Chapter One: The Figure

"Dammit!"

I rubbed my aching foot and foolishly kicked the rock I tripped over out of frustration. I looked around and found my hat with the blue pine tree on it lying in the grass. My back pulsed with pain as I reached down to get it. "Mother fucker", I mumbled as I rubbed my aching spine, "I guess Mabel was right when she said I was clumsy."

I sucked up the pain and picked up my old, worn-out backpack. I suddenly felt a cold gust of wind go past me and the din of thunder signaling that it was going to start raining soon. I mumbled a curse word under my breath and begin to run back to the mystery shack. I was running in the dark, so it was hard to see. I half expected myself to bump into a long tree branch or something.

The thunder only got louder as I ran closer to home. The rain was just begging to break through the clouds. I ran as fast as I could because if my backpack even got a little bit wet, it would fall apart and release all my work on the ground.

As I ran faster, the thunder got louder and more intense, I was really beginning to get worried, but then the sign of the mystery shack came into view. I smiled a bit as I saw my twin sister Mabel standing on the porch, her pretty head being protected by a pink umbrella and she was wearing a pink pajama outfit covered with pictures of puppies. I know that she's probably waiting to complain about how she hated that I snuck out the house even though I told her I would stop, but I still loved seeing her.

As I had finally reach the end of the woods, I hear something rustling in the bushes. It steals my attention for a brief moment, but I dismiss it as just an animal in woods trying to find shelter from the incoming rain. I walked out of the woods and Mabel noticed me. She smiled her beautiful smile at first, but then she realized the reason we were even out here in the first place and got angry. She still looked adorable though.

I should make this perfectly clear right now, I have no desires to do anything romantic with my twin sister, I just think she's the definition of fucking adorable.

"Are you fucking insane! Its two in the morning and we have school tomorrow! You promised me you would stop sneaking out the house!", Mabel said looking like she was ready to uppercut me.

"I said that I would try to to stop sneaking out the house. I made no promises", I said with a smirk.

Mabel groaned and faced palmed, "What am I going to do with you?"

I chuckled and grabbed her hand, "C'mon sis, let's go to bed." She wanted to scold me some more, but she decided to give in because like me, she was extremely tired and we both needed our beauty sleep. Some of us more than others. I'll let you decide who I'm talking about.

Me and Mabel quietly made our way to our room so we wouldn't wake our Grunkle (Great Uncle) Stan, the man we now live with. I opened the door for Mabel and she walked immediately to her bed and fell asleep. I close the bedroom door, walk over to my sleeping twin, and kiss her on the cheek.

I laid down on my bed and stared at the cieling, for I wasn't sleepy and I didn't feel like doing anything else tonight. I didn't even feel like taking off my clothes. I remember something Mabel said that stood in my mind, we have school tomorrow. I mumbled another swear and groaned. School has never been and never will be easy for me. While Mabel is a social butterfly, I am a loner who prefers to be alone. Shocking right?

Therefore making friends at school is pretty much pointless for me. Especially since I prefer my sister's company over anyone else, which is difficult considering that Mabel makes friends way quicker then I do and she has little time for me during school days. It was always like this back home in California, so I'm sure it will be the same here.

The reason me and Mabel moved to Gravity Falls, Oregon is because times had gotten tough back home. Both of our parents lost their jobs and for a while they didn't know how they were gonna support the family. It was hard for our parents to get jobs considering that they were both high school drop outs. Luckily, our father got a job (he never told us what it was), but it didn't pay that much and there was no way we could keep the apartment we lived in.

It became clear that we were going to have to move soon, so our parents decided to ship me and Mabel to Gravity Falls to live with our Grunkle Stan and go to school here and cut expenses. Grunkle Stan was an... Interesting individual. Let's start with the fact that he lived and worked in his so called "baby" The Mystery Shack. It's basically a tourist trap consisting of Stan overcharging poor suckers to look at obviously fake things and passing them off as legit. It was a total rip-off sure, but if it pays, who the hell am I to judge?

The thing that sucks is that me and Mabel have to work there. So now after we get home from a shitty day of high school, we have to work in this pathetic excuse for a store. Life is just great folks. Just swell. Also there was small fact that Stan had a criminal record, but I digress.

In the short time we've been in Gravity Falls, me and Mabel have only met two new people, Soos and Wendy. They were the only employees in the mystery shack, it's not like this place needed a high tech staff or anything.

Wendy was a very attractive teenage girl about our age. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't smitten with her a look bit. She had pretty red hair that went half way down her back, hazel eyes that seemed to be the brightest thing in the room whenever she was around, a voice that was full of confidence and happiness, and she always wore an outfit that would look out of place on any other girl, but on Wendy it looked perfect. It fit her cool, slacker aditude. She was truly a fun person to be around.

Soos was a "manchild" who idolized Grunkle Stan, for some fucking reason. Besides that little flaw, he's an extremely nice and extremely lovable guy. He was the first person in Oregon, besides Stan of course, to greet us. He was very excited to hear that we would have to start working in the shack because now he has more people to talk to. Though his cheery aditude took a minute to grow on me, I began to genuinely like him.

For the most part, Gravity Falls seemed like a very nice substitute to our home town of Oakland, California. Back in Oakland the city's were loud and the sun was constantly trying to burn your eyes out, in Gravity Falls you'd be lucky to see a single car in the street and the sky always seemed to be cloudy. I kinda like it. I'd actually recommend this place to you if you can get passed the fact that everyone in this town is a creep. Remember Wendy and Soos? They seem to be only normal people in this entire town, but the less said about that the better.

I roll over in my bed and look at Mabel who is still fast asleep, probably dreaming about marshmallows and teddys bears. I shouldn't be worried for her, I know she'll fit right in with the rest of the weirdos, but as her brother, I still worry about her all the time. I suddenly noticed the cool breeze blowing from the window and onto my face. I got up to close the window, but as soon as I made it there, I saw a figure in the same bushes I was in earlier.

The figure was of a human. It looked small and skinny. I couldn't really make out it's facial features, but I could see what I assumed to be extremely red eyes. I could kinda make out what I thought was messy hair. Looking at the position of his eyes, I think he was staring at me, and I was staring back.

We were probably staring at each other for a good seven minutes before I started to doubt that this was even a real person and not just my mind playing tricks on me. For all I know these red "eyes" I see might just be red lights that had fallen into the bushes and the "messy hair" was just leaves, but the possibility of that went out the window when I saw it lift it's arm in the air and clearly wave at me.

It was saying"hi". Despite everything in my body saying that I should flip this thing off, I waved back at it. We waved at each other for fifteen seconds and I even gave it a small smile. When we finish I did something bold, I motioned for it to come closer with my hand. I didn't think it would work, but it did. The figure started to move closer to my window and I could clearly make out that the figure was a child. He looked about ten or eight and he was completely naked. His eyes really were dark red (although they seemed brighter in the moon light) and his brown hair really was messy and covered in dirt.

My eyes went wide as the realization and seriousness of what I was seeing slowly sinked in. The boy just stared at me as if he was expecting me to say something. His red eyes were lifeless and looked like they were dry as a desert, it was as if he hadn't learned the concept of blinking.

"W-What are you doing out here alone, in the middle of the night, with no clothes on?", I finally asked.

He didn't answer me. I wasn't sure if he could even understand me now. Maybe he spoke a different language or something. "Can you even understand me?", I asked him.

This time he just responded with a simple nod of his head. Before I could ask another question, a cloud of thunder broke the air and it started to rain. The boy waved goodbye to me and slowly walked back in the forest. In hindsight, it was very dumb of me to just let him leave like that. I could've offered him some shelter or something, but I was to shocked and confused at the event that just took place.

"Dipper?" The sound of my sister's voice brought me back to Earth. I turned to her and she barely had her eyes opened. "Go back to sleep. We have school tomorrow.", she says as she drifts back into her slumber. I closed the window and lied back down on my bed. As I tried to get to sleep, there is one thing on my mind, "What the fuck was that?"

Author's Note: Like it?