Moments later the nine of them were split into three groups. He would be with that Stanley guy and his friend, Wendy. They stood in the clear glass tubes as the countdown began.
10.
The world before his eyes was completely different from Gravity Falls. The sky was covered in a blanket of orange and crimson, erasing all ability to tell time. In the sky flying eyebats scanned the area, turning any moving object to stone. The trees stood tall, but looked ready to fall any moment now.
So, this was the world he was going to die in?
9.
He wouldn't die in a peaceful forest or even in a nice snow patch in the mountains. He would die in a world utterly full of non-stop chaos. The Gamemaster had made sure of that, huh?
8.
He would never get to see his beloved town again, or help Lazy Susan with the laundry, or deliver strawberries he'd collected to Tyler Cutebiker's family.
7.
These people beside him were to be the only people he knew of this new reality. This was the world now. And this world would be the only thing he knew.
6.
He tried to forget. He tried to forget the past, to make this image code into his mind like the memory of a computer, to reset it and delete everything else. He tried to forget what he had before all this happened…
5.
He wanted to make himself a different person, to change his identity, to have adaptability, otherwise he wouldn't live, otherwise he wouldn't survive…
4.
No.
He took it back.
He didn't want to die.
He didn't want to die a monster in the hands of the Gamemaster.
3.
Tears welled up in his eyes and he tried to fight them back.
He wished he could say something, anything, at least a final goodbye to all the people who knew him, to all the people he knew.
2.
He wished he could thank them one last time, to tell them how much they meant to him…
1.
He wanted to tell his sister I love you one last time.*
*Don't get any ideas, Pinecest shippers! They're twins!
0.
Against all his will, he ran alongside Stanley and Wendy into the forest. He didn't know how long he ran, he just knew they had to get away and find shelter as soon as possible. As they ran deeper into the forest, the number of trees steadily increased. Overgrown bushes started to appear as well. They found a cave. The canopy of leaves shielded them from the eyebats, giving them safety.
Wendy used what she had available to craft somewhat comfortable beds for them in the cave. There was still one more problem to solve: it was frigid, and if they didn't have a good source of heat soon, they would die of hypothermia.
"Go into the woods and see if you can find anything, kid. What was your name again?" came the raspy voice of the old man.
"Uh- D-Dipper! Dipper Pines."
"Great." he said, his voice tone the opposite of sincere. "By the way, you're my great nephew if you didn't already know. Now, scat."
He ran off. So, his guess on them being related to him and Mabel was correct… Except Mabel wasn't here.
He sighed, trying to focus on his task. He collected twigs, leaves, branches - anything he could find that was combustible.
It was going to be a long night (well, it wasn't really night, but he had made a fairly good estimation of it being that time in the Capitol). He could tell.
It definitely had to be late in the Capitol by now. But Dipper knew that the Gamemaster was always constantly watching. How the hell does somebody do that without even falling asleep?! He began to consider the fact that maybe Bill wasn't even human…
The fire crackled as it burned the wood. Wendy had shot down and cooked a few squirrels. His Grunkle Stan, he had decided to call him, had already ate and fallen asleep. He didn't blame him: he was looking fatigued ever since they boarded the train hours earlier. Then again, they were all tired.
He and Wendy slowly ate their dinner quietly, sitting on a few large rocks. They tried to warm up in front of the fire. He zipped up his blackish-blueish vest.
"Seen him before?" he asked, glancing at the snoring man, then looking back at her.
"Yeah. Helped him a lot during the week. He tells me that Stanford is his twin, but that's all he'll say."
"Oh."
It was silent again. They finished their meal, and Wendy climbed onto her bed, which was made from a pile of pine needles, grass, and worn rags. Dipper continued sitting there, staring straightforward at the fire.
"You okay, man?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." he lied. "I'll be there in a few."
She turned, getting comfortable, back facing him, and fell asleep.
Dipper took off his hat and stared at it. The Gamemaster's words echoed in his mind.
'Good luck, Pine Tree.'
He knew he didn't mean it. It was more of a… threat… without actually saying what the threat was. But it was loud and clear to him what the threat was. It was Mabel. The threat of killing her, taking her away from him...
Regardless, he was going to find Mabel before they harmed her. She was his sister. He was her brother. And they couldn't stop him.
Or so, he thought.
He put his hat back on and took something out of his inside vest pocket…
Journal 3.
(The next morning.)
Mabel was usually your happy, skippy girl who fooled around, but she also had a serious side to her. Dirt slightly stained her face and her hair was now unbraided and cut short. Her team leader was Stanford, and she soon found out that he was her Great Uncle. She sharpened her dull knife patiently, it's edge reflecting in the morning sun, as Grunkle Ford stopped, surveying the area. They were gathering medical supplies in case any emergencies happened.
"We're going to need mint leaves and tree bark. The healing fairy dust is in Area 2, we'll get that last."
"On it." Mabel had already started scraping her knife down against the oak. Ford proceeded to cut down the tall stalks of mint. On the fifth or sixth one, he looked up, noticing Robbie was still standing there, hands in his hoodie's pockets. Mabel knew what was about to happen.
"Why aren't you helping?" Ford asked lightly, but his eyes said otherwise, staring him down with a warning glare.
"Because this is stupid! We don't need to do this. We're fine." said the teenager, rolling his eyes.
Ford immediately grabbed Robbie by the hood-part of his jacket. "Listen here, boy. This is Weirdmageddon. The apocalypse. If you don't start behaving, I will leave you alone to let you find out on your own how hard it is to survive here! Do you understand me?"
The young man's hands trembled before he weakly replied, "Y-Yes, sir."
"Good." He resumed his previous activity as if everything was normal as Robbie started picking the mint leaves.
Bill be like:
"Guess he learned the hard way from Fordsie!"
i'm going to try holding off updating for now since I've been doing it so often, so you guys probably won't see another chapter until Monday.
Thanks!
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