Chapter 26: Little Gift Shop of Horrors
Life can sometimes be very dull and uneventful, and other times, it can be complicated. Mine is a bit on the dull side right now. The most interesting thing that happened this week was this: In my Modern America class, we were talking about our biggest fears. When it got to my turn, I ended up 'dropping the realism', as one person put it. My response was: "My biggest fear is that I'll never get a girlfriend and I'll die old, alone and single and never having married even once."
As it turns out, pretty much the entire class felt the same way to some extent.
I also wanted to go to Gravity Falls yesterday, but when I woke up, I had a sharp pain in my chest, and my mouth was producing an unusual amount of saliva. I honestly have no idea what it was. And although I was better by the afternoon, I decided not to go that day just in case it was contagious. I didn't want to be responsible for getting the twins sick.
I walked through the portal and entered the Mystery Shack's living room.
"Kids! Get in the car! We're going to the swap meet!" Stan said.
"Ooh, a swap meet." Mabel said. We got in the car and Stan drove haphazardly to the Gravity Falls Swap Meet.
"Swap meet, swap meet, swap meet! Look at all these priceless treasures." Mabel said, running over to some bobbly heads. "Bobbly heads! They agree with everything I say."
"Professor glasses. They make me look like a genius." Dipper said, putting on a pair of glasses from the rack, before turning and walking straight into the rack, knocking all the glasses over.
"You can't exactly see anything either." I said.
"Look at these faux-gold beauties. They're mob boss quality." Stan said, looking at some watches, before spotting the old, admittedly hideous lady who was running the stand as he turned to us. "Alright, kids. Prepare to watch the delicate art of the deal… hey, hagface! How much for the junk watches?"
"They are not for sale! Not for you, Stan Pines! The wind whispers your name!" The lady said as the wind picked up a bit before settling down again.
"Alright, I get it, you're creepy. Anyway, less talky more watchy." Stan said, putting some money on the table and grabbing a watch, when the lady grabbed his arm.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY WATCH!" The lady yelled as her eyes rolled back in her head and began glowing.
"Ahh!" Stan said, yanking his arm back. "Yeesh! Freak show." Stan said as we left.
"Wow. Someone needs to work on their social skills." Mabel said.
"And their observation skills. Boom!" Stan said, showing the watch on his wrist. "Good job, heisting hands."
"Grunkle Stan, are you seriously shoplifting from a witch?" Dipper said. "That sounded like a curse."
"'That sounded like a curse!' Hey, anyone wanna buy a wet blanket? We've got a wet blanket for sale." Stan said as everyone except for me, Dipper, and Toby Determined began laughing. It turns out that he was selling literal wet blankets.
"Grunkle Stan, I'm serious." Dipper said.
"Curse, shmurse. Just you wait." Stan said. "I'll be just fine."
~Time skip brought to you by: the weird eye thing Stan grabs from the customer looking like a red eye of ender from Minecraft!~
The next morning, I heard a scream from Stan as I woke up. Afterwards, the next several minutes were uneventful since literally nothing happened.
"Kids! Breakfast!" Stan called. Dipper, Mabel and I walked downstairs and sat at the table. "Alright, kiddos. Breakfast time." Stan said, walking over to the table with oven mitts on and carrying a pan with pancakes in it. "Prepare your mouths for—" Stan never finished the sentence as the oven mitts fell off, resulting in the pan dropping onto the table. We looked back at Stan, revealing that his hands were gone, with the inside of his wrists glowing.
"AAHHH AHH AHH! NO HANDS! GRUNKLE STAN, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HANDS?!" Mabel said, completely freaked out.
"So I might've got cursed a little. But the watch looks nice, right?" Stan said, looking at the watch.
"Foolish man! Thieving hands find wicked face! You must return what isn't yours and—" The watch was emitting a voice, which Stan muffled by putting the oven mitt back on.
"That's better." Stan said.
"Ugh. I told you, Grunkle Stan." Dipper said. "You've gotta give that watch back and apologize."
"What?! That old crone should apologize to me for denying my right to buy cheap junk. I don't need hands. I've got self respect." Stan said, as he picked up a cup of coffee between his wrists, but fumbled with it and ended up dropping the cup as the coffee spilled over the table. Than Stan hit the fork on the table to try and launch a piece of bacon into his mouth, but it ended up landing on his face. "Mabel sweetie, will you make your uncle some hands?" Stan said.
"Sure." Mabel said.
~Time skip brought to you by: my cat coming up on my bed while I was typing this on my iPad and wanting me to pet her. She was purring a lot.~
"La la la, hand makeover!" Mabel said as she put some makeshift hands on Stan's wrists. The hands were a bunch of forks taped to cups. "Say hello to your new hands! In quotes."
"Nice work, kid. See? Hands are overrated." Stan said, rubbing the top of Mabel's head, only for the forks to catch her hair and mess it up as Stan freed the forks. "I'm ready to take on the day."
The next few hours was spent as if it was a 'normal' day. Stan's makeshift hands seemed to work okay at first, but eventually it was decided that nothing could measure up to real hands.
"According to the swap meet pamphlet, the hand witch lives in a horrible hand witch lair on hand witch mountain." Mabel said.
"Stop saying hand witch!" Stan said as we walked into the cave with flashlights taped to Stan's wrists.
"Grunkle Stan, did you just tap my shoulder?" Mabel said.
"Kid, I can't tap anything." Stan said.
"Guys, can you stop tapping both my shoulders?" Dipper said. We heard some shuffling so Stan shone the light on the nearby wall, revealing several disembodied hands wiggling around as we screamed and the hands came at us.
"Hands! Lots of hands!" Stan said. Dipper fought off a bunch of hands before one got him in the face. Stan was slapped by some of the hands across the face. Mabel and two hands played rock-paper-scissors, and before I could tell Mabel to choose rock, she lost with paper as the hands chased after her. Then I was confronted with some hands as well and they simply tackled me to the ground with no further elaboration. Then we heard the witch laughing, who was the same lady Stan stole the watch from.
"Look at this touching scene. Up top." The hand witch said, as one of the countless hands gave the witch a high five. "You guys… you guys get me."
"All right you horrible wench, you got me. Stealing is wrong, et cetera. Take it." Stan said, shaking the watch off of his wrist and pushing it forward. "Now can I have my hands back? I have a certain gesture I'd like to share with you."
"Alas, your hands cannot be gotten so easily." The witch said, as the hands formed a chair for the witch to sit in, which crawled forward as the witch picked up the watch and put it in her robes. "The spirits say… um… that the curse can only be broken by a kiss."
"What?" Dipper and Mabel said.
"It's alright, kids." Stan said, standing up. "Just look away." Stan walked up to the witch and kissed her hand.
"A kiss on the LIPS!" The witch said.
"What?! Forget it! I'm not kissing any of that mess!" Stan said. "I don't need my hands that bad!"
"Yeah, you're just making stuff up now." Dipper said.
"Let's go, kids." Stan said as he started to leave.
"No, wait, don't go!" The witch said. "Eh, you're right, you're right, I was just making all that stuff up. I was just trying to get something going, you know. It's so hard to meet people these days." The witch said, as she snapped her fingers and the hands released us and a couple of them began braiding Mabel's hair.
"So this was all just a ploy to get a date?" Dipper said.
"I'm desperate, okay? But every time I bring someone back here without keeping their hands hostage, they just run away." The witch said.
"Well, yeah. Look at this horror show." Stan said. "It's creepy even for a cave."
"I'm desperate too, but I still respect other people's wishes." I said. "For example, when my last crush rejected me when I asked her to be my girlfriend, I didn't push any farther and we continued being friends, and put the entire thing behind us."
"You just need to redecorate. For example… a handelabra." Mabel said, picking up several hands and forming them into a candelabra.
"Ooh, the hand witch likes." The witch said.
"Then watch me work. Home makeover!" Mabel said.
~Time skip brought to you by: Mabel's self-appointed expertise in romance coming in handy!"
"Okay, it's time to take a look at your fantastic new cave." Mabel said as we led the hand witch in the redecorated cave with two of the hands over her eyes. The hands moved away to reveal the new cave which looked more like a house and less like a cave now. "Men will definitely tolerate you now. And I left a book of pickup lines on the end table."
"Oh my goodness, I can't believe this is the same cave! Oh my goodness." The witch said. "I-I just can't find the words!"
"How about 'here's your hands back'?" Stan said.
"Oh, right." The witch said, snapping her fingers as a pair of hands came out of the witch's hair, landing on Stan's face, feeling around. Stan shook his wrists a bit and the hands jumped right back into place.
"Shaking, scratching! I've missed you, old rascals!" Stan said. "You're alright, sister." Stan said, giving a thumbs-up as the disembodied hands did the same.
"Will you be my boyfriend now?" The witch said.
"Nope. Never." Stan said as we left. "Well, I learned nothing."
"Is it just me or did that adventure seem a little shorter than usual?" Dipper said.
"It was a little shorter." I said. "This 'episode' is three different adventures; two of which are made up."
"So, that's all the adventuring for today?" Dipper said.
"Yeah." I said as we got back to the Mystery Shack. There wouldn't be any more adventuring for today, so instead, I decided to show the twins various things from my world. "Since we're done with adventuring for now, I'm going to show you guys various things from my dimension." I said.
"Oh, cool!" Mabel said as Dipper showed a face of interest and excitement.
"Follow me." I said, as I opened up the portal back home and the twins followed me through into my room. "First, I'd like to show you a game on my iPad called 'Five Nights at Freddy's 4'." I said.
"Don't we have to play the other games first to understand what's going on?" Dipper said.
"With this series, no." I said. "Only if you want to get into the deeper lore of the game. Game Theory figured it all out already, by the way." I took out my iPad and started up the game. The twins could already tell it wasn't an ordinary game.
"'Warning! This game contains flashing lights, loud noises, and lots of jumpscares!' Nathan, what is this?" Dipper said, reading the warning screen.
"It's a horror game." I said as the start screen appeared and I turned the volume all the way up.
"How do you play?" Mabel asked.
"Well, the rules may sound complicated, but it's not that bad, really." I said. "I can definitely say that listening very closely is pretty much required to win. Also, the controls are explained visually on the screen." I said, before I pressed the extras button and tapped on the button to scroll through the animatronics and double-tapped on Nightmare. The button 'Nightmare' turned into '20/20/20/20' and I pressed it as the screen showed Night 8. Since Night 8 can only be won once, I had saved it for showing the twins. "Also, I'm gonna need you to be quiet as I play." I said as the game started. Dipper and Mabel sat on each side of me while I played.
I went to the left door and listened for breathing. When I heard none, I shone the light. Nobody was there. I went to the bed and checked it, warding off 1 Freddle. I went to the right door and listened for breathing. I shone the light, and Nightmare Chica went back behind the corner as I went back. I checked the bed again and warded off another Freddle. I went to the left door and listened. I heard breathing so I closed the door and waited for the footsteps to leave, signaling that Nightmare Bonnie had left. After Nightmare Bonnie left, I shone the light just in case. This process of checking the left door, then the bed, then the right door, then the bed again repeated for a while; shining the light when I didn't hear breathing, and closing the door when I did. Until about 1 AM when I didn't hold the door closed long enough and Nightmare Chica jumpscared me when I shone the light.
Dipper and Mabel were very startled and they jumped. I was startled too. "Alright, let me try that again." I said. I repeated the process and got to 1 AM before being jumpscared by Nightmare Chica again. "One more try." I said. Again, I made it to 1 AM before being jumpscared by Nightmare Chica again. "This is the hardest night, so that's why I'm having a difficult time." I said. "Plus, once you beat the night, you can't play it again, so I was saving it for you."
"That was nice of you." Mabel said.
"Yeah. That was scary, but fun." Dipper said.
"Yeah. What makes a jumpscare scary isn't so much the noise itself as the fact that you're very focused on the game." I said, before remembering something. "Actually, I remember that it was easy for me to pass nights 6 and 7 when I wore headphones to do the night, since then I could hear better." I said.
After I got jumpscared three times, I decided to show the twins something a little more lighthearted and show them one of my favorite TV shows. "How would you like to see the intro theme for a TV show called… 'Gravity Falls'?" I said.
"Yes! Show us! Show us! Show us!" Dipper and Mabel said. I laughed as I pulled up the Gravity Falls intro theme on YouTube. (I made sure it was the intro that was before a certain six-fingered author appeared.)
The music began playing and the twins were watching very closely. When the twins appeared on the screen, I noticed a reaction from the twins, though I wasn't quite sure what that reaction was. I also heard Mabel laugh a little when Dipper dropped the candle in fright on the intro.
After the intro was over, the twins were left in amazement.
"Nathan, that's amazing!" Mabel said.
"Yeah, that really captures our personalities." Dipper said.
"Yeah, especially when you got scared from the skeleton, Dipper." Mabel said. Dipper simply rolled his eyes at Mabel's teasing.
"Oh yeah, this reminds me." Dipper said. "So, would you happen to know who the author of the journals is, when we meet him, and how we meet him?"
"To be honest, I'm surprised you didn't ask me sooner." I said. "And yes, I do know. But I can't tell you." Dipper looked disappointed. "However, I can say that you'll meet him in what is probably the last way you would expect, and he is also probably the last person you would think of to be the author. And you meet him soon." I said. Dipper looked pretty excited now.
"So, how soon do we meet him?" Dipper asked.
"I don't know exactly when, but probably within the next week or two." I said.
"This is awesome!" Dipper said.
"Uh oh." Mabel said.
"What do you mean, 'uh oh'?" Dipper said. Mabel pointed at the paper pyramid on my desk that was decorated to look like Bill, which was slowly floating upwards as it spun around faster and faster before Bill appeared in a flash in place of the paper pyramid. As soon as Bill appeared, everything else became grayscale.
"Well, well, well." Bill said.
"Bill!" Dipper and Mabel said.
"What are you doing here?" Dipper said.
"Yeah! What do you want from us?" Mabel said.
"I don't appreciate you stealing my body earlier Bill." I said. "I felt those bruises for a week."
"Hey, relax. Can't a guy stop by for a chat once in a while?" Bill said.
"What is it, you floating interdimensional corn chip?" I said.
"Take it easy with the name calling there, Bedrock Armor." Bill said. "I just wanted to talk."
"About what?" I said.
"Your portable hyperspace transporter, of course!" Bill said.
"Huh?"
"Your portal remote, kid." Bill said. "You see, I didn't even know this reality existed until you came through the portal with that remote of yours. But it turns out I'm famous here. Even you built a miniature statue of me!"
"What?!" Dipper and Mabel exclaimed.
"That's right!" Bill said.
"That was before I knew that Gravity Falls was real!" I said.
"That hardly changes anything, Bedrock Armor." Bill said. "But that's besides the point. You see, this dimension is unusual. Apparently I can't visit anyone else in this entire planet except for you, no matter who else I try."
"I suppose that is a bit odd." I said.
"But what I'm getting at here is that your remote is actually linked. That remote opens up a portal into the fourth dimension, a place not even I can access." Bill said. "That remote links you and Pine Tree together so that when you open your portal, it will always be within 100 feet of him. And the changes you make in the other reality will not affect this one in any way. Not even the TV show about us will be changed!"
"Probably to prevent a paradox." I said.
"And another thing, Bedrock Armor, tell everyone else that I am an interdimensional being not capable of feeling 'romantic affections' for anyone, and for them to stop 'shipping' me with someone else." Bill said. Bill wants me to tell you to stop shipping him with other people. "Anyway, it was fun chatting with you, but I've got places to be. Deals to make. Things to plan." Bill said. "Until then, I'll be watching you." Bill said, and in a flash, he was gone. The paper pyramid decorated to look like Bill was back in its proper place on my desk.
"Well, that happened, I suppose." I said.
"Want to forget that ever happened?" Mabel said. Dipper and I simultaneously voiced our agreements.
"I think it's time for me to show you my piano skills." I said.
"You can play the piano?" Mabel said.
"Yep. The piano's downstairs." I said. "Although, we'll have to be careful about me taking you two downstairs since I'm not sure how my mom would react to seeing you, since she does, in fact, know about the TV show Gravity Falls and knows what you look like." I said. "Although she doesn't know much about it, she does know what you look like."
"Yeah, maybe we should be careful." Dipper said. I looked out of my room to make sure the coast was clear, and I snuck Dipper and Mabel bit by bit to the basement of my house. (Although the basement is almost like a second house all on its own and less like an actual basement.) When we got there, I sat at the wooden bench in front of the piano and the twins hid behind the couch near it.
"Alright, I can't talk much since my mom is probably in that room down the hall, so I'm just going to tell you all the pieces of music I'll be playing in order." I whispered. "They are: Megalovania, I Got No Time, Balloons, Elder Shroob Battle, Flumpty's Jam, and what I have learned so far of Paint It Black." I said as I began playing the piano.
~Time skip brought to you by: Pianos!~
"Okay, let's head back upstairs." I said as we snuck back upstairs and into my room.
"Nathan, you're pretty good at that piano." Dipper said.
"Thanks." I said. "I'm taking a piano class at school this semester."
"Is there anything else you'd like to show us?" Dipper said.
"No, I can't really think of anything." I said. "You want to go back home?"
"Sure." Mabel said.
"Okay." I said, as I opened the portal and the twins walked through. Out of curiosity, I poked my head through to see where the portal was. It was exactly where it was when I opened it to go to my dimension earlier when I took the twins with me.