Jaz: Oh yeah! A disclaimer, hmm… Uhhhhh huh. Yep. I sure as hell don't own Dib-ness or Invader Zim itself (It belongs to Jhonen Vasquez, Square Soft, and Nick…at least until it went off air. .) , but I'm soon to rule the world!! …no, not Earth. It's called…never mind. That's not important!! But I'll tell you something I DO own: Jeene and…well…this fic. And be gentle. This is my first IZ fan fic, and..er….it took me awhile to find out how fan fiction.net works. -.- **Shrugs and eats some Snack.** Snack! =D

The skies flickered dully with black swirls of clouds and thunder, which would light up the sky to a grayish orange rather than blood red. The sky was clearly polluted and the world was tinted blue from the sun being nearly and completely blocked out by smog and dark clouds. As thunder clashed along the skies, many a dreary groans and cries echoing forth from what sounded like underground, although the sounds being blocked off by the mass of large, crooked built houses, forming a twisted nightmare vision like city, old crusted vines linking several buildings together in a tattered shape, almost like a spider web.

Over the uncanny and spiraled, twisted and dilapidated shadows of the buildings, there lay a small weed. The inhabitance of this distorted and twisted city was monsters. One monster, a tall, towering and very threatening looking beast who stood on four, thin and jagged limbs, its snout being curved upwards slightly, showing many barred fangs and thorns on its gums as well as tongue. Strutting along in long, superior strides, the beasts pointed hove stepped over on the weed, which screeched and whipped a small thorny vine around one of the beasts long, fine and thin ankles, shoving it down, plummeting its face into the side walk, blood spattering messily across the already stained sidewalk. The beasts fore ankles shattered in a crimson mist, ivory ripping through its gray flesh, a disgusting wet snap as the other ankles go. The monster groaned and slumped over, rasping and panting in pain as the plant grew larger, and consumed the beasts form before returning to normal size, coiling up as a normal, harmless weed again.

It seemed crucial and barbaric, but it was how the city usually worked. Usually smart monsters would avoid that stinking plant anyways! Though this perverse and abnormal place seemed different than normal society, it was not. At all. And there was barely a few who knew this. One of those people was the boy around the age of twelve, even if he didn't know much……….but he had yet to learn.

His name, was Dib Membrane.

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The boy tapped his chin with his pencil and looked out the window at the blue skies and birds choking on smog and falling from the air and landing in trees, where dogs, cats and sometimes street performers would climb up and eat them, poisoning themselves. He snorted. "Idiots…" He began to chew on the end of his eraser, narrowing a single eye. "They don't even realize impending DOOM when it's upon them…which…well…it is…" He said through a few munches, arching an eyebrow with his other eye. "Then again…they can't even tell that someone with green skin…no ears and a back pack which is latched on like an organ, is an alien…Oh well…no harm in stating the obvious…"

Suddenly, the boy felt a jolt and his pencil was lodged into his mouth half way, the metal ring over the eraser and pencils wood scraping over his gums painfully. "NYAAAH!! Ow!" He pulled the pencil from his mouth, which had a dab of blood drizzled on its tip. Tossing the pencil in a random direction, the boy clasped a hand over his mouth and pressed his lower lip on his gums, the pressure reliving some of the throb. He looked up, eyes narrowed and his spike of jet black hair flopped over his face to see an old woman, who was glaring and growling, a hissing sound randomly coming from somewhere around her. "DIB! Pay attention!" She scolded acrimoniously, spitting at him a bit. Dib grumbled and nodded. "What was that? I DIDN'T HEAR YOU!" She hissed, leaning in closer. "Yes, Miss Bitters." "That's better! Now see if you can pay attention now!" Dib rubbed his lip and slouched over in his chair.

Class was boring. He already knew most of this stuff from reading at home, and more, since all Miss Bitters did was drone on about horrible wars, plagues and disasters, being the cold heartless stereotypical teacher. Dib's eyes narrowed again at Miss Bitters, showing very little interest in her droning on of doom and such, fighting back a yawn and barely succeeding in doing so. Letting his eyes wander a bit, Dib looked over the ceilings cracks and stains, wondering how most got up to the roof. He began to run scientific explanations and hypothesizes through his mind, accompanied by algebra. After growing bored of finding out why there was cracks and stains on the ceiling, he just simply stared at it blankly, to keep his eye lids from crashing back down closed.

Suddenly, Dib did a scream/squeak and jumped from his seat and flew onto the floor, wide eyed. He pointed a trembling finger to the wall, which had a large, thick trickle of blood leaning down it, the thinner fluids of the crimson going through the cracks of the wall. Miss Bitters jerked awake, something sounding of gears screeching as she did so. "Yes, Dib? Do you need another pass to the Crazy House For Boys™?" He simply gaped at the wall and blinked. As soon as his eyes reopened, the wall was perfectly clean. Well, define clean, I mean, this was Dib's class room! Lets just say it was as sanitary as it was gonna get, or it was the same as last he checked. "Um…no…Miss Bitters. I just had another spasm." He drawled slowly, still staring at that spot on the wall as he climbed back into his desk. "Well, you don't have anymore passes anyways, you poor, insane, tortured and moronic soul. Sorry, Dib…now then, can anyone tell me some of the reviews to our last lessons notes on how to breed Colin Cancer?" Miss Bitters began to drone on again, and Dib shuddered.

Glancing over at a boy with said, green skin, no ears, and a back pack with no straps, who screamed and hid behind his desk, he rose an eyebrow. Why are me and Zim acting like a couple of beaten monkeys? He asked himself, lowering the brow again. Dib shrugged and slumped back into his desk, letting his eyes wander to the opposite area of the green child, which had a Calendar. Dib looked over the month and day, which he had been ignoring since there was nothing but reruns of Mysterious Mysteries, making him lose interest in dates all together. It was October. Dib felt his stomach jolt. He frantically looked over what day as well, seeing it be the twenty ninth. He gasped as silently as possible and glanced over at green kid again, who had dived into the trash can at some point. Dib felt himself begin to shake madly and sweat, a rasped and ruptured sounding word escaping his lips. "Halloween."

After Miss Bitters had dismissed the class, the last left in the class was Dib, who was putting his books away into his back pack. "Dib! Why are you still here, demon child?" Miss Bitters asked hoarsely from her desk, her then bony fingers laced together. "Um…I was going to ask you," Dib started, shoving a large book of paranormal research into his bag. "Do we have to come tomorrow for the Halloween celebration?" Miss Bitters suddenly appeared beside Dib, hissing. "Of course you do! Halloween's a holiday of sufferinnnggg…you all shall attend!!" She lectured the empty class room, then turning her gaze back onto Dib. "You will be attending school tomorrow Dib." She reached out one of her emaciated arms inches away from Dib's neck, her thin fingers making an odd grabbing motion. Snarling, she materialized a color with blinking red and green lights. "Another one of my nifty DOOM tools," She rasped, bringing her hand back to her side. "It will abolish your worthless form if you aren't at school by at least ten o' clock. If you don't, it will shower sulfuric acid over your body. Hence the 'abolishment'. Do you understand?" Dib gulped and nodded. "GOOD! Now get your filthy soul out of here." She hissed, popping up back at her desk as if she was never at Dib's desk.

Dib sauntered out of the Skool looking around at his surroundings, obsessed with paranoia. Every time the wind would brush across the trees, Dib would leap and turn around swiftly with shifty eyes. The same went for if some kids where commenting to each other on his behavior behind their hands, whispering. Dib would mistake that for voices belonging to monsters. Dib hated Halloween. Even if it was merely the eve of Halloween, he still saw several odd things, like the blood drizzling from the Skool walls. Also, he'd begin to see brief flashes, like normal buildings becoming discolored and crooked, towering over him, and in the next second, they'd be normal again. p

The closer it got to Halloween, the worse they got. Dib knew, that around a year ago, in the sixth grade, he had wanted to take a look at spooky like dimensions, since his dad had just invented an object that could do so. Of course, he never asked his father if he could use the device, so he just helped himself without warning of what could happen. Now his mistake was setting the gage to high of level as to just as scary as he wanted it. Now the flashes always came back to me at the eve of Halloween, he suspected to himself quietly, And become even WORSE when it IS Halloween!

He twitched at this. Why is it everything's so difficult?! He pleaded to himself silently, his pace quickening from his growing paranoia. He couldn't help but glance over his shoulder every now and then, shivering and rubbing his arms with his hands. Maybe I really AM just crazy, he thought, tilting his head to the side. I mean, this should have stopped at some point. Or…is it that this will stay with me for the rest of my life? It'll probably go away if I let them have what they want…although the main demon thingy that looked a lot like Miss Bitters was scared when she almost had access to this world. Dib then mentally slapped himself. What are you thinking?! You're already trying to save man kind from Zim, so why the HELL would you let a huge planets population come into this world and destroy it?! He narrowed his eyes and stuck out his lower lip. I think I'm crazy… NO! Noo…not YET. Stay sane…stay sane…

Dib threw his things onto the couch and flopped over on the floor, tripping over himself. "Welcome home, Dib." A voice came from the couch in a sarcastic tone. "Gaz? When'd you get here?" "Fifteen minutes ago. Now shut your noise tube." "Wait…how did you get here so fast? School for you ended three minutes ago." "I said shut up." The girl snapped, throwing a crayon at Dib's head. Dib rolled over onto his back so the crayon only landed next to him. "Blah…whatever." Dib pulled himself back up and dusted off his trench coat (Yes, yes, Dib still has the same exact garb and hair!! Basically, NOTHING'S CHANGED! BUAHAHAH! Why? Because I'm a very, very lazy Irken.) and dashed into his room, leaped onto his bed, and pulled the covers over his head, shivering insanely. For once, he decided to go to bed early and hope for nightmares not to torment him in his escape from reality.