A/N: El Juno was the inspiration for this thing. Chapters are separated by solid lines.

Dib sat alone on his rooftop. He wasn't bothering to listen for alien life this time. He had found it, and it was probably going to kill him.

It was late. Really late. But then Dib hardly slept more than a few hours a night. He'd had insomnia ever since he could remember. His father hadn't noticed and just as long as he didn't go into Gazs' room she wasn't bothered by it.

The wind blew a little and ruffled his trench coat. He took another drink of the thick cherry syrup that had once been a Cherry Brain Freezy.

In one hand he held the Freezy, in the other he held a small and ragged stuffed bunny.

He looked down at the old brown toy that had gotten him through a lot of his childhood. "Well Oscar, another day of thwarting Zim, another day of getting beaten up by lawn gnomes." He sighed. "Stupid gnomes."

Oscar didn't reply. Not really.

Dib used to hear Oscar talk all the time. Then something happened and he quit talking so much. Of course that something had been a massive dose of electricity when his father had him test some invention or other. Now he only heard little whispers or ideas from Oscar.

Of course Dib was a smart kid. He had read a lot of books, some of which were on Psychiatry. After reading enough to fry anyone else's brain he figured that the 'voice' of Oscar was just himself trying to get subconscious ideas out.

Well, he was half right.

"No, I don't really care what Zims' blood looks like." He paused. "Well, actually, that would be interesting to see."

He shook his head.

No. It was a bad idea to go down that trail of thought.

He finished off the last of the melted Freezy and set the cup down. A gust of wind picked up and carried it over the rooftop.

"Of course." Dib muttered. He stuffed Oscar in a coat pocket and crawled to the edge of the roof. "Where did it go?" He asked no one in particular.

He finally spotted the ghostly white shape of the cup stuck in scraggly bush.

He hurried to the drainpipe and slide down it like he always did. Wondering if someone had shut the window again like two years ago. He had smashed straight through the window receiving a scar on his right shoulder and the memory of a broken wrist.

He landed in the sink with no problem. They rarely had dirty dishes in the sink, or dirty dishes for that matter. His family rarely ate in the house. His father usually had dinner in his lab and Gaz would just grab something microwaveable and in a disposable container.

Dib jumped out of the sink and headed to the door.

After a bit of searching outside he relocated the paper cup and crunched it in his hand.

He went quietly back into the house and threw the cup away. The whole place was dark but his eyes had adjusted to it a long time ago.

He walked up the stairs silently having learned where to put his feet on the steps so he made no sound. He made his way to his room and flicked on the light. He sat on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

Ah the life of a sever insomniac.

At one time he had considered asking his dad to get him some help. But his father never really paid attention to him in the first place. And it wasn't like he could ask his mother. She was 'away'.

He knew that 'away' meant she was in an asylum. She hadn't been well after Dib was born. The doctors Dib had heard his father talk to had said that the second hormonal imbalance caused by Gaz had thrown her over the edge.

Dib pulled Oscar out of his coat pocket and set the worn brown bunny on his chest. He lay there staring deep into his little button eyes. After what felt like forever his eyes started to droop.

'Seven'

His eyes blinked open slowly.

"Stop talking to me." He muttered trying to recapture the decent into sleep. "You don't do that anymore."

'Z?'

That time it was an image. That happened sometimes too.

"Oscar stop it." He said a bit angrily. He took Oscar off his chest and tossed him over the edge of the bed.

He finally fell asleep even with the lights on.

Dib stood against a wall in the halls of skool just after the last bell of the day. He had brought Oscar with him and currently had the bunny in his backpack. He glanced around for his sister Gaz but she might have taken off without him. She did that sometimes.

The halls were fairly empty now so he ventured away from the wall and headed for the doors.

Suddenly a screaming form crashed into him from behind sending them both to the floor.

"Don't let it get me!" The other boy screamed as he grabbed Dib by the front of his shirt. He then turned to look back in the way he had come looking more paranoid than Dib usually acted.

"What? Hey get off me!" Dib said pushing the other boy to the ground. He stood up dusting himself off.

The other boy immediately hid behind him peering around Dib's coat at the other figure at the far end of the hall.

Dib looked up to see Zim narrowing his eyes menacingly. He made a 'huff' sound then disappeared around a corner.

Dib turned back to the boy cowering behind him. "Uh. You okay?" He asked.

The boy looked up. Dib found him familiar. He knew he had just started coming to this skool about a week ago, but he didn't really know his name.

"Um, now I am." He stood up. "I'm Todd. Most people call me Squee or something."

"Well, uh, hi Todd, I'm Dib."

Todd seemed to ignore the introduction and he glanced around with that paranoid look again. "I thought for sure the alien was going to get me again."

Dibs' eyes went wide for a moment. "You think he's an alien too?"

Todd nodded. "You get abducted a couple times and you tend to know one when you see one."

"Good! You can help me capture him!" Dib said excitedly.

Todd winced a bit at the unexpected outburst. "Uh no, aliens are bad. But they're not as bad as." He paused getting that intensely paranoid look again. "The Neighbor Man."

Dib gave him a funny look. Then it clicked. He remembered this kid. Todd Casil, he'd been afraid of all sorts of things before he disappeared. Last Dib heard about him was that his parents had taken him to the Loony Bin.

Dib had avoided the whole thing about Todd back then. It had reminded him too much of his own mother. And a lot of kids might have started thinking about that fact and he might have been picked on for it all over again.

"If you won't help me catch him can you at least tell me what you know?" Dib asked.

Todd thought a moment. "I suppose I could. But you'll have to come to my house. I don't want to be out if it gets dark."

Dib shrugged. "Sure why not?"

Dib glanced at Todds' house. It was in an older part of town. Next door was a house that looked like it was put up in one day with a budget that only allowed for the purchase of nails.

"That's the Neighbor Mans' house." Todd whispered. "He hasn't been back since before I went away."

Dib looked at the house number. Triple Seven.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Oscar was throwing a fit, but whatever message he was trying to get through came out all wrong.

Dib started to walk to the house, kicking up dust as he went.

Todd watched him go. He sighed. At least he had gotten home safely today.

Dib walked up to the door. 'Ring me' was carved around the doorbell. He pushed gently on the door and it came open with a loud creak revealing a dark void.

He glanced back to see where Todd was. The other boy was gone already.

Dib turned back to the darkness in front of him and went in.

Dib walked silently through the room. It was filthy and littered with papers that had some badly drawn comics on them.

He picked up one and found them to be about a stick figure called 'Happy Noodle Boy'. The main character ranted on about mangos and nougat then was killed when someone shot him.

He let the paper drop and swung his backpack around and unzipped it. He pulled Oscar out and put him in his pocket. He reached in again and pulled out a small pencil flashlight leaving the bag on the floor. He went farther into the house using the pencil light to guide him.

Soon he found a set of stairs that led down. He figured it led to a basement but since there wasn't much up here he decided to go down.

The first room had three wooden walls one was actually plaster. Small words were written on the plaster wall in black pen ink. There were actually many different shades of the dark ink since it would have taken hundreds of pens to write all of it.

Most of the words were blurry and worn away in places. Dib could only make out a few bits and pieces, but those bits and pieces were quite disturbing.

He moved on through an open doorway going farther down.

He went down ladders into rooms with giant pictures of monsters painted directly on the walls.

He went through doorways that were just holes in the wall that had been shaped to look like one. These usually led into empty and ghastly cold rooms that he decided to avoid all together.

He walked past instruments of torture he couldn't even guess the names of. And some he was sure there was no name for.

Machines that ran by electricity, combustion engine, by hand pump. From simple blades and maces to complex machines that could probably rip out his spleen in one quick motion.

He pulled Oscar out of his pocket and held him tightly. The 'voice' that was Oscar was continuing with it's almost static sound. But Dib couldn't understand anything. It was like Oscar was talking to someone else but Dib was aware of that side of the conversation. Even if he couldn't understand that one side he still knew it was going on.

Suddenly it got deathly cold. Even Dibs' coat felt like ice. Oscar started making a terrible racket and suddenly fell silent as if he had never been.

Something slammed into Dibs' head from behind and he fell uselessly to the floor. The bunny called Oscar landed a few feet from his hand.

A thin gray shadow fell along the floor and crept around Dibs' still form.

It had first thought the 'keeper' had returned. But no, it was only this pathetic child.

A drop of blood seeped out of a split on Dibs' lip where he had fallen. The shadow became all too aware of it and was suddenly delighted at what it found.

This may not be the 'keeper' that had given it so much blood for so long but the child was very close. It was in fact one half diluted blood. The shadow had been unaware that its' slave had fathered a child.

This shadow had once been an actual form kept behind a wall. Given tribute by a willing but angry slave. Since that time the shadow had been set free then destroyed and left as this simple visage of its past self.

All it needed was another 'keeper', as it preferred to call them. It was a much nicer word to work around that that awful blocky phrase 'waste lock'.

But this was only a child. Hardly old enough to care for itself like the first one. And probably not strong enough to bring enough tribute to help enhance the shadow.

It would have to wait and let the child grow. But it needed a way to call this, boy, back.

It felt along the toy the child had been holding. It had been the physical link of one of those pathetic little mind monsters. Like the one in that female its slave had taken a liking to.

The shadow had destroyed the little annoyance. It wasn't getting very far anyway, for some reason the child could barely register the other things voice. The little creature had actually brought the child here. It had pleaded with the shadow to help reinstate the bond so that it could further itself.

It had deserved its destruction for being so impudent.

A thin tendril of the shadow seeped into the stuffed animal and disappeared within. The main body of the shadow then allowed for the old link from the first creature to be mended by the smaller piece of itself.

The shadow fell away and bid the child to wake up.

Dibs' eyes opened. He sat up but didn't look around. He stood up stiffly and picked up Oscar off the floor.

Under the influence of a force he couldn't perceive he headed home. No one would see him or notice his absence. He would wake up the next day unaware of what had happened or that he had even been to this house.

For now.

Dib walked slowly up to the broken down house. Three slightly crooked sevens marked the front. He looked at them fixedly as the last seven began to leak something red from around its edges.

The door opened revealing a light less void.

He glanced around nervously. A boy stood in the other yard watching him.

It was Todd as a child. Why was Todd standing over there?

Suddenly a voice caused him to turn back to the void.

"Enter."

He knew that voice.

"Oscar?" He asked stepping in. It was a little cold inside but sort of welcoming at the same time.

He was in a dimly lit room. A man was crouched over a table on one side. He reached up and tilted the single light in the room over the table before going back to what he was doing. He never once turned around.

Dib started to go forward very slowly. This man was very tall, very thin. With wildly spiked hair and worn clothes. The words 'I Exist' were on the back of his shirt.

The man suddenly looked up. He turned slowly to Dib revealing a manic face with spatters of blood here and there. His eyes were screws and his teeth were fangs.

"Welcome home son." He hissed.

Dib turned and ran back into the darkness only to be stopped by Oscars eyes. Those tiny black eyes that filled his mind.

"Come back to me." The voice of Oscar called.

Dib bolted out of bed landing awkwardly on the floor. He was panting hard and covered in cold sweat.

After a moment the adrenaline and sleep wore off and he realized he was in his room. It had been a nightmare. That's all.

He sat on the floor for awhile trying to shake away the images. But they wouldn't leave.

He stood up and pulled off his nightclothes putting on something for the day. The clock read Five a.m. so he might as well get up. After a bit of searching he found his glasses on the nightstand and put them on.

His dark room came into focus and he again tried to shake away the nightmare images.

He made his way down the stairs being as careful as he could.

He was eighteen now, up near six feet tall and stick thin. He still had that one prominent spike among all those smaller ones. His clothes still consisted of that gray shirt with that flat line mouthed smiley face and a trench coat with black pants. He had decided to follow in Einstein's footsteps in the clothes department and had many sets of the same clothes.

After a while his mind turned to Zim and he wondered if the alien would ever come back.

A long time ago Zim had come to Dib babbling something about a Chihuahua and a 'Milky Way bar'. Then he had run away.

Dib hadn't seen him since. Everything owned by the alien was gone.

But because Zim was gone Dib had been left with nothing to chase. Nothing in front of him to prove to the world.

He'd been depressed for a long time, his grades had suffered and his insomnia had worsened. There were times when he barely got a few hours of sleep a week.

After all that torture he finally pulled it together as much as he could but still had nothing real to live for.

Then one day, in a music store he had stopped in on a whim, he discovered the guitar.

He had just picked up one that looked nice and picked at it. After awhile he had started letting those few picks on the strings evolve into a song he had heard on the radio.

He had stopped after a while not entirely impressed with the sound of that particular instrument. He eventually looked up to find everyone in the store gawking at him.

Come to find out he was a natural. So now he spent time in parks playing songs he had heard or ones he made up on the spot for some loose change. It kept his mind entertained and helped him a little in the money department.

He opened the fridge and pulled out something that looked edible and closed it. Today was a Saturday and he was off work at 'Dragon Books' so all was well at the moment.

Except those damn nightmares.

He tried one last time to make the images go away as he figured out just what it was he had pulled from the fridge. It was a couple hamburger patties from a few nights ago that someone had just wrapped in foil.

He shrugged. It was food and he was hungry.

He pulled a plate from a cabinet and tossed the patties on it. He threw away the foil and popped the plate in the microwave.

After a bit of searching he found the ketchup in the fridge. While waiting the last minuet and a half for the bell to ding he went for a fork.

He set what he needed on the table and heard the bell go off. It was an annoying sound that sent the hairs up on the back of Dibs' neck when he heard it.

He used a napkin to carry the hot plate of reheated burger meat to the table without burning himself.

Suddenly he stopped.

The carving knife sat innocently by the ketchup bottle. But he hadn't gotten it out.

He set down his plate and stared at the knife. He could see his reflection in the steel blade. He shivered feeling a draft, or what he hoped was a draft.

'Come back to me.'

The thin whisper came to him from the dark.

He suddenly wasn't so hungry.

Dib shuffled around the park a little. The only thing he carried was a time scarred guitar case.

A few pedestrians gave him odd looks as he settled down next to a light pole. He opened his case and pulled out his acoustic guitar and the little bunny Oscar that he did his best to bring with him everywhere. He set Oscar upright in the open case and got ready to play. The guitar was marked with three red sevens on the neck under the strings.

The events of this morning were already fading into obscurity.

After a moment of tuning he started to play. People stopped to listen and threw some change in the open case.

After a time he stopped paying attention to the people around him. He never sang having discovered he had no voice for it.

He started playing harder abandoning music he knew. He dropped his pick but kept on. There was a sharp metallic twang and he stopped suddenly.

He stared at his hand and the gash along his thumb. Blood dripped down his wrist and he looked up.

A lot of the people had left except one person. A teenage boy with wide eyes and flat black hair. "The shadow wants you." He said in his thin, quavering voice.

"Todd?" Dib asked. He glanced at his hand again. There was no blood, no cut, his strings were fine. He looked back up and Todd was gone.

This was becoming too much.

He scraped the change from inside the case and put it in his pockets. He put the guitar and closed it up but kept Oscar out. He sat there twisting one of Oscars' ears nervously.

'Go home Dib.' Oscar said quietly. 'You belong there now.'

Dib was barely conscious to the fact that Oscar was actually talking. He had been so used to pale whispers and in his current mental situation he wasn't paying to much attention to anything.

'Stand up.'

He stood up and picked up his case. He stuffed Oscar in a coat pocket.

'Go to Todds' house.'

He paused. He hadn't been to Todds' house since...since...when? He'd been there some time. Hadn't he?

Todd looked out of his bedroom window. He had been spending his weekend trying not to get the crap scared out of him. He had managed it by locking himself in his room and writing.

Outside, in front of the house next door, was Dib.

Todd shrank back from the window. He knew Dib from school and was justifiably terrified of him. He did look remarkably like his childhood savior/tormentor after all.

He looked out again seen Dib still standing at the sidewalk that led to the house next door.

He decided to go see what it was the gangly boy was up to.

Todd went down the stairs as fast as he could glad that his parents were gone and weren't around to yell at him.

He was about five feet tall and wore dark clothes that usually kept him out of immediate notice. He had tried to become Dibs' friend until he had noticed the eerie resemblance to the 'Neighbor Man'.

He pulled open the front door and sprinted to the yard finding Dib at the front door of the other house.

Dib turned and saw Todd standing in the other yard. He stopped dead realizing how much like his dream this was.

'Open the door and go in.'

He swallowed hard but followed the instructions and opened the door going once more into the darkness.

Inside was no crazed man with screws for eyes like in his nightmare. Instead the place was remarkably clean of debris he thought he would find in such an old and obviously abandoned place.

He set his guitar case on an old table and glanced around. It was actually sort of nice here.

Something cold touched the back of his neck and his vision blurred. He stumbled and fell to the floor. He tried to get back up and failed. Something thin gray and icy cold flowed around him before he passed out.

The gray shadow pooled around the boys' still form elated at the fact that the child had returned. In it's weakened state it thought it might not be able to successfully call him back.

Of course it had not exactly been laying in wait for the right time to call this new 'keeper' back. It had wiped away many of the things the first slave had left behind. Those delusion enhanced things he had referred to as 'Happy Noodle Boy' were gone along with many of the massive paintings on the walls.

It had been something like 'cleaning the cage out' for a new pet after the old one died.

Only this was intensely important for what it was about to do. If there was anything left from the first 'keeper' this one might try and find him. Leaving the shadow to wait until another was within its grasp. And it couldn't wait that long.

It sent a thin tendril into both of the childs' ears and a few more into his nose and mouth. It finally felt along his mind and found the link the smaller piece of it had kept alive.

There it discovered his name: Dib.

Not exactly what the shadow had been expecting but then 'Johnny' with his nickname 'Nny' hadn't been that predictable a find either.

It was amazed at how alike this one was to the last Human. So many childhood traumas and pains. Only this one held a secret.

The shadow puzzled over this creature called 'Zim'. An alien being?

Those memories had to go. Too much of a distraction.

A little influence and it felt the vivid memories of a green skinned being go soft and fuzzy. Dib would never again recall who Zim was exactly. Only that there was a person named Zim and there was a good chance that Dib didn't like him to well.

It moved on sifting through the unusually vivid memories of Dibs' past. His sister that abused him sometimes. His father that was never around. A mother that was clinically insane. Classmates that picked on him.

All were choice memories to use.

It altered some so that they were not directly related to that 'Zim' being. And concentrated more on the absentee father and crazy mother. The sister 'Gaz' was quietly cut out. They could possibly meet on the streets and that might wash away all of the shadows' editing.

It would have to seek her out once it was stronger and wipe away the memory of her brother.

Then it found Dibs' creative core. The one thing that linked all of the Human 'waste locks', oh how it hated that phrase. They always had immense creative powers. The point behind that detail was that they eventually would funnel all of that 'creativity' into their delusions.

A 'redirection' as it were.

It left the creativity alone not wanting to risk accidentally damaging that vital part.

It revived the smaller piece of itself. The first slave had housed two such links.

Stupid beings in their own right the shadow was appalled at the one that had wanted it's own free will.

Worthless little mite, he was paying for his rebellion.

No, this one would be much better behaved and urge Dib on for what the shadow needed.

The shadow pulled away from Dib sinking into the floors to find its wall. The plaster prison it had been forced behind so long ago. Now that it was a mere shadow that wretch that had put it there in the first place paid it no mind. Soon though the shadow would not be a shadow. Soon it would be strong enough to break free and do its job like it had tried to before.

Dib opened his eyes first seeing the little cockroach searching the ground in front of his face. He blinked not at all surprised that he was on the floor or that there was a bug in front of him.

He sat up, scaring the cockroach away, and glanced around.

He knew exactly where he was and who he was but not why he was. There was a brief memory of looking at the stars in fear but it vanished.

He picked a little stuffed bunny up.

"Dib, are you okay? You fell." It said. Dib wasn't bothered by this.

"I'm okay. But I think I need some air." He said standing up. He spotted his Guitar case and went to pick it up.

He was about to do just that when a glimmer caught his eye. He adjusted his glasses and picked up the blade admiring its edge.

"Yes, a little air should clear the mind."

He slipped the knife into a loop in his trench coat that he didn't really recall using before. Then he stuffed Oscar in a coat pocket and went out the door whistling.

Down below, in the dark levels of the house. A gray shadow slipped into a wall and something like the sound of laughter echoed.

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