Okay everybody, this is it. The last chapter of this story! It's been great writing this, but all things must eventually come to an end.

WARNING: Twists and turns ahead. Character death ahead. Bring some tissues! D:

The next day at Skool was brutal for Dib, as he never slept the night before. Likewise, it was equally hard on Zim; he'd spent the night trying to monitor Alexi's sleep, and wake her up from any more night terrors. The two were drowsy and a little disoriented, and neither boy could resist trying to snag a few winks when their teacher's back was turned. Of course, it was never for longer than a total of five seconds before Ms. Bitters finally resorted to cracking them across the hands with her ruler.

"Dib! Zim!" She flung the classroom door open and pointed out into the hall. "I will not have you sleeping in my class! Both of you go dunk your heads in the toilet until you're awake again!" A wave of laughter followed them out.

The two trudged down the hall toward the bathroom, groggy and irritable. They avoided eye contact as they pushed the bathroom door open and stumbled inside. Dib ran the faucet at one of the sinks and removed his glasses, taking a good long look at his reflection: dark bags stood out under his eyes like days-old eyeliner, and the slight red tint in his eyes proved just how much he'd been crying the night before. He made a face and splashed icy water on his face, instantly waking him up. He turned to look at Zim, feeling extremely guilty.

"Zim - "

"Don't talk to me, filthy human." The Irken slumped against a cool wall, eyes closed. He looked so exhausted and angry; it made Dib physically hurt inside.

"I just wanted to - "

Zim opened an eye and glared. "I said be quiet," he spat tiredly. "It's your fault we're in this predicament in the first place. Maybe if you let up on your whole paranormal investigation crap, you wouldn't be seeing things and attacking little girls." He let out a sigh and pushed himself off the wall, sending a rather poisonous glare Dib's way. "She barely got any sleep you know, and whatever sleep she did manage to get, it was full of nightmares and flashbacks of what you did to her."

Dib frowned. "I honestly didn't mean to, Zim! Do you seriously thing that's all I live for, to scare children?"

"I don't know," Zim muttered, "but you sure seemed to do one hell of a job last night." A long metallic leg sprouted from the alien's PAK, holding what appeared to be an Irken energy drink. He opened it and chugged it down quickly, perking up almost instantly. He pulled out another and hurled it at Dib. "That'll work better than cold water, just so you know."

Dib looked down at it sheepishly. "Thanks," he mumbled. He drank it as fast as he could and felt the effects quickly. Zim was right; it was better than the water. "So, are we alright?"

There was a long pause on Zim's part, making Dib feel uneasy. "No," he finally spoke.

A series of quick knocks startled the young blonde, causing her to jump up in fright. Gir looked at her, confused, and smiled.

"It's okay, Alexi. It's just my Master home from Skool."

"Your 'Master'?"

"Zim," he giggled. "You know? The guy with the green skin that lives here?"

She shot a wide-eyed look at the front door. "Y-Yeah, I know that…are you sure it's only him?"

The little robot scampered over to the window and peeked out. Like he said, there was Zim on the front porch, knocking. He smiled back at Alexi and opened the door for the Irken. He walked in, quickly shut and locked the door, and smiled at the nervous girl.

"Hey," he said softly, waving. "How are you feeling today?"

"F-Fine," Alexi replied, eyes still glued to the door.

Zim walked up to her slowly and stopped in front of her, looking down. "Are you sure?"

The child nodded, looking up at him. "Um, Zim? Did…did he follow you home…?"

The Irken squatted down and hugged the clearly-scared girl tightly. "No, I made sure," he whispered soothingly, rubbing her back gently. "Just calm down, okay? Everything's gonna be fine."

She looked up at him with wide, sparkling green eyes. "Promise?"

"Yes," Zim cooed, "I promise."

Just as Alexi was starting to relax, Zim's phone rang obnoxiously from his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that Dib was trying to get a hold of him. Again. He sighed and set the phone on the floor, trying his best to ignore it. When he noticed the small blonde looking at it apprehensively, however, he knew he couldn't just let it go. Annoyed, he reached for his phone, sighed, and answered the call.

"What?" he asked, brows furrowed.

"Is Alexi there, Zim?"

"No."

"Please, Zim, I know she's there. If I could just talk to her - "

The blonde tugged gently on Zim's shirt sleeve. "Zim, who's that?"

"Ah, wrong number," he lied. He ruffled the girl's hair and told her to wait there while he went down to his lab. He entered the trash can and waved his pinky at her until she was out of view. His smile melted into an angry scowl as he stepped off the elevator and into his lab. "Listen Dib, you can't talk to her. She's not ready to hear from you yet."

"But Zim, I - "

"CAN IT!" Zim shouted. "When she's ready to talk, I'll let her talk. Until then, maybe it'd be best if you got your head checked."

Dib was silent, the sound from his end being the sound of his breathing. He couldn't believe how cruel Zim was being. It was like he was trying to keep Alexi away from him. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he said, "…I have to go, Gaz is torching my room…" and hung up. This time, Zim was left confused.

He came back up to the kitchen and saw Gir and Alexi coloring on the kitchen table together. He couldn't help but smile a little. Wondering what they were drawing, he made his way over to the table and peered over Gir's shoulder. The little robot was drawing piggies and cupcakes; his favorite. He chuckled and patted his metal companion's head, and strolled to the other side of the table to look at Alexi's drawing. Her paper featured what looked like her and another person he didn't recognize: she was drawn tall, and with long black hair, and a smile that spread from ear to ear. He looked at her, eyebrow raised quizzically.

"Who's that?" he asked, pointing to the black-haired girl.

"That's my friend," she said simply. She beamed up at the Irken and continued coloring. "I met her not that long ago, but it feels like I knew her forever. She's really nice to me, but sometimes when I do something bad she sounds angry. But she never yells at me, or hits me, or makes me feel sad." She moved to a corner of the paper and doodled someone else; someone familiar to Zim.

"Is that Dib?" he asked.

The young girl nodded, and reached for a red crayon. Zim watched a little uncomfortably as she scribbled a giant red X through his face, with her own face set in an unreadable expression.

"Uh, why did you draw that…?"

"This is the bad side of Dib: the one that hurt me. See how he has a mean look on his face?" Alexi asked, pointing at the drawing's angry eyebrows. "He scared me the other night, and I don't feel very safe anymore," she said sadly. She wiped a stray tear away with the back of her hand and flipped the paper over. "I don't want him to be like that anymore…"

Zim frowned and picked the girl up, sat in her chair, and set her in his lap. "Hey, don't cry," he murmured. He poked her nose in an attempt to cheer her up some. "He's just got something stuck on his mind. He's not a bad person, and he really didn't mean to do what he did. He says he's really sorry for it, and he doesn't want you to feel scared around him." He pecked her forehead and lifted her chin up to face him. "He swears he didn't mean to cause you any harm. Honestly. He thought you were the thing on his mind, and he didn't notice until I beat some sense into him. Do you forgive him?"

"Well…he has to show me. And then I will."

"He will, he promises he will," Zim said, smiling.

Alexi looked away and finally smiled a little. "I know."

"Hey, where's Zim?"

A few students looked around, pretending to care, and shrugged it off. Even Ms. Bitters seemed (somewhat) concerned. She looked to Dib and grimaced. "Dib! What happened to Zim?"

The teen shrugged, eyeing the seat where the alien normally sat. Why wasn't he here today? "I don't know," he said truthfully.

"Maybe he's sick," one of the girls suggested.

"Yeah, or dead!" another boy shouted.

The class erupted in laughter, while Dib paled slightly at the thought. He gazed out the window and sighed. Zim must still be mad at him.

Days had passed, and each one brought the same thing: the lack of a certain Irken. Dib was seriously beginning to worry. He decided to go to Zim's house after skool, welcome or not, and at least check up on him and see what kind of bug he came down with. He was sure Alexi would lock herself in the bathroom like last time, but this was really important. He went through the day with this thought in mind, and finally made his way to Zim's house without so much as a heads-up to Gaz.

He trekked through the streets, remembering the way to Zim's house like the back of his hand. The weather was surprisingly cold on this day, and storm clouds loomed overhead. Strange, Dib thought, since it was less gloomy out earlier. He pushed that thought aside as he approached Zim's front porch. He hesitated, thinking maybe it was a bad idea to come after all: maybe Zim was skipping school to avoid looking at him. Maybe he'd let his anger fester so bad that staying home was the only way to avoid punching Dib's lights out. Whatever the reason, he had to at least make sure everything was alright, even if that meant going home later with a black eye and some broken bones. He knocked on the door, but got no answer. He tried again, but still got no answer. Pulling out his phone, he tried to call Zim: his call went straight to voicemail.

"Strange," Dib mumbled. He tried again: voicemail. One last try, only to hear the voicemail tone. He knocked harder and harder, determined to get inside. "Zim, it's me! Please let me in!" When he got no answer, he really began to worry. What if something happened? What if he MOVED? In a panic, he rammed into the door and busted it open, wincing when a horrible pain shot through his shoulder. He looked around the living room and found no sign of anyone, so he thought, 'Maybe they're down in the lab…'

As he proceeded into the kitchen, a horrible sight sat before him. Zim was home, but he wasn't sick; he was dead! The Irken lay face-up in a pool of his own alien blood on the kitchen floor, natural red eyes glazed over and clouded, and antennae lying limp around his head. His guts were strewn out across the floor, some still throbbing and others unmoving. Tears welled up in the human's eyes as he stared down at his dead friend, and he fell to his knees and screamed. He shuddered with every wail, hands clamped over his ears and eyes squeezed shut until he saw spots behind his eyelids. This couldn't be real, it just couldn't! Zim wasn't dead; he was just seeing things again! Cautiously he reopened his eyes, only to see the same sight of his dead, dismembered best friend lying before him. Dib rocked himself back and forth, staring down at alien. Maybe if he watched long enough, Zim would move and blow his cruel prank. This was just a scheme to make Dib feel as terrified as Alexi felt.

"Z-Zim…?"

No response. It was getting harder to breathe, and Dib's limbs felt heavy like boulders. He couldn't move, couldn't look away. His friend was gone. It couldn't be true, but no matter how many times the human screamed and sobbed for Zim to get up, the alien wouldn't move a muscle.

"How…how could t-this…happen…?" Dib's sight was blurred by his tears, and his throat hurt from all the screaming. He heard a slight clink but couldn't tear his gaze away from the Irken before him. He felt sick to his stomach, but couldn't throw up. After some time, the clinking became somewhat louder, and much closer. Dib unwillingly turned to find little Gir cowering behind him, crying hard in silence. The little robot's chest looked beat up and dented in, as if he'd been forcibly tampered with. Dib was scared.

"G-Gir…what happened…?" he asked shakily.

The robot only cried harder. He pointed to Zim and mimed stabbing something and ripping it apart – the same thing, it seemed, that happened to the Irken.

Dib paled to near-white and asked, "Who did this…?"

He watched as Gir hopped up onto the kitchen table and began scribbling away on a piece of paper. The black crayon was practically a blur as the robot scrawled an image onto his sheet of drawing paper. He dropped it suddenly, grabbed the finished product, and showed Dib: a white mask, spattered in blue alien blood, with glowing red eyes behind the inky eye-holes. Even the black-painted lips seemed to be curled into a sinister smirk, rubbing in the fact that he killed Dib's best friend and destroyed Gir's speaking ability. Dib was enraged, but couldn't stop crying. There was no way this could get worse.

People flooded through the front door, talking loudly excitedly. News reporters of all kinds, in Zim's base, shoving microphones and cameras in the confused and angry teen's face. He turned to look at Gir, who was just as confused, and found him staring up at him with visible hurt in his blue robotic eyes. The robot felt betrayed, and he thought all of this was Dib's doing! Dib tried to explain to him that he didn't call these people, but government agents were already trying to turn him off and investigate his master.

"Dib, tell us, how did you know he was an alien?"

"Over here, young man! How did you take down this intergalactic monster?"

"Dib, Dib! This is only the beginning of your career! Tell us, how do you feel?"

Dib couldn't hold back his tears. "NO, I DIDN'T DO THIS! I NEVER WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN! PLEASE, LEAVE ME ALONE! AND STOP – WAIT, WHERE ARE YOU TAKING THEM! HEY!" He watched in agony as the deactivated Gir and Zim's mutilated carcass was packed up into a government truck and hauled away. Over all the noise and shouts, Dib heard a faint chuckle. He whipped his head around to face that horrible gleaming mask. Losing whatever shred of sanity he had left, he tackled the figure hard and punched with every last bit of rage-fueled strength he had, hell-bent of shattering that damned mask.

"SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE, THIS KID IS INSANE!" It wasn't long before the call was answered, and two men in white stormed the house and contained Dib in their best straight jacket. He screamed like a maniac and was promptly slapped, bringing him back to his senses. Like before, he wasn't attacking the boy in the mask, but instead he'd pounced on Alexi. She watched him with horrified, tear-filled eyes as he was dragged outside and thrown into the ambulance.

Dib sat in his padded room, restrained almost painfully tight in his straight jacket. He never wanted any of this. None of this was supposed to happen. Not only was he now officially deemed 'insane', but he couldn't even take comfort in the hope that his best friend and his little 'dog' would come visit him. Fresh tears stung at his eyes, and he blinked furiously to will them away; it only made the problem worse, as now he had a waterfall spilling past his cheeks. He was incredibly cold, but the only things he was permitted to wear were his socks and underwear. The doctors found his pants to be 'too dangerous' and his shirt to be 'emotionally suggestive', whatever that meant. They gave him no clothes until the day after, and he was almost positive it would merely be fresh socks and boxers.

'The least they could do is turn up the damn heat in this place,' he thought bitterly. 'It feels the same as when I used to see…Her…" He shuddered from the memory of the ghostly woman and felt goose bumps crawl up his legs.

"DIB!" The teen nearly hit the wall with sudden fright. "You have visitors! Make your time count!" His door opened, revealing his sister Gaz and their father, Professor Membrane. They took a seat on Dib's bed, unsure of what to say. An awkward silence settled throughout the room, until finally their father coughed and spoke up first.

"Well son," he began, "I'm proud of you, finally catching and proving that alien. Maybe you're not quite as crazy as I thought."

"If I'm not crazy, then why am I stuck in the Mental Ward?" he asked, unhappy.

"Good question," Gaz commented. She flinched when Dib sent a mean glare her way, and settled for looking around the room.

Professor Membrane sighed. "Listen, I know this isn't how everything was supposed to happen. I know you thought you saw something following you, but it's not re - "

"SHUT UP DAD! I KNOW WHAT IT WAS, AND I KNOW IT WAS REAL! IT'S TRYING TO KILL ME!"

The older man sighed and patted his son's shoulder sadly. "I'm sorry, son. Come, daughter, let's go home." The two got up and took one last sad look at Dib before closing the door behind him.

Dib growled and hit the back of his head against his padded wall; it did little more than bounce his head back gently. He was so angry right now that nobody believed him.

"Dib…?"

He looked up, surprised to see the person he least expected to see there: Alexi. She looked horrible; probably from all the hits Dib gave her. He felt ashamed and guilty to see her so broken-looking. She smiled slightly and made her way over to his bed. Dib noticed her long blonde hair was down today, and she was wearing the black dress he bought her. She must have heard the news. She watched him with the saddest little smile he'd ever seen before, and she wiped her eye with the back of her hand. She was already crying.

"Dib…I'm sorry…for everything that's happened…" She sniffled and rubbed at her eyes. "I know you deserve so much better than this. None of this was meant to happen, not to you or Zim or Gir. I know what happened because of the news. Dib, I…" The girl choked back a sob and inhaled deeply to calm herself. "I'm so sorry…"

Dib wanted so desperately to hug her. "Alexi, please calm down. None of this is your fault."

"No…" She shook her head, tears falling down. "Everything is; this is all my fault Dib! I never meant to drag you into this!"

"What are you talking about?" Dib asked, sad and confused.

The young blonde sighed and sniffled. She looked into Dib's eyes and said, "You remember the fire that burned down the orphanage, don't you?"

"Yeah…"

She looked away, ashamed. "That was me. And my old house, where my parents and big sister were dead? That…that was me too…" She continued to stare down at the floor. "Dib, I killed my family…that was why I got sent to the orphanage in the first place. You remember the ghost that haunted your room?"

Dib's eyes widened and he turned whiter than the restraints he was in. "Y-Yes…"

Alexi finally looked up at Dib again. She wasn't crying anymore; instead, a sort of poker-face was staring him down. "She came to me that night…before my parents and sister died…" She blinked, but her expression remained unchanged. "She told me that she would be there for me whenever anything bad happened…she vowed to protect me, and swore revenge on whoever hurt me. That's why she showed up and started torturing you after I went into the coma."

"But that wasn't - "

"Your fault, I know. But she decided you were responsible since you weren't around to save me."

Dib stared at the girl, horrified. "What happened to the real culprit?"

"She…killed him. On the spot. But she was angry that you didn't save me right then, so she took it upon herself to torment you until I got better."

"Then why did she stay even after you came back?"

Alexi frowned. "She holds grudges. And when you saw her that day standing over me in the living room, she was only making sure I was asleep and not dead. To be honest, she doesn't like you. Then again, she doesn't like anyone but me; she says people lie and hurt others, and she didn't want to see me hurt like I was at home."

"But what about Zim? Was he her last target?"

The blonde shook her head. "No…he wasn't HER target. And he wasn't the last…"

"A-Alexi…?"

She suddenly smiled; an evil, spine-chilling smile. She reached behind her dress and moved the trane out of the way, only to pull something out. In her little hands, as much as Dib didn't want to believe it, was the same porcelain mask he's seen all too often before. Her eyes changed from the sweet, sparkling green they were before to the horrible, blood-red glow he'd come to hate. Dib screamed bloody murder and scrambled toward the door, only to suddenly come face-to-face with the black-haired ghost woman. She had the same gruesome smile plastered across her pale, scarred face, only hers ripped the skin and spread from ear to ear. Her sharp teeth gleamed under the fluorescent lights, and Dib quickly scrambled back toward the other wall, only to trip and fall on his back. He watched in pure horror as the two girls loomed over him, smiles sending his fear into overdrive. He manage to choke out a frightened, "W-Why, Alexi…why…?"

The little blonde girl slipped the mask over her face, and pulled a knife out from her under her sleeve. "I'm sorry Dib," she said, "but you know too much. At least you'll be remembered as the boy who discovered the alien…"

Dib's screams soon turned to horrible gargles, and finally went dead silent. When the men in white finally arrived and unlocked his door, all they found in the room with Dib's dead and bloody body was an equally bloody porcelain mask with the eyes and lips colored in black.

Well, that's the end of it. For everyone who stuck around until the end, I thank you personally! You guys are the reason I kept this story going for so long, so thank you so very much! Special thanks goes out to InvaderPhantom16 for the awesome reviews she's left since the beginning, and for taking her own free time to draw some fanart! Y'all are amazing! :D