It's Where My Demons Hide

Chapter 21

Previously...
You went to the Mystery Shack and found the Mission paper Mabel made. You followed Mabel down to Ford's underground laboratory and saw her taking the globe (rift) with her. On your way home, you received a phone call, telling you that you were being written in a chapter. Then you saw a black car near your house, and the next thing you knew . . . you've finally reached it.

Hello listeners.

You may have been wondering what all the fuss was about yesterday night. Yesterday night, a person had been murdered by an unknown person. According to an eyewitness in Star Alley, a gunshot was heard at around midnight. The murderer had escaped when the eye witness approached the scene. The corpse is not identified yet, for it was covered with dirt. We could not tell the gender or the age.

We are not sure of the motives for this crime yet, but we assure you that he would come again.
Lock all your doors and close your windows. Hide your cat in a secret place where no humans can trespass.
You never know when you'll die.

Now let us move onto much more exciting news: The Duchess Approves Season 7 is on the making now!

The last person she ever expected to meet was Gabe, in the middle of the forest no less! His golden hair flowing loose behind, he was working on his broken pink scooter. A small tire was beside him and Mabel could see gears turning in his head.

"Gabe?" Mabel asked, staring at him in disbelief.

The said teenager turned around, beaming as he did so, which strike her strange. They only met briefly, she recalled. And last time they had met, he was totally making out with his puppets. She shuddered. Not to mention devastated at me for "abusing the puppets".

"Mabel! I didn't expect to see you here!" Neither did I. "Can you give me a hand? Dear Mary has hurt herself real bad."

Oh how I wanted to slap his beautiful face and stuff his puppets into his mouth and -

"Please. And after that maybe you could join me for biscotti?"

Scoffing, Mabel sat beside him, putting the globe beside her and watched him trying to put the tire back to its place. He was still wearing his favorite black outfit with a headset, but he did not have his usual bee puppet with him. She never saw him without his books or his puppets. He wore shades over his eyes. Something was definitely fishy, but she decided it was not a big issue.

He wiped his forehead with his sleeves even though there were no dripping droplets of sweat, and grinned at her. However his eyes wandered upon the globe.

"Mabel? What's that?"

Shoot.

"Oh it's a globe I got from the Shack."

She was surprised at how easy that lie came out from her mouth, as if it was a second nature to her. Lies. That was what it caused all of this in the first place. Mabel groaned.

"Can I see it?"

Mabel picked up the globe and forced out a chuckle. "Umm, you see, this belongs to my -"

However, before she could even finish her sentence, Gabe snatched it away from her, giggling madly as he did so. His shades fell, revealing familiar bright golden cat eyes.

Gabe was possessed.

For the first time ever in her life, she muttered a curse.

Why was all this happening to her? Did she do something wrong in her life? Oh, if she could have gone back time before she burnt the journal . . .

Staring at the globe in Gabe - no, Bill Gabe? Babe? Babe's hand, Mabel forced down a lump in her throat. Her fear grew as she noticed his too-wide grin widening.

"Ring around the rosy."

Babe began, his head titling to the side. His eerie voice rang around the forest.

Not wanting to know why in the world Babe was singing a nursery rhyme, Mabel hurriedly put her in hands into her pocket, rummaging through for her only weapon - Glitter.

"A pocket full of posies."

She felt the voice coming closer. She had to be fast, if only she could . . .

"Ashes, ashes."

Lipsticks.
Pens.
Stickers.

Where was the glitter?

The shadow was growing closer, slowly towering above her. There was no time. She needed more time! Damn, she should have been more organized like her brother!

"We all fall down."

... And she fell.

Soos always loved a challenge.

He wasn't brave, really. He only enjoyed the feeling he got when he faced one. It gave him joy, knowing that he could fix the challenge just like he had fixed few before. Ever since his father had left him, Soos was a wreck. He was broken. But as days, months, years had passed, he gradually learned that he could fix himself into a better man, and decided that he would fix others as well, to avoid the same fate he had suffered. So yes, Soos loved challenges.

However, he always forget how tough some challenge could be.

The moment when the sky turned crimson and ripped itself, Soos knew this was the doomsday everyone had talked about. He just never expected it to be so early. He stared at the gigantic pyramid that had appeared out of nowhere, right below the giant X on the sky.

Putting on a black coat, Soos ran out of his house with a staff he had been making over the past years. His abuela often told him to prepare for an apocalypse that would occur when a triangle appears. So, set with his determined mind, young Soos had gone working on his staff. With the best materials he could find, he wrapped around a metal cylinder, increasing its stability and strength. He also used to practice his stamina and some martial arts, but Soos gave up when he enrolled into high school. Fighting was no use when there was no apocalypse, he had thought.

Well, there was an apocalypse now.

Soos wondered if he should feel excited or horrified.

Pushing all this thoughts behind, Soos continued his walk. He knew his abuela would be safe in their house. He couldn't explain why, but he knew it. His worries dismissed, Soos carried on walking, ignoring the cries of people around him.

"Soos?" A familiar voice startled him.

"Wendy?" Soos spun around, facing the teenager that had worked with him for years. She was wearing a ragged white tank top with her flannel shirt tied around her waist, a strip of flannel fabric tied around her head, fingerless black gloves, and two black stripes painted under her eyes. She had indeed prepared herself for the apocalypse.

Wendy left a relieved sigh and grinned. Thy exchanged a few words of gratefulness of having meet together, before turning back to the fighting.

"Whoever thought ..." muttered Wendy, pausing just when she saw a man being paralyzed by a demon. She flinched at the sound of a crunch.

Soos, noticing her discomfort, asked quietly, "Are you ready for this?"

"I'm born ready."

Both raising their own staff and club, they charged into the battle of the demons.

This was ridiculous.

If they had known there would be an apocalypse that would result in jail break, they wouldn't have spent all their time on scheming a useless escape plan.

But nonetheless, all the criminals stepped out of the ruins of the former jail, and went to their own paths.

The first thing Dipper saw, as soon as he stepped out, was the gigantic bright pink bubble. It was emblazoned with a large shooting star, and had glowing pink cracks around the bubble. Levitating over the railroad bridge, it was covered by chains and a lock. The shooting star on the bubble, Dipper noticed, was similar to the one Mabel worn on her first day in Gravity Falls.

Mabel.

He let out a rather inhuman growl, alerting the other criminals near him. He didn't care as he had a much more important issue. The bubble was clearly formed by Bill, but what was it? What was its purpose? Was it simply threatening Mabel or was it something much more sinister? He hated not knowing.

MaBeL

Glancing at his left, Dipper sent a salute to Finnick and Mike who were busy scrambling away from Gravity Falls. They shared their goodbyes. As they left, Dipper stared at their gradually fading silhouettes, realizing that this would the last thing he had seen of them.

Sighing, he continued walking. However, Dipper didn't notice a humongous bubble – the Bubble of Pure Madness – go through him, its force sending him to the ground. Next thing he knew, he was fully enveloped in the bubble.

His thoughts were being jumbled.

Disappearing.

Fading.

And he felt his old memories being replaced with strange new ones. Dipper slowly realized his mind was being invaded. Shocked, he began to fight away the new unknown memories as it fought back too. When the unknown memories began to retreat, a strong force hit him in the back, causing him to lose focus on the memories. And he fell, fell and fell.

When he awoke, he was a different person.

Hello.
Yes, I am alive.
Don't worry guys, I'm not abandoning this story. I've already got the outline of the plot finished, all I had to do is to write it all and type it out.

NOTE: I was inspired by the nursery rhyme when we were learning about the Black Death at school.

Thanks for all the comments, the views, and he votes you readers have left! I'm glad you never gave up on this story and grateful when we passed the previous goal! No words could describe how elated I was.