Chapter 2: Unauthorized Entry
Dipper crept like a thief through the hallowed silence of too-early morning, opting to feel his way through the darkened hallways rather than turn on the lights and compromise his solitude.
He opened a cupboard and ran his fingertips across the boxes of cereal inside, trying to remember which one was which and absently wondering if they printed cereal boxes in Braille. He passed a few boxes through a shimmering moonbeam before deciding on one whose name ended in "flakes".
He measured out the crunching sound of his chewing, furtively glancing over his shoulder in between spoonfuls of nebulous flakes. Why did he feel guilty, as though he was someplace he shouldn't be? Why was he afraid to be caught eating breakfast?
A gleam of light from the window answered his question. As he squinted out towards the woods, he saw something shifting in the bushes, too distant to examine in detail but visible by the light it emitted. Is that the same one from before? he wondered. His chewing became even slower, almost imperceptible. It seemed unlikely that the creature would hear him from so far away, but he didn't want to take any chances.
Dipper watched the thing creep out onto the grass, moving closer to the shack at a sideways angle. It performed an odd sort of skittering crab-walk, contorting and crawling the way a spider might, with the same terrifying speed. As it left his field of view, Dipper turned to look at the next window over, where it stepped onto the driveway, leaning its head back against its shoulders, or possibly its chest.
Dipper tried to come up with a general name for whatever class of humanoid he was seeing. Goblin? Kobold? Alien? It occurred to him that understanding the distinctions between supernatural creatures might make them less supernatural, relatively speaking. His uncanny, glowing neighbor fell squarely into the realm of the other; it was an interloper, an aberration, a miscellaneus.
The miscellaneus let out intermittent chirps at varying frequencies, moving its neck folds substantially more than its lips to produce each sound. As it continued circling the Shack, Dipper moved from room to room, peeking out of each window in turn. He wondered if his old journal would have any information about it, although he'd read it from cover to cover and couldn't remember anything that quite resembled what he was seeing.
His musings were interrupted as the miscellaneus disappeared from view once again. He glanced out the next window to the left, where he saw only the totem pole standing watch, and then out the window to the right, where the trees at the forest's edge did the same. He rubbed his eyes as he turned his attention back to the center window, only to see a glowing white face, frozen in an unholy, grimacing, silent scream, mere inches from the glass.
He let out a shrill cry as he stumbled and fell backwards, eyes watering with fear. The creature cocked its head from side to side like a parrot trying to intimidate a mirror, sliding its unnaturally long fingers against the window and emitting a barely audible but thoroughly disgusting gurgling noise from deep in its throat.
Dipper covered his eyes but peered out between his fingers to see the miscellaneus slowly pressing its flat face against the glass. At this distance, he could see the scaly texture of its skin, along with the black, glistening eyes that he had mistaken for empty sockets before. The inside of the mouth was deep purple and undulating, its ridges and folds rippling like the sails of some nightmarish ship.
It continued to gurgle as Dipper scrambled away, climbing over a sofa and curling up in the dusty space behind it. "Please go away," he whispered, quaking and covering his head. "Please go away. Please go away. Please go away."
"Oh, okay. See you around."
Dipper looked up to see Mabel walking away, dragging her slippers across the carpet.
"I wasn't talking to you." He swallowed, trying to stop his voice from quavering. "There's this white glowing thing outside. Look out the window."
He hovered behind Mabel as squinted out into the darkness, moving her head from side to side, shifting her perspective.
"Is it in the trees or something?"
"No, it was right outside. It was kissing the window or something."
"Gross. I'm looking for something pretty big, right?"
"Yeah, it was about human-sized. Like I said, it's glowing, so you should know when you see it."
"Well, I don't really… oh. Oh."
Dipper followed Mabel's gaze to see the miscellaneus crouched against the side of shack, gradually shrinking away in an obvious attempt to hide.
"What even is that?"
"How should I know? I'm thinking we should just call it a 'miscellaneus'."
"That's an adjective."
"Not if you leave out the 'o'. Then it's like 'miscellanea', but singular."
"That's not a word."
They fell quiet as the miscellaneus began to stomp on the grass, alternating between its clubbed feet, and shaking its head from side to side. It turned and dashed away towards the forest, now moving more like a gorilla than a crab. The twins stared at the patch of brush that continued to shake several seconds after thing had passed out of view, leaving no trace of itself but lingering curiosity and fear.
"Let's follow it," Dipper said finally.
"Are you nuts?" asked Mabel. "That thing clearly didn't want to be our friend. Besides, it had some Mothman-level weirdness vibes going on. If we meet it out there in the woods, we'll probably end up in cocoons with our organs being slowly liquefied and sucked out!" She waggled her fingers for dramatic effect.
Dipper shook his head. "It knows where we live. As long as we're staying here, I'd prefer to know where things like that are than stay in the dark. Besides, my journal didn't have any information on it, and I intend to change that."
…
Soos held perfectly still, breathless, couched in a thick blanket on a secluded hilltop. Here was where the new day would give him its first impression; here he could glimpse the dawn naked and unprepared as she arose from her slumber.
The first rays of morning sunshine began to filter through the mountains on the horizon, orange and warm, a gentle light trickling into a cradle of dense, humming forest life. Soos propped his flashlight against a pile of books: the Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Trial, White Noise. He held a notebook out where it was well-lit, hunted down a ballpoint pen which had hidden under his leg, and began to write.
It is in this place that I hear the birds say 'good morning' and watch the darkness say 'no more'. The cycles of nature are an endless ebb and flow, each day a microcosmic reflection of the passing of seasons, the passage of years, the rise and fall of nations. Perhaps we should weep, that we can only know so little of the majesty of creation before we cease to be. Weep, that we should be constrained by our limited physiology, compromised by our limited senses, and commanded by foolish souls who are as lost as we. Nature's splendor is nearly infinite, yet we are not. That the light should be so wondrous to be hold, and speak such sweet music to our weeping eyes—these kindnesses make it all the more bitterly cruel that the light should go out. A sunrise implies a sunset, a birth implies a death, and to enter this fantastic world is to be born a doomed fool. Why, then, must…"
He stopped writing and clenched the pen as a rustle issued from the bushes behind him. He flicked the flashlight off with one thumb, keeping the rest of his hand and body still. As he sweated in the darkness, the rustle began to fade, and soft, wet, footsteps plodded across the dew-kissed grass at the base of the hill behind him. There was a brief pause before he heard the steps again, faster than before, rushing up the hill towards him. A knot formed in his throat; he knew there was no escaping now.
A single tear welled up in his eye. "How ironic," he whispered.
There was a soft click and a light shining on his back. "Soos?"
He looked over his shoulder to see a confused pair of twins, both of which had donned backpacks and the shorter of which was holding a flashlight. He wiped profuse sweat off his brow. "Oh, it's you guys. For a second there, I thought I was going to set face to face with the clear path."
Mabel rubbed her eyes in confusion. "What?"
"I thought I was going to experience it in its reality, wherein all things are like the void and cloudless sky, and the naked, spotless intellect is like a transparent vacuum, without circumference or center."
"Soos, what are you talking about?" asked Dipper.
"I'm watching the sunrise, trying to think of deep things to say about life and death. I guess I still have some work to do, huh?"
Dipper shrugged. "Just… try saying it in less fancy words, I guess. You don't wanna reach beyond your grasp, or whatever."
Soos nodded, staring intently at the sunrise. "The story inside of me must be told plainly, without pomp or pretense. Only then can I communicate my rawest emotions."
Mabel circled around him, glancing down the hill at the surrounding trees. "You didn't happen to see a glowing white monster pass through here, did you?"
Soos shook his head. "I did not… but, deep down, aren't we all glowing white monsters?"
Dipper bit his lip. "Maybe don't write that one down."
With that, the twins set off, stepping sideways down the grassy slope and into the complete shade of the trees. Dipper led the way with his flashlight—as he swung it from side to side, Mabel followed in zigzagging steps, trying to stay as far from the darkness as possible.
She bumped into him as he stopped walking. "Dipper, why"—
"Shh."
She leaned around him, squinting into the darkness as she realized that the flashlight was off. Another, fainter light emanated from the other side of a log that lay in front of them. They crouched low, keeping their footsteps whisper-soft as they crept forward. Dipper wrapped his hands over the top of the log, lifting his head a few inches, then a few more, and more still until he could see…
"Blood?"
There was a small, viscous, green puddle seated upon the dirt. Mabel began reaching towards it, nearly dipping her index finger into it before Dipper smacked her hand away. "What are you doing?" he whispered. "That could be poisonous."
Mabel pouted. "It could also not be."
They climbed over the log, and Dipper slowly rotated, shining the light out as far as he could in each direction. As a glint of something unusual caught his eye, he took a few steps towards it before he thought to turn the light back off.
"It's more glowing blood," he said. As he walked towards it, the light of a third puddle caught his eye.
Mabel cringed. "Looks like someone had a rough night. I wonder if"—
She stopped as a horribly familiar chirping sound filled the air. The twins huddled together, as low to the ground as possible, as they listened to something stumble awkwardly through the underbrush, occasionally letting out a shark squawk. As the sound grew further away, Mabel started to rise, beckoning to Dipper. He followed her towards a gap in the brambles at the edge of the clearing, towards the sound, keeping it at a distance that was audible but not suicidal.
Soon they came to another, larger clearing, where the pulsing glow of the miscellaneus made its position obvious. It glanced around in an undulating motion before arching its back and letting out an otherworldly scream, as loud and grating as it was entrancing. The sound echoed out into the forest, leaving the creature grasping its hip and mumbling angry-sounding clucks to itself.
As the miscellaneus stared intently at the ground, the ongoing sunrise began to dim its glow, making it harder to see than it had been at night. Dipper had just begun to back up when he heard a rumbling sound from the clearing. The creature tensed into a half-crouch, looking ready to bolt.
A swell began near the clearing's center, the dirt pushing upwards, splitting the grass. As the rumbling grew louder, the swell lifted up higher, sending a cascade of dirt, pebbles, and skittering insects tumbling down around its apex. The miscellaneus took slow steps backwards to avoid being knocked over as a wide, weathered stone slab emerged from the dirt, sending dusty billows swirling into the air. Dipper held his breath, willing himself not to cough or sneeze. As the slab was lifted higher, it became a large archway over a pair of thick, rune-engraved stone doors, which rattled violently as they emerged from the ground.
Just as Dipper realized the size of the structure, it finished its ascent, send one last plume of dust outwards as the doors swung open, swaying slightly from their own unbalanced weight. The entire entrance bore the look of something from another time, another place. As soon as the motion had stopped, the miscellaneus leapt forward, into some darkness that was barely visible from the twins' position. A few seconds later, the ground started to shake again.
Dipper strode out into the clearing, his heart pounding. He knew that if he stopped to think about what he was doing, he might not be able do it.
"Dipper, don't! It could crush you!"
He glanced over his shoulder without slowing his pace. "Come on, Mabel!" he shouted over the rumbling. "Who knows when it might open again?"
"Exactly! You could be stuck in there forever!"
"We can dig out if we have to! Come on!"
He stopped once he had crossed the archway onto a stairway which led down into deepest darkness. "Come on, Mabel! It's now or never!"
He felt a twang of regret as he noticed her eyes starting to water. "Dipper, don't be stupid! Get out of there!"
"No! You come in!" He braced himself to keep steady. The ceiling kept getting lower, and he tried and failed not to panic.
"Dipper, I'm not going in there! You come out!"
"No, you come in!" he ducked as the gap connecting him to the surface continued to shrink and the doors slowly squeezed towards each other.
"Come out!"
"Come in!"
"Come out!"
There was no more than a foot of space left. "Actually, don't come in!"
Mabel stamped her foot. "Fine! Don't come out!"
"No, I mean you'll get squished if you come in!"
Mable dropped down to the ground, pressing the side of her face against the dirt where Dipper could see her wide-eyed dismay.
"Dipper, I…"
Thud. Just as suddenly as the motion stopped, the last of the light was gone and Dipper was surrounded by absolute silence.
"Mabel?" he called out. He cringed as he realized that the miscellaneus might easily have heard him. By way of response, he heard a heavily muffled, unintelligible yell from above.
The intensity of the moment overtook him, and he slumped against the doors, running his hand through his hair. His arms were shaking, his legs felt weak, and he had no idea what was waiting for him down below, nor how quickly it could kill him.
Well, he thought, nothing left now but to find out how horrible of an idea this was. He cupped one hand over the flashlight, turned it out with the other, and let out the tiniest amount of light he needed to see by, inching himself gradually down the stairs, towards whatever it was Gravity Falls had in store for him.