A/N: So I discovered the Mystery Skulls - Ghost and completely fell in love with the song, the characters, the story, and the animation! My brain likes to take my current interests and throw them in a pit together and this idea was too good to just let it stew in my head! This is my first multi-chaptered fanfiction. Also this is currently unbeta-d. I'm pretty good with spelling and grammar, but let me know if you spot anything. Comments and critiques are much loved. Buy gold, bye!

Bill Cipher felt something. Something strange that doesn't normally happen. A shift in something, a disturbance, he wans't exactly sure what, another rare occurrence for him. The atmosphere? The world? The physics? All close but not quite... He would have to investigate closer, suspecting that it might be that bothersome Pine Tree with Journal number Three, meddling in things he shouldn't, yet again. The Dream Demon vanished from the Dreamscape in a flash of blinding white light to check on the Mystery Shack and the twin boy...

"Wh-what the hell was that?!" Vivi sat in the passenger seat of the Mystery Skulls van for a little over five minutes while Arthur floored it, trying to put as much distance between them and that haunted mansion. Mystery sat in the back, eyes widened at the dirt path as it flew past.

Arthur flicked his eyes at Vivi briefly, then back to the road. He was sweating and still shaking from the whole ordeal. As soon as he saw Lewis, saw the pulsating locket, he knew the truth had to come out now. Keeping that night a secret from Vivi hurt him inside, every time he looked at her. She didn't remember what happened, thanks to Lewis, he guessed.

She jostled the ginger and the van swerved of the road a little, obviously enraged. "Don't just sit there, answer me! What happened?! What are you hiding from me!?" The locket that purple skeleton ghost presented to her pulsated with a warm radiance. Her memory, having been wiped, started to come back to her, slowly, triggered by that warm, lovely locket. "You know something too, don't you, Mystery!?" She shouted, her anger rising with the silence.

As soon as the small dog was satisfied they were not being followed he padded to the front of the van carefully. "Vivi, calm down." He said almost pleadingly. He wished that there was any other way around this confrontation, but knew it was inevitable after their encounter with Lewis' ghost. "What do you remember?" The back of his head was throbbing slightly, a nagging feeling that wanted to stay hidden.

Vivi clenched her hands in her lap, focusing on them and somehow seeing past them at the same time. "All-all I remember is..." she started shakily, her heart aching for reasons she yet did not know, her body trembling slightly, fighting back tears. "A c-cave... Walking down a path, I thought Mystery was right behind me... lots of green fog... And... and-" she choked out a sob. Mystery placed a paw on her shoulder.

Arthur's hands tightened around the steering wheel, the knuckles of his real hand turning white. He wanted to comfort her, tell her it was a dream or something, stroke her blue hair, but he had to stay focused on the road, and to be honest he was afraid of her pushing him away, rejecting his concern for her.

"It's okay... Don't force it." Mystery spoke softly, ignoring his own thoughts, somehow knowing that it was best for whatever lay hidden back there to remain that way.

"Th-then... Lewis..." She said the name slowly, as if she wasn't sure of his name. "A scream, h-his... He fell... an-and-" Now Vivi was crying, forcing down the whimpers and bawls her body so desperately wanted to release.

And suddenly the atmosphere changed, imperceptibly icy. "But there's more to it, isn't there?" She asked, her tone shifting drastically as she remembered her previous inquiries.

The dog shared a look with Arthur, willing him to tell her the truth. It would be better for the healing process if Arthur was the one who explained what happened up there on that cliff.

Arthur locked his eyes on the road, looking at her was the last thing he wanted to do. "It was me." He said flatly, steeling his nerves. In any other circumstance he would have found a way to weasel out of the topic, to avoid conflict or confrontation. "I pushed him." He didn't want to get into the emotions he had been feeling at the time, the jealousy, the regret, not right now...

Vivi's eyes widened, her pupils shrinking in shock. Her heart hurt so much, feeling like it could take no more. She whispered a single word, barely audible over the van bouncing down the dirt road, "why?"

"I-I don't know exactly... Something came over me, possessed me... I pushed him, then Mystery... He... he tore my arm off... Saved me from the demon that tried to take over my body... He saved me... But he was too late to save..." It was difficult for him to confess all this to Vivi like this. "That's how I lost my arm... Not an accident..."

"I-I don't remember that part..." Mystery spoke up, trembling a little. "I guess I just... blacked out or something... It happens... I d-don't know..." There was a quiver in his voice, horrified to learn that he had dismembered his best friend. Arhtur had simply told him it was an accident. The ginger must have known he wasn't himself at the time...

The blue haired girl was silent for a long time. Five, ten, twenty minutes, staring at the floor. It was unnerving both Arthur and Mystery.

"Stop the van... I-I need some fresh air... I want... want to walk..." She said, trying her best to steady her voice, gulping down large breaths of air.

Arthur nodded, "sure," and the van slowly came to a stop. Vivi hopped out, closing the door behind her. "Stay here... I want... to be alone..." She didn't look at him, just staring vacantly at the door handle. The ginger nodded again, but as soon as her back was turned, he looked at Mystery with pleading eyes and the dog knew what he wanted.

Hopping out of the passenger window, Mystery followed Vivi quietly down the path, to keep an eye on her, make sure she stayed safe in the darkened forest. His tail was tucked between his legs and he was scared, nearly quaking, but right now Arthur was counting on him to look after her...

Dipper sat cross legged on his bed, notepad and pen in one hand, the Journal in the other, resting on his knee. He was humming an aweful lot and clicking his pen the way he did when he was thinking hard about mysteries. It was late at night, about eleven. Grunkle Stan didn't see the need to impose any kind of bed time or curfew on the twins, or rather found it too much of a hastle, and left them to their own devices after dinner, so long as they didn't disturb him.

Mabel was swinging her legs back and forth, bopping her head to some tune she was playing inside her mind as she worked on another sweater to add to her collection. "Omomomomo omomomomomo oh yeah. This time I might just~" words and sounds would come out randomly, loud enough to hear but quiet enough to not be annoying.

The younger twin turned a page in the Journal, examining the Bill Cipher wheel, an image he had seen a hundred times, trying to figure out what the wheel meant. He knew the symbols represented someone in Gravity Falls, but for what purpose? He had figured out all of the obvious ones, him being the pine tree, Mabel the shooting star, etc. but who were the rest...?

"Hang on...!' He said a little too loudly, causing Mabel to look up at him sharply, accidentally pricking herself with the needle she was working with. "Ow! What? What is it?" She asked, setting her project to the side.

Mabel peered over Dipper's shoulder at the Journal page while sucking on her finger. "Did you figure something out?"

Dipper shook his head furiously. "Look!" He tapped his pen, retracted, at the page. He wouldn't dare make a single mark on the Journal, not until he'd learned what it all means. "I didn't draw those! They just showed up on their own. Earlier today it was exactly the same as it was before but now there's new symbols!"

Mabel looked closer at the symbols wedged in between the familiar ones. What looked like a scarf between the shooting star and the llama, a broken heart above the stitched one and below the pair of glasses, and another hand, this one with normal amount of fingers but had lines where the joints would be, between Dipper's pine tree and what Dipper suspected to be the symbol on Grunkle Stan's fez.

"Weeeeeiiiiiiiird..." She said slowly...