Author's Note:

Oooof long chapter today. Sorry for that. There's not really any proper way to break it up though.

He dreamed the parable of the rocket ship.

On the day it was completed, it was whole. The cranes assembled it, and the crawler carrier brought it to the launch pad, then as its engines ignited, it left the cranes and the crawler behind. As it rose higher its boosters emptied of their fuel; they would only weigh it down, so the explosive bolts fired, the boosters decoupled, and the wind stripped them away, to send them drifting and spinning back toward the ground. As the rocket neared the edge of the atmosphere, the fuel within the first stage in its main body ran low too, so it split in half, more than half, and left the larger part to drop. As a fraction of its first self, it reached space. But then its second stage was empty, so it had to leave that one behind too. Now there was no more air, and it no longer had use for its gleaming white aerodynamic fairings. More bolts fired, and the fairings ejected, leaving the payload itself revealed to the void:

The payload was none other than he himself. He walked into that void alone now, burdened by a heavy heart and mind, and bearing a pack full of clothes and food. He needed not the extra clothes, and he ate all the food; his empty backpack would only weigh him down, so he left it behind.

His clothes would only weigh him down too. Explosive bolts fired, and his clothes drifted away, left behind. But he was in space; he did not need to walk. His legs had thus served their purpose, so they dropped off and he left them behind. His skin would not protect him against the elements here, so he peeled it away. His arms now served no purpose, so they ejected as well. His muscles were next, then sinews and fatty cells. His organs began to detach. Ears, nose, mouth, eyes, blew free in quick succession. Lighter and lighter he became, faster and faster he went, naked and more naked he became, finally, with a jet of fluid and a final staging, he was left as nothing but a very small and very bright thing: his own soul.

But still his soul was burdened with many woes and cares and concerns, too much to carry. Heaviest of all was the memory of his future and his destiny, and he had ejected it. Next heaviest was the memory of his family; Mabel's voice still ever called him back, told him to reconsider, to remember, so he ejected that memory too. His memories of his many mistakes were heavy too, so he ejected them.

He didn't have much more to shed.

But still he was too heavy.

The next stage was his Compassion. He didn't want to eject it, but he did.

The next stage was his Courage. He didn't want to eject it, but he did.

The next stage was his Thought. He didn't want to eject it, but he did.

The next stage was his Pride. He didn't want to eject it, but he did.

The next stage was his Hope. He didn't want to eject it, but he did.

The next stage was his Decency. He didn't want to eject it, but he did.

The next stage was his Compassion. How dare he eject it again? But he did.

The next stage was his Conscience.

But he could not eject his conscience.

He would not. He did not.

And beneath its weight, he fell back to Earth.

He fell and he fell and he fell. The ship's debris burned around him. The atmosphere ate some of it away, but he would still hit the ground. The ground came to meet him. The jagged mountain beckoned, laughed.

He heard the Librarian's wife. "One day." She said. "One day, you will rise again."

And with no noise, and no climax, no finality and no impact, he awoke as gently as the wilting of a flower, to find tears on his face.

The wind howled.

The breach gleamed like a haggard and colorless sunrise through an overcast sky.

Wendy was huddled against him to keep from the cold, and she had his journal in her hands.

He shut his eyes again, the whole of his will and his mind bent toward a single overpowering sorrow, a single wish: that the rocket might never have launched in the first place. But as the dream faded from his mind, he found he could no longer remember what that meant, or what rocket he was thinking of. He did not remember, but it made him sad.

Fortunately it was just a dream. And dreams never mean anything at all.

He opened his eyes, for real this time.

Marcus and Dan were already awake. The boy was massaging his head in his hands, as if rubbing sleep from his eyes, but he never stopped. The bandage over his bite mark was stained black, and the arm beneath was trembling. His condition had clearly worsened during the night.

"How're you doing?" Dipper asked.

"Shh!" Marcus hushed him.

"QUIET." Dan hushed him too, and nodded outside the lean-to. "We've got company." Dipper followed his gaze, and saw.

It was one of those eyeless things from the night before last, the same type which had infected Marcus, this one not 30 feet away. It was down on all fours, probing the ground with its nose, sniffling and scuffling through the snow like a dog or some wild boar, coming towards them. It appeared to be following their footprints from the previous night; if it didn't see them from this distance, it must really be blind.

This was the first time they'd seen one of these things in broad daylight, and they found it was humanoid.

Highly humanoid.

At a glance, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for an ordinary person, albeit one naked, hairy, stretched and long. Its limbs and most of its body was all thin and guant, except for a distended, bloated stomach, which sagged and swayed back and forth as it crawled. Its gait was off-balance and unnatural as it moved on all fours, for it was shaped like a human, shaped to walk upright, but it knew nothing of this. It knew no other way to move. No other way to hunt.

Dan had already raised his rifle.

"Are there any more around?" Dipper hissed.

At the sound of his voice so close to her ear, Wendy stirred awake and made to sit up. "What's going on? What? Huh? I'm awake, I'm up."

Dipper clamped a hand over her mouth as fast as he could, but the creature had heard her. It turned toward them. Huge lips parted and a mouth full of long, square teeth opened further than a human's would open, and a cry, a groan, a squeal, escaped. Lord, it was hungry. By the time it had charged two steps toward them, Dan's bullet had pierced its heart, and it slumped over dead in the snow.

Kevin and Gus were startled awake by the gunshot, but aside from the echo and the wind, there were no more noises in the morning. After a minute or two of waiting, Dan shrugged. "Looks like it was alone."

"Yeah." Dipper nodded. "Seems so."

"ANYWAY." Dan turned back to Marcus. "HOW'RE YOU?"

Dipper stumbled upright and pulled his coat a little tighter, and stepped outside the lean-to to go look at the monster. Wendy handed him his journal as she followed.

"Good." Marcus dug his palms into his eyes again and again. "I guess."

Dipper circled the monster warily. Wendy poked it with her axe to make sure it was dead, while he fumbled out his pen and began writing.

"...Maybe not so good, I dunno." Marcus shook his head, as if trying to clear some headache or dizziness or flick hair off his eyes, but when it didn't work he continued rubbing with redoubled efforts. "I... I dunno, I just..." It was a human instinct, when you get something in your eye, to try to remove it. It was a horror to be unable to.

Creature's hands appear very human. Dipper wrote. But fingers are much shorter, so they look more like paws. Thumbs in non-opposable arrangement. Nails dirty, and worn down to nubs.

"H-hey." Dan took hold of his son's wrists, as gently as he could. "Hey now. Lemme see." Marcus hesitantly stopped rubbing, and let his dad pull his hands down, and brush hair away from his face.

Jaws, nose, and ears are highly developed, skull is elongated like a snout. Dipper reached out tentatively to feel over the place where eyes would be. Skull still has vestigial eye sockets beneath skin.

Marcus's eyes were nearly grown shut, the pale secretions having oozed out and covered all but a pair of tiny dark dots like pits, staring up from beneath the growth with an expression that could no longer be communicated. He blinked, and the movement could barely be seen. "Uh... How do I look?"

Torso covered in hair, not thick like fur, but very long and tangled. Wrinkled skin appears elderly. He nudged it over onto its side with his foot so he could see its front more clearly. Specimen appears biologically male. Two nipples, like a human. Distended stomach feels gas-filled when kicked. Gunshot wound emits a blackish blood.

"You look fine." Dan ran a finger over the growths around the eyes. They were hard, like callous. "Wouldn't worry about that."

I guess we can call the creatures 'the Unseeing', for lack of creativity on my part.

"Do I still look like a person?"

They may represent a new species within the family of orally-transmitted transmutative viral curses.

"...Close enough."

Appear more closely related to Zombies or Wendigos than Werewolves or Vampires.

"...You're just saying that."

Does not appear to retain humanoid intelligence.

"I'm saying you're still my son." Dan gripped his shoulder. "And by my breath and by my bones and by all that's good, you'll leave here the same. You understand that?"

"...I don't know that there's much you could do, Dad. I'm hurt, and I'm dying..."

"You ain't dying."

"I am. When I close my eyes I can see Valhalla."

"Not today." Dan set his jaw with a growl. A man can't go burying his own children. It ain't the way it's supposed to be. "IT AIN'T THE WAY IT'S GONNA BE. NO HEAVEN TODAY SON."

"It's not heaven." Marcus blinked off into space. "It's Valhalla."

"CAN YOU WALK?"

"...Yeah."

"AND I'LL CARRY YOU IF YOU CAN'T." He lifted him to his feet.

Dipper closed the journal. Wendy kicked snow of the Unseeing's face, just so it wouldn't be smiling up at them any more. He took a deep breath. His eyes wandered across the landscape, looking for a method of escape, some way back to the real world, the world that wasn't fantasy and horror, but he saw none.

"...What if we bit Marcus?" She asked.

His brain took a solid second and a half to process that. "WHAT."

"Look." She tapped her chin. "So he got bit by the Unseeing, and he's turning into an Unseeing. Maybe if he got bit by a human, he would turn back into a human?"

"T-That's your brother. This is serious."

"I'm not joking. We should at least try it."

He thought it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, and to his shame, in the heat of the moment, he said so.

She didn't reply to that, she just stared at him with a vaguely betrayed look on her face, and two balled fists.

Dan came out of the lean-to with Gus (who hadn't ever stopped shivering through the night) tucked into his jacket, and Marcus leaning against his other side. Kevin glanced over at Dipper and Wendy as he followed them out. "Trouble in paradise, lovebirds?"

Wendy raised a fist and took an outraged step in his direction, and he shied away.

Before following the rest of the family down the hill, she glanced at Dipper, uncocked her fist. They opened their mouths to say something but didn't say it.

Between and beneath them, the gunshot wound in the Unseeing's chest closed over and healed. It sucked life back into its lungs and its heart returned to beating, and it lurched back upright, a wide mouth opening toward Dipper with a roaring sucking gasp.

He jumped back with a surprised shout, and Wendy swung her axe. The first hit glanced off its shoulder, the second buried in its head. It collapsed dead again. More black blood on the snow. "Well woop-dee-doo they're immortal too." She spat. "...I didn't mean for that to rhyme."

"DEAD FOR REAL NOW?" Dan called back.

"Probably not." Dipper shrugged, and squinted down at the split in its skull, which was slowly easing closed, even as he watched. "Must need a special weapon to finish the job. Silver bullet or wooden stake or something."

"No, you just need this." Wendy fished around beneath the snow, and found a rock. She shoved it way down into the creature's brain, until black ooze squirted out. "There." She wiped her glove on her pants. "It won't get far with a rock where its motor cortex is supposed to be, no matter how much it heals."

"Wendy, that's cruel."

"This whole trip is cruel."

"Can you imagine being immortal and paralyzed? Lying on the ground?"

"...Not really."

"P-please take the rock out. Have compassion."

"That's my brother." She pointed her dripping axe at Marcus. "And this is serious. I'M serious." And she set out to follow her family.

Dipper hesitantly left his compassion behind, and followed.

Ahead of them, not very far, the empire beckoned.


9:30 - This hunger is a very real thing. If I do not mention food again this journal, it is not because I do not think of it, but rather because I wish to drive it from mind by discussion of other matters. Ditto for the cold. It's cold today. Colder than yesterday. My body feels more inclined, at this moment, to curl up and shiver than to stand and keep hiking. By glancing at later pages in this journal, you are able to know, long before I do, how long we must suffer at the hands of winter's seven plagues before we finally overcome them, and you will know the methods by which we will do so. In times like these, I envy you this knowledge. I do declare, at times I can scarcely believe that we will win at all.

10:30 - An Earth Eater gnaws at the side of a hill a quarter mile south of us. Also saw a small group of those Sasquatch bots standing nearby it, like guards. One of them waved at us as we passed.

11:50 - Ruined buildings that we pass are becoming taller and more complete, apparently built of a longer-lasting and sturdier structure. The Death Lights' trails are getting denser and more frequent as well. Sometimes they even double or triple up, to equal the full width of a road. The promise of flat and level ground has us using these trails instead of wading through snow. We know this is more risky, so we keep a careful lookout for the Death Lights' approach, and step well off the path before they pass.

11:55 - The phoenixes we saw last night apparently made nest in one of the houses, as they dive-bombed us when we got close. Nobody got seriously burned, but we all had quite a scare.

12:12 - We have reached the shore of the lake.


The effect of the local gravity gave the water's surface a subtle curve, like a great lens, or like the tiniest sliver of some unspeakably massive buried sphere. It made the city in its center appear all the more surreal and grand and imposing, built as if on the summit of a monolithic dome. The lake around it, for it was a lake, was all frozen over in dark ice, and that ice covered mostly in snow. No bridges to the city could be seen, nor ferries or boats.

The only way to cross would be on foot, and clearly, that would be a death wish. Dipper couldn't tell the ice's thickness just by looking at it, but he knew the winter was still young, and could not have formed it long ago, and he knew the water beneath would be cold enough to send a victim into shock, and he knew that he and Wendy would sink in water.

Dan knew most of this too. He glared across the treacherous ice toward the unattainable city, while he thought through their next steps. "ALRIGHT THEN. WE'LL MAKE PROPER BASE IN ONE OF THESE HOUSES THEN. WENDY, KEVIN, DIPPER, POKE AROUND AND SEE IF YOU CAN'T FIND SOMEPLACE DEFENSIBLE."

"Yessir." Wendy agreed.

"Yessir." Dipper agreed.

"Yaaaay chores." Kevin mumbled sarcastically.

The building they eventually selected was little more than a shed; a floor space equal to a child's bedroom, and a ceiling so short their hats caught in the spider webs. Yet, it was of a sturdy construction, bricks on mortar, with some rusted iron beams in the corners. And it was as secure a station as any, for it was built into the side of a hill, with no egress aside from a single doorway, and no windows save a single hole in its roof.

Since the sun did not move in this world's sky, the 8-inch-wide beam of breachlight filtering through that hole had remained fixed, year in and year out, upon a single patch of floor. And at some point in those years, perhaps recently, from between the cracks in the stones where that light fell, a tiny pine tree had sprouted. Its tip barely reaching the ceiling, and its branches curved like so many hands, to cup and catch the light that angled down. The shed had no other inhabitants.

While Dipper stood outside writing in his little book, the others knelt inside, watching Dan make a fire. He'd been keeping moss and twigs all day in the inner pocket of his coat to dry, and the flame eagerly consumed them and built higher. Smoke curled up through the ceiling-hole, ice melted off the walls and the tree, and as the five corduroys sat there admiring the light, Dan looked at that little tree, and imagined the sixth. "WE'LL WEATHER SUCH THINGS." He promised her, under his breath. "WE ALWAYS DO."


13:30 - Dan has sent Wendy, Kevin and I out to look for food, while he stays in the shed, to tend to Marcus and Gus. Have started uphill back toward the forest. Further bulletins as events warrant.

14:20 - No food yet. Wendy says patience, since game hunting usually takes awhile. Kevin is being obnoxious and I wish he were not present.

14:38 - Found a bubbling pit of what appears to be greyish sand. Assessing edibility.

14:39 - Poked grey sand with stick. Stick was rapidly transformed into more grey sand.

14:40 - Grey sand began converting ground beneath our feet into more grey sand, until we got to safe distance and it retreated again.

14:41 - Grey sand edibility assumed negative, human edibility to grey sand assumed positive.

15:35 - While crossing a field around the outskirts, we spotted a pack of robots of an entirely new type. They vaguely resembled car-sized crabs, with 4 legs in front, and 4 legs behind, and a line of 5 eyes along the top. They were heavily armored, colored a dark olive green like military tanks, able to move with great speed, and some of their legs are able to unfold into guns. Naturally, we assumed them as hostile and extremely dangerous, and hid behind a ruined wall to wait for them to pass. Not very courageous of us.

They appear entirely different in construction than the Hakrom Empire's other creations, and do not bear their emblem. Perhaps they were made by a different faction?

15:45 - The crabs all ran off suddenly. They were pursued by a platoon of Sasquatch-bots, marching in formation. Both the Sasbots and Crabbots were all waving their guns at each other, but no shots were fired.

On top of everything else on our plate right now, it appears we are also in the middle of some sort of war. Both sides of the war appear to be using robots as soldiers. I wonder if all the actual people on both sides of the war have died off or made peace or been consumed by the Unseen eons ago, and just forgot to turn off their robots or something.

Anyway, it seems both sides have run out of bullets.

15:50 - Saw a few Crabbots moving to flank the Sasbots. Sill waiting in the crevice for them all to move on.

Considering the wide variety and prevalence of strange monsters the last few days, i propose a new theory about this pocket dimension: that it contains not only the Hakrom empire and its various creations, but also every magical or anomalous creature over the eons that the nature spirits have deemed unsuitable for the natural world. This would explain the antimemetic organism, the dagger trees, whatever magic technology the death lights were derived from, the phoenixes, the grey goo, and, of course, us. Everything down here is incompatible with the rest of the natural ecosystem, able to destroy and consume far out of proportion with its need. I wonder if there's any earthly creatures left in here at all. We haven't seen anything bigger than a bug; just an endless circus of magical abominations and mutated humans and ancient machines.

16:10 - Kevin successfully shot a talking crow. Examining its body revealed it to be secretly a robot, which surprised nobody.

17:30 - Eventful encounter with a new variant of the crab robot. I don't want to talk about it right now. Once we get back to the fire I'll add an addendum or something.

Addendum:

Unlike the other crab robots, this one traveled alone, quite separate from the main pack. Also unlike the others, it completely lacked camouflage; its armor was spiky, and a dark shiny red instead of green. Its eyes were yellow, its joints dripped with excessive amounts of lubrication, and its tools were concealed in airtight cowlings.

I find this machine more strange, horrifying, and mysterious than any other thing or beast we've seen in this entire adventure so far, because when we saw it, both Wendy and I were suddenly both filled with such a profound feeling of anger and hatred that we immediately leapt out of hiding and attacked it, without even pausing to speak or draw our weapons. (Note that we have never seen this robot before in our lives. Note also that Kevin, who was there watching, did not display this reaction.) Not very thoughtful of us.

It would be bad enough if this were some kind of mind control or hypnotism, but my and Wendy's minds can't be tampered with. Ergo, whatever happened, we must somehow have still been in control of ourselves. The only explanation I can think of is that there was some form of memory leak; some knowledge or instinct toward violence our future selves held so strongly that it forced its way past the soul lock, to control us in the present.

I don't like that. I don't want to think about that. Either I don't want to think what that robot could-have/will-have done to earn such hatred, or I don't want to think what kind of people we'll become, to hate so strongly. If you're reading this, future me, if you ever decide to read back through your first journal and find this... Take it as a reminder to reflect on yourself, to reassess your life, and your choices, and your soul. Take this as a warning and reminder, not to become the sort of thing I fear you could, and hope you won't. You could be many things, future us: many of them powerful, many of them dangerous. Of all available options, we would have you be righteous. Please, please, please don't forget that.

And if you have to hate, then whatever you hate, please, please make sure they deserve it.

Please.

After we destroyed the robot, we broke it open to examine its internal mechanisms. It contained no weapons, but many strange and various tools. Saws and hooks and small drills, an injector needle, a ganglion of sharp worm-like tentacles, and a pair of eerily humanoid hands, complete with synthetic flesh. Painful rashes formed on our skin wherever we'd touched the tools. The whole wreckage stinks, like a dead animal.

It also had a time machine built into its chassis, near its main computer. Why didn't it use it to escape the fight? I have no theories. The time machine broke during the process of removing it, and is thus of no use to us.

We'll come back tomorrow with fire, to burn the remains.


Wendy led the way, trying to wipe lubrication grease off her knife with shaking hands. Dipper scratched a rash on his arm as he scribbled in his little book. Kevin walked behind, regarded them.

"You know, I think I get it now." He remarked.

Why doesn't he shut up? Wendy thought. "Get what?" She asked instead.

"I get what you see in him." He gestured toward Dipper. "At first I thought it was weird you'd go for the nerdy little shrimp with his head in a book which- I mean, I know when I look at him, I just want to steal his lunch money or peer-pressure him into eating a worm in front of the cool kids... But now? I think I get it."

Dipper closed his journal with a crisp, loud snap, and didn't stop walking.

"I get it!" Kevin smiled and nodded. "It's not about any kind of fetish for tiny babies made of sticks, it's about what you need! You may be big and strong, but you're dumb as a standard-issue bag of rocks, you're everything he's not, and he's everything you're not."

Why doesn't he shut up? Wendy thought. "Why don't you shut up?" She asked.

"You should see you two in action!" Kevin scoffed. "Soon as things get rough, you combine like Voltron to form a single actual worthwhile human being. You know what you should buy? A biiiig tall trench coat."

The two of them stopped walking, and turned around to glare at him.

"You have something you're trying to say, Kevin?" Dipper asked.

"Nothing that I'm not saying." He shrugged. "I just think it's sweet what you two have. You're in love, you're living happily ever after, you spend all your time together in your scifi imagination world where you have adventures and keep secrets and get superpowers." He started counting on his fingers. "Uhhh, let's see, what so far? Seeing invisible monsters, immunity to tranquilizers, sinking in water, knowing the exact time and date of your deaths, and those are just the ones I..."

"You read my diary." Wendy frowned.

"Duh, I'm a little brother." Kevin rolled his eyes. "And while you two are busy being superheroes, Marcus is gonna go full zombie because YOU'RE too coward to try her idea to cure him, Gus and maybe everyone is gonna die because YOU wasted ammunition and daylight on a creepy robot instead of food, and we're all gonna be stuck down here forever because YOU got us into this mess." He shook his head, and growled. "Wish we'd never brought you along."

"The feeling is mutual." Dipper agreed.

"It's not his fault." Wendy said.

"Ah, well, you know what I think, Mrs. High-And-Mighty?" Kevin tapped his forehead. "I think it is. Now what are you gonna do about it? What? You gonna shoot me? Gonna chop me up? Dissect and document me? You gonna shove a rock down my brain?"

Wendy's retort caught on her tongue.

"Because I know what I'm gonna do." Kevin nodded confidently. "I'm gonna start a fight, and start it with you." He squared up to Dipper. "Soon as we get out of this mess, you go back to California forever, you stay away from my sister forever, and you eat a worm, you understand?"

"Unacceptable." Dipper told him, with a voice barely level.

"Yeah, it's gonna be a whole lot more acceptable once I'm done with you, right? Twerp? Nerd! Milk-drinking pig-loving men-in-black-acting..." He pushed Dipper backwards into the snow, and towered over him. In the heat of the moment, to her shame, Wendy hesitated before intervening. "Teacher's-pet-looking glass-boned my-sister-drooling weirdo! C'mon! Get up! Throw them hands! FREAK!"

"Have it your way." Dipper lost his temper, and stood up. "This will be quick and efficient." He promised, and swung the butt of his gun at Kevin's head.

The boy bent over double in dizzying pain, clutching a bleeding head wound.

"WHAT?!" Wendy hollered.

"I meant to just knock him out...!" Dipper apologized.

"YOU CAN'T KNOCK SOMEBODY OUT BY HITTING THEM IN THE HEAD!" She screamed at him. "THAT'S MOVIES!"

"Oh."

"THIS IS MY BROTHER!"

"I-"

"And NOW we're gonna have to help him back to base!" She said.

"Oh." Dipper looked around. They were close to a mile from the shed. "Oh." Obviously this meant that they would have to return empty-handed, that the whole family would have to go hungry another night, and that Dan had been wrong to trust them on this vital quest. What if Gus and Marcus didn't last another night? What if Kevin's wound was serious? What if he got brain damage?

Dipper lost his pride. A piece of his soul felt like it peeled away, and he began to cry, cry at all the things he shouldn't have done but did.

Wendy would be crying too, crying at all the things she should have done but didn't, but she was better at hiding such feelings. "C-c'mon. Let's get back." She pulled Kevin to his feet, and nodded back towards home. "Let's go."

"Gotta find food." Dipper sputtered. "Gotta-we-I... Why... Why... Why, what'll become of us?"

"One day." She whispered, and hoped it was true. What else could she say? "One day we'll rise again."


The night sky darkened as the fire warmed the shed. No words were spoken. Dan was angry, very angry, and his anger silently filled the room. Anger at everyone, anger at the two boys who'd been fighting, anger at himself, anger at the spirit who sent them here, angry at the sun in the sky, at the mountains and trees, angry at nothing less than God himself. He punched a wall. It trembled. A bit of snow fell down through the chimney hole.

Dipper stared at his own feet, considered their situation, and lost his hope.

Dan opened his mouth to say something, closed it again, opened, closed, and finally he said "GOD!" Hard to tell, at first, whether it was a profanity or a prayer. "GOD!" He stood up, stumbled his way to the door, and out into the night. "GOD!" He voice boomed into the skies. "GOD!" They heard his footsteps fading into the distance, but his voice did not fade. "GOD I KNOW YOU'RE THERE! LOOK AT ME AND SEE ME! GOD! GOD! GOD!" And with such words he launched into the angriest, most profane, most profound sermon Dipper had ever heard. He bemoaned his fate with all the fire of Job, wrestled as fiercely as Jacob had wrestled, fumed as Balaam had fumed, groaned as Jesus had groaned. The minutes ticked by and the prayer did not abate, but it changed to pleading. Fear leaked into the man's voice, dreadful fear, all the fear he'd been trying to hide. Sadness followed, and finally shame. His family sat in silence as their father's long distant cries evolved into penitence. They heard his voice become muffled as he fell to his knees and begged. One by one, his family bowed their heads to pray as well.

Bite Marcus. Dipper suddenly opened his eyes. "Why did you want to bite Marcus?" He whispered to Wendy. "Earlier? Would it cure him?"

"I don't know." She wiped her tears and snot away with the back of her hand. "How would I know?"

"W-well, what sparked the idea?"

"Uh... 'The eyes are the windows to the soul'?" She mumbled. "Just that old phrase? That's all I was thinking of."

"And you thought since they don't have eyes so they have no soul?" He clarified.

"Uh... Sorta?" She shrugged. "W-well and I also noticed that they really just kinda... Don't have any 'human' parts, I guess. It was shaped like a human, but everything that makes a human... Human? They don't have."

"Thumbs, upright walking, tool use, small mouths, hairless bodies..." Dipper listed them off to himself. "Right, they've got none of them. Humans asymptomatic of humanity?"

"I guess? And, like, the winter spirit made the dimensional prison to contain the human soul. So I guess to him, humans are an invasive and infectious species. So maybe, I thought, any unique curses that exist down here would treat 'humanity' as 'infectious'. So... Yeah."

"That makes a lot of sense." Dipper agreed. It was a lot more left-brained than the ideas he usually entertained, but he liked where it was going.

"It does?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Marcus, what do you think?"

"Yeah." Marcus sat up and scratched his head. He was so blind now that he couldn't even see them sitting in front of him. "Why not, let's try it." His voice was hoarse and weak. "Alright, who's the lucky donor? Fresh meat over here..." He held out his forearm for somebody to bite.

Wendy scratched her head. "I ca-"

"I'll do it." Dipper swallowed his dignity, walked around the fire, and before he had time to hesitate, sunk his teeth into Marcus's arm, as hard as he could.

"Ow!" Marcus pulled his arm away.

"Gah!" Dipper spat the black blood from his mouth; it tasted horrible.

But from the new bite on Marcus's arm, red blood was now flowing. The veins beneath his arm were turning back to natural colors too. Then, starting at the bite, traveling up his arm to his heart, then across his whole body, his skin began to take on a pale color. It became chalk white, and then rose up into rough wrinkles, like the skin of a reptile. He made a noise. "UhhhHHH? Ow? Ew? What's happening?"

"Not sure?" Dipper frowned.

"You look shrink-wrapped." Kevin frowned.

"Oh. Huh." Marcus curiously grabbed a fistful of skin on his arm, and pulled. It cracked and tore away on thin strings of mucus. He grabbed some on his other arm, and it tore too, then he reached both hands up to his face, peeled it back and away, and beneath it all, there was Marcus, looking exactly as he ought. He blinked, and smiled. His eyes brought the firelight into focus, and he could see. "Cool."

"...YAY!" Gus hooted.

"YEAH!" Wendy agreed.

"YEAH!" Dipper smiled.

"WOOHOO!" Kevin hollered.

They heard Dan rushing back. And when he tore the door open and his eyes landed on Marcus, molting like an insect back into himself, all he said was "Thank you."


Late that night, Dipper took a brief respite from his watch to go over to the bushes and relieve himself. The wind had abated, and the night was still as death. A gentle snow was drifting down toward the firelight, and a fog layer hid the breach.

As he zipped up his pants and retraced his footprints back toward the shed, he saw something, standing right on the edge of the firelight, looking toward the shed.

A deer.

A doe, deceptively normal to all appearances, being followed by its little fawn.

He raised his rifle, quick before it could run off. "We need food." He whispered. "I'm sorry."

The doe looked over at him. It didn't run off. A magic darkness boiled behind its eyes.

He closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger.

The crystalline flash of some kind of force field appeared between the doe and the bullet, as the whole of its will and its terror aligned to protect itself and its child.

"Oh, for the love of-" Dipper cocked the gun and fired again. He should have known the wildlife down here would have some ace up their sleeves! Force fields? Why not?! "Give in!"

The bullet bounced away again. Compassion. He imagined the doe to beg.

"I have a family!" He explained, as he fired again. Why this ridiculous obstacle now? When they were so close? It wasn't fair!

I have a family too.

"We need to eat!" He fired again. They did need to eat, this family, his family. They needed to eat. They needed to survive.

Eat another. Another ricochet.

"There is no other." He fired. There wasn't any other. No other food to eat, and no other family. His food. His family. They needed to survive, oh how he loved them..

Let me be. The field flickered, cracked. The will to degrade it was coming to equal the will to maintain it.

"No." He fired.

Compassion. The field shattered. The doe stumbled.

"I wish I could." He fired a seventh and final time. Its death was painless.

The deer must recently have suffered some grievous injury at the hands of something down here; its left hind leg was being held together by willpower alone. As the breath left its lungs, the leg dissolved into stringy ribbons of flesh.

The fawn dissolved as well.

The rest of the meat would still be edible though.

They had food.

He sank to his knees.

And his soul was no lighter.

"One day... One day, you will rise again."

Author's Note:

This story as a whole has ended up being extremely experimental for me. It has enough bizarre things in it that I'll never be able to modify it into an original non-GF story, so besides for its own meager merits, it is only valuable insofar as it allows me to practice my skills as an author. Within the blank canvas of fanfiction, I'm able to play around with different narrative tools and tones and plotlines, seeing which sorts of things interest me and interest readers, finding which elements I can emphasize, which I can downplay, and what wide variety of things my writing can allow me to say. It is a most interesting journey, at least for me, even if I'm not always satisfied with the results. I think there will be 5 more chapters.