"Dipper!" he woke to Ma shaking his shoulders frantically. "There are creatures outside, you have to get out of here!" Any traces of sleep Dipper had disappeared. He ran to the front of the store and saw that eyebats had the place surrounded. Did they know he was here, or did they just come to destroy the building?

"We need to distract them so that Dipper can escape." His head snapped to the ghosts. They couldn't do that. I mean they weren't really alive and had a scary side that could cause some damage, but Bill never lost. Something would happen to them.

"You guys can't go out there!" He pleaded, "Once Bill knows that someone with actual power is out here, he'll destroy you two." They saw the look on his face and pulled him into that hug that only old people knew how to give. He felt safe in their arms, even with the looming threat outside.

"Now, don't you worry about us, dear," Ma said as the building started to shake. The eyebats must be trying to tear the place down now, they were running out of time. "We've haunted this store for too many years and you are too important to die here. Maybe it's our time to move on, see what comes next."

"Now, we can only give you a small window to escape, Sonny." Pa said as he moved Dipper towards the back exit. "Here, we filled your backpack with as much food and water as we could. Be ready to run like hell."

He did as he was told and closed his eyes, fighting back tears. When the windows were smashed in and the old couple gave their best war cries, Dipper opened the door and ran. He ran till he couldn't breathe and so he walked until hear the battle raging on behind became nothing more than a faint whisper.

Dipper didn't stop moving until the silence hit him. Whatever happened had happened and he didn't want to know who came out on top. He started walking again but his shoes felt heavier than before.

To say that Dipper was confused when he walked into the town square was an understatement. He knew the entire world had turned sideways but he never imagined it looking like someone detonated a rainbow bomb in the middle of town. Cars had been flipped and the liquid rainbow plastered the crumbling walls.

"egh," it was slimy. What kind of sick man does this? Bill was so unpredictable; this stuff was probably giving him some form of cancer. Mabel wouldn't've cared though. He would have had to stop her from eating it.

Dipper sighed. This wasn't the first time he missed his twin sister. He would never forgive himself if the last time he ever talked to ended in an argument. Tears wouldn't make things right he told himself. He would make things right with her by finding her and apologizing.

Then the two of them would face Bill together, and they would win. They had to, or they may never see their parents ag-

Dipper slapped himself, that was not something he wanted to be thinking about in enemy territory. It wasn't safe here anymore. He could hear things he didn't want to even imagine a few streets down. The screams of other people fighting a losing battle with the eyebats.

He closed his eyes and tried to shut them out, he couldn't help them – not right now anyway. He didn't know their weaknesses, if they even had any, and he wasn't strong enough to do any damage with his bare hands.

Turning his back on their pleas for was one of the hardest things Dipper had ever done and to have to do it twice in one day was beyond humiliating. He vowed not to make a habit out of it. Next time he faced those creatures, he'd be ready. He cursed at the situations he was being forced into and with clenched fists he headed into the forest.

(Line break)

"what the…" Dipper had been wandering around in the woods looking for the bunker. He never expected to actually find it, much less for the front door to be open. Could Great Uncle Ford have escaped Bill? He may have been turned into a gold statue but that didn't stop the hope swelling in his chest. He wouldn't be alone anymore. Someone could help him.

He bounded down the stairs, yelling out to his gruncle. This would change everything. Ford would now exactly what to do, Dipper didn't need those journals with him around. He would also know where to find Mabel!

"FORD!" His answer was met with silence as he reached the bottom of the stairs. So, he wasn't in the first room, so what. So what if that meant that he left the door open without keeping an eye on it. Who cares that Great Uncle Ford was never that careless?

The puzzle room's door was open, another sign that Dipper promptly ignored. Walking into the secret room, he immediately noticed that the decontamination booth was torn to shreds. Ford, or any regular human for that matter, wouldn't have the strength to do that.

He walked through, stopping at the cryofreeze chambers. His blood ran cold, much colder than the inside of the chambers, because they weren't working. The glass had shattered from the inside out. There was no question in his mind, the shapeshifter had been released. His gruncle was still trapped with that demon.

Dippers breath hitched; this couldn't be happening. He still had nightmares about the first time they descended into the bunker and to know that anyone he met could be him in disguise was almost too much to bear. He was truly alone now, how could he trust anyone? What if he saw his sister and it turned out to be the shapeshifter? Could his mind take that kind of beating, Dipper didn't want to find out.

After going back to the weapons closet, Dipper searched the entire compound. He'd never used a shotgun before but he grasped the theory of how it worked. Point and shoot.

After becoming one hundred percent sure that the monster wasn't in the bunker, Dipper let his emotions overtake him. He sat on the ground and cried. Dipper wasn't afraid to admit that he was afraid. The world he knew was crumbling and there was no one by his side. He left the ghosts to sacrifice themselves and turned his back on people who begging for help.

His stomach grumbled and he decided that his pity party was over. Beans weren't usually good cold, but Dipper was too hungry to care. He hadn't eaten since he left the haunted convenience store that morning and was grateful that Ma and Pa had had the foresight to pack his backpack because the rations Ford had stored in the first room looked completely inedible.

He was eating in the room with all the computers and recording tapes when he noticed the filing cabinets. They were right by the mauled decontamination booths but they appeared to have been untouched by the shape shifters fury.

He opened one up and found notes on interdimensional travel. The writing appeared fresh, had Great Uncle Ford been down here since he came back? Why would he keep this a secret? He kept reading but it didn't make a lot of sense. One of the papers talked about a dimension he visited where all people ate was corn and they still ruled under a monarchy.

Dipper smile, something he hadn't done since Bill escaped. Deciding to take his mind off the current situation, he kept reading about the dimensions his gruncle explored. He actually laughed out loud when he read about a dimension that was one big night club. He would've paid money to see his uncle try and dance with extraterrestrials.

It felt good to pretend that everything was alright with the world, if only for the night. With the secret entrance closed, he was in one of the safest locations in Gravity Falls.

AN: So, here is the next chapter, hope you guys like it. I was debating on whether to show that the shapeshifter had escaped or Star and Marcos interaction with him and I think it worked out even though if I did it the other way there would have been more foreshadowing and suspense. Also, the people he turns his back on aren't intentionally Star and Marco because they're begging for mercy, but you can think it's them if you want. I haven't quite figured out how Dipper didn't see Mabel's giant purple prison sphere until he found Wendy but I'll think of something. I don't want to hype the next chapter but Star and Marco are going to finally confront Bill and it was a really fun chapter to write.

If any of you guys live in East Texas, I hope you guys are okay. I go to A&M Galveston and Tropical Storm Imelda hit the campus pretty hard. School was cancelled for a few days and a few cars flooded but we made the best out of it. A few of us were even chilling on pool floats in between the dorm buildings and had a pool party.