Dipper Pines has only been in Gravity Falls for a week, and he already regretted the decision to come back. He's been having nightmares every night since he first moved here, and he can't shake them no matter how hard he tries. He's tried dream catchers, sleeping pills, and a few times he's even tried keeping himself up all night. But nothing seemed to be working.
If he didn't know any better, he'd blame Bill. Bill had tortured him with nightmares for months on end after the whole Bipper incident as a warning that he truly was undefeatable, and that not even a box packed full of fireworks could defeated him. But that was about 6 years ago, and, in addition, the nightmares Bill gave him were more heavily detailed and often involved Mabel. The nightmares he was having seemed to have no detail at all. In fact, they almost seemed corrupted.
Every night he'd have a different nightmare, of course, but there was something about them that seemed different from other nightmares he's had in the past. Take last night for example. He had dreamed he was surrounded by bitter blackness for thousands of miles. He was floating in no particular direction, and he was freezing cold. All of a sudden, he saw a bunch of large white flashes, followed by a scream that sounded pretty vaguely familiar. Suddenly, he was pulled closer to the white flashes by an invisible string, and as he got closer, the flashes got brighter, blinked faster, and his speed picked up heavily right before he came in contact with the bright white flash. When he jumped up in bed, the scream was still echoing in his ears.
He walked down the stairs slowly, still trying to process what the nightmare could've possibly meant. His thought process was short lived however, because as soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, Mabel's voice rang up from the kitchen.
"Hey bro-bro, how'd you sleep?" She asks cheerfully, stepping out to meet him with a plate of waffles in her hands.
"Not very well" Dipper ran his fingers through his hair. "I had a nightmare last night"
"Again?" Mabel frowned and placed the waffles on the end table next to the couch. "Dipper, that's the seventh night in a row. I think you're going to have to talk to somebody about this" she says, and Dipper sighs.
"I know. I think I might try and see if there's anyone here in town that can help me later today"
"Well, what about me?" She asks, the smile beginning to return to her face.
"Hm?"
"What if you talked to me? Nobody knows you better than I do" Mabel walks over to the couch and sits down. She places two fingers across her upper lip. "Now, what seems to be the problem?" she asks in a mocking tone, and Dipper laughs as he goes to sit next to her.
"It's just that I've been having nightmares every day since we arrived back here and I'm having trouble finding out why" Dipper says, leaning against the couch and staring up at the ceiling.
"What are they about?"
Dipper sits up and looks at her. "That's part of the problem, Mabel. I don't think they were really about anything."
"Describe the one you had last night"
"Everything was pitch black. I was floating around, and I was freezing cold. Every once in a while I'd see this bright white flash, that I tried to ignore, but then I thought I heard somebody screaming. I couldn't tell who it was, but I knew that it was someone we knew. That scream seemed to drag me towards the light, and as I got closer, the screaming seemed to get louder, my speed picked up, and the intensity of the flashing began to increase dramatically. I woke up as soon as I came in contact with whatever the bright light was, and the scream still echoed in my ears."
Something in Mabel seemed to click when he mentioned that it echoed. "Dipper, did the echo sound like the kind you'd hear if you screamed your name into the Grand Canyon, or did it just seem like an echoey kind of voice?"
"What? No, it didn't repeat like an echo, I think the voice just sounded that way"
Mabel fixed the position she was sitting in so she could look him in the eyes. "Was the voice kind of high pitched?"
Dipper thought for a minute. "I believe so, why?"
"Dipper, I think that was Bill's voice you heard!"
Dipper had to grab onto the couch to prevent himself from falling off in shock. "What, no! It couldn't have been!" He pauses to run his hands through his hair nervously. "Could it have been? But how could he have found me so easily?" Mabel comforted him as he began to hyperventilate. "I'm dead. I'm so dead. If he figures out that I'm here permanently, he'll kill me without a second thought"
"Hey, hey, it's okay, Dipper, it was just a suggestion" She wrapped her arms around him in a hug and reached over to the plate of waffles still sitting on the end table next to the couch. "Here, eat these. It should help you calm down. I'll be right back with a cup of Mabel Juice. Why don't you go put on your dog tags? Those always seem to make you feel better"
When Dipper was 15, his parents gave him and Mabel dog tags their grandfather wore when he fought in the war. He was given the one his grandfather wore the most often, so naturally it was beaten up and covered in dirt. Mabel had teased him about it, claiming hers was shinier, but Dipper felt honored to have received the one he did, because for all he knew, his grandfather probably never put on the one that was given to Mabel. His grandfather had worn it the day he was drafted in, and wore it the day the war ended as well. It had brought good luck to his grandfather, and it seemed to bring good luck to him, too.
Every time he wore the necklace, something good seemed to happen to him. He met his best friend throughout high school wearing the dog tag, his first girlfriend, and more importantly, he was wearing it when Stan had permitted him and Mabel to move back into their old summer home permanently.
"Okay"
"Great!" Mabel smiled, and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Dipper ran upstairs, grabbed them from beside his bed, and placed them around his neck before heading back downstairs. Mabel was watching TV with a glass of bright reddish purple liquid in her hand. Dipper walked over and sat next to her.
"Feeling any better?" She asks, and he nods.
"A little. What are you watching?"
"Meh, nothing interesting. Just something on the Public Access TV Channel." She clicked the TV off. "Do you want to go out and do something? Like, to see what's playing at the theater here?"
"I don't see why not" Dipper says cheerfully, and Mabel jumps up.
"Sweet, I'll go get my jacket" She says, jumping up from the couch and heading off towards the gift shop.
The sun was disappearing over the horizon when they came back. The movie had seen ran longer than they expected it to, so they headed over to Greasy's for lunch, and then found themselves in conversations with everyone there who recognized them.
Mabel walked over to the couch and flopped down overdramatically and sighed loudly. "I didn't think I'd ever have that many people recognize me at once. I think I'm done with being famous for the day"
Dipper sat down at the chair next to the couch. "How could they not remember you? After nearly destroying the theater with those fireworks I wouldn't be able to forget the person responsible" he teased, and Mabel threw a pillow sitting on the couch at him.
"I did that for a good cause and you know it!" She almost yells, and he sarcastically gives her a shrug.
"Still though, I get what you're saying. I didn't think anyone would recognize me until Sheriff Blubs came over and said something about 'being the kid who found out about Quentin"
Mabel smiled as she sat up. "I guess they missed us, huh? Nobody would go through that much trouble to talk to someone they recognized unless they meant something important to them.
Dipper laughed. "Well, we were the ones who sent you-know-who to jail. They'd probably do the same if Stan went out in public more often"
Mabel chucked. "Can you imagine people still calling Stan the town hero for that? Like the citizens who couldn't make it to the Shack's re-opening are still waiting for the opportunity to congratulate him?"
"Even better, imagine if he ended up with groupies for that" Dipper could hardly get the words out, and he and Mabel broke into hysterical laughter.
Mabel pretended to swoon. "Sign my stomach, Mr. Pines!"
Dipper joined in. "Sign my chest!"
They began laughing even harder, each chiming in with something more ridiculous then the last. They absolutely lost it when Dipper suggested a groupie asking Stan to punch her in the face to prove to her friends that she had met him, and when Mabel fell of the couch and hit her head on the floor, neither of them could breath. They finally managed to calm down once they both ended up on the floor with tears streaming down their faces, and even then they needed a few minutes to get their breathing back to normal.
Mabel stood up; grabbing onto Dipper for support and offered him her hand once she was on her feet. "That was great"
Dipper wiped a tear from his eye. "Yeah, it really was". He looked around, only now beginning to notice how dark it had gotten, with the exception of the light in the room they were in now. "Hey, what time is it?" He asked, and she looked down at her watch.
"11:30? Wow, time really does fly. I guess we got out of that movie even later then we had thought." She stretched. "I think we should go to bed"
Dipper laughed. "Yeah, before we end up on the floor again for another hour or two." They headed upstairs and went into their room. "Goodnight Mabel" He said, climbing into bed.
"Goodnight Dipper!"
As soon as Dipper closed his eyes, he began to see a bright white light, which soon disappeared into a jumbled and greyscale version of his room. He knew it. Bill must have been waiting for him to come back ever since he hopped on the bus ride home so many years before. Dipper didn't feel like going to find Bill, in case that's what he was expecting him to do, so he waited where he was. He felt himself beginning to hyperventilate again, and he had to bring his hand to his mouth to prevent himself from giving his location away. He removed his hand after nobody showed up, but then clamped it right back over his mouth when he heard muffled yelling. It seemed to be coming from right above him, but Dipper couldn't find where it was coming from no matter how hard he tried. He tried moving away from it, but the voice seemed to be following him, becoming angrier and angrier the more he tried to get away from it. He stopped where he was once he realized there was no way to escape it, and right when he did, the voice stopped. Dipper sighed in relief, but then felt it catch in his throat as the voice got closer to him. The closer the voice got, the louder it got as well. He began to feel a breeze as it got closer, and then the voice came so close to him at such a high speed that his face stung.
Dipper jumped up in bed when it felt like the voice actually came in physical contact with him. The first thing he noticed, other than the fact that his face still stung, is that he was on the floor. He stood up to climb back into bed, but then he heard a thud coming from the floor below him. He shrugged it off, thinking it was Stan, but when he heard glass smashing on the floor, he grabbed onto his dog tag and slowly made his way downstairs.
There was a dim light coming from the kitchen, and by the time he reached it all the way down the stairs and into the living room, his hands were trembling. He brought his hand to his chest, to reassure himself that he had put the dog tag on instead of dropping it on his way downstairs, and took a deep breath before heading into the kitchen.
A man about his age, if not a year or so older was angrily pacing around the room, cursing under his breath with a flashlight in his hand. He was flashing it all around the room. From what Dipper could make out, He had somewhat of a buff figure. He was wearing a bright yellow pyramid-patterned suit with a big black bow tie, and was also wearing red dress pants. He had bright golden hair to match, but Dipper couldn't make much out of him other than that.
"Um, hello? I think you might have the wrong house" Dipper said, trying not to let his voice begin shaking, and the young man looked up at him, flashing the light directly at him.
"You!" he yelled angrily, and nearly dropped his flashlight running over to Dipper and grabbing him by the collar.
"Mabel!" Dipper yelled as loud as he could, but before he could yell her name a second time, the young man clamped his hand over Dipper's mouth.
"Shut up, and tell me how you were doing what you were just doing!" he yelled
"What was I just doing? I really think you have the wrong house!" Dipper asked in a mixture of confusion and fear, and the man responded by lifting him up and pinning him up against the nearest wall.
"Don't play stupid with me; you know exactly what I'm talking about!"
"I do?" Dipper asked, and the man dropped him before pushing him against the wall again.
"I thought I just told you not to do that!" He said, threatening to slap Dipper in the face. "Now tell me, Pine Tree, how did you manage to get to the Mindscape on your own?" He yelled, and Dipper's face went pale. Before he could say anything else, Mabel came running into the room with a flashlight of her own.
"Hey! You better leave my brother alone or I'm calling the-" Mabel dropped her flashlight in shock as the young man grinned manically at her.
"Bill?"
