The first thing to regenerate was, unfortunately, his mind.
It pulsed like a flickering light in the seemingly ever-spacious, yet claustrophobic, mindscape. It is dim – yes, the flame is barely there, starving and weak, but no matter how many times they might try to extinguish it, the consciousness of Bill Cipher will always be smoldering somewhere.
He is not just sure where somewhere actually is.
If drawing from past experience, he would assume that he is floating around somewhere in that silly con-artist's head, bumping into the occasional traumatic childhood memory and whatnot. Only a bitter reminder of the frustrating setback keeping the demon from world domination for another millennia or so. How utterly humiliating it was, to call such a place a prison.
But then again, that might not be the case. Perhaps, unconsciously, he had already drifted somewhere else. If that were the truth, it would spare him wasting much of what little strength he had in an attempt to exist.
But for the time being, all the demon could do was wait. He could not stray from his prison, even if he had the strength to accomplish such – navigation of the environment around him was simply impossible. No, there was no conceivable method to, well, anything in this fragmented state.
His mind was here, yes, a small smudge against the vastness of the cosmos (a thought that was hardly pleasant, considering that, until recently, he had been the cosmos themselves). But all his other senses had been broken, shattered, into portions so small that he might as well have started from scratch.
Sad, it was, but nothing he had not dealt with before.
It reminded him of his own native dimension, flat and lusterless as it was, a place that was always so completely and utterly boring.
It was part of the reason these other dimensions, particularly the one of his defeat, had tempted him so.
Everything there was so spontaneous. Life was fluid, quick, and then over. There were risks and chances and the beautiful, sweet chaos that enveloped you afterwards. Everything was so colorful, he just had to save it all, even if it meant keeping it all to himself. He understood what he was doing here; eliminating the few strings that kept this dimension steady; freeing it from the oppressive laws of the universe.
What he did not understand was why the natives of this dimension were not grateful. In fact, they had responded with every negative emotion imaginable.
It frustrated him to no end. He, of all beings, understood what it was like to be bound by the laws of your dimension. Everything becomes predictable after a while. There is always some law or equation that dictates how nature works. To him, it was mind-numbingly boring; the past, present, and future meant nothing if you could see it all. There was nowhere to go and nothing to be seen or done because it all existed together. It all blurred into a vague sameness, grey and flat and boring.
But in the end it had been that intriguing spontaneous nature of this dimension that signed his downfall. He had assumed this place to be bound by destiny and fate, relinquishing its free will to the zodiac prophecy that had been there since the very beginning.
What he did not count was the prophecy being abandoned entirely.
This was not supposed to happen. The zodiac was supposed to either defeat him or he was supposed to defeat the zodiac. He had seen it millennia in advance, prepared and planned for this long-awaited day.
But humans did not know what supposed to happen. They could not see to the ends of infinity like he could. They could not foresee it. They could not plan for it. Because what did happen was what no one had ever predicted or planned for, not even for one day, much less a thousand years.
It was spontaneous. Chaotic. Exciting.
And Bill Cipher, for all his infinite knowledge of the stars and of nature and of the universe, had not seen it coming.
And it reminded him why this dimension tempted him in the first place and how he would have it to himself, one day. Someday. In the future. When his dimension-destroying powers had regenerated and he could do something other than keep himself company for a thousand years. Maybe twiddle his thumbs. Anything other than thinking to himself.
His sight would be the last thing to regenerate; he knew that for a fact. It was a cruel irony how the sense he relied upon the most would be the last to grace him once again. Humans, with their five puny senses, could hardly feel anything around them. Taking them away would leave them desolate and barren, yes, but five was hardly many to start out with. Try living with thousands of senses, constantly stimulating and kneading his being, only to have them ripped away in an instant. Try living – no, existing – with the nothingness that came with it.
Sometimes he wondered if routinely going through this period of nothingness was any worse than the dimension he had been trying to escape in the first place. It was less than flat, it was a point on a plane without even the privilege to see anything at all, even if it was only in black and white.
But even though it was worse than boredom, it would eventually end. As the regeneration period shortened and lengthened without pattern, he was not entirely sure when, but he knew that he would return to a world much different than the one he had left. Maybe a hundred years would past. Maybe a thousand. Or maybe – this thought amused him simply because of how probable it was – one of the very humans that banished him to this plane of nothingness would meet him yet again. If you can count on humans for anything, it is that they will always make mistakes.
But someday, even when it seemed like all trace of Bill Cipher had been wiped from the mortal earth, someone, somehow would remember him. Maybe through an ancient cave painting, maybe through a mysterious book in the woods, maybe through a spell whispered by a desperate person who has no one else to turn to – the possibilities were endless.
Maybe, just perhaps, his physical form was still out there, buried in a part of some forest that no one ever enters, waiting for him to possess it once again.
And that is way he kept trying. He was their liberator, after all; the one who would come and free this dimension, as he had done to others. Yes, this thought eased him. He knew what he would do when his strength was back. But at the moment, he was still less than an atom, forced into stillness while he quietly regenerated a fraction of the power he had lost.
But in the meantime, Bill Cipher would wait for the sunny day when he would return to Gravity Falls.