"Dib." Zim sneered.
    He was thrust violently onto the hard floor, and the soldiers left, shutting a heavy door behind them. Dib struggled onto his knees, which was difficult with handcuffs on. He didn't bother looking up at Zim, he just stared at the floor, bleakly. Detached from reality.
    "You haven't changed at all." Zim said.
    Silence. Then the broken figure moved. Dib lifted his head up, his amber eyes staring hatefully into Zim's.
    "Still the cocky, little freak you've always been." Zim said, chuckling at his wit.
     Dib still glowered up with a mix of homicidal feelings and sadness. But he didn't want to reply to Zim's taunting. He didn't want to sink so low as to argue with this alien scum.

    "You want to know where all you little friends are?" Zim asked. Dib gritted his teeth. "I hunted down every last one of them." Every word of that sentence hit Dib hard. He cast his gaze down. He didn't want Zim to see him like this. Tears welled up in Dib's eyes, and he fought to blink them back. I must be strong, he thought.
    A smile twisted it's way onto Zim's green visage. He'd done his job. "GUARDS! Take this filth out of my site."
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    Dib fell limply into his dark cell. He didn't get up. Why would he? Everything was gone. Everything. All he could do was wait for them to finish crafting his fate. And watch his hopes slip away into oblivion. After awhile he sat up against the cell's rusty, iron bars. He had to stop this, this despair. He had to think. He had to find a way to get out of this situation, no matter how impossible it seemed. But..how? Dib's had a pounding headache, and it hurt to think much longer. So he climbed up on the cement slab that was his bed.

    He woke up to a noise. Squinting out of his cell, he could make out the proud outline of one of Zim's guards. A chance for escape? A plan formed in Dib's desperate mind. He lay down on the floor, motionless.
    The guard came over to Dib's cell, curiously peering into the darkness. Sometimes the inmates found a way to commit suicide, and often times they just died of sickness, so he had reason to investigate. The young guard looked hard at Dib, who didn't seem to be breathing. He hesitantly unlocked the cell's heavy door and swung it open for a closer look. He peered down at Dib's dark form.

    Dib heard the guard's boots come close, and saw his chance. In a whirl, Dib jumped up, and grabbed the guard's gun from the holster. A shot rang out, echoing off of the stone walls. The guard was at Dib's feet, a messy hole in his back. He didn't get up. Dib stood with the gun in his hands for a few moments, and felt horrible. He was a murderer. He killed someone. Blood was spattered on his boots. He didn't have very much time to reflect on his actions, down the hall, another guard called out.
    "Hey! What's going on down there?"
    Dib took one last look at the young man he had just killed, and ran out of the cell, gun still clenched firmly in his hand. Hopefully, the other guards didn't see him. Dib didn't want to kill again. He ran through the hallways, trench coat billowing after him. He passed a familiar face. In fact, Dib recognized it as someone from his Resistance Group, her blood-stained face looked out behind rusty bars.
    "Hold on, I'll get you out. Stand back." Dib shot a bullet at the lock, and to his great surprise, it worked. The lock fell, useless, on the floor. Dib looked at the broken lock, numb to his feelings.
     "Oh god, I'm so sick of this. Just, please get me out. If you can't get me out, shoot me. Just..I can't stand it." she pleaded.
    "Relax," Dib replied, relieved that he wasn't alone in the world. "The lock came off, c'mon and hurry!'
    "Thank you.." she replied. "My name is Katherine, if you don't remember. I've been here for around two years."
    Dib nodded as he ran. Was she the last? He thought. He turned a corner with her, and then another. Dib was panting, and need to sit down a bit and rest. Besides, it looked like they lost the guards, finally. They stopped and pressed themselves against the cold, stone wall. Dib's mind was coming into focus once more, and he began to recall Katherine more. She fought with him, against Zim. He never really got to know her, all he knew was that she was a good soldier in the small war they waged. She helped get the secret files they so desperately needed. The secret files Dib had lost to Zim, the ones in the manilla folder, confiscated at his arrest. Once a loser, always a loser.
    "Soo.." Katherine said, attempting a conversation.
    "So." Dib retorted.
    "Everyone was hoping you'd get those files to the public, and everything would be back to normal. But it's not that easy, is it?" she asked quietly.
    "No. It isn't at all. I guess I thought it would be. Just delusions of grandeur." he sneered nastily, in contempt for himself.
    "I don't think so. I think it takes courage to do something so noble for people who belittled you all of your life."
    Why was he doing it? So he'd be accepted? So he'd get to say "I told you so"? Or was it something greater? He didn't even know, and half of him didn't want to know. He was afraid he was doing it all for himself, just to prove people wrong.
    He looked at her, her trusting face, her eyes full of faith in him. He wished she'd realize she was looking up to a loser.
    "Uh..yeah. We'd better get going."
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    "Gone? With one soldier dead? Get out of my sight! All of you!" Zim roared at  the guards with his high pitched voice, who promptly left. "Incompetence!" he growled under his breath. Two resistance leaders, escaped. How far could they go? What harm could they do? Zim had a whole army at his disposal. There was no stopping him. He got up from his throne to go alert the forces himself, in such a hurry he left his door ajar.
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    "Hurry, they're bound to be looking for us again." Katherine called back to Dib, who was lagging behind.
    "Damned cuts.." Dib muttered under his breath. He legs were incredibly sore after all the running in the past week. "Hey, look! Isn't that Zim's room? It looks like he's gone."
    "Yeah.."
    "So wouldn't the folder be in there? We could sneak in and get it."
    "That'd be extremly risky.."
    "But we're so close!" he pleaded.
    "Fine, you're the one with the gun, you stay outside and make sure no one comes in. I'll go look."
    Katherine slipped stealthily in, and looked for any movement in the room. None. She glanced around, taking in her surroundings. There was a file cabnit in the corner, that was her best bet with what little time she had. She carefully slid the drawer open, and looked at all the dusty files, each one a manilla folder. Files were hardly used, now that there was so much technology, and she was surprised at the amount. Hurridly, she flipped through them, hoping to find anything to set it apart from the others. Please, please, please, c'mon.. she thought. Aha! She found one, one with a little doodle of a decapitated alien on the front. She raised it triumphantly, but had only miliseconds to savor her glory.
    "Any day now!" Dib whispered through clenched teeth.
    "I got it! I got it!"
    "Great! Now let's get outta this place."