A/N: I got so many reviews... Thanx! I got seven-and-a-half, and all of
them said they wanted the continuation, or that they liked my story, or
that they were expecting a continuation. So... I'm gonna write it!
To my reviewers:
Ckret2: My first review... *cries* THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!! I'm glad you like my story!
Soul Eater: A classic "keep at it" review. Thanks.
Mega-Obskira: Sad, deep, and nice? Gee, that's so sweet of you! That was what I was aiming at!
janey-the-suicidal-maniac: You signed in to prove you'll read my continuation? Awww, how sweet! *huggles janey*
Marina: THERE'S A JtHM MOVIE!?!?! WHERE!?!?! I'm sorry I made you cry, and I didn't want to kill Zim... he's the best character. He's gonna take over the world. But, this fic is about Dib, and if Zim was alive, this fic would never happen 'cause Dib would be in an Irken Concentration Camp. 'Cause Zim would take over the world...
Elenar: Well, I'm here to make you happy, ironically, so I'm gonna write the continuation! Whoot!
Maran Zelde: Thanks for the compliments! I actually added the grass and the blossoms in after I had written the fic. I noticed that, in every angst fic I've ever read, there's something symbolic. In this story, it's the grass and the flowers, and if you noticed, the dew and the wind. But, yeah, mostly the grass and flowers.
Mars: Fanfic heaven? Whoo, I didn't know it was THAT good! Thanks!
Silent Knight: Thanks for your two reviews! And thanks for the advice. I'll try to draw out the plot more, if that'll help make my story better. But it's haaaard!
I would also like to say that if you see any words written with weird things, like this: ]*[!, that means that it's a cuss word, and I wrote it in 1337, or elite. Okay? Goooooooood, now we've cleared that up!
So, now for part two!
Disclaimer: I own the plot, and nothing else. And that's it. Nyaa! *sticks tongue out* However, if anyone would like to let me have the show, I'd gladly take it. I'll be happy if I can get one of the characters.
~*~
Chapter 2
Funeral for the Living (^-^)
Dib sat in front of his house for awhile. He had just seen Zim die. He couldn't just leave Zim's body up there... he had to go get it. Dib got up and started walking back to Zim's house. The haloed moon hid behind a cloud, and it started raining again, a slow foreboding drizzle, just like the one at Skool, when Dib had noticed Zim acting weird. Darn rain. Dib would never have had to see Zim killing himself if it hadn't been for the rain.
Dib approached Zim's house again. It had stopped glowing. Dib walked cautiously up to the tree. Funny, earlier that night, Dib had had much more to fear if he climbed that tree. Zim could have had a trap, but Dib climbed eagerly. Now, with no physical danger whatsoever, Dib was afraid to climb the tree.
Dib glared into the boughs of the tree. If it hadn't been for the tree, he never would have seen Zim die. He wouldn't have been able to get up. Now Dib climbed it again. He hated the tree. He hated the rain. He hated himself for not stopping Zim.
On the roof, Dib saw a figure with an umbrella hunched over Zim's body. As Dib approached, the figure turned to look at Dib with aqua eyes. "Why isn't Master waking up?" Gir asked quietly. "He said he was leaving earlier, and then he want outside. I went out to see if he was okay a few minutes ago, and when I got here it started raining. I pulled out my umbrella to protect him, so he wouldn't get hurt."
The irony of Gir's efforts made Dib chuckle sadly. " 'Master' won't be waking up for a while, Gir. We should bring him inside."
Gir nodded, and held the umbrella over Dib's head as he aquardly picked Zim's body up. Trying to hold Zim, Dib realized that the knife in Zim's chest was sticking up and making it hard to hold the alien corpse. Dib pulled the knife out. It slid easily, revealing a long tapered blade. Even through the blood, the knife practically shone with its own light. In short, it was a really nice knife. "Woah..." Dib breathed. Such a well- crafted thing, to cause such pain. Dib looked at the handle, and found a miniature planet carved into the side, with the Irken symbol designed to look like it was zooming off of the planet. Dib wiped the blade off on his shirt, since his shirt was already soaked with Zim's blood and a little more wouldn't hurt, and slipped it in his left trench coat pocket.
Dib, followed a little too closely by Gir, climbed down the tree again and walked up to Zim's front door. He opened it and walked inside, ashamed at how he was waltzing around Zim's house like it was his own. He set Zim's body down on the couch in front of the TV, then turned to Gir.
"Gir," he said. "Listen to me. You can't touch Zim's bo-- erm, I mean Zim, while he's... asleep. I've got a few of phone calls to make, okay?"
Gir nodded.
"Oh, by the way," Dib added, "can I stay here overnight?"
Gir shrugged. "Sure, as long as you don't wake Master up. He's sleeping."
Dib picked up the phone and dialed in 1-555-555-9100. (If you know what number that is, kudos to you!)
The phone rang three times, then someone picked up, and an obviously disguised voice answered. "Hello?"
"This is Mothman," Dib said. "I've called about the..." Dib glanced over at Zim's corpse. "The Spider."
"Really? Has it got you in its web?" The voice asked, sounding concerned.
"No no!" Dib said quickly. "I'm fine. I just wanted to tell you that, that, I'm not going to be trying to catch him anymore."
"Then, you caught the Spider?" the voice asked.
"No I'm..." Dib struggled for words. "I'm just... Giving up on the Spider. And I don't think I'll be coming to the weekly Eyeball meetings for awhile. I've got some... personal business to go through."
"Oh?" the voice asked. "Like what? A death in the family?"
Dib glanced at Zim again. "Close enough."
"Alright," the voice said again. "Good bye, Mothman. And may your eyes stay swollen." The line went dead.
Next, Dib called his house, and left a message on the answering machine telling Gaz and his dad where he was. Not that they'd care.
Then, Dib called the local mortuary and told them to come and get Zim's body at eight the next morning. Dib would see to it that Zim got a proper burial. He had had a bad enough life, he didn't need to be cut up after he died.
Dib looked at the blank TV screen, and saw his reflection. His reflection shocked himself. Was that the boy who had wanted to see Zim dead, no matter what? Who had wanted him torn apart, sewn back together, then ripped up again? Dib couldn't see that boy at all. The boy in the reflection was tired, forlorn, and alone. He had emptiness in his eyes that no person should ever have.
Dib looked down at his blood-covered coat. His eyes blurred with tears. Covering his face with his hands, he cried. "It's all Zim's fault," Dib whispered. "It's Zim's fault this happened to me. I hate him. Zim, be grateful you're dead because if you weren't, I'd kill you myself."
Dib sat in silence. "No, it's not Zim's fault," he whispered. "He didn't do anything. It was everyone else who killed him, everyone else who hurt me." Dib looked up again. "I promised I'd stop the hurt in the world. I won't stop the pain; I'll stop the starters of pain. I don't care what the others think of me, just as long as I'm able to help them."
With that thought in mind, Dib sat down on the floor and leaned against the couch. He took off his trench coat and used it as a blanket, then tried to fall asleep. He finally drifted off, listening to the hollow tap of rain on the once-glowing house.
...............................
Dib woke up around 7:56. He got up, wondering why his back was so stiff, then glanced at his reflection in the TV again. Oh. He was still at Zim's house. Then the doorbell rang.
Dib stiffened and stared at the door. The people from the mortuary! Dib couldn't let them see Zim without his disguise on! I mean, even if it was just his body, Dib didn't want them to send the body to a science place. "Gir!" Dib yelled. Gir fell out of a hole in the ceiling in Red-Mode.
"Yes, my Ma-- Oh, Dib. What is it?" he asked, switching abruptly from Red- Mode to Blue.
"I need to know where Zim's disguise is," Dib said quickly. "There are some Earthens outside who aren't allowed to see Zim without it."
Gir nodded, and pulled Zim's disguise out of the top of is head. "Here ya go!"
Dib looked at Gir. "How do you fit so much stuff into your head?"
"It all goes to a Room with a Moose!" Gir said.
Dib looked from Zim to the disguise in his hand. He had to put it... on Zim? On a dead corpse?? Looking the other way, Dib put the wig on Zim's head. Dib, technically speaking, was freaked out and embarrassed. Now, Dib had to get Zim's contacts in.
......
Dib opened the door sheepishly. "Hi, um, you've come here for Zim's body? Sorry it, um, took so long to answer the door."
"That's my job, to get the body. Take you're time," the man said. "So where is Zim?"
Dib pointed inside. The man walked in, and saw Zim on the couch. "You haven't got him a coffin?" the man asked Dib.
Dib blinked. "I didn't think of that... And he just died last night."
"By the way, what happened to him?" the man from the mortuary asked, pulling out a clipboard with a few pieces of paper.
"Pardon?" Dib asked.
"How did he die?" the man repeated. "I have to know some basic info about the person who died."
"Oh, it was," Dib paused, wondering if he should tell the man. "I don't know how he died, actually. I was just walking by, and I saw his body."
"Okaaaaaay," the man said, looking at Dib suspiciously. "Does he have any, say, friends or relatives that I could talk to?"
Dib shook his head. "I don't know who his parents are, and I'm, well, I was his only friend." Dib was shocked at how easily those words came. He and Zim really were closer to the same on the inside than Dib had thought. They really might have been friends, if Dib had seen what Zim was like earlier.
"Okay, so, what's his name?" the man asked.
"Huh? Oh, Zim."
"Last name?"
"Uh..." Dib thought for moment. Zim had been an Invader, until the Tallest banished him. Zim probably would like for his gravestone to call him an Invader. "His last name is Invader. He's Zim Invader."
The man wrote that down. "What was his age?"
"Uh... Twelve?"
"Okay, when is his birthday?"
Dib tried to remember when Zim had first landed on Earth. That could be kind of symbolic, if Dib told the man that the day Zim landed was Zim's birthday... "His birthday is March 30."
The man wrote that down. "Any other notes about him?"
"Zim's an alien," Dib said automatically.
"Sure he is," the man from the mortuary said. "Why don't you run home now?"
Dib sighed and left.
....
Dib walked home quietly, thinking. 'I wonder what the kids at skool will think when they hear Zim's dead,' he thought. 'Will they even care, or will they just brush it off? I was, I guess, Zim's only friend, so no one will be mourning. Except Keef, maybe.'
Dib stepped in a puddle, left over from the rain. It was still cloudy, and Dib was glad. He knew he couldn't bear the bright sunlight right then. Too cheerful.
Dib opened the door and went inside his house. "I'm home!" Dib yelled. "Did anyone notice I was missing? Or did anyone notice the message on the answering machine?"
Gaz looked up at Dib from her game. "Shut up, Dib. I've been playing Mongoose Mysteries for thirty minutes, and I'm only on level twenty-five. I saw on TV that the champion beat all one hundred levels in an hour. I have to work fast to break that record."
Dib sighed. "When I start stopping pain starters, I'm starting with you, Gaz," he told her.
Gaz grunted.
Dib walked to the basement. "Dad, did you notice I was missing?"
Professor Membrane poured some blue chemical into a vile with red chemicals. It turned green. "Well, I was assuming you'd be gone, since you're supposed to be at skool."
Dib gasped. "I forgot! It's Tuesday! Wait... Why isn't Gaz at skool?"
Prof. Membrane picked up a bottle with some radioactive-looking stuff. "The skool received word that a student died and had no parents to pay for a funeral, so the skool is paying for it, and it'll be held in Gaz's classroom, so the students in her class get to stay home. To pay for the funeral, the skool board is taking money from our taxes, so there will be higher taxes this month. Since I need all my money for research, it'll have to come out of your allowance." He poured the radioactive stuff into the green stuff. It turned pink. "I think I've just discovered the cure for the common cold! CALL THE PRESS!!!"
Dib ran up the stair, to his room, grabbed his backpack, and was gone before the press arrived.
......
Dib ran into Mrs. Bitters' class at 8:46, 26 minutes after the bell rang. "I'm sorry *huffhuff* that I'm so *huffpuff* late, Mrs. *huff* Bitters," Dib said, sliding into his seat.
Mrs. Bitters narrowed an eye at Dib. "I've warned you there would be consequences for being late, Dib. So, for punishment, you will have to taste-test the cafeteria food for poison EVERY DAY for the next twenty years of your life."
Dib sighed. 'After I'm finished with Gaz, I'm starting on teachers,' he thought.
"Now, class," Mrs. Bitters said, "as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, Zim died and since we're in his class, we're all going to his funeral at nine o' clock. Anyone who doesn't go will have to kiss Zim's dead lips, so you'd all better be there."
Dib shuddered with repulsion. Mrs. Bitters was a sick, sick, lady. Oh so . . . sick.
"It's 8:50 now, so if we want to make it to the funeral in time we're going to have to leave and run the whole way, because a third grader dropped a radioactive chemical in Hallway A that we're going to have to go around." Mrs. Bitters pulled down a map, and showed a winding path throughout the school. Dib walked up to the map and looked at it closely.
"Why do we have to go on that path?" Dib asked. "The class room we need to go in is just down the hall. And we don't even NEED to go to Hallway A!"
Mrs. Bitters leaned down in Dib's face and said, "I don't need to explain my logic, I'm the teacher." She turned to the rest of the class and said, "All right, let's go! We don't have all day!"
While the rest of the class jumped out of their seats and started following the route Mrs. Bitters had given them, Dib walked the other way and got to Gaz's class in about five seconds. When the rest of the class arrived, huffing and puffing (about eight minutes later), Mrs. Bitters slithered up to Dib and growled in his face, "You didn't follow the class, Dib. You will be PUNIIIIIIIISHED!"
"Oooooooo, he's gonna get it now!" The Letter M said. (I don't really know who any of the kids in Mrs. Bitters class are, except Dib, Zim, Tak (for one show), and Zita, but I know a lot of names.)
Dib glared at The Letter M. "Do you ENJOY other people's torture? HUH?!? Have any of you ever seen a person bleed to death, other than in the movies?"
"That's enough, Dib," Mrs. Bitters said. "For punishment, you will spend the next ten years of your life," dum dum duuum, "CLEANING TOILETS!"
"Okay," Dib said.
Mrs. Bitter's jaw dropped. "That doesn't scare you?"
"Nothing scares me anymore. There is nothing you can do to me that can, in any way, scare me. You can gross me out, or make me mad, but you can't scare me," Dib said.
Mrs. Bitters glared at Dib. "Okay, you don't have to clean toilets. But I will find something worse for you to do. Now, everyone, in the room and find your seats!"
Everyone in Mrs. Bitter's class walked in the classroom, to find someone had lined up all the chairs like pews, and that three desks had been pushed together to hold a coffin. Dib looked at the coffin and almost lost his lunch.
After everyone had sat down, Mrs. Bitters stepped in front of the coffin and said, "Now, we didn't hire a preacher for Zim, so we decided to get the person who knows the most about Zim to talk about him. And, that person is . . ." Mrs. Bitters squinted at a paper. "Dib Membrane."
Surprised, Dib said the first thing that came to mind. "My last name isn't Membrane."
"It isn't?" Mrs. Bitters said skeptically. "But that's your father's last name."
"Yeah, but I got my mom's last name. Gaz's last name is Dad's, and my last name is Mom's."
"That's very nice," Mrs. Bitters said sarcastically. "So what is you last name?"
"Carler," Dib said.
"Alright then," Mrs. Bitters said. "Dib Carler, get up here. You have to talk about Zim's life and stuff for the funeral."
Dib reluctantly got out of his seat and walked to the front of the classroom, where the coffin was. Mrs. Bitters sat down in her own seat.
At the front of the classroom, everyone glared at Dib. He gulped, and started talking. "First of all, I want to say that I am not going to accuse Zim of being an alien once during this whole funeral." Some of the glares lessened. "And second, I would like to say that even though Zim's death was recorded as murder, it was a suicide. I saw it with my own eyes." Several kids who hadn't been paying attention looked up with interest. They obviously wanted the gory details.
Dib sighed. "To start, have you ever felt like your life was a lie?" Some kids actually nodded, God bless them. "Zim did. And I never noticed. ])4]\/[]\[ me. Now, has anyone here ever felt like their life was a lie, and then found out it really was?" No one nodded. "Zim did. He's been tricked about everything his whole life. And he found out Sunday night. Yesterday, he committed suicide. And, this is where we get to the details of the actual death. Not as gory as I think most of you think it is, but it's not that clean a death, either."
Dib looked at the class to see how they were reacting. They were all watching him with interest. "Well, he had been acting weird on Monday, and I thought he was up to something. I'm NOT going to say he's an alien, but I thought he was going to do something bad. I didn't know what, though. So, that night at eleven, I got out of bed and went to his house. I'm not proud of it, but I was going to sneak in and kidnap him to find out what he was up to. But he was outside, standing by his house. when I came over, he seemed surprised to see me, but he was calm. More calm and quiet that I'd ever seen him before. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was going back to the stars. I thought he was going to the moon or something, so I asked him how the heck he was going to get into outer space without a spaceship. He didn't answer. He climbed to the top of his house, and I followed. He stared at the stars for awhile, then . . . he pulled a knife out. He said it was time to go. He was about to stab himself when a cloud passed over the moon. He put the knife down, and said that it wasn't time, after all. I asked him what on Earth was going on, and so he told me.
"His life had been a lie, the two people he trusted most hated him, and he was ridiculed by . . . the country he had come from. Yeah. That's all the details I'm sharing though.
"I told him he didn't have to kill himself because of one bad day. I told him that if he wanted a friend, I'd be his friend. He said that by paying attention to him, by noticing him and trying to get others to notice him, I had already proved that I was his friend." Dib's eyes started watering. "Then, he finally decided that the time was right, and he killed himself. I watched, I held him while he died." Dib's eyes, still watery, scanned the class to see how they were reacting. "Zim showed me a side of himself that I had never seen before. I'm changed. The part of me that hated him, the part of me that hated ANY thing, died with him. This may be Zim's funeral, but it's also a funeral for the man I used to be. This is a funeral for the dead, and a funeral for the living."
The class watched as Dib continued, awed. "I'm tired of everyone hurting everyone else. I'm going to dedicate my life to stopping hurt and pain." Dib looked at the hushed class proudly, glad that he, after all the ridicule, could get them to listen. Then:
"I'll bet you won't get much pay for that, Dib."
A kid snorted, then the whole class started laughing. Dib stared at them, hurt. Okay, so what could he say now that would make them change? Well? What was there to say that could make a group stop hurting you?
As Dib watched the kids laugh at him, he looked at the question another way. What could he say that would make anyone change? How would he stop people from causing pain? Well? Talk to them about their problems over a cup of tea? There was no way to stop pain. No way. Dib started crying.
As the tears flowed, the class gradually stopped laughing and looked at Dib. "Hey, do you think maybe we were a little harsh?" someone asked.
Dib glared at the class. "You make me sick," he said. "Sick, sick, sick. I hate you all. Every one of you."
Dib ran from the classroom. The kids were just starting to regret what they had done, when someone said, "Yes, I hateses you all, Bitterses class. We hateses them, my preciousssssss."
The class laughed again. Dib would never get sympathy from them.
......
In the restroom, Dib locked himself in a stall and cried. He hated them, hated them, hated them. And he hated himself, for not being able to do anything about the pain. A permanent marker was on the ground, and Dib picked it up. On the wall, he wrote "Dib J. Carler: Loser of the Year."
Sighing, he left the stall. He could stop the pain somehow.
Somehow.
~*~
Okay, that's it for Chapter 2! I hope all my fans like it! Heh, I have fans . . .
So, now you see why this chapter is called "Funeral for the Living"? Good. Actually, I never planned on naming a chapter after me, and I didn't choose my name to go into the chapter. It just popped up.
And, no one really knows Dib's last name. I read on -the- Nickelodeon site, in the IZ section, (it takes so long to load!) that no one knows Dib's last name. You can go to the site and find out for yourself. It's under the info of either Dib, or Professor Membrane. I forgot which. But I know FOR A FACT that his last name isn't Membrane.
To my reviewers:
Ckret2: My first review... *cries* THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!! I'm glad you like my story!
Soul Eater: A classic "keep at it" review. Thanks.
Mega-Obskira: Sad, deep, and nice? Gee, that's so sweet of you! That was what I was aiming at!
janey-the-suicidal-maniac: You signed in to prove you'll read my continuation? Awww, how sweet! *huggles janey*
Marina: THERE'S A JtHM MOVIE!?!?! WHERE!?!?! I'm sorry I made you cry, and I didn't want to kill Zim... he's the best character. He's gonna take over the world. But, this fic is about Dib, and if Zim was alive, this fic would never happen 'cause Dib would be in an Irken Concentration Camp. 'Cause Zim would take over the world...
Elenar: Well, I'm here to make you happy, ironically, so I'm gonna write the continuation! Whoot!
Maran Zelde: Thanks for the compliments! I actually added the grass and the blossoms in after I had written the fic. I noticed that, in every angst fic I've ever read, there's something symbolic. In this story, it's the grass and the flowers, and if you noticed, the dew and the wind. But, yeah, mostly the grass and flowers.
Mars: Fanfic heaven? Whoo, I didn't know it was THAT good! Thanks!
Silent Knight: Thanks for your two reviews! And thanks for the advice. I'll try to draw out the plot more, if that'll help make my story better. But it's haaaard!
I would also like to say that if you see any words written with weird things, like this: ]*[!, that means that it's a cuss word, and I wrote it in 1337, or elite. Okay? Goooooooood, now we've cleared that up!
So, now for part two!
Disclaimer: I own the plot, and nothing else. And that's it. Nyaa! *sticks tongue out* However, if anyone would like to let me have the show, I'd gladly take it. I'll be happy if I can get one of the characters.
~*~
Chapter 2
Funeral for the Living (^-^)
Dib sat in front of his house for awhile. He had just seen Zim die. He couldn't just leave Zim's body up there... he had to go get it. Dib got up and started walking back to Zim's house. The haloed moon hid behind a cloud, and it started raining again, a slow foreboding drizzle, just like the one at Skool, when Dib had noticed Zim acting weird. Darn rain. Dib would never have had to see Zim killing himself if it hadn't been for the rain.
Dib approached Zim's house again. It had stopped glowing. Dib walked cautiously up to the tree. Funny, earlier that night, Dib had had much more to fear if he climbed that tree. Zim could have had a trap, but Dib climbed eagerly. Now, with no physical danger whatsoever, Dib was afraid to climb the tree.
Dib glared into the boughs of the tree. If it hadn't been for the tree, he never would have seen Zim die. He wouldn't have been able to get up. Now Dib climbed it again. He hated the tree. He hated the rain. He hated himself for not stopping Zim.
On the roof, Dib saw a figure with an umbrella hunched over Zim's body. As Dib approached, the figure turned to look at Dib with aqua eyes. "Why isn't Master waking up?" Gir asked quietly. "He said he was leaving earlier, and then he want outside. I went out to see if he was okay a few minutes ago, and when I got here it started raining. I pulled out my umbrella to protect him, so he wouldn't get hurt."
The irony of Gir's efforts made Dib chuckle sadly. " 'Master' won't be waking up for a while, Gir. We should bring him inside."
Gir nodded, and held the umbrella over Dib's head as he aquardly picked Zim's body up. Trying to hold Zim, Dib realized that the knife in Zim's chest was sticking up and making it hard to hold the alien corpse. Dib pulled the knife out. It slid easily, revealing a long tapered blade. Even through the blood, the knife practically shone with its own light. In short, it was a really nice knife. "Woah..." Dib breathed. Such a well- crafted thing, to cause such pain. Dib looked at the handle, and found a miniature planet carved into the side, with the Irken symbol designed to look like it was zooming off of the planet. Dib wiped the blade off on his shirt, since his shirt was already soaked with Zim's blood and a little more wouldn't hurt, and slipped it in his left trench coat pocket.
Dib, followed a little too closely by Gir, climbed down the tree again and walked up to Zim's front door. He opened it and walked inside, ashamed at how he was waltzing around Zim's house like it was his own. He set Zim's body down on the couch in front of the TV, then turned to Gir.
"Gir," he said. "Listen to me. You can't touch Zim's bo-- erm, I mean Zim, while he's... asleep. I've got a few of phone calls to make, okay?"
Gir nodded.
"Oh, by the way," Dib added, "can I stay here overnight?"
Gir shrugged. "Sure, as long as you don't wake Master up. He's sleeping."
Dib picked up the phone and dialed in 1-555-555-9100. (If you know what number that is, kudos to you!)
The phone rang three times, then someone picked up, and an obviously disguised voice answered. "Hello?"
"This is Mothman," Dib said. "I've called about the..." Dib glanced over at Zim's corpse. "The Spider."
"Really? Has it got you in its web?" The voice asked, sounding concerned.
"No no!" Dib said quickly. "I'm fine. I just wanted to tell you that, that, I'm not going to be trying to catch him anymore."
"Then, you caught the Spider?" the voice asked.
"No I'm..." Dib struggled for words. "I'm just... Giving up on the Spider. And I don't think I'll be coming to the weekly Eyeball meetings for awhile. I've got some... personal business to go through."
"Oh?" the voice asked. "Like what? A death in the family?"
Dib glanced at Zim again. "Close enough."
"Alright," the voice said again. "Good bye, Mothman. And may your eyes stay swollen." The line went dead.
Next, Dib called his house, and left a message on the answering machine telling Gaz and his dad where he was. Not that they'd care.
Then, Dib called the local mortuary and told them to come and get Zim's body at eight the next morning. Dib would see to it that Zim got a proper burial. He had had a bad enough life, he didn't need to be cut up after he died.
Dib looked at the blank TV screen, and saw his reflection. His reflection shocked himself. Was that the boy who had wanted to see Zim dead, no matter what? Who had wanted him torn apart, sewn back together, then ripped up again? Dib couldn't see that boy at all. The boy in the reflection was tired, forlorn, and alone. He had emptiness in his eyes that no person should ever have.
Dib looked down at his blood-covered coat. His eyes blurred with tears. Covering his face with his hands, he cried. "It's all Zim's fault," Dib whispered. "It's Zim's fault this happened to me. I hate him. Zim, be grateful you're dead because if you weren't, I'd kill you myself."
Dib sat in silence. "No, it's not Zim's fault," he whispered. "He didn't do anything. It was everyone else who killed him, everyone else who hurt me." Dib looked up again. "I promised I'd stop the hurt in the world. I won't stop the pain; I'll stop the starters of pain. I don't care what the others think of me, just as long as I'm able to help them."
With that thought in mind, Dib sat down on the floor and leaned against the couch. He took off his trench coat and used it as a blanket, then tried to fall asleep. He finally drifted off, listening to the hollow tap of rain on the once-glowing house.
...............................
Dib woke up around 7:56. He got up, wondering why his back was so stiff, then glanced at his reflection in the TV again. Oh. He was still at Zim's house. Then the doorbell rang.
Dib stiffened and stared at the door. The people from the mortuary! Dib couldn't let them see Zim without his disguise on! I mean, even if it was just his body, Dib didn't want them to send the body to a science place. "Gir!" Dib yelled. Gir fell out of a hole in the ceiling in Red-Mode.
"Yes, my Ma-- Oh, Dib. What is it?" he asked, switching abruptly from Red- Mode to Blue.
"I need to know where Zim's disguise is," Dib said quickly. "There are some Earthens outside who aren't allowed to see Zim without it."
Gir nodded, and pulled Zim's disguise out of the top of is head. "Here ya go!"
Dib looked at Gir. "How do you fit so much stuff into your head?"
"It all goes to a Room with a Moose!" Gir said.
Dib looked from Zim to the disguise in his hand. He had to put it... on Zim? On a dead corpse?? Looking the other way, Dib put the wig on Zim's head. Dib, technically speaking, was freaked out and embarrassed. Now, Dib had to get Zim's contacts in.
......
Dib opened the door sheepishly. "Hi, um, you've come here for Zim's body? Sorry it, um, took so long to answer the door."
"That's my job, to get the body. Take you're time," the man said. "So where is Zim?"
Dib pointed inside. The man walked in, and saw Zim on the couch. "You haven't got him a coffin?" the man asked Dib.
Dib blinked. "I didn't think of that... And he just died last night."
"By the way, what happened to him?" the man from the mortuary asked, pulling out a clipboard with a few pieces of paper.
"Pardon?" Dib asked.
"How did he die?" the man repeated. "I have to know some basic info about the person who died."
"Oh, it was," Dib paused, wondering if he should tell the man. "I don't know how he died, actually. I was just walking by, and I saw his body."
"Okaaaaaay," the man said, looking at Dib suspiciously. "Does he have any, say, friends or relatives that I could talk to?"
Dib shook his head. "I don't know who his parents are, and I'm, well, I was his only friend." Dib was shocked at how easily those words came. He and Zim really were closer to the same on the inside than Dib had thought. They really might have been friends, if Dib had seen what Zim was like earlier.
"Okay, so, what's his name?" the man asked.
"Huh? Oh, Zim."
"Last name?"
"Uh..." Dib thought for moment. Zim had been an Invader, until the Tallest banished him. Zim probably would like for his gravestone to call him an Invader. "His last name is Invader. He's Zim Invader."
The man wrote that down. "What was his age?"
"Uh... Twelve?"
"Okay, when is his birthday?"
Dib tried to remember when Zim had first landed on Earth. That could be kind of symbolic, if Dib told the man that the day Zim landed was Zim's birthday... "His birthday is March 30."
The man wrote that down. "Any other notes about him?"
"Zim's an alien," Dib said automatically.
"Sure he is," the man from the mortuary said. "Why don't you run home now?"
Dib sighed and left.
....
Dib walked home quietly, thinking. 'I wonder what the kids at skool will think when they hear Zim's dead,' he thought. 'Will they even care, or will they just brush it off? I was, I guess, Zim's only friend, so no one will be mourning. Except Keef, maybe.'
Dib stepped in a puddle, left over from the rain. It was still cloudy, and Dib was glad. He knew he couldn't bear the bright sunlight right then. Too cheerful.
Dib opened the door and went inside his house. "I'm home!" Dib yelled. "Did anyone notice I was missing? Or did anyone notice the message on the answering machine?"
Gaz looked up at Dib from her game. "Shut up, Dib. I've been playing Mongoose Mysteries for thirty minutes, and I'm only on level twenty-five. I saw on TV that the champion beat all one hundred levels in an hour. I have to work fast to break that record."
Dib sighed. "When I start stopping pain starters, I'm starting with you, Gaz," he told her.
Gaz grunted.
Dib walked to the basement. "Dad, did you notice I was missing?"
Professor Membrane poured some blue chemical into a vile with red chemicals. It turned green. "Well, I was assuming you'd be gone, since you're supposed to be at skool."
Dib gasped. "I forgot! It's Tuesday! Wait... Why isn't Gaz at skool?"
Prof. Membrane picked up a bottle with some radioactive-looking stuff. "The skool received word that a student died and had no parents to pay for a funeral, so the skool is paying for it, and it'll be held in Gaz's classroom, so the students in her class get to stay home. To pay for the funeral, the skool board is taking money from our taxes, so there will be higher taxes this month. Since I need all my money for research, it'll have to come out of your allowance." He poured the radioactive stuff into the green stuff. It turned pink. "I think I've just discovered the cure for the common cold! CALL THE PRESS!!!"
Dib ran up the stair, to his room, grabbed his backpack, and was gone before the press arrived.
......
Dib ran into Mrs. Bitters' class at 8:46, 26 minutes after the bell rang. "I'm sorry *huffhuff* that I'm so *huffpuff* late, Mrs. *huff* Bitters," Dib said, sliding into his seat.
Mrs. Bitters narrowed an eye at Dib. "I've warned you there would be consequences for being late, Dib. So, for punishment, you will have to taste-test the cafeteria food for poison EVERY DAY for the next twenty years of your life."
Dib sighed. 'After I'm finished with Gaz, I'm starting on teachers,' he thought.
"Now, class," Mrs. Bitters said, "as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, Zim died and since we're in his class, we're all going to his funeral at nine o' clock. Anyone who doesn't go will have to kiss Zim's dead lips, so you'd all better be there."
Dib shuddered with repulsion. Mrs. Bitters was a sick, sick, lady. Oh so . . . sick.
"It's 8:50 now, so if we want to make it to the funeral in time we're going to have to leave and run the whole way, because a third grader dropped a radioactive chemical in Hallway A that we're going to have to go around." Mrs. Bitters pulled down a map, and showed a winding path throughout the school. Dib walked up to the map and looked at it closely.
"Why do we have to go on that path?" Dib asked. "The class room we need to go in is just down the hall. And we don't even NEED to go to Hallway A!"
Mrs. Bitters leaned down in Dib's face and said, "I don't need to explain my logic, I'm the teacher." She turned to the rest of the class and said, "All right, let's go! We don't have all day!"
While the rest of the class jumped out of their seats and started following the route Mrs. Bitters had given them, Dib walked the other way and got to Gaz's class in about five seconds. When the rest of the class arrived, huffing and puffing (about eight minutes later), Mrs. Bitters slithered up to Dib and growled in his face, "You didn't follow the class, Dib. You will be PUNIIIIIIIISHED!"
"Oooooooo, he's gonna get it now!" The Letter M said. (I don't really know who any of the kids in Mrs. Bitters class are, except Dib, Zim, Tak (for one show), and Zita, but I know a lot of names.)
Dib glared at The Letter M. "Do you ENJOY other people's torture? HUH?!? Have any of you ever seen a person bleed to death, other than in the movies?"
"That's enough, Dib," Mrs. Bitters said. "For punishment, you will spend the next ten years of your life," dum dum duuum, "CLEANING TOILETS!"
"Okay," Dib said.
Mrs. Bitter's jaw dropped. "That doesn't scare you?"
"Nothing scares me anymore. There is nothing you can do to me that can, in any way, scare me. You can gross me out, or make me mad, but you can't scare me," Dib said.
Mrs. Bitters glared at Dib. "Okay, you don't have to clean toilets. But I will find something worse for you to do. Now, everyone, in the room and find your seats!"
Everyone in Mrs. Bitter's class walked in the classroom, to find someone had lined up all the chairs like pews, and that three desks had been pushed together to hold a coffin. Dib looked at the coffin and almost lost his lunch.
After everyone had sat down, Mrs. Bitters stepped in front of the coffin and said, "Now, we didn't hire a preacher for Zim, so we decided to get the person who knows the most about Zim to talk about him. And, that person is . . ." Mrs. Bitters squinted at a paper. "Dib Membrane."
Surprised, Dib said the first thing that came to mind. "My last name isn't Membrane."
"It isn't?" Mrs. Bitters said skeptically. "But that's your father's last name."
"Yeah, but I got my mom's last name. Gaz's last name is Dad's, and my last name is Mom's."
"That's very nice," Mrs. Bitters said sarcastically. "So what is you last name?"
"Carler," Dib said.
"Alright then," Mrs. Bitters said. "Dib Carler, get up here. You have to talk about Zim's life and stuff for the funeral."
Dib reluctantly got out of his seat and walked to the front of the classroom, where the coffin was. Mrs. Bitters sat down in her own seat.
At the front of the classroom, everyone glared at Dib. He gulped, and started talking. "First of all, I want to say that I am not going to accuse Zim of being an alien once during this whole funeral." Some of the glares lessened. "And second, I would like to say that even though Zim's death was recorded as murder, it was a suicide. I saw it with my own eyes." Several kids who hadn't been paying attention looked up with interest. They obviously wanted the gory details.
Dib sighed. "To start, have you ever felt like your life was a lie?" Some kids actually nodded, God bless them. "Zim did. And I never noticed. ])4]\/[]\[ me. Now, has anyone here ever felt like their life was a lie, and then found out it really was?" No one nodded. "Zim did. He's been tricked about everything his whole life. And he found out Sunday night. Yesterday, he committed suicide. And, this is where we get to the details of the actual death. Not as gory as I think most of you think it is, but it's not that clean a death, either."
Dib looked at the class to see how they were reacting. They were all watching him with interest. "Well, he had been acting weird on Monday, and I thought he was up to something. I'm NOT going to say he's an alien, but I thought he was going to do something bad. I didn't know what, though. So, that night at eleven, I got out of bed and went to his house. I'm not proud of it, but I was going to sneak in and kidnap him to find out what he was up to. But he was outside, standing by his house. when I came over, he seemed surprised to see me, but he was calm. More calm and quiet that I'd ever seen him before. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was going back to the stars. I thought he was going to the moon or something, so I asked him how the heck he was going to get into outer space without a spaceship. He didn't answer. He climbed to the top of his house, and I followed. He stared at the stars for awhile, then . . . he pulled a knife out. He said it was time to go. He was about to stab himself when a cloud passed over the moon. He put the knife down, and said that it wasn't time, after all. I asked him what on Earth was going on, and so he told me.
"His life had been a lie, the two people he trusted most hated him, and he was ridiculed by . . . the country he had come from. Yeah. That's all the details I'm sharing though.
"I told him he didn't have to kill himself because of one bad day. I told him that if he wanted a friend, I'd be his friend. He said that by paying attention to him, by noticing him and trying to get others to notice him, I had already proved that I was his friend." Dib's eyes started watering. "Then, he finally decided that the time was right, and he killed himself. I watched, I held him while he died." Dib's eyes, still watery, scanned the class to see how they were reacting. "Zim showed me a side of himself that I had never seen before. I'm changed. The part of me that hated him, the part of me that hated ANY thing, died with him. This may be Zim's funeral, but it's also a funeral for the man I used to be. This is a funeral for the dead, and a funeral for the living."
The class watched as Dib continued, awed. "I'm tired of everyone hurting everyone else. I'm going to dedicate my life to stopping hurt and pain." Dib looked at the hushed class proudly, glad that he, after all the ridicule, could get them to listen. Then:
"I'll bet you won't get much pay for that, Dib."
A kid snorted, then the whole class started laughing. Dib stared at them, hurt. Okay, so what could he say now that would make them change? Well? What was there to say that could make a group stop hurting you?
As Dib watched the kids laugh at him, he looked at the question another way. What could he say that would make anyone change? How would he stop people from causing pain? Well? Talk to them about their problems over a cup of tea? There was no way to stop pain. No way. Dib started crying.
As the tears flowed, the class gradually stopped laughing and looked at Dib. "Hey, do you think maybe we were a little harsh?" someone asked.
Dib glared at the class. "You make me sick," he said. "Sick, sick, sick. I hate you all. Every one of you."
Dib ran from the classroom. The kids were just starting to regret what they had done, when someone said, "Yes, I hateses you all, Bitterses class. We hateses them, my preciousssssss."
The class laughed again. Dib would never get sympathy from them.
......
In the restroom, Dib locked himself in a stall and cried. He hated them, hated them, hated them. And he hated himself, for not being able to do anything about the pain. A permanent marker was on the ground, and Dib picked it up. On the wall, he wrote "Dib J. Carler: Loser of the Year."
Sighing, he left the stall. He could stop the pain somehow.
Somehow.
~*~
Okay, that's it for Chapter 2! I hope all my fans like it! Heh, I have fans . . .
So, now you see why this chapter is called "Funeral for the Living"? Good. Actually, I never planned on naming a chapter after me, and I didn't choose my name to go into the chapter. It just popped up.
And, no one really knows Dib's last name. I read on -the- Nickelodeon site, in the IZ section, (it takes so long to load!) that no one knows Dib's last name. You can go to the site and find out for yourself. It's under the info of either Dib, or Professor Membrane. I forgot which. But I know FOR A FACT that his last name isn't Membrane.
