NOTE: As much as I didn't want to continue this, I couldn't help but upload this subsequent chapter I wrote alongside the first one. I was on a binge when I wrote the first chapter and I pretty shat these out altogether. There is a third chapter but it's currently unfinished. Until I could think of something conclusive to follow it up, this story'll stay as it is.
Enjoy.
"As much as I'd want to, I can't mess with him directly. Once you have his attention, he can't be stopped until he will have you. You can't hide from him forever.
I could help you out though but I have to be summoned first. Your choice." – Bill
Mabel Pines ran.
Every step she took cost her valuable breath. Adrenaline had pushed her far beyond the physical capabilities of her body and though she could have beaten Wendy in a race at the speed she was going at, the exertion tired her to the point of immobility after tripping over a vine and tumbling into the weeds.
She panted heavily against the underbrush. It was dark. She looked up. It was darker. She cringed as she made one final pass to see who was behind her. The shadow was darkest, cast against the light of the stars.
"Dipper!"
"Mabel!"
Dipper Pines trudged frantically through the bushes, weaving in between the trees like a madman with no apparent direction. The camcorder hung loosely over his neck, still recording unbeknownst to its owner.
"Mabel!"
A small ball wound tightly around his forefinger, composed entirely of a loose strand from Mabel's sweater that had practically become the lifeline between him—his only link to his sibling. Though, at this point, it seemed that the lifeline was taking him even farther away from her.
"Mabel! Can you hear me—" His voice finally cracked under the strain making him pause midstride to catch some air.
"Come on," he wheezed, "come on…"
The bright pink string of thread stretched deeper into the forest. Further up, it broke off from its straight line and began to meander from tree to tree. A clear indication that his sister had tried to serpentine her way to escape. Or that she grew disoriented from the fatigue of fleeing.
He cleared his throat. "Mabel!"
Dipper heard her scream.
Blackness. Cold. Freezing cold.
Mabel sprang her eyes open, barely registering her confines. She wasn't bound nor shackled but she nevertheless clung to her sides and huddled against the floor. Her body hurt all over and though the coldness of the floor helped to numb her aching side, she began to feel a stinging sensation on her knees and elbows. She didn't know what though as her eyes had yet to adjust to the pitch darkness of the room.
On top of it all, she was aware that something or someone was watching her.
"Dipper?" she whimpered.
A wooden floorboard creaked somewhere making her squeal.
"H-hello?"
Nothing. Mabel began to shiver. She badly needed her sweater until she remembered that it was torn away when that...thing...separated them in the woods. Separated her from Dipper. Where's Dipper?
"D-dipper?" Her voice creaked. "Dipper? A-are you there?"
Unnerving silence. Her already fragile mind suggested that it was probably some big joke played by everyone just to scare her. If that were so, this was extreme. Too extreme. Okay, get a hold of yourself, Mabel. It's probably just a prank. A big joke. Just a prank, just a prank, just a prank, just a prank—
A sharp piercing clang snapped from a corner and echoed across the room. It's not a prank…
She wanted to scream but she knew she wasn't alone. And she felt that her company wasn't all too friendly, either.
"Dipper…I don't like this. C-can you stop now?"
There was a hiss from the corner of the room. Mable shot up and felt for the floor—cold. Her body took on its own movement and the twelve-year-old girl crawled feverishly backwards until her back was pressed against the much colder sheet of steel wall. "Please…don't hurt me…"
The reply was a deep guttural growl.
"I just…want to be f-friends…"
It was still there. She knew it. Whoever it was, it wasn't Dipper. It wasn't anyone she knew, too. And she was definitely scared. Her silly self couldn't surface. Her optimism was severely pacified. In other slightly similar situations, she would break out her innocence and unknowingly see the positive side of things, letting her lighter side run wild in the face of danger. But the danger had reached a certain magnitude that was too much for her—or any girl of her age for that matter—to handle.
Mabel forced herself to think happy thoughts. Waddles. His pink skin and cute face and who was feeding him when she was gone—no! Soos, Wendy. They'd still be playing around with Gruncle Stan and—I can't! Dipper... Where are you, Dipper? I need you!
Her mind screamed at the darkness before her eyes. In the absence of any light source came the slow process of relegating her pupils to contrast the dark shapes against the darker world…
"Dipper…"
The creature hissed again, much louder. She quivered. It was too much.
Mabel cried herself to sleep.
The pink sweater haunted him. Dipper sat in a state of disbelief that seemed to have stretched for an eternity. Mable's favorite sweater was shredded halfway. In the pitch blackness of the night, it was hard for him to catch any details other than feel through it just to assure himself that it was indeed hers.
"Mabel..." His voice had cracked from the screaming. "No..." He scooped up the sweater. "This can't be happening..."
The twelve-year-old cupped the foam on the camcorder's handgrip and hesitated. He aimed the lens ahead wondering whether to continue with the monologue. He didn't and instead trudged forward wordlessly into the unknown. As he set foot behind the next tree, he could smell the distinct condensation of a growing fog.
Dipper squinted. It was getting misty up ahead. A sign of hope, maybe?
"Mabel! Don't worry, I'm coming!"
Before he could make a mad dash forward, a mad ringing ripped through his ears…and sent waves of disruptive static against the audiovisual recording. Dipper's enthusiasm turned to shock when tendrils shot out of the beyond and pulled him in. A branch sprouting out of a fallen log ripped the sweater from his hands and tore the strap that kept the video camera tethered around his neck. Both flew in the wind before rolling down the slope to rest on the bank of a creek.
The Oregon cap later landed a few feet away.
Cones of light swept through the trees. Pairs of eyes bounced back and forth in the darkness, darting around but keeping tabs on the other like a group of ragtag adventure seekers. On this night however, the adventure was a desperate search for two missing kids. The fact that they were last seen with them would have made the morning news all the more against their favor.
As such, Wendy and her posse of friends tore through the underbrush, calling out for the Pines.
Robbie walked alongside her, holding up his own torch. Though he never really had a warm relationship with that Dipper preteen, seeing the girl he dated in distress was too much to just stay on the sides and watch. He was going to find those twins whether he liked them or not.
"Hey! Dipper and, uh, Mabel!" he called out. "Come on. This ain't a joke anymore!"
The creek trickled nearby and the path seemed to have been construed by a log. He hopped over it. And landed on something soft. "Huh?"
The amateur punk rocker felt for it, picking up a cap with a sky blue pine tree logo sewn on the front. "It's that kid's…"
Robbie flipped it over, feeling something sticky. He bit onto the end of his flashlight, keeping the yellow cone centered on the cap in his hands—it was unnerving. "Wendy! Wendy, I found something!"
"What is it?"
As he made his way towards her, he tried to think of an explanation for the—
"Is that…blood?"
NOTE: Goodnight.