Disclaimer: I do not own Gravity Falls


The last thing my sister did before bed was whisper to Waddles, "sweet dreams."

I had occasional episodes of sleepwalking, so the two of us spent a few days coming up with a master plan to prevent anything stupid I might subconsciously succumb to. This personal matter was strange and unsettling. I never did it back home. It only started the first summer I arrived at Gravity Falls. Now it's been a couple of years, I thought it might fade away like so many other things. No. Tonight was no different from the rest. I didn't realize what I had done until my ankle yanked at the string, sending a barrage of marbles down on me.

"Ow!" They bounced off the wooden floor and rolled away. I was horrified. "Mabel, I though I told you no marbles! Something less pain-inflicting…" I pressed my palms against my temples, my head throbbing. I shot an unflattering frown at my sister. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Waddles squealed menacingly.

"Duck-tape." Her sigh told me sleep hand't quite released its grip on her. She lifted a finger and opened her mouth, the glint of her straight teeth calling back a time when it would have been silver instead of ivory braiding them.

I was only a few feet away from the door and hauntingly recognized what curled up beneath my arm. The spine of the book was soft and worn. I took it in both my hands, staring at the six-fingered mystery. The number three is dangerous.

Waddles snorted. It sounded like he knew better.

"I'll be back." I mumbled and threw it on my bed. Mabel shifted to lie back down, I doubt she would even remember this in the morning. The doorknob twisted under my palm and I fumbled down the stairs.

Grunkle Stan snored with his head as far back as it could go, his adam's apple vibrating along with the soft undertones coming from the midnight soap operas flickering on the television. I moved past the room quietly, reaching the kitchen and opening the fridge, idly evaluating its contents. My hand reached in for the milk and jelly.

The cool draft rolling around the room swept the bottoms of my pant leg and I leaned against the counter, reading yesterday's newspaper in the dim blue light coming from the moon outside. I let my eyes wander from the letters, reading something about the Northwest and aliens making mysterious art in corn fields, to the desolate dirt road that came up to our little shack. I furrowed my brows and set the paper down, reaching farther across the counter to peer closer. Against blue and black making up the night looked like a shadow, cut and pasted with blurred edges against the outside, close to where I safely stood, inside. It was thin and sat cross-legged, with a head looking either at the view I saw of the sky behind its body, or at the shack. There was a sick feeling of eyes watching me, and I couldn't tell where they were coming from. When it raised a hand in gesture of a wave, I knew I was done. My heart leaped and burst and I ducked, rapidly moving out of the kitchen, leaving my burnt toast and glass of milk sitting in a mess of sticky jelly.

When I got back upstairs I maneuvered shakily over to our window and searched for the shadow. I didn't see it. I glanced at my book lying on my crumbled mass of bedsheets. Dread electrified my spine and played with areas of my mind I wasn't aware of. I picked it up with my fingertips and placed it carefully in the drawer of the night table. I crawled back in my bed, strangely. I stayed awake until the sun came in and sent the wood burning all around our room.


"Dipper." Someone whispered closely in my ear and I opened my eyes in panic. The sun was past its burning time and now it let in a regular tint of yellow. I turn over and see Mabel laying perfectly still next to me. She had one of those smiles on her face. A smile that meant Gravity Falls paid us homage.

"Santa came early." She said it with delight and held up a crown of braided grass and flowers. Jumping out of my bed she twirled, the edges of her nightgown lifting and dipping, her feet catching underneath the other. Her fingers gracefully placed it on top of her mousy brown hair and she took the quilt off her bed and draped it over her shoulders.

"Hail the queen!" She raised her hands dramatically and Waddles came trotting beside her to let out an agreeable noise. I told her a long time ago Santa wasn't real. A very long time ago.

She raised her brow and feigned sympathy. "Aw Dipper didn't get anything. I guess you weren't a good boy this year." She reached under her pillow and revealed a red fabric that acted like wrapping. "Just kidding! Womp!" She placed the package on my lap and I sat their, watching as she gave orders to her invisible servants.

My hands gingerly took hold of the fabric and I paused, asking, almost pleadingly, "Where did these come from?"

Mabel stopped and shrugged. "They were outside the shack this morning on the dirt road. Two for two." She smiled. "I bet it was those mushroom sprites. Can't go wrong with those guys." I never told Mabel what happened to them.

I frowned, trying to remember something important out of what she said. I found a folded piece of aged paper inside the fabric and unfolded it. I stood up from bed with wide eyes. Mabel bounced over and peered down.

"Hey! There's the missing page!" Fast, undecipherable letters marked up the paper with a few crude sketches and stains. I took Number Three out of my drawer and flipped to the section where the ripped paper fit like a jigsaw puzzle. I felt sick.


I was standing outside for a good ten minutes, watching the edges of the forest loom their shadows against the rocky terrain of our cheep driveway. I heard my uncle saunter over beside me.

"What's out there Stan?"

I knew what was out there. Oh, I knew. But I looked at our little world with new eyes and a nascent perspective. Nothing was familiar. A harrowing discomfort settled in my stomach, where I knew it would not go away.

"You don't wanna to know kid."


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