Sorry for the late update! I've been caught up with other fics. I'm going to at least try to start regularly updating this again.
Mabel's stomach felt as if it were trying to tighten in on itself. For once, her sweater did not feel warm and comfortable, but instead felt hot and tight.
That's ridiculous, she thought, breathing in a bit faster and a bit more than usual. I made sure to knit this sweater three sizes too big for me.
But then again, wasn't everything ridiculous? No, ridiculous, Mabel realized, just wasn't quite the right word. Ridiculous implied that something was funny, and neither her or Pacifica were about to start laughing.
Grenda wasn't either. Her banging turned louder and louder, each successive pounding to the window even harder to the last.
And yet, Mabel thought, still eying it, the glass still probably won't break.
Pacifica turned to look towards her. The blond was biting her lip and wide eyed. Other than the slight movement of her head, however, she was just as still as Mabel.
Mabel's heart beat against her chest, as if it were trying to break through her rib cage, out her skin, and out of her sweater. It was just moving so fast, so hard, a bit like Grenda's hands - moving so fast, so hard.
Wherever she got the nerve and energy to walk forward and open the window, Mabel doubted that she would ever know.
"I'm coming, Grenda," the girl said, her voice shaking just the slightest.
"Oh Mabel," Grenda's voice said, lower this time and not muffled by the glass. "Thank you so much!"
The window was hard to open at first, Mabel using all her strength, and then just as quickly easily came up, as if it weighed little more than a feather.
Ugh, Mabel thought, as she stepped away and looked at the window.
Grenda climbed through, beaming and red faced. Mabel thought she saw tears in the large girl's eyes, but she hardly had time to notice before she and Pacifica were pulled into the girl's chest.
"Oh, you guys!" Grenda said. "I'm so happy to see you. Everything here is so weird and I have no idea what's going on!"
Mabel didn't reply, just focused on the warmth of Grenda's chest. She could feel Grenda's heart beating, so fast that one might have thought it was entered into a race; she could hear the other girl's breathing as well, which was just beginning to slow down.
See? Mabel thought. Everyone's feeling the same way as you.
The thought, however, brought no comfort.
"Grenda," Pacifica said, pulling slightly away from her. "Oh, Grenda, you freaked us out when we first heard you." She smiled at the larger girl, something she never would have done just a few years back. "Are you okay?"
"I should be asking you guys the same thing." Grenda nodded, scratching at her arm. "I actually could be doing worse, I think." She paused for a moment, looking away from both of them. "I don't know where I am, but at least I'm with you guys."
"What do you mean?" Mabel asked.
"Well," Grenda said. For a moment, it seemed as if her words hung in the air. "I-"
"Candy," Mabel said.
Grenda's eyes widened. She didn't have to say anything else, not when Mabel had already filled in the blanks.
"Is she around here?" Pacifica asked. She broke away from Grenda and turned towards the window. "Grenda, is she out there? If you want, I could help her climb in."
Grenda shook her head. Finally, she released her hold on Mabel. "Pacifica, she's not there. I don't know where she is. All I know is that once we were exploring this hallway together and then I was alone. It was like she had vanished into thin air or..."
"Or she had never been there at all," Mabel said.
Grenda nodded.
A chill ran up Mabel's back, a chill her sweater never could have stopped.
'But," Pacifica said, her voice shaking again, "people don't just vanish into thin air."
"Well they don't float around and have blue skin either," Mabel replied.
"Mabel, I'm almost a hundred percent sure that the girl we saw wasn't even human."
"Who?" Grenda asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We'll fill you in later," Pacifica said, looking around the room. "Right now we have bigger problems to deal with." She suddenly reached forward and grabbed Mabel's hand, squeezing it tightly. "Whatever happens, we need to stick together. We may not know where we are, but at least we'll know where each of us is."
Grenda stepped closer to the two other girls. "Candy and I actually tried that, and she still vanished."
"I guess," Mabel said, squeezing Pacifica's hand back. Her heart was a bit slower and steadier. "But I'd still rather be with you two than be all by myself." She looked first at Grenda and then to Pacifica, locking eyes with both girls. "This means that we'll just have to stick together and look for Candy. Three is better than one, right?"
"Right," both replied, almost completely in unison. Pacifica spoke it a bit longer though, and for a moment her voice was the only one heard.
The hallway had more corners than Candy had originally imagined. It seemed to go on forever, its ugly wallpaper patterns moving on into eternity. Still, she pushed forward. If her grandmother or parents were around, they would certainly be pushing her forward.
"Don't give up," she could hear her father saying. "You're a Chiu, and a Chiu never gives up."
The words echoed in her mind.
Don't give up, Candy thought. Don't give up.
If she gave up, then she would be trapped into this place forever.
Just keep going, she thought. There has to be someplace out of here, right?
Yes, there had to be. Buildings, and it highly seemed that she was in one, needed windows and doors, places to get in and out. It couldn't have been built without at least one.
She could only hope that she was getting close to one.
Reaching another corner, Candy turned. The next side was darker, the furniture inside harder to make out.
For a moment, Candy paused, unsure of whether or not to step forward. No matter how hard she squinted, she couldn't make out the heavy shapes in front of her. For all she knew, there were weapons around the corner or a person waiting to strike her.
Or, she thought, maybe there's a different wallpaper pattern.
Whatever happened, Candy would just have to face it. It wasn't as if she could turn around now.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward. The breath was quickly knocked out of her a few steps later when she knocked into what she thought had been nothing but furniture.
But that was ridiculous. Furniture, after all, couldn't move or scream.
A heavy weight had been lifted from Dipper's shoulders, a great burden from his chest. He took in a deep breath, then released it after a few moments. Save for the sound of him breathing and his own footsteps, which had stopped the moment he stilled, the place was quiet. The world around him, a long and dimly lit hallway covered in old looking paintings and tapestries, did not shift whenever he walked.
Most importantly of all, however, was that Bill was gone.
He must have gotten sick of listening to me yell at him, Dipper thought. He grinned. Good, now I can actually focus.
His smile soon faded, however, as he kept walking. Try as he might, the longer he looked at a painting, the less that he seemed to understand it.
This is some sort of mind game, Dipper thought. It has to be from what Bill said earlier.
It was definitely one that he didn't want to play.
If this is his idea of a surprise, Dipper thought as he rummaged his hands around in his jacket, then I better not invite him to any other future parties.
Dipper bit his lip.
Oh come on, he thought, moving his hands around faster. It has to be around here somewhere!
He had been sure that he had his journal with him earlier. Through all the years that he and Mabel had been at Gravity Falls, the two had yet to find the author. However, they had been able to discover some of the journal's secrets and filled in parts that the author had left blank.
Whatever this place was, the journal was the only thing that Dipper knew would probably have answers.
Well, besides Bill. Thankfully, unlike him, the journal didn't float around him, one eye locked on Dipper. Dipper had never felt the journal's hot breath on the back of his neck.
Did demons breathe? Dipper thought. He had certainly felt something warm coming off of Bill when he had been close, though of what he could not be one hundred percent sure. Did he even want to know?
Dipper shivered. Bill may have physically been out of Dipper's presence, but he was still haunting Dipper's mind.
Just focus on the journal, Dipper thought, shaking away the image of the man in his mind. You just need to find it. Surely it can help you with something.
He couldn't be sure if it could help with everything. After all, this was far from even Gravity Fall's level of strange. This was a whole new level.
"Oh come on," he muttered. He dug deeper, searching and searching more. He was about ready to rip his jacket off when he felt a familiar presence behind him. Quickly, Dipper turned on his heel and met the yellow haired man floating behind him dead in the eye.
"Hello, Pine Tree," Bill commented, waving a pale finger at him. "It's so nice to see you here tonight."
"Bill," Dipper replied, barely able to keep the anger out of his voice. "I should have known that you would have done this. Where's my journal?"
Bill raised his single eyebrow. "Now what, pray tell, are you asking for?"
Dipper balled his fists. "I'm sure you know, considering you took it. Give me my journal back!"
Bill gestured his hand towards Dipper. "I suppose that I should finally give it back. After all, I've already read it cover to cover." His hand, once empty, suddenly held an all too familiar journal.
"I can't believe..." Dipper said, stepping back.
Then again, with what little Dipper actually knew about Bill, he would certainly be the type of guy (demon? Monster? Total creep?) to do that kind of thing.
"You stole my journal?" Dipper's eyes widened.
"I wouldn't use such a harsh adjective," Bill said, holding it out towards Dipper. "I prefer the term 'borrowed'."
Dipper snatched the journal from his hand. "I thought Mabel stole that!" He opened the journal, peering through it. "But you took it..."
"You just left it on your nightstand, right where anyone could grab it."
"I can't believe that I actually thought Mabel took this." Dipper looked back up to Bill and cringed. "So you stole my diary from the last few months of my sophomore year of high school? What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I just wanted something to read," Bill replied, a gleam in his eyes. "About something that I love." He smiled, his one eye holding Dipper still.
"You're," Dipper said, "you're disgusting. Awful, wretched, creepy, monstrous-"
"Woah, woah, woah there, Mister Thesaurus," Bill said. Bill had to force back a chuckle, though Dipper still heard the beginning of it. "If you're thinking of the journal I'm thinking of, that silly little book with that weird hand on it, then I don't have it. In fact, I don't see why you'd need it either."
"You should know," Dipper replied.
Bill raised an eyebrow. "And why?"
"For someone who claims to love," Dipper began, nearly cringing on his last word, "me so much, then you should know why the journal is so important to me. It's one of my biggest connections to the mystery of Gravity Falls."
Bill chuckled. "That journal has nearly gotten your throat slit more times than you can count."
"Sure, it's a bit dangerous." Dipper faltered.
Okay, getting attacked by shape shifting monsters, ghosts, zombies, pterodactyls, and a million other monstrosities wasn't exactly normal, let alone anywhere near safe. But he had survived them all, and he was all the happier for it. After all, who else (besides Mabel, Soos, Pacifica, Stan, Wendy, Candy, Grenda, or any other number of small people who had gone adventuring with him) could say the same?
"You do know the reason that you're still alive today," Bill said, floating closer to Dipper again. Their faces nearly touched. Finally, Dipper found himself moving again, stepping back away from the other man. "Is because I saved you, correct?"
"I've never even seen you in my life before tonight!"
Bill smirked. "Who said you had to see me to be there?" He leaned forward, placing a finger on Dipper's cheek. "Just remember, my little pine tree, that were it not for me than things would have been much, much different for you."
"Good." Dipper smirked. "At least I wouldn't be here with you tonight."
Bill's eye narrowed. "I never thought you were the type to find rotting in a grave exciting." He vanished in a split second, faster than Dipper's heart could form a beat. Bill was like the Chesire Cat, however, in the fact that he could vanish and still leave one part of himself behind.
Not a smile - that Dipper knew, would have been haunting.
His eye, however, still locked on Dipper, was ten times as terrifying.
"Chop, chop," Bill said from an unseen mouth. "You have until sunrise tomorrow morning to win this game, Dipper. If you're really so concerned about winning, then you better hurry up and start playing. Time is running out."
Bill stared at him a moment longer before even his eye vanished, leaving Dipper staring at nothing but blurry paintings and hard walls.
I hope that you guys at least enjoyed this chapter!