A/N- Sorry for taking long. Writer's block. Oh well. I had to hear a lot of Kitaro, X-Ray Dog, and Soul Reaver soundtracks to get an idea for this chapter.

By the way, if you want to see more Gravity Falls' goodness from me, visit my deviantART: TIGERBLACK62. There are a lot of fake screenies you might like ;)

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Chapter IV:

Recurrence

Stanford Pines is actually not having a nightmare.

He's remembering his older twin brother, Stanley, in a dream.

Stanley was nine minutes older than Stanford, and was the one who had the craziest ideas. They were like two identical water drops, a reflection of each other. The only thing that could differentiate the brothers was Stanley's glasses. Stanford didn't use them, until a later point in his life.

Wendy starts to hear Stan's talking and she looks back at him. He's still sleeping.

"Stanley, please." Mr. Pines says. "Don't."

Who's Stanley? Wendy wonders as she keeps paying attention.

Stan keeps talking in his sleep. The teen sees the old man is sweating as he's saying "What happened to us? We were so close."

Thunders continue striking and Wendy decides it was enough of contemplating the rain. The weather starts to change into a cold one. Pretty odd, even for summer. Sighing, she takes her jacket off and puts it above her, like a blanket and lies down in a foetal position, near but not close to the quiet Stan.

-xxx-

The next day…

The older twin finally awakes. Mabel dreamt she was in her room back in the Shack, hoping the living nightmare was never real. The girl is looking at her surroundings, thinking she'll never get out of the now Gravity Falls' Gorge.

"Morning, Mabel." Soos waves his non-broken arm.

"Morning, Soos." She replies, tired and yawns. "Where's Dipper?" she asks, noting her brother is not around

"Don't know, Mab." The handyman replies. "When I woke up he wasn't here."

Dipper finally appears, tired and sleepy. His hat is gone. He's no longer wearing his jacket. His t-shirt is a bit damaged and his skin has scratches and a couple of cuts.

"Hi, guys." The boy says a bit monotone. "Sorry if I made you think I left you." He yawns. "I tried to catch the breakfast." He removes a fang from his arm. "Wasn't lucky today."

"Doesn't matter, bro." Soos says as he takes a tree branch. "We have a lot of tasty branches." He then bites the branch. It's obvious he doesn't like the taste, but fakes it's delicious. "See? So yummy."

"Come on, Soos." Dipper says, kind of annoyed. "I can see you don't even like that thing's flavour." The boy lies in the floor. "I'm going to take a nap, so good night or day or whatever."

"Dipper, I think we should keep moving." Mabel approaches him. "We have to find Grunkle Stan and Wendy."

"Let's find'em later." Dipper mumbles, still sleeping. "I want to sleep."

"I'll take care of this, Mabel." Soos says as he carries the sleeping Dipper using his good arm. "Wow, your brother's getting a bit heavy."

"Soos, I don't want my brother to break your remaining arm." Mabel comments. "We have tree trunks and branches, vines, and rocks. We can build something with it." She says as she rubs her chin.

Moments later, Mabel puts her deep-sleeping brother into the sleigh she and Soos have built. The pig takes the vines and drags it, following his owner.

It's a long way.

The group's getting hungry.

Soos looks at Waddles, and imagines it being a large pile of bacon (with legs). Suddenly he shakes his head and focuses on Mabel before he gets lost. Ironically enough, the girl doesn't even know where she is heading to. She's walking forward, thinking Wendy and Grunkle Stan are somewhere near them.

-xxx-

Wendy finally opens her eyes.

She looks at Stan, who woke up a bit earlier than her. He's playing with his fingers and then notices Wendy looking at him.

"Morning, Wendy." He says as he leaves his hands

"Morning, Boss." She says while cleaning her jacket and putting it on. "Slept well?"

"Kind of." He replies. "I just can't believe all this happened. And it's my fault."

"Uhm… your fault?" she asks

"I should have listened to the boy." He says. "This would have never happened if I listened to him."

"It's something that just happened." Wendy tries to cheer him up. "It's not exactly your fault."

"Of course it is!" he continues.

"Look, Mr. Pines." Wendy says. "Let's try to get out of here before something else happens." She kneels. "Come on, get on my back."

"Why are you helping me?" Stan asks her. "I've been a terrible boss to you."

"Just climb my back!" Wendy orders him

Stan crawls into her and they get out of the small shelter.

Unlike yesterday, Wendy can now smell his sweat mixed with the ground, reminiscent of either acid or 'old man cologne'. By now, she regrets giving him the 'horse rides' as he called them yesterday when she was building the shelter. Many thoughts start to surround her mind, some of them telling her to leave him dying and paying for all the stuff he has ever done, others convincing her not to do it, since Stan Pines is not that cold and greedy as he seems.

She's aware of what he did after her failed attempt of escaping of the gorge. When they were falling down during the last moments of the earthquake, Stanford took Wendy from her waist and made sure his and her body were very close, to keep her safe. After finally hitting the ground, Wendy uncontrollably rolled so far from him as Stan's legs got broken.

The red-haired teen prefers to pretend she's not aware of his actions. If it wasn't for him, she might have had a broken leg or arm. Or she could be dead.

Stan is so affected by that moment. While he was protecting his employee from a certain death, his life was flashing before his eyes (from his birth to a few minutes earlier before falling down) while he was closing his eyes, waiting for the grim reaper to reclaim his soul. If it wasn't for Wendy, he might have died.

Life for life.

"Wendy, why are you doing this, again?" Stan asks her

"Even if you treat me, Soos, and everybody like garbage…" Wendy replies. "…I think you don't deserve to die." She mentally facepalms herself because that sounded like a TV novel.

"You really think that?"

She doesn't reply back and he sighs, kind of unhopeful.

-xxx-

Dipper is no longer sleeping.

He and the rest of the gang are walking. They stop when they see they have reached a cliff wall surrounded by a few crevasses.

Mabel is kind of desperate. She's hungry, thirsty, tired, and sick of the place. At the same time, Soos is trying to calm the girl down, but unsuccessful.

"Guys, please." Dipper says. "I'm trying to figure out how we get out of here. Yes, of course we're hungry, tired, and we so need an urgent bath. It's almost been a day. What if this is the last one we're here? Maybe Stan and Wendy are searching for help or they're still trapped like us, I don't know."

"Dipper, you sometimes are annoying!" an angered Mabel says. "You just talk, talk, and talk and you don't even ask for our opinions! Would you please shut the hell up?"

"Mabel, are you okay?" her brother asks

"Of course I'm not okay, you dweeb!" Mabel replies. "I'm very hungry, I'm tired, and I'm definitely sick of this damn place!"

"Mabel, please…" Soos tries to calm her down. "Maybe we can climb that giant wall. We're a team!" He optimistically says

"Oh, shut up, Soos!" she hisses at him. "I know you want to kill and eat Waddles. We're like a family. And families don't eat each other!"

"But Mabel, I don't want to eat your pig." The handyman replies.

"Oh, of course you want to eat it! You're always hungry!" Mabel roars

"Girl, calm down before you start to make non-sensed wishes." A worried Soos says.

"You know what I wish for? I wish for another earthquake so I can never see you ever again!" She screams at him.

Her screams' are echoing off the gorge's walls. Then, her wish is granted.

An earthquake starts to shake the place. It's not that strong that the one that created the gorge.

Many rocks start to fall, along with tree trunks and branches. Soos runs away back to the cave he and the kids used as a shelter. The gorge is shaking so much the children fall and Waddles hides behind Mabel, who was paralyzed with fear as she sees her wish made when she was angry became true.

After a while, the ground-shaking natural disaster stops.

The air is habited by dust again.

"Soos! Grunkle Stan! Wendy!" the girl screams and cries when she doesn't receive an answer. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Forgive me!" An ashamed Mabel regrets her wish as she buries her head in her hands.

Dipper stands up and rubs his head. He has more scratches, probably made by the tree branches. The scared and surprised boy looks a giant pile of rocks have formed a wall.

Suddenly, strange noises start to appear behind Dipper.

He looks back and sees three strange creatures emerging from the dust.

"Mabel…" a scared Dipper says to his still crying sister. "We have company."

A/N- I think Stan's getting kind of OOC (Out of Character, for those who don't know), or I don't know. Maybe all the characters D: Hope I'm wrong.

Hope you like it.

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Oh! And if I have a grammar mistake or another kind of mistake, please tell me so I can fix it C: !