"Dipper, what's gotten into you?" Stan calls out loudly through the echoing trees so that his great-nephew can hear him. "You're acting weird. I mean weirder than usual. Also, where's your sister? I can see her anywhere." The old man stretches his neck to look past Dipper to see if Mabel is anywhere behind him.

"Right here," a faint voice croaks and the girl nearly heaves herself from out of her place inside the bush next to Dipper. She is not as pale as him nor does she share the heavy bags that hang exhausted from his sick eyes. Her skin however does emit a rather unworldly glow in the dark not unlike that of phosphorus. It looks...green, Stan thinks to himself as he squints his eyes. But a sickly and wet green as if she lost some flesh from her arms and couldn't get proper treatment so her body was infected until it rotted. Stan wonders if any of this has at all a thing to do with his idea to go on this excursion in the first place. But he ends up shoving that thought aside. At the moment there are more important things to worry about. Like how they should all stop doddling around and gather everything up so they can hurry home to count their earnings.

He turns around back to face Soos and Waddles, "Soos!"

Soos snaps out of his daze, "Uhhh... Yes, Mr. Pines?" He was staring at the twins for a while with a worried expression on his face. Stan has no idea why. They're fine! They're just being whiny. Why is everyone making a big deal out of it?

"Did you find all the truffles?" he continues, attempting to steer his attention from his niece and nephew still suffering in the bush.

"Yes, Mr. Pines," he answers somewhat more confidently. He then gently places Waddles down in the soft grass. Searching around in his pocket, his hand brushes that cold, hard, and jagged surfaces of the small, rock-like objects that Stan sent him to go find earlier. He hears the small noise of them softly clinking together as he brings them out and holds them out on his open palm to present to the old man.

Stan's eyes shine as he beholds his long lost treasures finally returning to him, "Yes. Thank you, Soos. You've done a good job today. You should feel very proud of yourself. I am very lucky to have employed a loyal, hardworking, young man." Soos grins, beaming with tears beginning to leak from his eyes.

A shuddering rustle is heard all of a sudden from clear across the void of bushes and trees. Stan, Soos, and Waddles all turn their heads to look back at the twins still hiding out pathetically in the far bush. With the skin on his arms now flushed to a paper-white point, Dipper's baggy eyes show a stark contrast. With yet another sickening crunch of the twigs below his dirty shoes, he melodramatically jolts forward, unsteady with his bruised eyes now shut tight. He then falls down the small hill in front of him and Mabel and onto the soil beneath it. Mabel then lets out a distressed noise. On a normal occasion if her brother were in trouble, she would have just yelled his name and be done with it. What comes out of her mouth now can only be described as a gargling wail. Stan wonders where in the world she managed to learn how to release such an ungodly sound. She urgently struggles to break free of the confines of the thorny branches surrounding her body but it is hard for her. Eventually, she is able to snap the particularly stubborn vine holding her back and scrambles down the hill to her brother. Fresh new tears shine in her eyes. She runs, blubbering wildly with twigs snapping loudly beneath her rubber boots as she goes. Finally when she reaches him, she falls to her knees. Using a scarred and bloody hand to tentatively shake Dipper and beg for him to get up so that they can go on, Stan can't help but be grossed out by the disgusting snot that continuously drip from her nose. Soos shudders loudly, "What happened to you guys?" Frantically he rushes over to the twins at an alarming pace with Waddles almost nipping at his heels.

"What is it? What's going on with you guys?" Stan isn't all that far behind himself. He is genuinely curious as to what everyone is making such a big deal about out in these woods. Soos and Waddles make it to the kids at the end of the clearing where Mabel weakly attempts to help Dipper to his feet. But he can only seem to be able to crawl onto his knees.

"D-dipper?" Mabel's quivering voice utters worriedly. Soos kneels down gently near the two children with Waddles at his side and puts a concerned hand on Dipper's back. It takes a while before the boy starts to move. In that time, Mabel realizes that she is shivering almost uncontrollably. It's strange. She never noticed it before. How long has she been shaking like this? She suddenly notices how numb she also feels both toward her sense of touch but also to movement and temperature. She takes a brief moment to look away from her brother while Soos tends to him to focus on her hands. She gawks at them for a few seconds, taking in the flesh lining along her arms. Her skin is a complete contrast to her brother's. There is absolutely no hint of human flesh anywhere that is shows skin, just a zombie-like green. The places where she hit herself while on Stan's quest have now formed deep, purple bruises. What if taking her gruncle's advice wasn't such a great idea after all?