B. My mind was spinning. If Squee was Plan B, then what did that make me?

"I… I don't know what happened exactly, but I think they told the monster to choose you instead." Squee buried his face in the bear to hide the tears that were gathering in the corners of his eyes. "I knew I shouldn't have told Pepito, but I was so scared! I didn't know what he was going to do! When I figured it out, I tried to warn you in the nightmares. I thought if I could get you to run far away, the monster would leave you alone! But I… I guess I didn't do enough. I'm sorry..."

As he hugged Schmee, shaking and sniffling, thoughts whipped through my mind like a tornado.

Squee's confession raised far more questions than answers: how did it pick Squee in the first place? Why would a helpless little kid to be chosen as a sewer for an uncontrollable mass of psychic residue? And for that matter, why had I- out of all of the other people on planet Earth- been picked to replace him? Maybe Dillon had been right; maybe I did have 'future serial killer' written all over me and I just couldn't see it.

But I put those thoughts aside and examined Squee. He really was small..

"Hey." I nudged him until he looked up at me. "I promise I'm not mad at you. You shouldn't feel guilty just because you dodged a bullet. If what your friend Pepito said is true, then you're going to be okay."

Once Plan A is finished, I didn't want to say.

"No, I… I didn't stay quiet like he told me to." Squee's eyes darted to The Wall. "I think the monster is mad at me."

"You don't know that."

"I do. I've... been seeing things in real life. They came into my room yesterday and said I should keep my mouth shut. I was ruining things, they said."

A chill danced up my spine. "Who are 'they', Squee?"

"I don't know. I don't want to know. I just want them to go away…" He hugged the bear even closer to his chest. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he glanced up at me. "Did you really mean all of those things you said?"

"Huh?"

"You said you can beat the monster. Is that true?"

Oh God. Did I really say that?

I cringed at the memory. You may not have heard of me, I had pronounced with an arrogant smirk, like I was an unrecognized celebrity at a coffee shop, but I've saved the world dozens of times and I'm going to do it again!

How could I have been so stupid?

In my short career as a paranormal investigator, I hunted for bigfoot, chased after ghosts and battled my alien nemesis- but I had never faced a creature like this. This wasn't a vampire that could be vanquished with a sprinkle of garlic; this monster was a miasma of suffering and pain, a distillation of humanity's collective madness. It would be like fighting a tidal wave- it didn't matter how much I raged and screamed...

I was going to drown.

What else could I do but tell him the truth? I took a deep breath- ready to admit my failure- but then I froze when I spotted a spark in the boy's tired, grey eyes.

Hope.

The boy looked at me the way I had looked at Nny as we sat together under the swaying trees and the darkening sky. If all goes well, he had told me, I promise I will stop him forever. He was going to defeat the monster and the maniac, he said, and I had believed him. I remembered the relief I felt that someone was going to take care of things. For the first time ever, I wouldn't be dealing with the unknown alone.

I wish Nny was here, I thought. He would know what to say. But Nny was somewhere far away in the waking world. I was on my own.

The boy was watching me, his eyes searching my face for an answer. I was the only person he could trust. How could I let him down after I promised to help him? How could I let that spark of hope die?

No, I decided. That wouldn't happen.

"Of course I can beat it!" I tried to smile but it felt awkward, like I had forgotten which muscles to use. "No sweat! I really think I've got it on the ropes now. That's probably why it's after you; it's just getting desperate because it knows it's losing."

"Really?" Squee asked.

There was just a hint of cautious optimism in his voice. It was small- so small that I almost thought I imagined it- but it was there.

"Sure! You've got nothing to worry about. It's not going to hurt you, Squee. Not while I'm around, remember?"

For a moment, Squee stared at me like he had never seen me before. Then, his face brightened and he smiled- a real smile this time.

"What can I do?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I want to help you!" His voice became a little more certain. "We can beat the monster together!"

I blinked in surprise. Nobody had ever said anything like that to me before. The kids at skool never believed me about anything and neither did anyone else in my life. Even Gaz, who did believe me, never offered to help. The only person I could ever rely on when the world was in danger was Zim, and only when he wasn't the one trying to destroy it.

This world is overpopulated with assholes. Nny had said, as we walked through dark woods. People are cruel and stupid and there are no consequences for anything.

Though I hadn't said anything at the time, I had agreed with him. Nny's words had given shape to the one thought that I had been too afraid to speak, the thought that leapt through my mind every time I had gotten wind of one of Zim's schemes: maybe I shouldn't stop him. They never help me, so why should I help them?

Maybe humanity didn't deserve to be saved.

But now, I thought about Squee; the little boy in his striped pajamas. clutching his teddy bear, yelling over the roar of the crumbling wall. Run, it's going to get you! Pepito had told him to stay quiet so the monster wouldn't harm him, but Squee had defied his orders- he had yelled out a warning to me- night after night, nightmare after nightmare- in vain attempt to save my life.

And now, even though he was terrified, he still wanted to help me?

I couldn't understand it.

"775 Oak Street." Squee said.

"Huh?" It took a few moments to rouse from my stupor. "Is that…?"

"That's my house. 775 Oak Street! Make sure you don't go to 777 Oak Street though, okay? That's where the scary neighbor man lives. When people go inside his house, they don't come back."

A small, tentative spark of hope ignited in my chest. After days of running around looking for leads, I now had Squee's address! I could go to his house and maybe he could take me to meet this "Pepito" person. If we could get him to-

Wait, what was that last part?

"Squee," My voice was slow and reluctant, "That thing you just said about your neighbor's house… what did you mean by that?"

"The scary neighbor man takes people into his basement." Squee said, too casually, like I had just asked him if he wanted a soda. "I told my dad about it, but he said I was breathing his air too much."

"So, you think that your neighbor is… kidnapping people?"

"Umm, I guess? He doesn't like the word 'kidnapped'. He said they're not kids and they're not taking naps. He doesn't like the word 'abducted' either because it makes him sound like an alien and he really doesn't like aliens. But whatever he calls it, they scream real loud sometimes…"

I tried to keep calm. A torture chamber in his neighbor's basement? It was too much of a coincidence. Squee went to skool in the same city that most of the homicidal maniac's victims were from. Squee had been also chosen by the monster- a choice that seemed random just minutes ago. But what if it wasn't? The monster was controlling the maniac, after all. What if it didn't have to look far for another waste-lock?

It just needed to go next door.

"Squee," I started, "What if your neighbor is-?"

The Wall broke.

Thoughts about the maniac flew from my mind as the crack sped down The Wall like a car, roaring down the highway. Grey mist flooded into the room, fogging my glasses as it engulfed us like an avalanche. I couldn't see Squee but I could tell he was there by the way he clung to my arm.

"It's okay!" I shouted over the crashing concrete. We both coughed and sputtered as the mist swirled around us. "We're going to be fine!"

The crashing stopped and through the mist I could see the outline of a long crack in The Wall. Squee squeezed my arm so tightly it was beginning to go numb. And then...

... nothing happened.

Minutes passed in silence. As we sat there, the only sound was the loud thumping of my heart in my chest. No screaming faces, gleaming insects, or glinting teeth leapt out at us; there was nothing inside the crack but a distant green light that cast an eerie glow over the room. It was like sitting in a ride at Disney World but the animatronic missed its cue and the music was skipping.

"What's going on?" Squee's face was still buried in my arm, "Are we dead?"

I was about to answer when I heard it- footsteps. When I looked up, I could see something in the mist. It was a jagged, fuzzy silhouette framed by the green light as it limped towards us, wheezing with each thumping step.

It can't be, I thought.

I got to my feet, dragging Squee up with me, as the figure stumbled forward and seized the jagged crack in The Wall for support. The bulb swinging from the ceiling illuminated a familiar face.

My heart skipped a beat. "Zim?!"

Zim was wearing his disguise but the uniform was ripped and his wig was askew. His artificial blue eyes shimmered with fear that was all too real. Upon seeing me, he tried to speak but collapsed onto his knees instead.

"No!" Squee tugged me back before I could catch him. "It's a trick!"

It took all of my willpower to stop myself. Of course. It had to be an illusion. But it hurt to watch as Zim- or the thing pretending to be Zim- took gasping breaths. He clenched his stomach as pink liquid seeped through the fingers of his gloves and trickled onto the floor.

His voice was weak. "Dib…"

It sounded too much like Zim and I tried to look away, but my skin burned where his eyes stared. Against my better judgement, I met his gaze. I expected him to be angry or accusing, but he just looked exhausted.

"You win." He said.

A black mist crept through The Wall and wound around his body. Too late, I realized they were forming thick black tentacles.

"Wait!" I cried. Ignoring Squee, ignoring my common sense, I made a desperate grab for his hand but the tentacles jerked him backwards. I hit the ground and scrambled back onto my feet, just in time to see him being pulled through The Wall. "Zim!"

We locked eyes for just a moment.

The resignation on his face was the last thing I saw before everything went dark.

XXX

His name was on my lips as I awoke. The posters- thousands of eyes and tentacles and teeth- stared back at me, illuminated by the red numbers on the alarm clock. 4:04 am. I fumbled around until I found my phone on the nightstand. Heart pounding in my chest, I scrolled through the contacts until I found him.

It was dream, I told myself.

He's fine, I told myself.

He hates you, I told myself.

But I called anyway.

The phone rang. I sat up, kicking off the blankets. My grip on the phone tightened to keep my hands from shaking. The ringing stopped.

My brain jumped into action. "H-Hello? Zim?!"

But I only heard static.

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing! As always, full chapter on Monday.