Chapter Five: Suicide

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And fell flat on his face.

He spent a few seconds laying on the floor, wondering why he wasn't dead yet.

When he got up, he realized something: the rope had broken sometime during his jump.

"Stupid shoddy rope," He whined accusingly. "You just want to keep me writhing on this rusting blade even longer."

The rope said nothing.

"Awww... it broke. Let's try it again." The computer said in a fakely sympathetic tone, and Zim was suddenly hoisted into the air by the rope, which a claw had picked up by the broken end.

He realized then he probably didn't want to make his final exit by hanging. It wasn't quick. It wasn't painless. His neck had not snapped from gravity. All it did was force you to not breathe, which was a horrible sensation in itself. He tried to tell the computer to drop him, but all that came out were these sick croaking noises. He had an idea it wouldn't have listened anyway.

So, instead of waiting for everything to go dark, he cut himself loose by a spiderleg, quickly ripping the noose off his head as soon as he fell to the ground, choking and wheezing.

"I wanted to kill myself," He told the computer darkly. "Me, not you. That's why it's called suicide."

"Sorry."

Mr. Scolex didn't sound very sorry.

He didn't understand. Why didn't he just kill himself and get it over with? Why was there always some kind of complication, some kind of hesitation? His brain clearly wanted death, but his body was being stubborn and saying life. He didn't want life. Life was mean. Life made him cry. Life sometimes stole his lunch money, when he had it.

Over the next hour or so, he attempted to convince his body to agree with his brain. He tried overdosing on human sleeping pills (but he puked them up seconds after he ate them), he tried shooting himself in the forehead (but the gun just clicked uselessly at him, stuck or empty), he reconsidered disintegrating himself in the rain (but deciding against it again, just because it would take too long)... countless methods, proving useless.

The computer tried to help in its sadistic way, but even then he was still alive, and more depressed because the world apparently wanted to keep its nasty claws embedded in his shoulders. The world was laughing at his failed attempts. He cried some more. More eyeliner ran. The world was laughing harder.

It eventually ended up in him shoving himself into the emo corner. He had given up. More than the icky world he hated himself for chickening out of his final escape. It made all of those sticky notes and goodbye wails useless. Just like him.

"Why won't I just.. die?" He asked the computer.

"Because you're stupid."

Unbeknownst to either of them, Dib was approaching. He had conveniently forgotten his umbrella, now soaked and irritated and walking toward Zim's house. This wasn't out of compassion for Zim; merely curiosity and a sick, too-human sense of guilt that told him something bad was probably happening as a result of the emo Irken's overreaction.

But, luckily for Zim, he did not forget his taser. How it wasn't wet and useless, we don't know.

That guilt-sense got a little heavier when he noticed something small and yellow on the front door. Upon closer inspection, it was a sticky note.

Written to him.

With tears on it.

Dib,

I have decided to leave this awful, hurtful world behind.

As long as you don't donate my lifeless corpse to your human science department, you may keep my base and GIR.

Make sure he doesn't try to follow me.

Goodbye, forever.

Zim

P.S.: Don't touch anything.

Geez, this is getting really stupid now. Dib thought, preparing to make his grand entrance. Next thing you know he'll be writing goth poetry.

He twisted the doorknob. Locked.

"Zim!" He yelled, kicking the door. "You better not be dead in there!"

Nothing.

"Dammit," He growled.

He stared at the door, trying to judge its thickness. Being that he was only eleven, he hadn't the body mass to break it down like policemen do. It took him actually ramming said pitiful body weight into the door to figure that out. His shoulder hurt now. He wasn't about to try a flying kick - he needs his legs, thank you. There had to be another way...

He glanced over at the window. Hopefully, Zim hadn't locked that as well. It didn't even look like it had a lock. Despite that observation, he glanced around for something to break it with - just in case it was locked. His gaze fell upon a gnome. He hadn't the time to look for a rock, and it looked big enough to break something. So, with difficulty, he hefted the thing over his head and chucked it at the window.

CRASH!

Ah, the wonderful sound of shattering success.

He leapt up, pulling himself onto the sill, careful not to step on the remains of the glass. He posed, getting the taser out of his pocket. Then the wind blew, ruining his pose and causing him to fall into the house. He saved himself with a dramatic roll and a leap to his feet.

"I've come to-- NGYAA!" The last part was due to a metal claw suddenly swooping down and picking him up.

"Shh, it's getting to the best part!" The computer voice exclaimed.

"The best...?" He blinked, looking around for what it could possibly be talking about.

There.

In a corner of the room, surrounded by various implements of suicide, with the barrel of a laser shoved into his forehead.

"ZIM!"

Zim didn't even jump. This was the last resort. He'd tried everything else. He wasn't going to let Dib take that away from him. He wasn't going to let Dib save his miserable life. He just wished he could stop crying so damn much - that eyeliner was starting to sting his eyes.

"Too late," He sniffled, and pulled the trigger.

Just before that happened, Dib had instinctively thrown the taser at his head, being that he was still suspended about five feet above the floor. The taser hit the laser's barrel, and caused the laser blast that had enough force to scramble his little emo brain to go into his PAK rather than said brain. He screeched, twitched, and fell on his side with smoke coming up from his PAK.

Moment of silence.

"Is he dead?"

"Shit." Dib said bluntly, as the claw let him down. "I did his job for him."

"So he is dead. Hm. First things first - I don't do laundry, vaccuuming, dishes, cooking, cleaning, and you're on your own about pest control, vermin extermination, vaccines for potentially lethal diseases, serums, antidotes, medical attention..."

Does it actually DO anything? Dib remotely wondered, as the computer kept talking. Its voice in the background, the boy wandered over to the emo-fied Irken, still lying motionless in the emo corner. This time, he looked very convincingly dead. Almost five minutes had passed and he was still... dead.

He poked his head. Nothing.

He kicked his head, waiting.

Still nothing.

"He'll recover, though," He told himself, remembering the other times. "He always does. He's like a cockroach."

Not assured at all, the boy turned away from the emo corner, walking toward the door, unlocking it. The computer's list stopped in the background.

"Where are you going?" It asked.

"Home."

"I thought he left you the base."

"If he's dead. He's not dead. He'll get over it and come screaming and insulting and being evil like he usually does."

"... he's not dead?"

He shook his head.

"Damn. There go those permanent vacation plans..."

Rather than stay around and tell it that computers can't take vacations, he opened the door into the raging storm that was still going on. He wondered only once if he ought to stay here until it blows over, but he ignored the thought, figuring that when the Irken got over being "dead" he'd just toss him out into the storm anyway. Or do horrible experiments on him. He could still remember that one with the weasels...

When he left, Zim still hadn't moved.

---

Tallests Red and Purple were confused.

Zim? Dead? At long last, Zim was dead? He hadn't said it outright, but you could tell that's what he was going to do. And by now, he'd probably already done it. But was it really that easy? Was Zim even able to kill Zim?

But that didn't mean they couldn't celebrate.

So that was what they did, after the call. Red had ordered one of the technicians to open the booze cabinet, and Purple had gone about, putting stupid-looking party hats, leis, and other assorted party-like things on the rest of them and the advisors. One of said advisors had gotten the idea and had broken out the boombox from a certain... time, as well as his tape-shades.

Dancing and boozing for almost two hours now. It was great. Wonderful. Confetti everywhere. Drunken Tallests laughing like idiots and drunken advisors laughing like idiots (one had passed out from liquor intolerance - he'd only had one drink) and drunken technicians steering the Massive about like a drunken thing itself.

And then a little red light lit up on one of the technician's consoles.

"Sirs! -hic-" He called, over the loud techno tunes. "A transgression ish -hic- coming down! -hic-"

"What?"

"Tramsnission!"

Red blinked with drunken understanding. "Oh! I get it! Transmission! Whozit?"

"I unno... the blinky lights is -hic- confuzzling me, sir..."

Purple laughed so hard he fell out of his seat, right on top of the liquor-intolerant advisor. Red managed a somewhat sober sigh, then waved a drunken hand at the technician to answer it. The screen flickered to life, and pretty much all of them sobered a little with shock.

It was Zim.

And he looked far from dead.

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Mmyep. The best part is the drunk people. I swear.

But at least I'm actually typing on it. I mean, nobody likes Avarice, so why bother updating it?

R&R, y0.

P.S.: Sorry about the seriousness. I have no idea how to squeeze funny into the next glitch, but I'll try. -heroic pose- CAPTAIN PROCRASTINATION IS ON THE JOB!