Zim did not regret his decision, rather, he embraced it. Cheem was right. What did he have to do now? All of his goals had either failed or at least partially succeeded, and he did not have the desire to continue fighting a losing battle, both within himself and with the authorities in the city.

He already felt tired now, and he rubbed at his eyes, just needing to stay awake for a while longer yet. He still had one final thing to do, and then he could allow himself to rest.

He wandered back into Dib's room, and the human immediately pulled out a gun from his pants and pointed it at the Irken. "Don't take another step, Zim." He warned.

Zim immediately recognized the weapon as his own. "You still have that, huh? Why didn't you give it to the authorities?"

"I wanted one last line of defense in case you found me again," Dib explained, still not lowering the weapon. "And you did."

The Irken did not say anything in response, only tossing the empty bottle towards the human. It landed in Dib's lap, and he looked down at it in confusion. "I don't understand. What does this mean?"

Zim nodded towards it. "Pick it up. Then you will see."

Still confused, Dib lowered the gun. "This is another trick, isn't it?"

"No tricks, I swear," Zim said, holding up his hands in surrender. "Just truths."

Staring down at the bottle with an unsure expression, Dib slowly lowered the gun and placed it in his lap, glancing at Zim once more. He picked up the bottle, shaking it. He froze, twisting the lid and looking into it.

"I took them all," Zim explained, "just a minute ago. I don't imagine that I have long left now, if everything works out."

Dib looked back up with a shocked expression. "Wha… Zim, why the hell would you do that?!"

Zim rubbed his eyes again with his good hand. He was so tired. "Because he told me to, and he's right. I should be with him."

Dib stared at him for a moment longer, and Zim could see him processing this new information. Finally, the human sighed and swung his legs over the side of the bed, standing up and stretching his limbs. "Well, I guess if you're really dying, then you shouldn't go alone."

"I won't be alone," Zim said, as Cheem walked up and stood next to him. "I'll have him."

Dib looked to where Zim was staring and he sighed. "Zim, I mean someone who's real, someone with flesh and blood. Someone who is still BREATHING!"

"He IS real!" Zim argued, though he knew it was pointless to do so. Then he had an idea. "Would you like to meet him?"

"I.. how would that be possible?" Dib asked, growing slightly curious with this topic. "Do I have to get as drugged up as you?"

Zim shook his head. "No, but I was working on an invention to see ghosts before I left." He reached into his PAK."I put it in my PAK to work on it if I ever happened to be away from my base for an extended period of time, and I tinkered with it here and there during my few weeks away from Urth."

He rummaged around in his PAK. "I think I still have it in here… found it."

He pulled it out and looked it over for damage, nodding to himself when he was finished. "Seems to be alright."

Dib stared at it in amazement. It looked just like a normal pair of swim goggles, but the lenses were dark red and the sides of the contraption were blinking a green color.

Zim stretched out his hand towards Dib. "Put these on, please."

"Are… are they going to explode or something when I do?" Dib wonders aloud, sill slightly suspicious. Knowing Zim, this could be another trick to kill him.

"No, I promise you, this is genuine," Zim said, slightly annoyed now, hand still outstretched towards the human. His body felt weak, and he could feel his energy being slowly sucked out of his body. "Just take it."

Dib did so, albeit rather hesitantly, and slowly put them on.

"Press the button on the side," Zim instructed, his voice slightly slurred with exhaustion. "It's blue."

The human did this as well, and the lenses of the goggles glowed a bright green after a few seconds of waiting. He looked around. "I don't understand how this is supposed to work, Zim. I don't see anyth… woah."

Through the tinted red of the lenses, he saw another Irken standing next to Zim, about the same height. The uniform it wore had a green Irken insignia on the shoulders and chest area, and there was a big hole in the middle of his chest. The belt he wore had a gun holster, and Dib had to admit to himself that the weapon looked pretty sick, much better than the one Zim had.

The other Irken noticed him staring, and they locked gazes. The one called Cheem grinned at him, lifting his hand and saluting.

"Can you see him now?" Zim asked, pulling Dib out of his stunned surprise.

Dib was shocked. "Uh… yeah. Yes, I can see him. He's standing right next to you."

Zim nodded. "That's good." He reached into his PAK again, pulling out something that looked like a hearing aid. "Put this in your ear, and you will hear him."

Dib hurriedly did that as well, his fascination consuming any lingering feelings of distrust. "Oh my god, Zim, this could be your best invention yet!"

Zim shrugged. "It's okay, I guess."

Cheem gave him a look of displeasure.

"What?" Zim shrugged again. "It's true. I mean, you've made better stuff for me when you were alive."

Cheem's expression changed to a somber one. "Yeah I guess that's true," he said, turning away to stare at Dib some more. "Can he hear me?"

"I think so." Zim replied. He turned to Dib. "Can you hear him now?"

Dib quickly nodded, a grin on his face. "Hell yeah, I can! This is so exciting!"

"Alright then," Zim said, clearing his throat. "Well let's get formalities out of the way. Dib, this is Cheem, my friend."

Cheem grinned. "Pleasure to meet you, Dib human." He gestured to his ruined uniform. "Please excuse my appearance, one does not tend to look the best when they've been dead for a few months."

Zim chuckled lightly.

Then a very vulgar smell hit Dib full force, and he covered his nose and gagged. "Damn, Zim, your friend smells like a decayed corpse! How the hell do you stomach the smell?"

"Am I really that bad?" Cheem asked, turning to Zim. "You never told me that I smelled so terrible."

Zim shrugged. "Well, you're not exactly real, so… I didn't think it was very important information."

"It's ALWAYS important!" Cheem argued. "I have to look my best, and I can't do that if I smelled like I just crawled out of the sewer!"

"You smell WORSE than a sewer!" Dib said, gagging and retching a few feet away. "Holy Jesus!"

"Enough with the theatrics, Dib!" Zim snapped weakly. "You're being rude!"

"I can't be rude to something that doesn't really exist, Zim!"

Zim rolled his eyes, and walked out of the hospital, Dib and Cheem following.

Dib turned back to Cheem, trying really hard to ignore the smell. "So, how long were you and Zim friends?"

"Our whole lives, basically," Cheem responded. "We did everything together. Why do you ask?"

"Zim kind of changed after he got back to my planet," Dib explained, pain in his voice. "He wasn't the alien I know before, he was like a whole new person. Different."

"Different how?" Cheem asked, shooting a brief glance at Zim.

Dib sighed, eyes downcast. "Well, for starters, he made me watch as he killed my father and sister, my family who raised me."

"Dang, that sucks," Cheem said. "But unfortunately I cannot relate to your situation."

"You're better off without them!" Zim snapped. "They were horrible to you!"

"Why not?" Dib asked, ignoring Zim's outburst and focusing on the conversation with Cheem. "Every alien has a family."

Cheem shook his head. "Not us. See, we Irkens don't have family. We are cloned from a vat, and once we're born, we're set right to work."

He glanced over at Zim as they walked, who was struggling to keep moving. "How do you feel, Zim?"

"Extremely tired," was the answer. "I can't have long."

"You don't look like you do," Cheem replied. He turned to Dib. "Are you ready for the Change?"

"What are you talking about?" Dib asked, extremely confused. "I don't know what that is."

"He hasn't told you yet?" Cheem asked rhetorically. He started laughing. "Oh man, it's gonna be great! He's totally gonna eat your face!"

Dib turned to Zim. "What the hell is he talking about, Zim?"

"That's none… of your concern," Zim responded, out of breath from walking for so long. "Stop asking."

Cheem brightened, waving his arm in the air like a kid in school who desperately wanted to be called on. "Oh, oh! I can tell you, I can tell you!"

"So tell me!" Dib demanded.

Cheem burst out laughing. "Okay, Zim is… he's gonna…" he struggled to speak through his laughter. "Gonna die, a-and, then he's gonna c-come back and.."

"What?" Dib asked impatiently. "What's gonna happen?"

"HE'S GONNA EAT YOU ALIVE!" Cheem burst out, then glanced at Zim's furious expression and covered his mouth. "Oops, I guess I wasn't supposed to tell you yet!"

"Cheem, you idiot!" Zim screamed. "SHUT UP!"

Cheem shrunk back. "Sorry, I forgot!"

"So, wait, you're not gonna die?" Dib asked Zim suspiciously. "I thought you said that you took that whole bottle of tranquilizers back at the hospital!"

"I did!" Zim argued, getting angry. "I showed you that I did!"

"He totally did, I can back him up!" Cheem volunteered. "I made him do it!"

"You didn't MAKE me do anything!" Zim yelled at Cheem. "I CHOSE to take them!"

Cheem rolled his eyes, smirking. "Okay, believe that if you want." He turned back to Dib. "So, anyway, tell me more about your family. What's it like?"

Dib sighed, remembering his past life. "Well they were caring,"

"Your perception of them is flawed," Zim spoke up. "They were not good for you."

Dib ignored him. "They were nice, kind,"

"They were not."

"They cared about me, kept me safe."

"They hated you, wanted you gone."

Dib continued, "They made me stronger, kept me on my toes."

"You were weak with them, broken."

Dib was just about to tell Zim to shut his mouth when Cheem spoke up. "Hey, we're here."

"Finally," Zim muttered, walking up the road towards the metal gates. "It's about time."

Dib looked up beyond the gates, noticing all of the headstones lining the property. They were at a graveyard.

"Zim, why are we at a cemetery?"

Zim pulled open the gates. "To be surrounded by the thing that will take me. To embrace it."

Dib glanced at Cheem, who looked back and silently shrugged. "It's what he wanted to do."

The human sighed and continued onward, through the gates. Ahead of him, Zim and Cheem walked among the various headstones in their path, the wind whistling gently through the trees.

Zim sat down against one of the headstones at the top of a small hill, and stared up at the stars. Cheem sat across from him, and Dib joined him a minute later.

"Hey," Cheem said as Dib sat down next to him. He nodded towards Zim. "I think he's getting close."

Dib stared at Zim, the Irken staring up at the stars and taking deep slow breaths. "How can you tell?"

"I'm literally a part of him," Cheem said in response. "Part of me is in his PAK, and I can feel him beginning to fade."

"He put part of you into his body?" Dib asked, feeling strange about this particular topic. "How did he do that?"

Cheem shrugged. "Apparently, after I died, the Tallest gave Zim my PAK as a trophy. He told me earlier today that after he was fixed, he removed parts of machinery from my own PAK and placed it into his. I don't know why he would do something like that. It's incredibly dangerous."

Dib glanced back at Zim, then lowered his voice slightly. "I don't know if this happens with your species, but with my kind, well, some of us didn't handle loss very well. We'd do crazy things to cope with the loss of our friends or family, especially if we'd known them for as long as you and Zim did."

Cheem nodded. "That's interesting. What happened to your people?"

Dib glanced towards Zim again, and Cheem followed his gaze.

His antennae lowered. "Oh, I see. You were invaded."

"Yeah. Apparently he called it in."

Cheem sighed. "Never thought he'd actually do it. I had faith in him, sure, but to be truthful I was beginning to believe what my Tallest told us. That he would never truly be one of us."

"Oh. That's depressing."

Cheem scoffed. "Yeah, tell me about it. To think I basically died for them. Zim tried to talk sense into me, but I would not listen."

"Anyway, about your PAK," Dib said, returning to the previous topic, "maybe Zim messed with it to cope with you being gone. Maybe he didn't want you to leave him and wanted to keep you with him, even if it was just in the form of a few bolts and wires."

Cheem started to respond, but was interrupted by a loud buzzing noise. They both glanced over towards Zim, and Dib froze with panic.

Zim's PAK was pulsing a deep blood red, making a low humming noise.

"What's happening?" He asked. "What's wrong?"

Cheem stared at him for a moment, then turned away to look at the ground. "Those lights are a warning. He doesn't have much longer. A few more minutes if we're lucky."

"What can we do? How can we stop it?"

"We cannot." Cheem said, sounding far too sure of himself for Dib's liking, "His PAK is starting to shut down. It can't cleanse the drugs from his system fast enough."

"Please tell me there's another way to keep him alive," Dib pleaded with him. "He's all I have left!"

"I thought you hated him." Cheem said, looking confused. "Did he not kill your family? Wouldn't you want this?"

Dib paced, trying to control his rapid breathing. "I thought I did, but I never thought that I would have to watch it happen! This is totally not what I thought it would be like!"

"Hardly anything is how we imagine it to be," Cheem said, adjusting his position into a more relaxed pose. "But he'll still be with you when he comes back, just buried deep within a walking corpse."

"What does that mean?" Dib asked, growing ever fearful.

Cheem looked up at him, staring into his eyes. "It means the Change will be upon us soon, and when it is, everyone will die."

A/N: Since no one cares about this story, I will no longer be posting it on here. for those who want to continue reading this story, my A03 account is JustBeStill. i update this story more frequently over there.