"well, this is it," said sans. "welcome to scenic my lab."

There were few places in the Underground that Frisk had not been to, at this point, and this was one of them. If sans had not taken them there himself, they would have never guessed that sans even had a lab. The tiles and textures looked like spare parts from Alphy's lab. There was a fine layer of dust on everything, but it was still much neater than they expected sans could be. A long workbench was covered in blueprints and notebooks, written in a font Frisk could not read. At the end of the room was a large shape, covered in a tarp.

"use whatever you want," said sans. "don't know what good it'll do you though."

The Cat jumped off their shoulders and started sniffing suspiciously at the tarp. Frisk, meanwhile, turned their attention to the workbench.

"What exactly is this supposed to do?" the Cat asked.

"that? the doc called it a save state," said sans. "it's supposed to take you from dimension to dimension but i could never get it to work. didn't take you for a budding quantum physicist."

"And I didn't expect you to…whatever a quantum physicist is," said the Cat. "But does it work, is the thing?"

"no," said sans.

"Well, can't you try?" said the Cat

"believe me," said sans "i've already given up."

Frisk poked through the drawers. There was a photo album tucked inside. There were photos of sans with a lot of people they did not recognized…he looked happy.

"I've seen something like it before," said the Cat. "Maybe we can ask them for help?"

"you can leave?" sans asked.

"No Barrier can hold me," said the Cat. "I'm just not sure about bringing along passengers."

The frog ribbited in agreement.

There was a card sticking out of the photo album. On it were three poorly drawn figures. On the back it said *don't forget.

"well," said sans. "do what you want. i'm about done here."

sans shortcutted out. The Cat sighed.

"I don't know why you put your faith in him," said the Cat.

Frisk knew they could.

They waited until they were out of the woods to talk again. It wasn't until they reached the pumpkin patches of Pottsfield, just as daylight was beginning to hit again, when Dipper broke the silence.

"Alternate dimension, right?" said Dipper.

"W-what?" said Wirt.

"This place. This…Unknown. It's some kind of alternate dimension," said Dipper. "The journal had some schematics for a portal gun, but I wouldn't even try to put them together from memory now, especially without the proper materials…"

"I don't know, does it matter?" said Wirt.

"Well, if we know what the problem is, we can figure out how to solve it," said Dipper.

"The problem is," said Wirt. "We're lost in the woods, I have no idea where my brother is, and I have no idea how to get out."

The problem was Wirt did know where he was. He knew he had been here before, many times, more times than he could remember. He could still feel the branches ensnaring his Soul. He had died here.

No…he had died somewhere else, too. In the cemetery, over the garden wall.

"I think I figured out the problem," said Wirt.

"Oh?" said Dipper.

"I think we died."

"Oh."

Mabel was suddenly very thankful that Grunkle Stan had taught her how to hotwire a car. She would have to thank him once they got out of there. Driving would be a little more difficult, but Mabel had already worked out a plan: she would take the wheel, and Greg would take the pedals.

"So it's 2,554 miles to Gravity Falls, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of Smile Dip, it's dark, and I lost my sunglasses. Because it's dark."

"We're just going to leave?" said Greg.

"Well, duh!" said Mabel. "What, did you want to stay through the zombie apocalypse?"

"No! But what about your brother? What about my brother? What about everyone else in town?"

He had a point. It did seem cruel to just leave the people of this town to their fate.

"But what do you think we can do about it?" said Mabel.

"We have to try something!"

She wasn't sure what she could try. Dipper was always the better plan-maker between the two of them. Even Stan could make up a good getaway plan. She had to think like them.

It was hard to think with her memories all jumbled like this. Sometimes she would think she was in the Underground again, and sometimes she would think she was in a forest she did not recognize and yet she did. Sometimes she would even think she was in Blithe's Hollow before all of this started, talking to ghosts and reading to a witch.

So what had happened before all of that? She remembered Bill Cipher, and she remembered Gideon. She remembered winning back the Mystery Shack, and they were going to throw a party to celebrate.

And then she remembered something she wasn't sure had happened yet. She remembered what happened the night of the party. She remembered yelling at Dipper.

"Dipper! What is the one thing I told you not to do tonight?"

"Wake the dead…"

"And what did you do?"

"Wake the dead…"

"I have a plan!" said Mabel. "Do you like to sing?"

"Do I ever!" said Greg.

Somehow, the Mystery Shack had remained intact throughout the Oddpocalypse. Perhaps it was because the Mystery Shack still had protections from its previous owner, or perhaps it could not be more broken than it already was under the new owner. Coraline, who did not know anything about the tale of two Stans, was just glad she could find one Stan.

It was the best business the Shack had seen in years. Humans, gnomes, manutaurs, whatever Toby Determined was, and a whole assortment of weird creatures had taken refuge inside. The one she found most surprising, however, was the black cat. Not only because he was already deep in conversation with Stan, but because she had seen that cat before.

"It doesn't matter how I know about it," said the Cat. "What matters is we need to use that machine."

"Forget it," said Stan. "You're not a licensed quantum physicist, and neither am I, and what we should be focusing on now is how long we can survive on my canned meat before we have to resort to eating our own. I give it three weeks before we have to kill the gnomes."

"You can't hide here forever," said the Cat.

"Well, we sure can try!"

"Excuse me," said Coraline.

The two snapped their heads towards her. Instantly, Coraline felt herself at a loss for words. But still, he had to do something.

"I need to find my friends," said Coraline. "I don't know where they are, or what's going on, but I need your help. And if you can't help me…then I'll have to go back out there and find them. On my own. Against the Horrifying Sweaty One-Armed Monstrosity."

Neither of them said anything. Coraline started to realize her words were true. She turned, only for Stan to sigh.

"Fine," said Stan. "But we find Ford first. Got it?"

"Ford?" Coraline asked. Even with the wibbly-wobbly timeline, she had not heard that name before.

"If anyone can figure out how to beat that Triangle Man, it's Ford. I know it," said Stan. "We find him first, or I'm not touching that machine."