The moon shone brightly over the forests of Gravity Falls, illuminating the green leaves a bright hue of silver, the sky an almost dark blue color from where the light streamed down from. The chirping of crickets added a soothing ambiance to the woodlands, with the occasional sound of wild life going through their nightly business adding to the audible detail that these woods were thriving with life.
"Stop it, Vanessa." Jannessa groaned as the other girl stepped on the back of her foot for the fifth time tonight, making Jannessa assume she was doing it on purpose now.
"I'm not doing it on purpose," Vanessa replied defensively, struggling to see her surroundings, "It's too dark out here to really see where I'm going and you want to be a jerk and walk in front of me when you have the flashlight."
The pair had been friends since middle school. Vanessa was a music-enthusiast and was a band member in school, playing her flute proudly. Jannessa was more of a nerd, and went to all sorts of school events for book club and the technology club. She was also quite the avid fiction writer and was known for writing short stories she would read at talent shows or anywhere else she got the chance. When the two realized that their names rhyming was something they had in common, and that both were rather introverted, they started to hang out and became pretty close.
With closeness comes arguing, lots of it.
"If you hadn't wasted all your cell battery texting your boyfriend and watching cat videos on the way here you'd still have your own light." Jannessa dismissed, climbing her way through a bush that was blocking the path. "He's not my boyfriend! He's my friend!" Vanessa shot back, trying to follow her friend but accidentally hitting herself with one of the bushes branches. "Sure he isn't. Just because you two aren't officially dating doesn't mean you aren't foaming at the mouth for Jeremy." Jannessa replied as she entered a clearing of the woodlands. "You can never stop messing with your phone when he messages you."
Vanessa sighed impatiently, clenching her fists together to keep herself from snapping. It wasn't that what Jannessa was saying hurt her or she found it offensive, it's just she was right. The issue was Vanessa didn't have the nerve to ask her crush out, for no other reason than she didn't have the courage and assumed that she would be considered boring to a guy. Jannessa on the other hand fount Vanessa's attraction for Jeremy to be justified and believes that he returns the same feelings. However Jannessa was right about her using all of her cell battery on other tasks, and hadn't charged it before they left their house to go scouting the woods for… it.
The events that happened three years ago remained a mystery to most of the world. Bill Cipher and his titled "Weirdmaggeddon." There were plenty of conspiracy theories all over the net about Illuminati involvement, government cover-ups of a technology malfunction, and the religiously inclined pointed to their beliefs as now being justified by what happened. Scientists and researchers had come up with their science-backed theories that it was caused by a rift in space and time, or that Bill Cipher is a fourth dimensional being that somehow ended up in the third dimension. Gravity Falls couldn't really hide what had happened for those few days when Bill was in total power. The world knew very little details of what happened, but everyone knew something happened.
That's why Vanessa and Jannessa were in the forest this late at night. Rumors were circulating based on a Google maps screen-shot of some sort of weird, triangle in the forest. The picture was blurry and far from high definition but it was enough for some to guess it was a statue of some sort; the added fact it was triangular and looked recent as well as being completely out of place lead many to believe it was some sort of cult shrine to Cipher. Ever since that photo was captured a few months following the events of what happened people had been scouting for the thing. Why haven't they found it after two years of searching? From the two girl's point of view they had been searching in the wrong area of the forest.
As quick as the fighting ended it started back up again, Vanessa was tired of walking with barely any light because Jannessa was going too fast. Jannessa was brushing off her every concern out of excitement to find the statue first and it was starting to upset Vanessa to the point where she grabbed her friend by the arm and struggled to take her flashlight. She wanted to be the one to take the lead and go without nearly tripping over low branches, or possibly stepping on a snake. As one would expect a stubborn female to do, Jannessa refused to give up her flashlight and leader rights.
"Stop it! It's mine! Get your own!" Jannessa yelled, trying to pull herself away from her friend. "Stop being so stubborn damn it! You're going to get me killed in here!" Vanessa shot back.
When Jannessa didn't notice a log behind her ankle she got quite the surprise, tripping backwards and dragging Vanessa down with her. The two teenagers rolled off of a bush, landing face first into some tall grass in another wide clearing.
Jannessa crawled out from under her lethargic company and struggled to get up. The moment she tried to push herself up a stabbing pain resounded in her left shoulder, the one that had hit the ground at full force, and lost muscle control, falling back onto her side. "Ow..."
Vanessa moaned in slight pain as she got back up, a bit wobbly on her balance but otherwise not injured like Jannessa was. "Hey, you alright?" She asked, still out of breath -but now more concerned for her friend rather than just mad at her. "I think I hurt my shoulder… Dislocated it or something..." Jannessa answered, sitting up on the ground and trying to address the terrible pain she felt in her shoulder joint. Vanessa moved to sit next to her, reaching to touch the inured joint but then pulling back last second, scared to accidentally make it worse. Vanessa had no first aid training, and wasn't qualified to try and relocate the shoulder or relieve pain even if it wasn't actually out of socket. A wave of remorse washed over Vanessa as she came to the conclusion this was her fault. That wasn't the only problem though, as Jannessa realized looking over a few feet away -the flashlight had hit a rock on it's way down, and was now broken.
"Oh no Vanessa..." Jannessa said, fear striking her like an unexpected punch to the gut. "We broke our light." Looking over, Jannessa wanted to see if Vanessa was just as scared as she was, craving empathy, but more-so hoping the other girl some how had an answer to their problems. Vanessa wasn't paying attention to Jannessa anymore, her gaze was fixed on something a few yards away in the distance.
"What the hell are you staring at?!" Jannessa demanded, welling up with tears. She wouldn't wait for an answer, and snapped her gaze to where Vanessa was staring.
Now she understood why Vanessa was so distracted.
It was the statue.
Palely illuminated by the full moon in the sky a few feet away, and covered in some plant matter, was the statue of Bill Cipher. He was still in the exact same pose he was when Stan had originally shook his hand under the facade of being Ford a few years prior, hand outstretched and a pleasant expression on his face even if all he had was an eye. His triangular silhouette was the only thing keeping both girls focused on something other than their vulnerability or injury.
"Is… that it?" Vanessa inquired, a bit uncertain. Jannessa nodded, and once again started moving to get up. "Yeah… it's got to be." The two had gone through all this trouble to get here, and were the first to actually find the statue and confirm it wasn't just some kid reposting a photo shopped image to try and get internet points on reddit or something similar.
They stared at it, it seemed to stare back as if alive. It drew the two in with the blanket of mystery it seemed wrapped in. If the two weren't scared for their safety and one anther's health, they'd be jumping for joy. For now they could only manage to slowly walk their sore and bruised bodies over to the sculpture, Vanessa letting Jannessa lean on her. This was a big deal for the two, something that milked their nerdy tastes and fantasies; it was too good to let go to waste because of a shoulder injury and a sore back.
"Huh, didn't expect him to look so… cartoonist." Vanessa remarked, inches away from the stone statue, still holding onto Jannessa, who now also realized she might have an injury in her ankle due to how hard it was to put weight on it without making her entire leg weak. "Yeah, thought he'd be much more scary." Jannessa responded, in full harmony.
Seeing his arm was outstretched for a hand-shake made Vanessa chuckle, finding the idea of a cult idol being made to look so obnoxious and not demonic came off as weird to her -but perhaps it had something to do with watching Indiana Jones too much. "Huh, seems he want's to be friendly." Vanessa commented, deciding to grasp the statue's hand to be comedic. Jannessa simply watched with a smile on her face as her friend "shook hands" with the strange statue.
A few seconds went by after the hand-shake, and Jannessa remembered she had brought a disposable camera with her in her pocket to take pictures. Reaching into her jeans she pulled out a hopefully not broken camera, and handed it to Vanessa for her to use since she needed to use her other arm to keep balanced. Vanessa didn't mind taking the photos, and made sure that the flash was on since it was night time before lining up her photo.
Suddenly, both girls felt a strange feeling of tachypsychia, it was if time had slowed down. Colors and perspective became skewed for both girls. Nausea washed over like a tidal wave, and their anxiety levels sky-rocketed to the point both were holding onto their stomach contents by a thread. Unable to question what was going on or why suddenly these feelings had overcame them, a new emotion came when they realized the statue's eye was glowing, as were identical Eye of Providences over the threes in the background, like fireflies.
Something terrible had been awakened, and it's attention was fixed on them.
(AN: Hey there, this is my first Gravity Falls fan-fiction. I really liked the show and I was sad to see it leave, so I wanted to contribute by writing about how Bill could possibly come back. I'll go ahead and assure you that the original cast of characters will, for the most part, return. Don't worry about the two "Ocs", Dipper and Mabel will be returning shortly. Just wanted to clear that up! R & R)