Dipper slowly began to twist the screw with his fingers to find it wasn't going to move, he needed a screwdriver. He glanced back up over the mound of destroyed boxes and broken furniture and after seeing the huge, mangled silhouette he ducked down as fast as he could. A dark, sinister grumble followed by the scraping sound of metal hit Dipper's ears causing him to hold his breath and clenched his eyes shut in attempt to stay quiet. He felt his blood turning cold in his veins and his skin crawled on the back of his neck and shoulders. He was just about ready to cry, where on Earth was he going to find a screwdriver to open the trapdoor and escape this horrid situation? He couldn't stay up in the attic much longer without the thing noticing him and surely killing him instantly.

~Prior~

Earlier in the morning, Dipper had been trudging endlessly through the dense forest outside his residence of Gravity Falls in search of yet another anomaly, another Cryptid if you will. He and Mabel had been online again and in their excitement of discovering a new undiscovered creature supposedly living in the forests close to town, Dipper couldn't wait to go and see if the rumors were true. But despite his past experience and knowledge on such things, he decided he would go empty handed and just catch a glimpse of the creature to firstly convince himself of it's existence, so he could continue further searches for it after collecting more information. This was a careless mistake he would regret for a long time.

Dipper came across an old, torn down building some three hundred meters away that he did not recognize. He was almost sure that he had the entire forest, or most of it, mapped out and memorized. He hadn't gone that far away, it was relatively close to home. Dipper frowned in confusion and was puzzled that he hadn't noticed it before. His natural instinct was to take a look and upon closer inspection the building was a lot older than he first thought. There was a gaping big hole in the roof and all the paint had almost completely peeled off the wood. The house was built on a 40 degree incline at the base of a tree covered hill in one of the densest parts of the forest and the house was held level with a brick wall; holding the floor perfectly horizontal. The front, side and back door had been nailed shut and Dipper didn't have time to try and break them down, especially when there was a perfectly useful hole in the roof.

He pulled up his shorts a little, rubbed his hands together before climbing up the side of the building, clinging to the gutter and rolling up onto the tiled portion of the semi-intact roof. He cautiously stepped over to the edge of the hole and peered inside. Cloudy dust was drifting through the air and settling on the floor, giving Dipper the idea that the roof must have collapsed within minutes of him seeing the building and he thought it was safer to get down in there than risk his body weight collapsing the rest of the roof and injuring himself. He sat with his feet dangling down, slid his butt off the edge and landed with a soft pat on the floor, his knees bent down to cushion the fall. He stood up and dusted himself off and looked at his surroundings. broken roof tiles scattered across the floor, broken pieces of wood and furniture all over the place.

He walked over to one side where there was less rubble and opened a few drawers of an old Duchess finding only a paper weight and a few old pencils. The Duchess had a broken mirror above it, small shards of glass lay on the top of the drawers. Dipper was about to turn around when a quick look at the ground had him fixated and hunched over. Smeared across the wooden floor was a dark red/brown liquid. Dipper frowned.

Blood?

He slowly stood straight again and caught a glimpse of something horrific in the distorted reflection of the shattered mirror in front of him. A Bipedal creature nearly twice Dipper's height and width hunching over, cowered in the far corner of the room with it's back to Dipper. It was breathing heavily and it fidgeted around making harsh sounding spits and grunts. Dipper took no time to duck behind the nearest thing he could fine beside him, a pile of broken furniture and wooden crates and he sat still as a statue, absolutely petrified. He heard the creature move along the floor before standing up and bashing it's limbs against the walls in a fit of rage. It let out a scream so terrifying, so obscene that Dipper might have dropped dead that very moment.

Not that Dipper paid too much close attention, but he noticed that the way the creature walked from what he could here, it was injured. Then it clicked. The creature must have fallen through the roof somehow and that's why the whole room was in this state. Dipper tried his best to clear his thoughts, but he was so unprepared that e couldn't think of a way to get out. And he desperately needed to. He slowly moved his leg across the floor when he felt a screw sticking out of the floor scrape painfully up his calf muscle. Grabbing his leg and cringing at the pain he looked down at the screw and realized it was holding down a trap door conveniently place beneath him! This was his only way out. Apart from the roof of course but that was out of the question. The creature still moving about and seemingly getting angrier, Dipper reluctantly slid himself off the trapdoor and began to try to twist off the screw.

~Current~

Dipper suddenly remembered the paper weight sitting in the Duchess drawer to the left of him, and he slowly and quietly reached for the cupboard. A gruff sound made him pull back, but he nervously attempted again and slowly pulled open the drawer and pulled out the paper weight. It was quite a heavy one, and he took another quick glance over his barrier before getting to his knees and pegging the paper weight straight at the creatures head with as much strength as he could produce. The thing raucously collapsed to the ground and Dipper went straight to survival mode. He picked up a small metal piece of furniture lying among the rubble and forcefully pried off the screw and pulled the trapdoor open. The creature roared, rattling the building and Dipper leaped out of the attic and crashed onto the floor of a dark house. Dipper picked himself up and raced to one of the windows. Wooden squares nailed over the frames blocking out any light didn't matter, Dipper grabbed the nearest thing and bashed through the wood with it, piercing light shone at his eyes as he saw the setting sun dragging itself towards the horizon.

He climbed out and made for a sprint when another roar made him turn his back. The creature was standing straight up in the attic still and it was tall enough for it's head and shoulders to be visible out the hole from the ground. It pulled itself out of the hole and jumped off the roof in pursuit of Dipper. And this thing was fast despite it's injury.

Dipper ran as hard and fast as he could, as well as dodging trees, rocks and roots so he wouldn't trip up. He was quite agile so staying up wasn't a problem for him, but losing this beast was. After about fifteen minutes of straight running, the creature seemed to give up and it jogged away from the building and into the trees. Dipper however didn't stop running until he was back home behind a closed front door.

"But mom you should have seen the fucking size of it!" Dipper gasped with exhaustion. "It could easily be twice my height and it was so fast holy shit"

"I don't care how much you want to 'document' this new creature, you're going to kill yourself out their. You're forbidden to go back out there." Mrs. Pines said, putting her foot down.

She was used to Dipper exploring the forest and claiming to find things, but she could clearly see the danger this boy had gotten himself into. She stood over the kitchen sink washing plates while Mr. Pines put down his newspaper as he sat at the table, ready to contribute to the conversation if necessary.

Dipper was going to argue his mothers decisions, but seeing his father watching him he went against it and sat down instead, puffing loudly.

"Must have been a good workout though, Eh?" Mr. Pines said, chuckling to himself.

"My whole body hurts from running, I didn't stop for a solid twenty minutes." Dipper said. He got up and washed his face under the bathroom sink before returning to the kitchen.

"It'll feel worse tomorrow, it's always worse the second day." Mrs. Pines said as she put the last knife into the dishwasher.

"And you've got work to do tomorrow, too." Mr. Pines added.

"What?! What work?" Dipper raised his voice.

"We've got new neighbors coming tomorrow, you and I are helping them move in and get their stuff into their house so the delivery van can leave before 5 in the afternoon." Mr. Pines said, knowing Dipper would complain but would obey because of past events.

Dipper huffed loudly, before getting up to take a shower.

"Who are they?" Dipper asked.

"I believe the Babcock's. Two kids, One guy around your age and a girl a little older. You should have enough time to make friend with them tomorrow."

"Oh, I guess I don't have a choice about being friends with them as well then?" Dipper said, annoyed.

"Nope."

Dipper huffed again, before storming upstairs to take a thirty minute hot shower to soothe his sore muscles.

Dipper shut and locked the bathroom door before stripping down his clothes and turning on the hot water, steaming up the bathroom. He didn't hop into the shower straight away, he liked to let the mirror fog up before getting in so he knew the conditions were just right. He climbed into the shower hissed at the sharp sting coming from the back of his calf, and he looked to see the scratch the screw had left back in the attic of the building in the forest.

He began to recall the look that monster gave him and it sent chills down his spine even though he was under hot water. He pushed it from his mind and instead he wondered what type of neighbors he would have. What would the boy be interested in? Would the girl be too old to date? Who knows?

Dipper dragged himself out of the shower and wrapped himself up in his blanket and fell into a deep sleep.