And so, after a humor/parody one shot, I suddenly go emo. Okay, so not emo per se, but this is hardly the happiest thing I've ever written. Anyway, I wasn't going to write this until about five or six days from now, so I feel pretty cool for being AHEAD of my schedule for once. Oh, and just to let you guys know, I don't usually do one shots. The two stories I've written just happen to be one shots. Its kind of unusual for me. Anyway, please enjoy and review!

ALSO: I'm doing this challenge where you pick a work (Invader Zim, in my case) and you write one story for each genre. I'm pretty excited about it! You can head on over to my profile to see what's what, learn more, and stay posted if you're interested. Please tell me you're interested. Please? Anyway, I'm just telling you guys this in hope that you'll check it out and watch my progress! I've only done one other story so far (the above mentioned humor/parody), but I'm just getting started, so come check it out!

CLICK

Snap decisions. You have just a few moments to make a choice, so you do. And then you regret it every day for the rest of your life.

Click.

Dib was dead. Those three words made it all seem so simple; as though every thought and every feeling running through Zim's head could be so straightforwardly defined. But it wasn't so easy. Years of fighting, day after day of being the only thing on each other's minds, and for what? A click, a bang. The equally shocked expressions on both of their faces. It couldn't end like this, could it? So fast, so…ignobly. After all, Dib had deserved better. Better than a trigger pulled without any real intention of doing so, and the accidental end of the bizarre and twisted relationship that was the closest thing to a friendship that either one of them could've ever had.

The thing that got Zim the most, however, was that nobody seemed to care. Sure, the human's father had been distraught, and his sister, the purple-haired girl, had been equally upset, but in the end, that was about it. Dib's classmates were understandably shocked and distressed by the news, but beyond the initial, inevitable sadness, there was nothing. Time didn't stop. The world kept turning. Life went on. For the most part, anyway.

And that was why Zim was standing alone at Dib's grave, staring at the tombstone as though he didn't understand what it meant. And, to be perfectly honest, he wasn't sure that he did. After all their fighting, could it have really been over so fast?

Click.

Bang.

And why had he done it, anyway? Why hadn't that night been just like all of the others? Another confrontation with no clear victor, no bloodshed. Try as he might, Zim couldn't find an answer to that one simple question. And he certainly did try. The alien had though long and hard on it too many times to count in the brief time since his rival's murder. No. Not murder. Dib wasn't a murder victim; he was a casualty of war. The first and final casualty of a secret war that neither of them had been ready to end. Something like that, anyway.

The gun was gone. Completely destroyed, along with any other possible evidence. Zim had made sure of that. He had enough trouble as it was; he didn't need the police investigating him for a crime, especially one that he had indeed committed. So he had taken up the role of the troubled classmate, even playing along with the other student's declarations that the two boys had been friends. Friends? Hardly. Neither of them had ever seemed to know the meaning of the word. That being said, they hadn't exactly been outsiders, either. Not since Zim had arrived on Earth, anyway. Sure, they'd been alone, but they'd been alone…together.

Click.

Bang.

Splurch.

Zim shuddered at the memory. He was used to death. Blood, gore, and violence were all par for the course when you were a soldier of a warrior planet. It was hardly as though he'd never killed. But this time…something was different. Something was wrong.

Scowling, the Irken glared down at the grave, angry at Dib for being dead and angry at the world for not caring. Angry at himself for pulling the trigger? No. Never. Dib had just been an obstacle, something in the way of his mission. An insignificant worm to be crushed for the glory of the Empire. Wasn't that how it was supposed to be?

But, as little as Zim wanted to admit it, that was exactly how things hadn't turned out. What should have been nothing more than a quick kill on day one had blossomed into a full-blown rivalry. Their own miniature war of sorts. And no matter how many times Zim wondered why he didn't just shoot the boy and get it over with, he never had.

Until that night.

It had started out how it always did: a bizarre battle over one of his own nefarious plots of the evening. That night, it had involved giant rubber ducks. Ingenious as he'd planned it, silly as he'd instigated it, and depressing now that he looked back on it. If he'd had to kill Dib, couldn't he have done it over something less…stupid?

That being said, he hadn't intended to kill the human. He never really did. He'd tried it once. Hadn't liked it. The few moments of ecstasy weren't worth the nagging thoughts that plagued his mind afterward. The initial triumphant joy couldn't compare to the sickening realization that now there was no one left to need him. No one left for him to need.

Day after day, plan after plan. That was why they had never just taken the easy way out of their never-ending fight. It was the reason that Zim had never rigged Dib's house with explosives. It was the reason that Dib had never waited outside Zim's door with a garden hose. It was a co-dependence that gave them both something to live for. They'd both needed to be needed, and that was why they had both lasted as long as they had. But then…

Click.

Bang.

Why?

The moment he had pulled the trigger, nothing had changed. The bullet fired, and neither of them seemed to realize what had just happened. They had shared one final moment of ignorant bliss before reality came slamming up to meet them via a crimson spray of blood from Dib's chest. And that was when the whole world had come crashing down.

"The hell did you do that for?" That had been Dib's immediate reaction, somewhere on the line between angry and confused.

"I…I don't know." And that had been Zim, just as unsure as he watched his human rival staring at the blood on his favorite shirt.

And then there had been a silence. Seconds, minutes, who knew? It had seemed to last forever as they entered into what would be their final few minutes together.

"Oh, God…" Dib had whimpered suddenly, crumpling to the ground in a heap.

Zim had dropped the gun and come skidding to his rival's side. "Hold on, Dib. Just hold on." He'd said it without any idea how to back it up. After all, he was a soldier, not a doctor. What little he knew about anatomy couldn't have helped him in this situation; he barely knew how to fix his own body, much less a human's.

"God, you shot me, Zim. You killed me," Dib had mumbled as though he couldn't believe what had just happened. Neither of them could.

"No I didn't; you're not dead." Zim had snapped, trying desperately to think of something he could do. He knew he didn't have much time. "You're not going to die, Dib. Not here. Not tonight."

The human had given a weak laugh, shooting Zim the best glare he could manage. It wasn't much. "I should've known fighting you'd get me killed eventually."

Zim had searched the area frantically from the boy's side, trying to find a phone or some other way to contact a hospital. But there was nothing. They were at the very end of the city limits, far away from the nearest house or pay phone. Nothing. The hell had they been fighting all the way out here for, anyway? Damn it. Zim had blurted out, "Hold on, Dib. It'll be okay."

But hold on for what? They were out in the middle of nowhere, and the bullet was already taking its toll on its victim. Dib took his hand off the wound in his chest, glanced at it, and grimaced, replacing his hand. "So I guess this is it, huh?"

"Shut up! This is not it!"

Oddly enough, the dying human seemed far calmer than his soon-to-be killer, who had nearly reached the point of hysteria. Dib had taken a deep breath, and then said, "Zim." There had been no response from the Irken, so the black-haired boy repeated, in a quiet but firm voice with what little strength he had left, "Zim."

The alien had stopped and turned his bright red eyes to his rival. "Dib?"

"Don't forget me."

One last request. Zim narrowed his eyes and promised, "Never."

After that, there had been a few moments of quiet acceptance. The calm before the storm, so to speak. And then, as though he had only just then remembered what was going on, Zim gasped, "No! You're going to be okay! You're not gonna die here, Dib! Because-,"

The alien stopped. The little corner of nowhere that had become their whole world was filled with an empty silence. Zim pressed his hand to the human's heart. Nothing. And that was it. Dib was gone, just like that.

"…Because I still need you." Zim finished quietly. He slid his hand from his rival's body and pulled it up around his knees, sitting without any idea of what to do next. Or ever again. After all, the mission wouldn't be the same without someone to try and stop it. And that someone had always been Dib. The sole being in the entire universe that though enough of him to try and stop him. To care. And now that one person was dead. Just another victim.

No. Not just another victim. A casualty of war. Because Dib had been a soldier. And the best one Zim had ever known.

Click.

Bang.

Silence.

Snap decisions. You have just a few moments to make a choice, so you do. And then you regret it every day for the rest of your life.