Extra long chapter for you lovely people today. I tried to keep the dialogue as close to the show as possible, but I had to change a bit to work with my timeline.

While secrets might lives in the night, they can also be discovered in the brightness of day. They do not disappear as the sun rises. In fact, they are almost easier to find once the shelter of darkness leaves them to their own devices. They do not lay themselves bare for all to see, but their stealth is no longer as effective without the assistance of the endless shadows. Daylight may make them seem safer, taking away the danger of the unknown, but the damage of what is uncovered is just as destructive as it was before, if not more so.

For without the shadows, everything is revealed.

...

Morning arrived abruptly with the sunlight streaming in through the window right into Dipper's sleep deprived eyes in an attempt to blind him. He pulled his covers over his head with a groan, desperate to ignore the day. If he could block out the light, maybe his first day of work would slip past and he could get rid of the pounding headache that had started around four in the morning. He burrowed further into the comforting warmth of his bed and relax when light attacked his face once more. A noise of protest escaped him as he desperately fought to hold onto his blanket. Unfortunately, sleep deprivation did nothing to help him in the struggle, and his source of protection was quickly ripped from his grasp.

"Good morning, bro-bro!" Mabel happily pranced back to her side of the room, wearing his blanket as a cape as she sifted through her array of wildly colored clothing. Dipper watched her for a minute, trying to decide if people could actually be that happy in the morning before he realized it was too early to care and rolled over to block the obnoxious rays of the sun.

He missed Mabel's frown at his less than enthusiastic response. By the time that she tapped him gently on the shoulder and he turned to face her again, her radiant smile was back at full blast like it had never left. She just as gently tugged at his arm and pulled him upright. "Come on, Dipper, rise and shine! It's our first full day here!"

"Yay," Dipper yawned, scratching absentmindedly at his arm. He internally cursed himself for leaving the window open all night. Even if nature sounded nice, the bugs were not very forgiving. He could already feel the bumps forming under his fingers.

Mabel punched him playfully on the shoulder and suddenly jerked him to his feet, causing him to yelp in surprise. She laughed as he stumbled over his own feet but made sure he had his balance before letting go. "Cheer up," she called over her shoulder as she waltzed back over to her side of the room to resume the hunt for the perfect sweater. "It'll be great. Trust me!"

Sighing in resignation, he shuffled over to where his clothes were and began digging for something to wear. Even if he was still grumpy and groggy, he couldn't help but smile at Mabel's antics. And who knows, she could be right. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad. "Okay."

His bug bites were really beginning to bother him. He continued scratching as he went through his belongings. He had dealt with mosquitoes back home, but he'd never had so many of the annoying bumps on his arms at once. Maybe Gravity Falls had some sort of crazy mutant mosquitoes that bit people's arms in... patterns?

He ran his hand over his arm again, and sure enough, he felt the bites form definite shapes across his skin. He abandoned his search for clothing and began a closer inspection of the marks. The angry red lines left behind by his nails were still visible, but they did nothing to block the word that stood out from his skin in an ominous and vague warning.

Beware.

"All right, look alive people. I need someone to go hammer up these signs in the spooky part of the forest."

Mabel had been wrong about her prediction of greatness. Ever since they had started work, Grunkle Stan had had him constantly running around to do the jobs that no one else was willing to do. This time, Dipper was determined not to be roped into it.

"Not it," he stated quickly.

"Not it!" Mabel cheerfully joined in with a raised hand.

"Um, also not it," called out a large man on a stepladder behind them who had stopped fixing something on the wall to decline his involvement.

Stan waved away the last comment. "Nobody asked you, Soos."

"I know, and I'm comfortable with that," Soos responded and happily took a bite of a chocolate bar. Dipper grinned at the older man as he went back to his drilling, seemingly content with his work. Even though they had only met today, he thought Soos was a really cool guy after he helped him out with several of the odd jobs Stan had forced on him. He was patient and didn't get angry when Dipper screwed up. That was enough to make him like him.

"Wendy! I need you to put up these signs!"

Dipper quickly turned his attention to the beautiful redhead who was currently reading a magazine behind the counter and ignoring the world. He had only spoken to her briefly so far because he didn't trust himself to hold an intelligent conversation with someone as cool and as perfect as she was. He would probably somehow set her on fire or something, or maybe (more realistically) he would manage to be so awkward that she would never speak to him or even acknowledge his presence again. It was best to admire from afar for now and ignore Mabel's very obvious "subtle" nudges as she tried to push him toward her.

Wendy continued reading and began waving her arm in their direction. "I would but I can't... reach it..."

She was still perfect to Dipper even when she was being lazy. Stan didn't seem to agree.

"I'd fire all of you if I could. Alright, let's make it eenie, meenie, minie..." Stan's eyes were fixed on Dipper the entire time he pretended to debate about who to pick, leaving no doubt of who he had intended to choose from the start. "You."

The finger pointed at his chest was no surprise, but something more than just reluctance to do the job was holding him back. He decided to speak up before Stan pushed him out the door. "Grunkle Stan, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Stan appeared to be slightly annoyed by the request, but he still followed Dipper out onto the porch. It seemed like a good sign, even if his Grunkle was tapping his foot impatiently. It was a little intimidating, but Dipper gathered up his courage and tried to say what was on his mind. "Okay, this is going to seem weird and I'm going to sound totally crazy for saying this, but is there something... bad or dangerous in the woods?"

Stan stared at him for a good ten seconds. "You're right, you do sound crazy. Why would you think that?"

"I… well… okay. This morning, I was scratching my arm, because that's what you do when you have bug bites, right? So there felt like there were a lot of them and they were all kind of clumped together in shapes and-" He suddenly realized he was rambling and pulled up his sleeve to display the evidence, hoping it would speak for him. "My mosquito bites spelled out 'beware.'"

Studying his arm for a moment with apparent interest, Stan scoffed and waved the strange markings away. "That says 'bewarb.'"

Dipper scratched at his arm absentmindedly and scowled at his Grunkle's lack of concern. Stan noticed his anger and gently patted him on the shoulder.

"Listen, kid, the whole 'monster in the forest' thing is just local legend told by guys like me to sell merchandise. I'll admit, it's a bit crude, but it's so lucrative. Especially when your customers are all idiots." Dipper opened his mouth to protest the insult, but he was cut off by the sound of a giggle coming through the open door behind them. They both turned to watch a large man in a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses staring in awe at a bobble head of Stan as it wiggled back and forth. Stan smirked in satisfaction as his point was proven, and Dipper could only shake his head at the spectacle. People really were ridiculous.

However, as entertaining as dumb tourists were, their antics didn't quell the feeling of unease that hung over Dipper. It remained a constant trace of fear, not enough to cause panic, but enough to keep him on edge. He was so caught up in his own feelings that he was almost injured by several wooden boards that were suddenly dropped right by his head. He squawked and jumped back, glaring at his laughing Grunkle as he picked up the signs and set off towards the woods and ignored Stan's parting yell of, "Quit being so paranoid!"

Dipper sighed as he hung yet another sign on an old tree that was no where near a trail where anybody would ever see his handiwork. "Nobody ever believes anything I say."

The spooky part of the forest certainly lived up to it's name. The foreboding tree line gave way to a world of shadows and darkness even when the sun was out. The only sounds he could hear were the ones that he made himself, making him wonder where all the animals were. It was the woods after all. There had to be at least a squirrel or two somewhere at least. If there were any squirrels, or any other animals at all, they remained well hidden. He didn't know what had caused them to do this, but he vaguely knew why. Even he could sense that there was something out there that didn't want him here. The whole forest emitted vibes that practically screamed go away and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He let the unwelcome feeling drive him to put the signs up faster so he could head back to the safety of the Shack.

He was down to his last sign when his nail met resistance that was definitely not natural if the loud clang! was anything to go by. He studied the tree carefully. It looked like any normal tree, but as he struck it with his hammer the echoing metallic sound stated otherwise. "What?" He quickly put the hammer down and began feeling the trunk for something… yes! His fingers slipped into a groove in the wood and pulled to reveal some sort of control panel sitting in a hidden compartment. Out of curiosity he began jiggling the different levers. The thing looked ancient, covered in dust and cobwebs after years of disuse. He wondered what it had been hooked up to before.

With a final flick of a lever he turned to pick a normal tree to hang the sign on when a new hatch slid opened, this time in the ground a few feet from the tree.

"What the... ?" Dipper looked down into the hole to discover a worn old book of some kind. He carefully picked it up and blew off a layer of dust to reveal a shining, golden, six-fingered hand with the number three engraved in the center. In it's current state, the thing looked useless, but someone had taken the time to carefully hide it for some reason. Maybe it was important. Curiosity took hold of him once again as he opened the book to the first page. There was some water damage and mold on several of the pages from what he could see, including the very first, cutting off the flowing handwriting right after the words 'Property of.' Well, if he couldn't find who it belonged to, he might as well hold onto it for the time being. Turning to the next page after noting that this was apparently volume 3, he began to read to himself. "'It's hard to believe it's been six years since I began studying the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon.' Huh."

He began flipping through the handwritten entries, his disbelief rising with each title he read. Floating eyeballs, giant vampire bats, gnomes, cursed doors… "What is all this?" He finally stopped on what seemed to be the last filled page and began to read.

"'Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed: I'm being watched. I must hide this book before he finds it. Remember, in Gravity Falls, there is no one you can trust." He traced the words beneath the statement thoughtfully, noting their bolded and underlined appearance. TRUST NO ONE. If anything could prove that he wasn't just being paranoid, this was it. If he showed this to Grunkle Stan… His thoughts slowly calmed down enough for him to actually think rationally. He had no proof that this book wasn't written by some crazy person, and besides, it was pretty adamant about it's thoughts on sharing this information. "No one you can trust..."

He grabbed the book and headed back to the Shack, excited to read about what sort of strange things Gravity Falls had to offer. He was so caught up in the discovery that he didn't stop to think about why someone would go to so much trouble to hide such a book, and who they could possibly be hiding it from.