It was another long day at school for Dib. Another day of boring lectures on information he didn't care for. Another day of disgusting, inedible lunches that should've never passed as food. Another day of slipping into bathrooms to avoid the bullies waiting to grab him in the hallways, and then still ending up with a wedgie anyway. And, the most important, annoying little detail, another day of Zim.

The short, little Irken was up to no good again, cackling obnoxiously throughout the last period lecture and grating every one of Dib's last nerves. His eyes never left the alien, not even to blink for fear that he would miss an important detail that could reveal what the alien's next plan was. His eyes hurt from how long he stared. How long had it been since he last blinked? Five minutes? Ten? Longer? He didn't know, and he didn't want to think about it. He forced himself to keep all his thoughts trained on Zim and his yet-to-be-revealed plan.

It had been three years since Zim had arrived on Earth. Three years since Dib's life had transformed from fantasies and theories into cold, hard facts. He had always known aliens were real, much like how he knew the paranormal was real, but he could never prove it to the world around him; especially ghosts, they had this nasty habit of disappearing on him whenever Dib tried to expose them, and they never showed up on film, which was annoying. Not only that, but those Dib tried to show his discoveries to wrote him off as crazy or would come up with some bizarre reason as to why his discovery wasn't real. His dad was the main person behind those arguments.

When Zim showed up, Dib was sure his luck had changed. He was sure he would be able to finally prove that he was actually right; that he wasn't crazy. That first day the Irken showed up, his disguise was nothing more than a wig and violet contact lenses paired with a weird pink dress, gloves, boots and leggings (which Dib had come to understand as the typical Irken Invader uniform, sans the wig and contacts). He had green skin, no nose or ears, three fingers on each hand, and razor-like teeth that looked strangely like a zipper, at least to Dib. He was certain that he could get his classmates to see the obvious alien sitting among them, but they were oblivious, believing Zim's lie about a "skin condition" being the reason his skin was green and had no ears or nose. It was baffling.

But it didn't deter him. He knew if he could get the alien out of his disguise, he would prove to the world what Zim was: an alien, a freak, a monster. On paper, the concept didn't sound so hard, but the execution ended up being harder than he ever thought possible. Zim was a formidable foe, matching his moves just like how Dib matched his. They were always ready for each other when one threatened to take the other down, which happened to be Dib taking down Zim in most cases. However, even if it wasn't hard for Dib to get a simple photo of Zim exposing his antennae and magenta eyes, it was the fact that the human race didn't seem to care about it.

Dib could handle Zim and his plans to take over the world. He'd survived a giant water-balloon fight, a forced organ transplant, weird time jumps with his life at stake, a wormhole, a giant hamster the size of Godzilla, the list went on. Hell, Dib had even gone to space and flew the planet Mercury (which was actually a satellite in disguise) and battled Zim, who was flying the planet Mars (another disguised satellite) in an attempt to destroy the Earth. Dib didn't consider himself one to brag, but he didn't call himself "The protector of Earth" for nothing, after all.

No, Dib could easily handle Zim, but what he found himself not being able to handle so well was this weird…emptiness inside him. At first, Dib thought it was his body reacting weirdly to the weird organ transplant Zim had put him through years ago in elementary skool, where his lungs were replaced by a moo box; not one of Dib's proudest moments. However, he knew that wasn't the reason. That was something physical, and his thoughts were put at ease when he did a few CT scans on himself. This feeling seemed to be more…emotional.

Dib couldn't recall when he had first noticed the emptiness's existence, but the more he thought about it he was able to feel it earlier and earlier in his memories, as far back as his early childhood, probably. He wasn't exactly sure how to describe it other than just as emptiness, but he found that the best way to think about it was like there was a hole in his chest. He could function normally like anyone else, but he didn't feel complete, per say; he could never feel truly happy. And no matter what he did, whether it be doing well in skool, working on Tak's broken ship that was still in his garage, or fighting Zim, nothing seemed to fill it; not completely, at least.

Dib shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts and cringed when he blinked for the first time in what felt like hours. Tears had started streaming down his face in an attempt to keep his eyeballs from drying out, and he hadn't noticed how much they burned his aching eyes until he had closed them. He hissed quietly, flinching as he rubbed his eyes roughly with his palms. Even doing something as simple as watching Zim was physically straining on his body.

"What's the matter, Dib-Thing?" Zim's voice interrupted the teacher's lecture. "Are you cowering in fear already at Zim's plan? I haven't even revealed what it is yet!" His maniacal laughter echoed throughout the room.

Dib could feel an entire classroom's worth of eyes on him even though he was still rubbing his own. He cursed under his breath and managed to meet Zim's gaze, who was sporting an evil grin and flashing his sharp teeth. Dib scowled and clenched his fists, trying to ignore the tears still lightly falling from his eyes. "Shut up, Space Boy. You're not taking over Earth!"

Dib thought he sounded threatening, even if the Irken was never intimidated by him, but he could tell from the snickers that floated about the room that he didn't look threatening.

"Wow, never thought you were a crier, Dib," someone snickered. "Need a tissue?"

"I'm not crying! My eyes hurt!" Dib knew better than to respond, but the words slipped out before he could stop them. The class was laughing as soon as he finished his sentence.

Zim laughed along with them. "That's right! Cry, Dib-monkey, for soon Zim will forsake you to my most diabolical plan yet!"

"Zim, be quiet before I send you to the underground classroom!" Miss Bitters scolded. Even though he and his classmates were no longer in elementary skool, Miss Bitters was still their teacher. When Dib questioned her, she had mentioned something about budget cuts and not being able to hire teachers to teach all the classes. Thus, Miss Bitters still watched over them, even years later in hi skool.

Dib wiped the tears from his face and composed himself. He'd love to fling his tears at Zim and burn his stupid, water-sensitive skin, but he didn't want to look like an even bigger freak than he was already labeled as by his apathetic peers. Zim went back to cackling quietly and glared at Dib through squinted eyes, not even bothering to hide the evil smile that graced his face. Dib returned the look with a scowl, determined to match the Irken just like he did every other day and hoping that he wouldn't shed any more tears in the process. Just another long day.

Dib punched the brick wall of the nearest building when Zim disappeared around a corner, and then immediately regretted that decision when it started throbbing. Normally Dib enjoyed playing the hero and the thrill of chasing Zim around the city, putting a stop to his evil schemes. However, he found it incredibly frustrating when Zim used his own Irken technology against him, leaving him in the dust. He was jealous of Zim's PAK legs, his spider-like limb enhancers, and how purposeful they could be. Dib would never admit it out loud, but he would often fantasize about what it would be like to use technology like that. If he ever got Zim on an autopsy table, his PAK would be the thing he would spend the most time experimenting on.

"I'll get you, you alien scum! I'll find out what you're planning soon, Zim, and when I do, I'm going to stop you!" Dib shouted at the dead end that Zim had scaled over. He was positive he heard the space bug's laughter as he cradled his hand and headed home.

It took him over an hour to finally reach the front steps of his house, and when he finally did, he all but collapsed when he opened the door. It was already hot outside, and the walk halfway across town in jeans, boots, and a trench coat had him dripping with sweat. His back ached from having to lug his heavy schoolbag, and his hand was throbbing so much he feared he broke it.

Dib relished the cool air conditioning that greeted him when he finally walked into his house. He slammed the door shut and leaned heavily against it, catching his breath and shedding his coat to relieve his body of heat.

"Finally crawled back home after Zim beat the crap outa you?" Gaz called from the couch.

Dib rolled his eyes. "I didn't get beat up, Gaz."

She grumbled in response, and Dib heard her fingers tapping away at the controls of her Gameslave. Another typical interaction with his sister. Dib scowled at the tuft of purple hair that was visible over the back of the couch, but didn't bother to say anything more, ignoring the weird ache in his chest at the mention of his failed attempt to stop Zim. Or maybe it was because Gaz hadn't bothered to ask how he was. He shook his head.

He peeled himself off the door and made his way to the kitchen. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until his stomach was screaming at him to eat something. He shouldn't be surprised; his eating habits were atrocious. He never ate breakfast, instead replacing it with a cup of coffee to wake him up faster, never ate lunch because of how poisonous the food was (he swore up and down to Gaz that every time he got food poisoning was because he had given in and decided to eat lunch that day), and dinner was more often than not just a granola bar because there wasn't anything else to eat in the house. Gaz often ordered pizza, but that was mainly for herself and Dib wasn't risking his hands, or life, just to satisfy his hunger. At times, Gaz was kind enough to leave him one slice of pizza, but he learned not to depend on her for that.

So, he wasn't surprised when he opened the refrigerator and only found some fruit with questionable freshness. He heaved sigh and closed the door. Of course dad hadn't bothered to go out and get them things. It was so far from unusual that Dib would argue it was the norm. Sure, their dad made a lot of money that he shared with his kids, but most of it went towards their college funds that they were not allowed to touch. Though, Dib bet he could hack into that account and pull a few hundred dollars from it, just enough to not tip off his dad. He knew better than to mess with that, though.

His made his way out of the kitchen, ignoring the protests that his stomach gave him, and made his way upstairs. Once in his room, he threw his coat and bag into the closet and kicked off his boots. He groaned as he flopped onto his chair, his legs like jelly. He'd get back at Zim for the day he had, oh he would make sure of that.

Dib flinched as he checked his hand again. It still throbbed painfully and was most likely broken. He had to set it if he wanted to reduce the pain, but it would be difficult with one hand, and he knew Gaz wouldn't help, not that she cared to anyway.

Dib pulled out one of the med kits he "borrowed" from his dad's lab and got to work. Forty-five minutes and a few shed tears later, the wrist was mostly bandaged right, at least as good as it would get with only one working hand. Dib tossed the med kit back into the drawer and pulled up his email. He had an email from the Swollen Eyeballs, his secret organization he was apart of. Dib caught his breath. It had been a while since he'd reported to them, have they contacted him to tell him he's going to be kicked out for not catching Zim?

He shook his head. "That's stupid. Why would they do that? They invited me in because they believed me about Zim, why would they suddenly dump everything I've worked hard to prove just because it's taking longer than necessary to catch him? I shouldn't be worried. I'm not worried. I'm…talking to myself again, aren't I? I have got to stop doing that…"

Dib shook his head again and opened the email.

Dear Agent Mothman,

It has been a while since we have last heard from you. We wanted to know how your alien situation was going. Have you anything of note to report on your progress? We need proof that you are still willing to help our cause.

If you don't have anything of note to report, then you will need to find something else to report on. Failure to do so and we will be forced to drop you from the organization. We only have room for those willing to hunt, not those who think they want to. Email us within the next forty-eight hours of your progress or we will terminate you.

Agent Darkbooty

The message was sent twenty-four hours ago.

Dib cursed and nearly slammed his injured fist on his desk, stopping himself just before he did that. He was frustrated with himself in getting so worked up about Zim that he hadn't even bothered to be concerned with the Eyeballs. When had that happened? It was so much easier when he was younger and not stressed about so many things.

He sighed again. "Don't worry. You got plenty of things on Zim to report. Plenty. You'll send them in, and the Eyeballs won't have to worry about…I'm talking to myself again…"

Dib groaned and got up from his chair, going over to his closet and pulling out boxes and boxes of Zim-related evidence. He would definitely be able to find something in one of those boxes that was of worth to the Eyeballs. He had to.

The first hour seemed promising with finding evidence, but it became clear rather quickly that most of the evidence Dib had collected was complete crap. He had photos of Zim, sure, but not incriminating photos. He knew he had photos of Zim both in and out of his disguise, but every photo he had was blurry. At least half of them weren't even shots of Zim's face, instead being random captures of his limbs. He found a couple showing Zim's antennae or magenta eyes, but the shots were out of focus or didn't have enough of Zim in the picture to be able to tell without a doubt that it was him. Another two hours and Dib was kicking the boxes of his hard-earned "evidence" across the room and burying his face in his knees.

Three years of hard work and he had nothing to show for it. Dib was beside himself, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to scream curse words at the ceiling for an hour or curl up and cry again. He decided neither would benefit him in this situation, even if he felt like he would end up doing one of those options at some point tonight. In a situation like this, he'd normally try to convince himself to go out and search for Zim right at that moment, demand to know his plan of world domination, and then proceed to stop him while taking a few photos of the alien along the way. However, Dib didn't feel like setting himself up for another failure that night.

He wasn't sure how long he sat on the floor for, but he finally decided to get up and sit somewhere more comfortable when his ass started to go numb. It was dark outside now, so Dib turned on his desk lamp. He could smell pizza from downstairs, which meant that Gaz had ordered some and probably had no intention of sharing with him. He was fine with that, even if his stomach screamed that he shouldn't be.

He sat down in his chair again and pulled up a paranormal website. If he wasn't going to report his findings on Zim, then he was going to have to find something else and fast. He had less than twenty-four hours, after all. Another few hours were spent combing through various websites about haunted objects, haunted houses, vampire or bigfeets sightings, he even found a few websites about Mothman and where to find him. He would've liked reporting on Mothman, but his places of sighting were no where near where Dib lived. He didn't have the time to get on a bus to go chase him. He needed something quick and nearby. Hell, he'd even reinvestigate Chickenfoot.

When the clock on his computer showed 2 a.m., Dib decided that he should turn in for the night. He wanted to stay up and find something to report on just so the deadline wasn't pestering him in his dreams, but he found that it was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open and his head up. He sighed and went to close out the website when a new comment popped up on the site he was on detailing information about old haunted houses. It was from an anonymous user.

"Heard there was a creepy old well not far from the suburbs up north outside town," the message read. "It's supposedly so deep that if you fell into it, you'd see a sky full of stars in the middle of the day."

Dib raised an eyebrow at that. There were plenty of old wells around here, and some of them ran pretty deep. Nothing unusual, let alone paranormal, about that.

He was about to close the website again when another comment popped up, supposedly from the same anonymous user. "The well is supposedly near this old abandoned house that hasn't been touched in years. Heard that kids went missing around there. Creepy shit."

Dib made a pensive face. Children going missing. That wasn't exactly paranormal, but it was intriguing. Children were interesting cases if they're discovered to be connected to the paranormal. They often end up being very powerful spirits and could easily take down a professional paranormal investigator if they were not careful. But again, just because a child goes missing doesn't mean it was paranormal.

Another message. "The house is said to be haunted. No one's touched it in decades, and it ought to be a pretty awesome site to investigate."

"Really now? Are you trying to entice me, website?" Dib mused, a soft smile spreading on his lips, before quickly dropping it. "You better not answer me, or I swear I'm chucking you out the window."

Luckily, the computer nor the anonymous user on the website didn't answer him back, which Dib breathed a sigh of relief for. He sat back in his chair and read over the messages again and again. He vaguely knew where the user was talking about, he passed by the main road that led out of town when he walked to skool in the morning, so it wasn't too far. But again, nothing about this screamed paranormal, aside from this supposed haunted house where children happened to disappear. Even if it was too good to be true, he couldn't email the Eyeballs back with anonymous comments as evidence. If he wanted to test the validity of these claims, he'd have to check the place out himself.

Dib gave a satisfied nod and bookmarked the website so he could go back to it for reference later and striped out of his clothes. He had forgotten to change out of them earlier that day and take a shower, and he cringed as he finally realized how gross he was. However, because of how late it was, combined with how exhausted he felt and that he didn't want to disturb Gaz, he decided that he'd deal with his hygiene in the morning. He pulled on a relatively clean shirt and some boxer shorts, turned out the light on his desk, and crawled on the covers. "I'll check out the well and the house tomorrow…" he yawned, his eyes sliding closed as he flopped onto the pillow. He was snoring within the next minute.