"No...n-no..."
The piteous gasps wrenched from her throat as she crawled through the mud. The ice-cold rain continued to relentlessly pound down, yet she could barely feel it, even when it saturated her clothes and soaked her down to the very bone. Every ounce of her attention was completely locked on the motionless figure lying a few yards away from her.
"Dipper?" Mabel croaked as she dragged herself towards him. "D-Dipper?"
No response. Her brother merely lay there in the wet muck, motionless. Once close enough, she delicately gathered him up. He hung limply in her arms, like an oversized rag doll.
"Dipper...Dipper, wake up."
Still nothing. His closed eyes didn't even twitch. Despite this, it looked like his twin was refusing to let go of hope. Mabel gave him a gentle shake and tried coaxing him again.
"C'mon...wake up...please? L-let's go home now...Dipper?" She murmured hoarsely. Despite her efforts, not a single sign of life seemed to show.
She seemed to get a little more desperate, and as she rocked his body again her tone began to grow thicker with urgency. "C'mon...get up, Dipper...we can go now. Please?"
The girl begged and begged, and still nothing. She start to shake her brother a little more frantically now, trying fervently to rouse him. "Dipper, quit it! Th-this isn't funny! Wake up! Dipper, wake up! It's not funny! It's not-"
His head lolled limply to one side, as an arm flopped back to the ground and splashed in the mud like a piece of rope. Mabel froze, and just stared in what looked like utter disbelief. Her bright brown eyes then began to glisten brightly as the horrible truth seemed to finally sink in.
"No...no...D-Dipper, no..." She started to shake her head furiously. "No...no, no, no, no! Dipper, no! No! No! NO!"
It didn't matter how much she pled and cried. Her twin was just as still and silent as the moment she first picked him up. Hot tears started to mix with the drops of rain that trickled down her cheeks, and all the while her twin never made a move, or uttered a single sound.
Seemingly unable to bear it, she tossed back her head and let loose with an almost animalistic scream of pain, as if someone had just hacked off a part of her own flesh. She shrieked and shrieked, as if trying to make her grief heard above the din of the storm.
After announcing her agony to the cold, unforgiving world, the devastated girl hugged her brother's limp body as close as she could in her trembling grasp. As she started to rock his till form back and forth, the ragged sobs gushed out. All the while, the cold rain continued to beat down steadily mercilessly on the pitiful pair.
"And...time! That's a wrap!" The announcement rang out from no more than four yards away from the Mystery Shack's back porch. The preteen promptly stopped acting like a devastated wreck, and burst out beaming triumphantly as her "fallen" brother promptly opened his eyes and sat back up.
"Now that's how you do it!" Mabel bragged proudly. Dipper rolled his eyes, and gave her a playful shove before he climbed out of the wet muck.
"I still don't think it's fair that you got to use me in your scene. I'm contesting." He protested with a laugh as together the soaked siblings dashed out of the rain and up the rickety wooden stairs.
"Pffft! You're just mad because you didn't think of something as awesome as that!" She teasingly stuck out her tongue. "The rules say that we can use props, and so you were my prop! That's totally legal, right Wendy?"
Their redheaded judge chuckled as she handed the two amateur actors a towel each once they had rejoined her under the relative cover. "Sorry Dip, she's right. By the way, bravo back there."
She then gave a round of playful applause, which the young girl soaked up with a smile and a bow. "Thank you, thank you! I'd like to thank all the little people who made this round of 'Two-Minute-Dramatic-Rain-Scene,' totally amazing!"
"Whoa, don't get ahead of yourself, Meryl Streep. I still have to tally the scores." Wendy thoughtfully looked over a scribble-covered piece of paper while the twins dried themselves off. "Let's see...okay, I'd say Mabel gets at least ten points off the bat for actual tears."
"Wait, those were real?" Dipper asked, and couldn't help but be a little impressed. Mabel wiped at her still-watery eyes with a proud nod.
"Uh-huh. Remember when our guinea pig died? All I had to do was think about Chewy, and voila! Super real crying." She explained with a toothy smile. "Acting!"
Dipper snapped his fingers and grumbled regretfully under his breath. "Should've done that..."
"However..." Wendy continued making up the scoring system up as she went along, casually pulling grading criteria from nowhere. "Now while the sob-fest was spot-on, to I gotta say it was Dipper's dead guy impression was what really helped sell it. And that's on top of his pretty solid performance earlier. Going with the classic shirt rip was a nice touch."
"Told you." He teased and pointed to the fresh tear in his shirt, earning him a gentle punch in the shoulder from his twin. As they waited impatiently for a winner to be announced, Wendy meanwhile tapped a pen against her lips as she mulled over the two performances.
"This is a tough call. Both of you guys did pretty good. Not great..." She flashed a mischievous grin. "But definitely not bad-HEY!"
Dipper whipped his soggy cap off his head and started waving it furiously at her, while Mabel tucked her hands into her soggy sleeves and began flapping them as hard as she could. Wendy snorted with laughter as she tried to escape the range of the improvised shower.
"Not perfect, huh?" The boy said in mock-offense. "So you think you can do any better?"
The teen threw her arms up over her face and cackled loudly as they pressed their joint attack. "Is that a challenge?"
"Chall-enge! Chall-enge! Chall-enge!" Mabel started to bounced up and down, punctuating her excited cheers with energetic fist pumps. "Do it! Do it! Show us what you got! Think you have what it takes to one-up the Pines?"
Their friend needed absolutely no second bidding. Without a word, she balled up her notes and shoved them into the torn collar of Dipper's shirt. Wendy then dashed back inside, and soon returned clutching a ketchup bottle in hand.
"You guys brought this on yourselves." She taunted as she squeezed some onto her flannel shirt. "This contest is already as good as mine now."
"Going for a death scene, huh?" Dipper chuckled, barely even registering the booming peal of thunder that suddenly rocked the skies.
"Not just a death scene. The greatest death scene. Grab some tissues because I'm going to have you bawlin' by the time I'm done here." She shamelessly boasted while smearing the ketchup all over her stomach. "Okay, I just need to get a little stab wound going here-"
"Stab wound? Nuh-uh, looks more like a gunshot. Bad use of special effects! You're already at a score of negative thirty points!" Mabel officially declared, then hid behind her brother with a squeal as her friend playfully aimed the bottle her way. The trio continued to jokingly trash talk one another, and as they happily riled one another up, Stan meanwhile stood in the doorway, observing bewilderedly. After playing the role of silent audience for a few moments more, he finally passed judgement.
"...You're all nuts."
The harsh criticism of course had absolutely zero effect on the silly mood currently pervading the back porch.
"Nuts, yeah! But at least we're not bored anymore, right?" His great-niece shot back defiantly with a goofy grin. A few seconds later later Wendy was dashing out into the rain for a go at the silly game, trying to hold back her laughter and failing miserably at it. While the twins started up the clock and energetically cheered their friend on, the old man rolled his eyes before shuffling back inside.
"Yup." He mumbled knowingly. "Definitely nuts."