Okee, second chapter.  Kinda longer than the other one, innit?  Ah well.  Well, go ahead and hit me over the head for not continuing the Sky is Crying, but man… I've got many ideas for it, but like, I have to write to get to the ideas.  The maintenance, the maintenance… I've also got another idea for another IZ fic (Yes.  Another.  I reeeally need to switch to a new fandom sometime…), and I'm gonna try and make it comedy.  But to see what it's about?  Ha! You have to waaaiiit…

Now that I think about it, you probably don't care about the updates… eheh.   ^^;;; okay, okay, no need to throw things.  Onward!  To the fic!

Disclaimer:  I think we all know I don't own it by now.  What?  You aren't sure?  Okay, I don't.  fine.   Understand now?  Invader Zim = NOT MINE.  Never shall be mine. Ect. Yeah.  Fic.  Now. 

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Dib sighed again, wishing he wasn't in the Moonlight Massacre Mansion before reaching into his trench coat pocket and switching the light on.  Flashing the flashlight around the room, Dib took in his surroundings, or what he could see with the pitiful light of his flashlight.

A stairway was the first thing that met Dib's gaze.  Dusty red carpet flowed down the steps, not ending until it reached the door.  Dib realized he was standing on the red carpet.  Turning the beam to the side, Dib sighted a wall with many portraits hanging on the wall.  They were creepy portraits, all the faces seemed to be scribbled out with a sharpie or some other kind of pen, or ripped out of the portrait Itself. 

Something seemed to be seriously wrong with this Mansion. 

Turning the beam to the floor, Dib traced the pattern on the floor, white marble and lapis lazuli seemed to create a pattern or a picture that was hidden under the red carpet.  On the white marble, there were some rust colored stains that looked sickeningly enough like light bloodstains. 

Dib changed the way the beam was facing again, this time to the right wall.  More portraits lined the walls, but a door was also visible on the wall.   Dib glanced around, trying to memorize where everything was without the light and failing brilliantly.   He wondered idly if they expected him to explore, or if he could stay in the greeting room all night long.

"It took you long enough to get here, Stinkbeast…"  A voice Dib recognized said, a smirk clearly imprinted on the tone of voice used. 

Dib yelped and jumped, waving his flashlight around before it landed on a figure at the top of the stairs with green skin, black antennae and red eyes.  "Zim!" Dib practically shrieked, outraged.  "What are you doing here?!"

Zim smirked, obviously hiding something behind his back.  "I'm here, Dib-human, to make sure you don't try to plot anything!  You must not try to outthink my superior Irken brain, for it will result in your end!  And I'd rather you stick around to see your planet's doomy fate." 

"It's never going to happen, Alien Scum!"  Dib yelled back.  "Earth will defeat you!" 

"Oh, whatever."  Zim dismissed Dib's announcement with a wave of his gloved hand.  Zim hadn't changed much in six years, he was still the same height and all that, which he attributed to his liver to keep incognito.  "Nobody believes your claims, Dib-human, not even the wormbabies you call 'friends' outside!"

Dib didn't have a comeback to that one, he knew nobody believed that Zim was an alien.  "Erm, well…" Dib started, but a sudden rattling of a door handle broke him out of his search for words.   Both Dib and Zim jumped. 

"Scared, Alien?"  Dib managed to say, no matter how shakily.  "Are you, human?"  Zim asked back, equally as shaky.  There was silence for a few seconds, and both Dib and Zim glanced at each other.  At this time, Dib was thankful for the fact that he and Zim could understand each other at times. 

"Er, want to stay in the same ro—" Dib started off, but Zim cut in, trying to stay indifferent.  "Yes, Dib-human, if only to keep your petty fears from destroying your fragile human mind.  I want to destroy that myself." 

And so, a few minutes found Dib and Zim sitting on the lower step of the stairs, Dib flashing the light beam from his flashlight around the room boredly.  The rattling of the door handle hadn't happened again, but both Zim and Dib felt like staying in the same room as the other.  The Mansion was, frankly, creepy. 

"Sooo…" Dib started an attempt at a conversation.   "Was it you who was the shadow in the second story window?" 

"What window?  I was never in a window, Dib-human."  Zim said, almost disgustedly.  "Your puny human imagination has been playing tricks on you again." 

Dib stopped flashing the flashlight around.   "It wasn't you?  I was sure I saw something in the second story window.  Human-shaped." 

Zim looked at Dib as if Dib was stupid.  "Your imagination, Dib.  That's all it was."

"But I swear…" Dib started, before pausing and thinking of something.  "Hey, Zim, if it wasn't you in the window… and we heard the door handle rattling… do you think that-?"

"There's someone else in the house…?"  Zim asked back, then snorted slightly.  "You know as well as I do, Dib-human, that nobody was left in the house after the massacre."

Dib raised an eyebrow.  "So you do read the newspapers.  Ah, it's probably just one of the homeless insane."

Both Dib and Zim were silent for a bit, neither looking at each other.   Both of them were getting bored.   So, finally, Zim spoke.  "Do you want to go—?" Zim started, then Dib cut in.  "Find the homeless guy?  Sure."

"Alright."

"Okay."

"… Are you going to get up first, Dib-human, or am I going to have to?"

---

Dag sighed, a puff of cigarette smoke blooming out of his mouth along with his breath.  Leaning against Dib's rust-red truck, Dag brought the cigarette back to his mouth to take a long drag off of it. 

"Think he's spooked in there?" Cyrus asked Dag, Sydney's arm around his shoulder. 

"Dib? Nah, he's fine, for now."  Dag muttered, spewing out more cigarette smoke. 

Rex grinned from his spot by Lydia, both were sitting in the back of the truck.  "Got a plan, Dag?"

"When has Dag not had a plan, Rexxie?"  Sydney asked, smirking slightly and raised an eyebrow at him.  "So, what we gonna do, Dag?"

Dag breathed another cloud of smoke, which floated up in a ghostly way, Illuminated by the full moon's silky light, before dissipating.  "Sneak in the back way, locate Dib and scare the shit out of him.  This place ain't haunted, just a house where some inbred family went crazy and disappeared."

"Creepy setting, though.  I like it."  Lydia commented from the bed of the truck. 

Sydney snorted in amusement.  "Course ya would, Lyds."

Dag tossed his cigarette on the ground and stomped it out, pushing himself off of the truck.  "So, we got a plan?"

"You've got a plan, and we're gonna follow it."  Cyrus corrected, grinning.  "And we're all in, mate."

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"They've got, er, dead people, in the back yard."  Was the first thing that came out of Cyrus's mouth as soon as he got to the backyard.  Lydia rolled her eyes in amusement.  "It's a private cemetery, you dumb-ass."

"Whatever."   Rex grumbled.  "Lets just get in the house. I don't like cemeteries."  

Sydney made a cooing noise, and asked in a high pitched voice, "Aww, is widdle Rexxie scawed?"  Dag snickered slightly and Rex's ears tinted pink. 

"No!"  Rex exclaimed, annoyed.  Shoving his hands into his leather bomber jacket's pockets, Rex grumbled, then said "Lets just get in the fuckin' mansion." 

"Hey, don't get so worked up, Rexxie."  Cyrus said, smirking as he used Sydney's nickname for Rex. 

Lydia shivered slightly, it was slightly cold outside.  A chilling breeze brushed by, leaves winding around the group's feet.   "Can we just get this over with?"  She asked, annoyed.

"Alright! Hey, alright.  Look, I think there's a door over there…" Cyrus said, squinting at the wall of the mansion.  Past the first line of randomly placed gravestones, there was a door on the Mansion Wall.  A balcony was placed above the door, for the second story.  The door had a few bullet holes in it, which was strange, to say the least. 

Lydia was the first to step into the private cemetery, steel-toed boots trying to avoid any graves but failing every once in a while.   Rex was soon to follow, then Cyrus, Sydney and Dag.  The rest of the group didn't have as much respect for the dead as Lydia did, it seemed, as they stepped on the graves, uncaring. 

As the first one to reach the door, Lydia was the first one to try and open the door.  "It's locked."  She remarked calmly before stepping away from the door.  

"Let me try."  Sydney said, pulling a pin from her hair and kneeling before the door handle.  In a few seconds, Sydney murmured "ah!" and there was a quiet click originating from the door.  

Dag stared accusingly at Sydney as she stood up and replaced the pin in her hair. Cyrus opened the door and went in as Sydney was rearranging her hair, and Rex soon followed.  Lydia followed Rex, and soon Dag and Sydney were the only ones standing there.   "So that's how you got into my bedroom!  Damnit, Syd!"  Dag growled.

Sydney gave Dag a wicked smile.  "Oh come on Dag, you know you liked it."  She said simply before walking inside. 

Dag grumbled a bit, kicking the ground and dawdling before entering the mansion.  He knew the place wasn't haunted, so it didn't bug him that he was alone.  Although, the graveyard was a little freaky.  And the shadows from the trees didn't look natural. 

Mentally, Dag kicked himself.  Listening to Dib's paranormal rantings and rambles was making him become paranoid, Dag decided before opening the Mansion's back door wide and stepping in.  Pulling the lighter he kept for lighting his cigarettes out of his pocket, Dag flicked on the lighter and glanced around.  Oh great, directly inside the halls split. 

Ah well, it was only a mansion, right?  If he got lost, somehow he'd find his way out and then stay in the truck, waiting for the rest.  He could lie about getting lost, couldn't he?

Dag randomly chose a hallway, and went left instead of right.  Walking down the corridor, Dag decided the mansion was a bit creepier when one only had a lighter to light the way.  Shadows danced along with the small flame from the lighter, paintings and photos adorning the walls suddenly looking scarier.  It didn't help that every portrait had its face torn out or scribbled over. 

Continuing down the hall, a feeling crept up the back of Dag's neck, which he credited to the darkness of the hall.  The place wasn't haunted, wasn't haunted, ghosts weren't real… just as Dag was reassuring himself of that fact, he heard glass breaking, up ahead of him.  There was also a quiet thump that followed soon after.  Dag really wanted to run back to the car at that moment, but he shoved the fear down.  Ghosts were not real. 

Dag did run, but towards where the noise had come from.  He soon reached a bend in the hallway, and he turned down the bend.  He came to more hallway, this time on the side of the house.  Windows lined the left wall, a ghostly light filtering through the wavy glass.  Dag walked, down the corridor, looking at each window.  He reached another bend in the hallway, and turned back, staring at the last window.  Only a few shards were in the window frame, sticking up from the frame like the defiant shards they were.  What made Dag stare longer, was the fact that there seemed to be a dark substance on the glass shards.

Dag stepped forwards, ignoring the crackle of glass under his feet, reaching the hand clenched tightly now around the lighter out to view the glass.  Something dark, slightly gooey, was sitting on the glass shards.  It took him a second before he realized the substance.  Blood. 

Dag's heart beat faster, was he imagining this?  Why would there be blood?  Dag darted away from the window frame, staring at it almost like in a dream.  Suddenly, making his heart beat faster, Dag heard a groan.  A deep, moaning groan.  He couldn't locate where the groan came from, and it scared him… Dag was breathing faster, and he backed up slowly from the window.  Dag's back pressed into something, but what?  The wall was further away, he couldn't possibly have hit it, could he?  

"Oh Christ…"  Dag managed to whisper before two arms wrapped around his torso and a pain exploded at his neck.  Dag yelped, feeling a warm liquid start to drip down into his shirt and down his chest.  It took him a second, a pain-clouded second to realize what the warm liquid was, and when he did, his fate was sealed.  It was his own blood, he realized, before more white-hot biting agony struck his neck and everything faded to black. 

---

"Hey, did you hear something?"  Lydia asked, wrapping her own arm around Rex's waist and binding the two closer to each other.  Rex grinned.  "Hearin' stuff now, babe?"  he asked Lydia.

"I didn't hear anything, Lyds." Cyrus said from in front of the pair.  Sydney was in front of the group now, having her hairpin to unlock doors and such.  So the line of people went, Sydney, Cyrus, Rex and Lydia. 

Lydia glanced around the dark narrow hallway, shivering slightly at the portraits with the ripped out faces.  "I just thought I heard something, I guess."

Rex glanced behind him, Lydia's talk of hearing noises freaked him out slightly.  The only light in the hallway was that of Cyrus's flashlight and Sydney's reading light, so Lydia and Rex were back in the shadows, and behind them was dark and the occasional reflection.  Nothing else, he reminded himself.

The bunch continued walking for a while, Lydia breaking away from Rex and walking in front of him.  The group came to a door, and Sydney paused to take out her hairpin again.  Sydney froze, however, in the middle of detangling the pin from her hair.  "Hey, d'you hear that?"  She asked the rest of the group.  

Lydia was the second one to hear it.  A noise, soft, coming from behind them, like chains dragging on the floor.  Rex and Cyrus heard it as well, and Cyrus was the first to panic, Whispering to Sydney frantically, "Syd, please, get the door open! Now!"

Sydney quickly pulled the pin from her hair, a few copper strands coming out with the pin.  Sydney turned to the door speedily and started working on the lock, fiddling with the pin as she whispered, "Come on, come on…"

Suddenly, the noise stopped.  Everyone turned  to look into the shadows, while they had previously been watching as Sydney tried to unlock the door.   From the shadows, there came silence. 

Cyrus gulped, trying to slow his quickly beating heart; he had been afraid for a second.  It was just the wind, or something.  It had to be.  Rex's breath was still quick, the dragging chains, he was sure they weren't just something they'd all imagined, and he was closest to the shadows.  Sydney was moving her hands back to unlock the door while warily looking at the shadows, and Lydia was shaking, staring into the shadows… something was there.  She knew it.  Something inhuman. 

Everybody went tense as a raspy intake of air was heard from the shadows.  There was a sudden hiss of air, and something with a dry, harsh voice said simply, "Hungryyy…"

There was silence for a second before something, a body that seemed sewn together, shot out of the shadowed hall, making everybody scream with surprise, and grabbed Rex around the neck.  There was enough time for Cyrus, Lydia and Sydney to hear a cry of "Help…!" emit from Rex's crushed throat before the thing came from the shadows dragged him back into the darkness.  There was a sickening wet crunch that signified the end of Rex's life.

Lydia was screaming, a look of permanent horror plastered across her face, as Cyrus yelled, "Open the door!! Open the fuckin' door!" Sydney was working as fast as she possibly could, jiggling the door handle as she tried to trip the mechanism with the hairpin. 

There were a few sick munching noises from in the shadows, and as Lydia screamed, over and over again, a puddle of blood, getting larger and larger, crept towards what was left of the group.  Cyrus finally took something in hand and pushed Lydia behind him, since the gothic girl wouldn't move towards the door by herself.  Standing between the shadows and the girls, Cyrus had a thought; at least he'd die to protect.

The munching noises stopped.  Another raspy intake of breath, and another one-word sentence was heard: "Moreee…"

Both Lydia and Sydney screamed as the thing from the shadows shot out again, not two but three arms wrapping around Cyrus in a deadly embrace before pulling the male back into the shadows.  There was a scraping from the shadows, no wet-sounding crunch yet, and Cyrus's voice rang out in a futile last cry; "Sydne—!"

The word wasn't even fully formed before the almost same sickening crunch as before was heard again.  Cyrus's last cry fell flat.   He was dead. 

Finally, there was a click and the door was open.  Sydney opened the door wide, not even grabbing her hairpin, and screamed, "Run, goddamnit!!"

Lydia held her hand over her mouth in horror as more blood dripped from the shadows.  She didn't move, until Sydney grabbed Lydia's arm in a death grip and dragged the goth girl through the door, slamming it with a loud bang.  Before the door even closed, both girls were off running. 

Back in the hallway, the thing in the shadows stood up slowly from where it had left the corpses.  Slinking forward, the useless chains around its feet dragged along behind it.  To the door, out the door, hungry. 

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