Dipper wakes up without even the slightest clue as to where he may be. He had gone to sleep in his bed in the attic of his grunkle's business, which now belonged to his good friend Soos, the mystery shack, but that sure as hell wasn't where he woke up.
"Guys?" the Sixteen year old calls out. "Mabel? Candy, grenda? Pacifica? Anyone?"
His sister had a sleepover, he remembered that much from the previous night. Perhaps this was a prank the girls had decided to play? Carry him out to the woods while he slept?
"nah, that can't be right… far too mean-spirited for them…" he sighs, throwing his hypothesis out through the window. Then, if not them, what had brought him here?
With a groan, he stands up, deciding to get a look at his surroundings before heading back to the mystery shack.
"Well… whatever brought me here, i'll give credit where it's due, it's got good taste in locations."
He kneels to the ground, inspecting the vibrant green blades of grass. He plucks one from the ground, and pulls out his journal. He opens up the deep blue book with the golden pine tree on the front cover, and begins to write down all he sees around him, to help him find the place again if nothing else.
A sound from somewhere deep in the forest catches dipper's attention as he starts to leave. He glances back out of pure curiosity. It didn't sound like anything he had encountered before over the many summers and winters and spring breaks he had spent in the little Oregon town, which intrigued him greatly. He thought he'd seen everything there is to see, but apparently not. Always ready for a new discovery, he turns to a new page in his journal, pen at the ready.
In the distance, he hears the sound once again. It's loud, and deep, seemingly somewhere between the roar of a tremendous beast and a man's scream of pain.
Dipper notices something strange about where the sound is coming from. Deep into the woods, between the trees, light from the sun was mostly taken up by the branches in the canopy overhead, so naturally things were a bit darker there, but as he tries to catch a glimpse of whatever made the sound, he realizes the direction it came from is much darker than anywhere else in the woods.
This discovery almost kept him from noticing the quiet crackling sound coming from the grass, like the sound of ice being crushed beneath countless pairs of feet. He looks down, and, to his shock, sees the grass beneath his feet turning browner and browner as it withered and died before his eyes. He backs up slightly, looking back up into the darkness, where he sees a pair of bright yellow eyes glaring at him. Another roar from the beast, and suddenly the darkness itself seems to rush towards the poor boy.
He runs. He turns around, and he runs away as fast as he can- though, not without taking down some notes on the thing following him.
He looks over his shoulder, only to see the terrible black mass gaining on him, and quickly. He puts the journal back into his jacket pocket, and keeps running away from the creature, which remains in pursuit.
He keeps running, going as fast as he can, like his life depends on it- mainly because it does. Eventually, though, fatigue gets the best of him. Deciding to try something else, he jumps over to a fallen, hollow log, hoping to hide from the beast.
He sits in the log, catching his Breath as he hears the shadowy monster approach. "this is it…" he thinks to himself. "either this thing doesn't find me… or i die."
He considers this thought for a moment. "huh. So that's what Mabel meant when she said I have a morbid way of thinking." he shakes his head, hearing the beast roar. "not important!" he says, cowering down inside the log.
And that's when it hits him.
"wait a moment…" he says to himself.
"I fall asleep, and wake up in the forest being chased by a nightmarish shadow creature? that's it! I'm dreaming!" he grins, glad to have figured it out. "I should wake up any minute now!" he says as he crawls out of the log.
And that's when it hits him.
The beast, despite appearing to not have any physical form, knocks Dipper soaring back into the nearest tree. As he sits there, ears ringing from the pain, and a hand on the back of his head, he realizes that this is no dream.
He glances up, seeing the beast charging towards him. With a scream, he throws his hands up in a vain attempt at self-defense, just waiting for the beast to come and kill him.
He clenches his eyes shut, and hears the thud of something huge and heavy impacting a wall.
He opens one eye, then the other. He looks at his hands in shock. He's unharmed, aside from where he hit the tree.
"but… how?" he says to himself. He looks up, and sees the creature staring at him. He cries out, backing up slightly. The beast lashes out…
...and is prevented from reaching him by some kind of pink energy bubble.
"what…?" he asks, reaching into his jacket for his journal.
Before it's even out of his jacket, he hears a familiar voice calling out from somewhere unknown.
"Begone, foul demon! Leave this man alone!"
Dipper turns, looking at the source of the voice. A few feet away, hovering a good six inches over the ground, is his sister Mabel. Except, aside from the hovering, there seems to be something off about her. It takes him a moment to process what he's seeing, but once he does, he can't bring himself to look at anything else.
Sprouting from his sister's back is a pair of large, glittery pink wings.
The shadow beast that had been trying to kill him mere moments before begins backing away, leaving the area and rushing back into the forest.
Dipper looks around, confused, and more than a little terrified. "Mabel? Wh- why do you have wings? What was that creature? What is this… this bubble thing?"
Mabel flutters over to him, a concerned look on her face. "Sir Dippington! Are you okay? You just took on a Darkbeast completely unarmed!"
Dipper stares at her, a deadpan look on his face. "wh… what? Sir Dippington? Darkbeast? Mabel, what are you talking about?"
She shakes her head, clicking her tongue. "You must have hit your head, brother. I know you want to impress Princess Northwest, but taking on a creature of the cursed woods with no weapons or armor is not the way to do it!"
She gives him a sly grin, crossing her arms over her chest. "The princess has no interest in a dead man."
Dipper shakes his head, looking around and trying to process what he just heard. "Princess? Cursed woods? Mabel, what's going on? Why do you have WINGS?" he asks, exasperated.
She raises an eyebrow, tongue in her cheek, looking at Dipper. "Oh wow, you really DID hit your head… Alright, um… well, dear brother, our mother is a fairy, and our father is a regular mortal man. I got the fairy genes, and you got the human ones! Any of this… any of this ringing a bell?" she asks, her voice taking on a hopeful tone.
Dipper just keeps staring at her, not understanding a word of what she had just said to him. "What…? I don't have any idea what you're talking about mabel." he protests, taking a small step towards the edge of the pink energy bubble he's trapped inside of.
She frowns, looking him over. "Mason, I think we need to get you home... "
Dipper blinks, trying to comprehend what he just heard. She never calls him mason, never in their lives. Something was strange here, even more so than what was normal for the small Oregon town of gravity falls, and he felt determined to figure out what it was.
His sister's wings flutter quickly, like that of a hummingbird, as she begins to head east. Dipper follows close behind, the glittery pink forcefield around him preventing even falling leaves from coming close to him.
