( Author's Note: Hi, guys! ...Um, yeah, I've been dead for quite a while. I'm a zombie as I'm writing this now actually. Speaking of which, I haven't written in about a year. Bit sad, really, I haven't published a fan fiction for many years. I should be updating this story weekly, depending on reviews. I couldn't really think of a decent title for this work, so I used Florence and the Machine's song, "Howl," as a title, because it is what inspired this story. I also would like to have this finished by Halloween, because it will drag into the Autumn months later on. I tend to lean toward writing more gothic fiction, so I assume that even this fic will take on a more eerie tone. Hope you like spooky Dorito demons. x:

Anyway, do feel free to read this, relax, and grab a bag of aforementioned Doritos to munch on as you do so. All characters belong to Disney and Alex Hirsch.

Enjoy! :3)

Howl

Prologue

It howled within him.

All of the humidity and all of the heat and all of the hauntingness- It swelled within.

All of the anxiety, anxiousness, anticipation. Apathy. It howled within.

And all that could be heard in the narrow and stark white hallway, which did lead into his narrow and stark white office, was the dull and rattling rhythm of his pen against his chiseled mandible.

There were exactly thirty minutes remaining.

Thirty minutes remaining in his office hours, and he inwardly hoped that no straggling student would come trudging in within that time slot and begin a long conversation regarding the college course that he had taken up an internship for teaching. Magic, myths, and rituals, it was called. An anthropology course, even though he was an English major. It would look impressive on his resume, if ever he actually used his degree properly, once he overcame graduate school.

If he did.

Dissertations were such a task to organise and the fact that he had to, that he was expected to write one, made the idea of writing at all that much more unappealing. He'd thought of a thousand and one things in which he could write about, but had of course scrapped them all. He'd hit a block at this point.

And besides that, his ambitions lied elsewhere. Absolutely elsewhere.

He needed the distraction. He needed a holiday. He needed away.

His heart had skipped a beat a month earlier in April, when he had received an e-mail from his grunkle, stating that he had fallen quite mysteriously ill and was gradually becoming less and less capable of running tours and the shack, and it was assumed by the boy that the man was simply refusing to admit to the struggles of old age creeping up on him. It was inquired of him, at the age of twenty-four, that he take over the "family business."

And he had been like this for a month.

The pen that reiterated its harsh tapping upon his jaw suffered from indentations of molars, and its ink level was dangerously low to the point of leaving horrible black blots upon the towers and skyscrapers of graded student papers that were always upon his desk.

His hazelnut gaze shifted the the bottom of his computer screen, and the pen dropped to meet its miserable end under the desk and on cold, dusty tile.

Dipper didn't even register this. It was time.

He hadn't been to Gravity Falls in six years. The last summer that he spent there, he'd been eighteen and too distracted with obtaining financial aid and scholarships to enjoy his visit. Not that he'd really wanted to go to university, anyway. Not that he really needed to.

One week in, he'd shed his mediocre attempt of nice button-down shirts and slacks, which he'd only worn to maintain a good visual reputation at the university, and had yet again traded them for faded blue-jean trousers and simple t-shirts. Ah, and his old hat, complete with the old pine tree.

Business had been slow due to an ongoing heat wave. Which was quite lucky, really, as it gave Dipper the necessary time to settle somewhat back into his old routine, and that relaxed him. It also gave him time to reconcile with his grunkle, and to remember how everything used to be every summer as he was growing up.

...Well, nearly everything.

He was dreading, yet simultaneously anticipating some oddity to happen, and he estimated that it wouldn't be too much longer until some rug was pulled out from beneath his feet. After all, Mabel would be joining him in two weeks, and that fact was enough to confirm the aforementioned theory. He only hoped that he wouldn't be alone before all the tables began to turn topsy-turvy again, and make Gravity Falls- well, Gravity Falls. The very place which haunted his memories night after night after night.

Currently, he'd taken up house chores and any heavier work outdoors that Stan would not touch with a ten-and-a-half-foot pole. Dipper however could not find himself wanting to complain. In his college years, he'd shied away from socialising, and preferred to keep to himself now more than ever. And in his free time now, when his work for the day was done, he'd go alone and with a journal into the forest and explore as he had in years past. He'd crouch by a tree and watch the deer as they grazed, and look up again at the sky raptors as they glided above him gracefully. He'd start his return home as the fireflies would come out each night, guiding him back with trails of their soft golden flame.

He enjoyed the peace whilst he knew he could. Some part deep within the fathoms of his gut churned more severely with each passing day, something innate. And it followed him into his dreams by the week's end, until one morning he woke with his wallet in his hand, a bit of a one dollar bill peering out at him.

Peering.

Leering.

He leered. Every single night for an entire week. He leered.

No one had bothered telling him. Not that they would have the decency to, anyway. Come to think of it, he wouldn't have that decency in their position, either. He never had decency. But, that was part of his charm.

Still, it irked him.

It had been six years and there hadn't even been gossip about it, and if there had, he'd have known. In small communities, gossip always caught like wildfire. But there had been nothing and it had all just happened out of the blue. Because there he'd been, all this time, waiting. His plans had fallen through, caved in, collapsed, over the years. And at this point, he'd forgotten what they'd even been. Existence had been so dull as of late and never had such a small amount of time gone by so tediously, so slowly, in his thousands of years of- was it even life?...

He'd nestled himself one night within a crevice in an old oak, sat to think for the first time in a long time, surrounded by fireflies and he had a thought that he blended in quite nicely with them. Beyond that, it was a great endeavour to think of anything else. No new ideas came to him and he was instead drowned in the memories of all his years. He decided that it wasn't psychologically very healthy even for the likes of him to dwell on the past, and returned his attention to the mass of fireflies, comparing them to stars at a point and manifesting different constellations out of groups of them. He'd named Gemini, Circinus, Dorado, Horologium, the Little Dipper, and-

There was a sharp cry and the sudden snapping of a branch on the forest floor. The voice had been deep, but young. A small herd of mule deer went cantering in panic around the old oak, and out from the brambles stumbled a male human. He was lean and of average build, with a thin neck and small shoulders. His face, though mostly concealed by thick chocolate locks, was pale- save for a ruddy nose that was a bit round and subtly too large, but nicely formed. The same could be said of the boy's jaw, which hung open in a series of pants as a long-fingered hand tossed a familiar hat back onto that mop of brown hair. When he stood up properly and huffed, it was too obvious.

Pine Tree.

-and Big Dipper.

If Bill Cipher had a mouth it would most definitely have spread into a toothy smirk. It well would have fallen quickly, however, because, in fact, he began to leer at the young man with that gaping, slitted pupil of his, and his entire triangular being burnt red, for multiple reasons. Frustration being the main one.

Pine Tree had changed. It had only been six years and he had grown up, and looking into his eyes in the best and most discreet manner that he could, Bill was annoyed. Pine Tree wasn't a sapling anymore. He could tell- because now that glimmer in his eyes that once thought they knew responsibility and reason really did know them now. They were dull. Ruined by tight schedules, all-nighters, the monotonous form of mountainous paperwork, and far too many cups of coffee.

Bill folded his spindly arms across himself and let his fingers on one hand tap rhythmically. This simply had to be fixed, for the sheer sake of his entertainment. It took all of his self-control not to float over and take the absolute piss out of Dipper right then and there. No, now was not the ideal time, not the ideal place. Not the right circumstance. The Eye of Providence retained his golden sheen and relaxed, settling back as a million thoughts calibrated through his mind. He was yet again the hunter, and Dipper had become his prey. And for a week he loomed about in the black of shadows, his mind well made up. His patience thinned in the last three days and he caved and tracked his prey even in the Dreamscape. Silently, subtly, sensibly.

But still he leered in wait.

( A/N: Hello again! I should be uploading the first chapter by the weekend. This prologue has been very vague, but I promise that there is some foreshadowing in there. Reviews are well appreciated. :) )