This was it.
It was all over.
Dipper stared down at his sister's body as blood stained her pink sweater, the one with the shooting star on it. Little details like that had always come into focus when the big picture was too much to bear.
Mabel was dead.
Soos was dead. He had done so much, helping the ones who couldn't help themselves.
Wendy was dead. How? She had fought so hard, a look of rage and terror wavering on her face as she looked down at the burning metal pole from the structures of the crumbling buildings, stabbed into her stomach mercilessly. Her green eyes had met Dipper's one last time as he screamed, watching her fall to the ground helplessly.
Grunkles Stan and Ford were both dead, their hands intertwined to the end. Twins to the end.
Twins to the end.
Mabel and Dipper should've been twins to the end.
Instead, Mabel had taken the bite for Dipper. He couldn't do anything but watch as her terrified but certain eyes went blank, teeth sinking into her torso.
Now she was ripped to shreds by that horrible friend of Bill's - 8-Ball, was it? - and she was dead, dead, dead, bits of bone glinting in the demonic light against the bloody flesh, and Dipper didn't help her, he couldn't save her, it was his fault - there was nothing he could do to bring her back anymore because he didn't take the chance when he got it-
A booming laugh that shook the wrecked town of Gravity Falls snapped Dipper out of his daze, and he looked up at the giant yellow triangle that had caused all of this to happen.
"HEY, PINETREE," Bill Cipher laughed down at Dipper, tauntingly using the name his symbol was in the magical circle that was supposed to defeat the demon. "YOU LOOK A LITTLE DOWN, THERE! CHEER UP! NOW IT'S JUST…" In the span of a millisecond, Bill blinked out of existence and back - or maybe he never existed; no one could or would ever know - right in front of Dipper's face, his single eye glowing its harsh yellow light into Dipper's own dark eyes, squinted against both the light and the debris in the air. "YOU AND ME."
Dipper had no answer to this. There was nothing to say. He couldn't tell Bill to give his sister and his grunkles and his friends and Wendy and his town back, could he? It wasn't like Bill would do anything he wanted. Maybe a trade, maybe he would offer a trade; Dipper's life for everyone else's, and Dipper would gladly agree to the deal, even though he knew it was useless and there was no way the triangular demon would do his side of the deal. He would agree, because first of all, he was worth nothing in comparison to the hundreds of lives Bill could bring back, and second of all, this would be an easy way out for Dipper to die while feeling at least slightly heroic.
"C'MON, PINETREE!" Dipper's eyes suddenly snapped wide open against his will, and he was forced to stare into Bill's single eye. "STOP BEING BORING! WHERE'S THAT INTELLIGENCE YOU SHOWED THOSE OTHER TIMES YOU DECIDED TO GET RID OF ME?"
Without warning, Dipper was slammed against the ground, and as he tried to get up without success, he was lifted up again and was staring at Bill in the face once again.
"Let… go of… me," he muttered, but his will to survive was gone. There was nothing worth trying to live for. He didn't even struggle against the invisible bonds Bill had wrapped him in.
"Y'KNOW, I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE THE MOST FUN ONE TO LEAVE ALIVE," sighed Bill, half closing his eye in apparent boredom, "SINCE YOU 'OUTSMARTED' ME THOSE OTHER TIME. BUT HEY, NOW YOU'RE JUST BEING DREARY!" He backed up a bit, but didn't release Dipper. "LOOK, 'DIPPER'! I USED A BIG WORD! YOU PROUD OF ME?"
When the seemingly defeated boy didn't respond, Bill frowned (as much as one could frown with one eye and no mouth, anyways) and shook Dipper in his binds.
"Ugh…"
"DO SOMETHING, PINES!"
With a sudden burst of adrenaline and irritation - and experience from having a sister - Dipper drew back his head and smashed it into Bill's eye, which promptly covered Dipper's hair and head in a black, inky, slimy substance. He shuddered at the feeling of the squishy eye.
Bill, on the other hand, let out a furious bellow and bent over, covering his eye with his tiny hands and arms.
"YOU LITTLE BASTARD." he hissed, turning from yellow to orange as he started to glow an aura, radiating power. Dipper was dropped by the binds, and he coughed as the ground - thankfully lacking spiky objects sticking out of it - knocked all the breath out of him. Bill didn't seem to notice, so he crawled away to the side of the little clearing in the midst of the wreckage and curled up against a fallen metal beam.
"Oh, Mabel…" he murmured to himself, gritting his teeth in an effort to hold back a sob in his throat. She would've known how to beat Bill. She would've figured out how to get out of this mess.
Mabel would've known how to save everyone, because she never gave up.
"If only I died and you survived."
Bill finally realized that the boy he'd been holding captive was gone, and he growled in irritation, still radiating the fury he'd been before but now in a more controlled manner.
"HEY, KID! WHERE ARE YOU, PINETREE? IF THAT KID KNEW WHAT I'LL DO TO HIM ONCE I CATCH HIM… " The last part was muttered to himself, and Dipper shuddered at the thought of what he would do.
Deep in thought (and trying to get himself out of thought) about what his future might hold, Dipper didn't notice Bill stomping his little feet around and shooting things until a black, swirling pit of darkness appeared an inch away from where he was curled up.
Biting back a yell of surprise and terror, he fell backwards, then crawled backwards, as the hole grew a little bit bigger, then just blinked out altogether.
What was that?
"AHA!" Bill's multidimensional voice startled him into looking up, where the demon was looking down at him with a triumphant single eye. "THERE YOU ARE, KID!"
Dipper just managed to register that he had been found before another hole appeared right under him, and he fell into the portal, then fell out of it into the middle of the "clearing" again. He immediately curled up into a terrified ball, desperately trying to think of ways to just survive for now, escape later.
Which, of course, only gave him one option: run.
It was a difficult, but eventually, the 12-year-old got to his feet and stumbled in the fastest pace he could manage and ran to the edge of the clearing again.
"NOT SO FAST, KID!" Multiple portals appeared in front of, behind, above, and under him, and after that it was just a blur of stars and vast blackness and a laughing, glowing triangle, watching him with a pleased eye that just repeated forever and forever, forever and foreverforeverforever-
Until Dipper remembered that between portals, like Grunkle Ford had told him, there was the multiverse flashing for a nanosecond.
Was a nanosecond enough?
Was it enough to be able to jump into the multiverse?
It was all he had left.
"HEY, KID, YOU GETTING A BIT DIZZY? HA HA! YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE IN A BIT OF TROUBLE! LET ME HELP-"
Dipper never found out what horrible thing Bill was planning to do to him.
Because at that moment - or whatever 'time' or the concept of time was used right then - the remaining twin jumped out of that dimension and into whichever other dimension the rush of air so indescribably searing hot and freezing cold at the same time against his skin brought him to.
Leaving Bill Cipher behind, screaming and lunging after the boy in complete and utter rage.
Leaving behind Gravity Falls - destroyed, in pieces, dead and without any survivors, but Gravity Falls nevertheless.
Leaving behind all certainty, certainty that he would die, certainty that his fate would not be a good one, certainty of where he was.
And into the unknown future.
A/N: Ha. I don't know what to think of it, 'cause I've been staring at it for so long that I don't know what words are anymore. It's my first Gravity Falls fic, and it has been influenced by the two days I've spent doing nothing but watching all 40 episodes. And sleeping. And eating. Lots of sleeping and eating.
What do you think? I kinda don't like it, but it might just be me. Please give me your opinions and (unlike my other fics) you very likely won't have to wait two years for the next chapter!