The next week passed as a hazy blot on Dib's conscience. Nothing had changed, exactly. He still ate, drank, slept. He still went to high skool each day, and his grades hadn't improved to their former standard. But his laptop remained idle, and the nagging demands from SEN had gone unanswered, which was something new. Gaz had of course noticed something amiss; suddenly she wasn't locked in a constant struggle for the remote control when it was time for Mysterious Mysteries (although she still guarded it for safety precautions). Dib hadn't even bothered to answer her snappish inquiries as to why the hell his annoying voice hadn't been pummelling her head to bits in the last few days. Because indeed he had barely talked – out loud.

The fifteen year old raised her eyebrow momentarily as Dib suddenly stopped circling the room anticlockwise, and started circling it clockwise instead. It was infuriating. When he wasn't circling the room with a puzzled frown on his face, he was slouching on the floor or draped over the furniture with a puzzled frown on his face. Or staring off into air, apparently in a catatonic state. Even though her brother wasn't making noises out of his mouth, she could tell he was secretly talking to himself. She wasn't as deaf as the idiot must think – of course she could hear his mind ticking over like that! Dib just didn't seem to know the meaning of quiet. But suddenly he was trying to confuse her with this… abnormal… thinking! (it didn't matter that she was his sister and bound to find everything the 'insane' boy did, abnormal.

It was time to take action. There were only seven levels of Vampire Piggy Slayer IX before she reached the final boss; she didn't have all day! She gave a low, agitated growl. Somehow Dib seemed to brush it right off with inexplicable ease (because it was impossible that he hadn't heard it. Just impossible.) Noting this, Gaz cocked an eyebrow, delivered a vicious backhanded side cut to the Vampire PiggyTM on her right and grumbled a little louder.

"Dib… I'm TRYING to concentrate. Would you PLEASE take your paranormally large head SOMEWHERE ELSE?"

No response whatsoever.

Gaz gaped at her brother in astonishment as scores of fanged, flying pigs descended upon her unchallenged.

Over spaghetti (canned) and meatballs (canned), Dib continued to not react to the daggers Gaz was glaring at him over the dinner table. Even when she repeatedly 'hmph'ed loudly at him, her older sibling didn't look up from the meatball he was so studiously poking. His quiet, contemplative gaze ground on Gaz's nerves like she'd just ground her spaghetti into dust. She gritted her teeth, stress beginning to take hold. Her golden eyes suddenly became more luminous, her hair fading to a dark purply-black. Unconsciously she tapped a finger on the tabletop.

Dib looked up at her, suddenly seeming jaded and world-weary.

"Gaz, would you please stop tapping? It makes it hard to think."

That was when the younger girl lost it, her words suddenly dripping with enough venom to put a boomslang to shame.

"Great! You know what, I'll stop if YOU stop! Please, just try to do something normal for a change!"

As if the tone wasn't enough, the girl rose into the air, her eyes glowing a fierce yellow and her hair turning to violet flame.

Dib screamed in terror and bolted up to his room.

His sister dropped the demon act and levitated gently back into her chair, smiling. All was right again.

Once locked away from Gaz, the teen moaned and slumped into his desk chair. A couple of the angry purple spirits that had followed into the room had whisked themselves out the window, so he relaxed. His laptop sat eagerly in front of him, but he couldn't do much more than eye it dully. His teachers had noticed the decline in his productivity this week, and he winced when the chair back brushed against a spider bite. Those UC spiders probably did have venom in them, he decided, as he'd felt catatonic and hazy as the week wore on. It was a familiar feeling.

Three years ago, when he'd confirmed Zim's death before his own eyes, his entire world seemed to grind to a halt. It was a cliché that had had no meaning to him until then. The weeks he spent in the hospital, he spent in a haze, caught between dream and reality. A world without Zim just couldn't make sense. Very slowly he'd learned to adapt to the truth, and when finally released from hospital, with legs fully functional for the first time after the pipe accident, he marched out with hope in his heart that he could get through this. It had been hard, but he'd managed it. Now it was the exact opposite. Dib would lie on his bed unable to sleep, tossing in his mind the memory of that afternoon. It seemed surreal and frightening again. But what stuck with him all through the night was the look in Zim's eyes right before Dib had left. It was just like the look he'd seen before his own base came down on top of him; he looked helpless and scared. And pleading. Like he actually wanted to be saved by his enemy. Something less like an Invader, Dib had never imagined. Now, why had he gotten that look again. Dib searched his brain and came up with nothing, trying instead to block it out. But the image of pleading alien eyes was a stubborn one.

Furiously, the teen flipped onto his stomach from where he'd been lying on his bed, slamming the pillow down over his head and reaching up to turn off the bedlamp. He needed an early night if he was to have any remote chance at appeasing the Bitters-demon tomorrow. She was already looking at worse punishments than the Underground Classroom, and he needed some kind of school certificate if he ever wanted to escape this hellhole and find a decent career…

The following day he didn't go to skool.