After trekking into the woods, Dipper, Mabel and Pacifica found the site where the entrance to the crypt had been unearthed. The area was walled off by a set of metal fences. Inside they could see that there were still some construction crew occupying the area, their tools and digger machines scattered around, but it looked as though they would be leaving soon as the sun was slowly beginning to set.

The entrance to the crypt was close to the center of the site. It looked like a tunnel that was built into the side of some rock formations. The crew had set up a number of barricades and signs around the entrance, warning that it was unsafe to enter.

Mabel had volunteered to keep watch up ahead in the bushes, until all the men at the site had left, so that they could enter the crypt without any resistance.

Back in the woods, Dipper was sitting on the ground looking over his Journal, while Pacifica was lounging beside him, absently looking up at the sky.

"So let me this straight" she said. "The day you first came here, you found that Journal buried in the woods and it was written by some guy with six fingers and it told about all this weird ghosty stuff that happens around here and then you saved your sister from some gnomes who wanted to make her their queen and now you want to find out who the Author of that book was?"

"That's the gist of it" Dipper said, turning over a page.

"Wow" Pacifica said with some amazement. "You led an interesting life. Crazy and totally weird, but interesting"

"Well, that's what I was hoping for my summer vacation" Dipper replied. "Interesting, but weird"

"You ever thought of just getting rid of that thing?" Pacifica asked, indicating at the Journal.

"What!?" Dipper said, sounding shocked. "No way! Why would you even say that?"

"It kinda seems like all this stuff only started happening to you when you found that book" Pacifica pointed out. "It just sounds like it's more trouble than it's worth"

"This book has saved me and Mabel more times than I can count" Dipper said strongly. "And the person who wrote it must have seen some amazing things, but then something terrible happened to him and he disappeared. I gotta find out why"

"Why is it such a big deal to you to find out what happened this guy?" Pacifica asked, sitting upright. "I mean, nobody but you even knows about him in the first, so why should you care?"

"Pacifica, that's what makes a mystery a mystery" Dipper said. "It needs someone to solve it. If I don't do this, then no one will ever find what really happened. That just really bugs me, the idea that people can just go on living their life's without knowing what's really happening right underneath their noses"

Pacifica opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again and cast her eyes down to the ground.

"Well, you know, " she mumbled in a soft voice. "Maybe it isn't always a good idea to go rooting around in the past. Some things are better left not knowing"

Pacifica hugged her legs into her chest and then sank her head down on her knees, looking very melancholy. Dipper mentally kicked himself when he realised what he had inadvertently brought up.

"Oh wait, come on. Pacifica I didn't mean-" he began apologetically

"Guys!" Dipper and Pacifica looked up to see Mabel had reappeared. She stood before with a serious expression and salute. "Perimeter report. The chipmunks have gathered their coconuts and the McGuffin is in the porter potty!"

Pacifica turned to Dipper, her expression somehow begging him for an explanation.

"She said no one's around and the coast is clear" Dipper said with a shrug.


Climbing over the fence, they quietly moved through the excavation site and made their walk up to the crypt, with barricades still positioned out in front of it. Dipper ducked underneath one of the barricades and started to examine the archway that was in front of them

"Well this doesn't look so bad" Dipper concluded, moving forward. "Guess we can just-aah!"

A swarm of bats suddenly burst out of the cave, which caused all three kids to duck down low and screamed in terror as they flew over their heads. After a few seconds, it looked like the bats had all dispersed. The kids stood back up and they all seemed to relax once again.

"Ok, we got that out of the way" Dipper said. "Now we can go-ah!"

A second, smaller wave of bats now swarmed out from the cave, which resulted in the kids screaming again, though with slightly less volume this time. When the second wave was gone, Dipper raised his head up and gingerly took a step forward. Once he did, a wave of only a dozen bats came out and on cue the three kids flinched and let another small yelp.

Growing a bit tired of this, Dipper stood up straight and took just one firm step forward, with a single bat flying out of the cave in response. Dipper and Pacifica gave no reaction this time, while Mabel waved her hands and let out a very quiet scream.

Hoping that the cave was now devoid of anymore bats, the group walked through the entrance, with Dipper taking the lead. After walking just a few yards inside, they found what looked like a long stairway leading deep underground. Dipper opened his backpack and distributed a set of flashlights out among the three of them.

"Ok, we'll have to do this quickly" he said as they began to descend down the stairs. "Not sure how stable this place after all these years. There could be cave if in we're not careful"

"Well, I'm sure that your Journal will get us out if that happens" Pacifica said dryly.

"No need to worry. I have expert digging skills" Mabel said confidently. "I can burrow my way out of a mountain using just a spork and a bottle cap opener! You might even say I'm part ground hog". Mabel actually sounded pretty serious with that last part.

"You're definitely part something" Pacifica muttered.

After going down what felt like a hundred steps, they finally reached the bottom where found themselves standing in long man made tunnel. They continued to move forward, watching where they stepped cautiously.

"Ugh this place is dirtier than your house" Pacifica said, coughing up some dust. "Don't they keep these places clean?"

"Well, something tells me they didn't hire a maid to clean up down here" Dipper replied. He walked ahead a few more feet until he felt some fall onto his cap, causing him to stop and look upward

Tiny pieces of dust had begun to fall off the ceiling above them, and soon larger chunks of rock followed as well, until an entire mound of dirt broke off from the ceiling and crumbled to the ground in front of them, pushing up a cloud of dust.

But when the dust cleared they realised that there had been more than just dirt up in that ceiling. The broken remains of a human skeleton could clearly be seen lying scattered around within the pile of dirt.

The three kids stood where they were, frozen with slack jarred expressions as a skull rolled out from the pile, right to their feet.

"Maybe that was the maid" Mabel said, still paralysed with shock.

"Ooookay" Dipper said after a minute. "That's…probably the worst thing we'll see down here. Hopefully". He edged out around the skull and the rest of the skeleton, continuing down the path. Pacifica and Mabel slowly managed to recover and follow after him.

They didn't have much further to walk, as they soon came to what seemed like the end of the tunnel. When they passed through it, Dipper moved his light around to see that there were walls on all sides of them. Looking downwards, Dipper also saw that the ground had changed to smoother looking surface and when he moved his flashlight over it, it reflected back.

Shining his light to the side, Dipper saw a torch mounted on the wall. Pulling out some matches from his backpack, Dipper reached up and lit one against the touch, causing it to ignite into flames.

When the torch was lit, the room they were standing in had brighten up enough to see that they had entered a large circular chamber with a polished white marble floor. In the middle of it was a white tomb, also made out marble, resting on top of a small raised platform with steps.

"Wow, I've got to pay for the best crypt for when I'm dead" Pacifica said casually as she admiring the room.

Crossing the distance of the room, Dipper climbed the stairs off the platform and now stood in front of the stone coffin. As Dipper drew closer to examine it, he saw the same triple V symbol carved into the side of the stone.

"Well this must be it". Dipper took off his backpack and pulled out a long metal crowbar. He jammed one end of the crowbar under the lid of the coffin and began to press down on it.

"Wait a minute, you're actually going to open that?" Pacifica said, suddenly sounding worried.

"What better place to hide something…" Dipper grunted as he pulled down harder on the crowbar. "Then in a coffin"

"But what if this guy really was a vampire?" Pacifica exclaimed, her fear rising. "What then?"

"Don't worry, I'm prepared" Mabel said confidently. "I've got a stake if he was an evil vampire and an apple if he was a nice one". Mabel subsequently pulled out those two objects from behind her back and held them in each hand.

Dipper stopped pulling on the crowbar for a moment to catch his breath.

"There isn't any actual proof that Count Voltaruss was a vampire at all" he said, wiping some sweat from his forehead. "There's isn't anything about that in the Journal. And even if he was, we can handle it. Me and Mabel handle stuff like this all the time. I stopped that ghost for you, remember?"

"Excuse me" Pacifica said, raising an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure, I'm the one who beat that ghost when I opened the gate"

"Well, I'm the one who trapped him in a mirror" Dipper replied.

"Yeah and after that, you let him escape" Pacifica countered

"Because I found out that you and parents tricked me and-!" Dipper said, growing more agitated.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow guys" Mabel said quickly, not liking the way Dipper and Pacifica were now eyeing each other. "Starting to get a little tense in here "

"Look" Dipper continued. "Whatever's in here might be the key finding out what's really going in Gravity Falls. So are you going to help me or not? Or are you too scared to get your hands dirty?" Dipper looked up from the crowbar to give Pacifica a questioning look.

Pacifica just stared back, seeming to contemplate an answer, before shrugging her shoulders. "If I can get my parents carpet dirty, I can get anything dirty".

She walked over to join Dipper and took a hold of the crowbar alongside him. Together they pulled down as hard as they could, but still struggled to move the lid of the casket. Mabel joined them and now all three of them were pushing down with all their might. For second, it looked like their efforts were in vain, until a loud creak came from the casket as the stone lid moved ever so slightly

Dipper shifted his position and clasped both his hands around the hook of the crowbar to get a better grip as he pushed his weight down on it. The lid was raised even further as a gap could now be seen.

The three of them were knocked to the ground as their combined weight gave way underneath the crowbar. Dipper own hand's slipped from the end of the crowbar as he fell backwards

"Ouch!" Dipper winched as he felt a sharp, hot pain in the palm of his right hand. When his grip slipped from the crowbar, it had made a small cut on the inside of his hand. Shaking his hand slightly, he soon was able to ignore the slighting stinging pain as he stood back up

Mabel and Pacifica had already started to push on the stone lid, as it slowly began to slide off to the other end. The slab hit the floor with a loud bang that echoed in the cave and created a large cloud of dust that obscured everyone's vision.

"It's-it's…" Dipper said, coughing up some of the dust as he tried to peer inside the stone coffin

"Empty" Pacifica finished.

Once the dust had cleared, Dipper saw that the coffin was indeed empty. There was no body, no bones or remains of any kind. It looked so unblemished that Dipper wondered if anything had ever been inside it before.

"This…doesn't make any sense" he said. "Why would someone build a crypt and not bury anyone in it?"

Dipper continued to scan the inside of the coffin, hoping to find some shred of a clue. Then out of the corner of his eye, Dipper spotted something edged into the very back of the coffin. Reaching down into the coffin, Dipper picked the object up. Turning it over in his hands, Dipper saw that it was some kind of round disk with a lid on the front, attached to a long chain. He opened it and inside he found a clock face staring back at him, revealing the item as being an old pocket watch that had stopped running.

"That's it? All that for a broken watch" Pacifica said with disdain, shaking herhands, whichh were sore from the pulling.

"Why would someone go to all the trouble of leaving this here?" Dipper said curiously as he eyed the watch. Mabel grabbed the watch by its chain and pulled it out of Dipper's hand.

"Well, maybe they were just trying to find a way to…. kill time!" Mabel stood there with a frozen smile, holding the watch up in the air, her eyes darting from side to side.

"This would be the part where I'd get a rimshot". Dipper took the watch back from Mabel and studied it intently.

"Hmm, the clock on this stopped running. Maybe the time its set on is part of some kind of code?" Setting the watch on the ground, Dipper instinctively took out the Journal and opened it out beside it. He then pulled out his black and started to scan the pages, trying to find some hidden message that correlated to the watch.

"Wow, you're right. This is so much better than extreme shopping" Pacifica said sarcastically. However Dipper gave no reply, as he had become immersed in the Journal once again.

"Hello? Are you listening to me?" Pacifica said, sounding impatient. She rolled her eyes with a groan, not like being ignored.

"Is he always this obsessive?" Pacifica asked Mabel

"I'm surprised if he even gets an hour of sleep every night" she replied. Mabel then leaned in and dropped her voice down to a whisper. "I slip some of my Mabel juice in his cereal every morning to keep him awake"

Pacifica rolled her eyes again and started to look around the room, now feeling bored. Mabel had begun to occupy herself by making shadow puppets with her light. Pacifica's eyes then fell back to the direction where they had entered, which was still lit up by the hanging torch. She then looked back at Mabel, who was now shining the light under her chin and making faces. A grin slowly formed Pacifica's face.

"Hey guys, can you give me a little more light over here?" Dipper asked absent-mindedly, as the room seemed to get darker all of a sudden, making harder for him to read the pages with just his black light.

"Guys? Guys?" Dipper only looked from his book when he heard no one answer. Getting to his feet, Dipper shone his black light out in front of him and saw that both Mabel and Pacifica were gone.

Dipper instantly felt a horrible sense of dread wash over him, his instincts and experience telling him something was terribly wrong.

"Mabel? Pacifica!?" he called out desperately. As he looked around, Dipper realised that the torch light at the entrance was out, leaving his black light the only source of light in the room. Dipper held it up higher as he moved around in a circle pattern, searching every dark corner of the room for something to pop out at him.

The black light then began to flicker on and off as Dipper continued to pace around, growing more worried each second. He shook the light slightly to try and stop it flickering, but it ended up slipping out of his hands. He scrambled to the ground and quickly tried to find it again.

When he felt the handle of the light in his grasp, he picked it up and hurriedly gave it another shake hoping that would bring the light back. Dipper let a sigh of relief when it did. He stood up again and raised his light forward. And when he did, he the very first thing he saw was a skull with glowing eyes hovering right in front of his face.

"AHHHHH!" Dipper jumped back to the ground as a bright light flashed in his face from behind the skull. Even after everything he had been through this summer, his heart would still jump into his throat whenever he saw something like that. He looked back up the skull, his mind racing to think of a way to defend himself

However, his mind seemed to take a break, when all of a sudden there was another flash of light and then came the sound of someone giggling.

"Haha got you!"

Dipper rubbed his eyes, seeing some spots after that flash, but his vision soon returned for him to see Mable was standing in front of him holding the skull up in one hand and shining her flashlight into it. Pacifica was right beside her, her camera phone out and pointed at Dipper.

Still reeling a little, Dipper slowly managed to piece together what had just happened. And now his fear was replaced by a lot of anger and humiliation.

"Got that one on picture this time" Pacifica laughed, waving her camera. On the screen of the phone was the captured picture of Dipper screaming in terror as he had done just a minute earlier.

"But it's still not as good as your other one" Mable said.

"Blahhhh!" Pacifica and Mabel stood side by side and struck their 'Dipper frozen in horror' poses again, before bursting into another round laughter.

"Okay, yeah yeah. Very funny" Dipper muttered dryly as he pushed himself back up. "It's so great to see the two of you bonding together. By humiliating me"

"Hooray! We're bonding" Mabel cheered. Dropping the skull, Mabel held her arms out and instinctively reached for Pacifica, only to pause when she realised what she was doing and then retracting her arms back, a little dejectedly.

Pacifica gave her a patronizing look, before sighing and holding her own arms out with a slight smile. Taking her consent, Mabel didn't waste time and trapped Pacifica in hug tighter than a vice. Dipper rolled his eyes in annoyance as he watched them, his pride somewhat wounded after what just happened.

"Ok, this has been a fun trip, but if it's all the same to you, I think we can go home now"

"You know, I think I'll keep this" Pacifica said, holding her phone with a mischievous grin. "Wonder how many followers this will get me online"

"We can make this into a meme!" Mabel said excitedly, grabbing the phone. "Then you'll be immortalised on the internet for all eternity!"

"What? No, no. No internet memes!" Dipper said, sounding panicked, reaching to take the phone from Mabel. However, Pacifica got to it first.

"You want it? Gotta catch me first" Pacifica laughed, as she took with a run down the cave, back to the stairway

"Immortality!" Mabel cheered as she followed suit down the passage.

"Hey! Wait up!" Dipper yelled as he chased after the two of them out of the cave.

Once they were gone, the crypt was as silent and empty as it had been before it was unearthed. The only difference now was that the lid was off the empty coffin and on the floor. Aside from that, there was no evidence that Dipper, Mabel or Pacifica had even been there at all.

However, there was in fact one other piece of evidence left, unknown to anyone. A small stain of blood that was pressed into the polished floor from where Dipper pushed himself up with his injured hand.

Another group of bats had fluttered back into the cave and flew up to the ceiling. One bat in particular flew down close to the floor and began to hover over the stain of Dipper's blood, as if it was drawn to it. The bat then lowered itself down onto the floor and crawled up to blood stain, sniffing at it slightly.

From out of nowhere, a strange and ominous wind seemed to swipe into the cave. The bats near the top of the ceiling were thrown about by this wind, while the bat that was still on the ground seemed to be unaffected. Eventually the wind died down, but things did not stop there

A bright crimson light shot up from the floor of the crypt as a series of lines slowly began to stretch out from the blood stain and formed some kind of large circular glyph with several strange markings. The markings glowed even brighter, now lighting up the previously dim cave with a red tilt. The cave itself had now begun to shake and rumble as if an earthquake had just hit.

Startled, the lone bat attempted to fly away, when suddenly the floor beneath it started to crack. Then in the blink of an eye, a chalk white hand burst up from out of the marble stone as fast a bullet, right in the center of the newly formed glyph, grabbing a hold of the bat before it could get high enough up in the air. The hand then pulled the screaming bat back down under the stone as it struggled to break free of its grip. The bat's shrieking soon stopped and was then followed by a very loud crunching sound.

More cracks formed out from the hole that had been made. Chunks of stone began to push themselves upwards as it looked like something was trying to dig its way out from underneath the floor. Then, without warning, there came a huge explosion of dirt and rock. When the dust had cleared, the figure of some creature could be seen pushing itself up out of the rumble.

The creature had the appearance of a young boy, who looked no older than Dipper or Mabel. But that one similarity was the one thing that seemed remotely human about him. Its hair was dark as coal with two long bangs in the front and a pony tail at the back. His skin was as white and dead looking as his hand. The tips of his fingers were sharp claws and his eyes were blood red, with slits for pupils. Two visible fangs out be seen jutting out from his upper lip. His clothes were black like his hair and looked like they were from a different century, with a cape was tied around his collar

The boy staggered forward slightly, panting heavily as if he had just run a marathon. He paused for a moment as if to collect himself, before throwing his head back and cracking his neck from side to side. He then straightened himself and resumed walking, all signs of fatigue now gone. The skull from earlier was laying right in front of his path. He placed his foot on top of it without any real notice and crushed it into pieces under heel.

The boy continued to walk through the cavern and then up the stairway, until he came to the entrance of the crypt, the moonlight illumining his presence. The boy raised his arms to either side, his cape flapping in the wind and he inhaled a long, deep breath of the cold night time air, as if it rejuvenated him.

He then looked upward to the sky and as if carried by some invisible wires, the boy levitated off the ground and rose higher up into the air. He came to stop once he was well off the ground and slowly spun around, to take in his surroundings. He finally stopped to cast his gaze out over the horizon and then down to the bright lights of town that were shining some distance below him.

"Gravity Falls" he whispered, his voice chilling and excited. "I'm back"


And that's that. So what you'd think? This was supposed to part of the first chapter, but then I felt it had become too long. Hope you enjoyed it and if don't mind telling me what you thought, please review. Don't know exactly when I'll be able to update again, though if this gets a lot of support, I will be more inclined.

Thanks for reading and peace out