Sweat ran down the boy's body as he ran. The tall shadows lurked over him. If only I could run faster, the boy thought. Or had a bike, or maybe one of those big Barbie doll cars. The ones that little girls ride around in. The point was that the boy wanted to run faster.
A giggle came from behind him. The boy looked around, terrified at what he might see, only to find nothing there.
Slowing down, the boy opened his mouth, "Please, just leave me alone." His green eyes darted to every shadow his stalker might be able to hide in.
To the right of him a rock fell. Jumping, the poor kid looked at the source of the noise, backing away from it.
The giggle came again, this time from behind him. He spun around and came face to face with the source of his terror. With a grin on her face, the figure pulled the trigger. The boom could be heard from miles away.
Shocked, the boy stared at his attacker. Small little pieces of paper drifted down.
"Ha ha, you just got confetti!" The young girl cried. He looked down at the confetti cannon lying on the ground.
The young girl wore a simple black skirt and a teal sweater with a white ghost wrapping itself around the letters MK. In her hair, she had a teal headband to match the sweater.
"Hi I'm Mabel! I'm twelve and available! What's your name?" Mabel exclaimed after getting over her laughing fit.
The boy whom the question was directed at blinked. He had red curly hair and was rather overweight. He had on a pair of shorts, a yellow shirt and a blue blue football jacket, though the boy looked far too young to belong on a high school football team.
"Uh … my name's Neil," he introduced himself, nervously. "Where are we?"
The two preteens were in a junkyard full of discarded cars. Neil had woken up to the sound of Mabel wandering through the junkyard, only to run away screaming about how the witch's curse had come back.
"Not a clue, but hey! Want to climb to that dangerously tall pile of cars?" Mabel did not wait for an answer before running off. Neil shrugged but jogged after the girl.
By the time Neil caught up with Mabel she was already at the top of the cars.
"Y-You see anything?" Neil called up to her, trying to catch his breath.
"Hm. I see a water tower with a muffin on it. And a lake. Oh, I see a cliff with train tracks!" Mabel yelled back, squinting out at the scene around them.
"Can you tell where we are? Or maybe the way out of this junk yard?"
Mabel smiled. Taking out the grappling hook she had found when she woke up, she fired at some cars and jumped. Allowing the rope to take her weight, she swung down to where Neil was.
"The Mabel tour is now leaving!" Mabel announced, walking through the piles of cars and metal. Neil, amazed at what the hyper active girl just did, followed her without complaint.
The dark skinned boy paced back and forth. He had woken up in some dark alleyway about mid-morning. Since then he had been trying to find someone who could tell him what was going on. He thought back to what his grandma had said he should do if he was ever lost.
"Just find the police and they'll help you get back home, where I will be waiting to lecture you for getting lost in the first place!" He said to himself, imitating his grandma.
The boy sighed. "Great. There's just one problem with that, grandma. No one is here!" The boy was in a police office. All around him were pictures of two cops doing things that only couples would normally do. A few case files about missing people lay on the desk.
Now what am I supposed to do?
The door behind him jingled, snapping the boy out of his thoughts.
"Hey-o is anyone here?" A female voice cried out.
A boy's voice followed. "Mabel, I don't think you should be that loud. They could be really mean cops…."
The dark skinned boy shrugged. At least I have company now. He walked back out to the entrance of the police station.
"No one is here," he told the two without greeting.
"What? I was hoping to ride around in a police car!" Mabel yelled. "Oh well. Let's get some pie! "
Both boys stared at the girl in utter confusion.
"Actually pie sound pretty good" Neil said, following Mabel out the door.
The dark skinned boy followed them out the door. Realizing that he could get no help at the police station, he grabbed his custom bicycle leaning against the police station. As he turned to leave the town, he looked back at the two kids.
Why do I feel like I will be abandoning everyone if I leave? Sighing, he wheeled his bicycle around.
He caught back up with the other two, catching the conversation about a diner Mabel had seen.
As they walked on the boy looked around the town. The town looked like it was rather old with a few new buildings added in between decades.
Turning his head, the dark haired boy locked on to the shop window next to him. In the window stared an African American kid that wore a black fireman's jacket with light jeans. He held himself at a slouch and his head was tilted like it usually was. The kid's green eyes were the same as the boy remembered.
But there was one thing that bothered the boy about his reflection. Am I taller?
"Why did you stop?" Mabel asked, popping in front of the boy.
The boy jumped and fell backwards. He turned his head to see Neil looking at him as well.
"D-Do you know what d-day it is today?" The boy asked, his stutter getting the better of him.
Mabel smiled. "Of course – it's Wednesday!"
"No I m-mean what d-day of the m-month." He tried again.
Neil frowned. "It's November 14th isn't it?"
Mabel frowned at this statement. "No, yesterday was January 23rd."
"I t-think it was August 5th." The boy said. "W-why do we all remember different days?"
"I think there's only one way to find out." Mabel grinned and headed to the nearest newspaper dispenser. She pulled out the paper on the top of the stack and looked for the date. "It says July 12, 2012. Well, that's a about half a year of my life gone."
"I-I think we might have amnesia" the boy thought aloud, "but three cases of amnesia at the same time is very rare."
"So what happens now? Do we find a hospital?" Neil asked.
"I didn't see a hospital when I was looking around." Mabel answered.
"Why don't we go and get that pie now? I'll buy." Mabel said, waving around a ten dollar bill she had found in her pocket.
"Yeah, pie." Neil echoed, his spirits lowered with the recent news.
The new addition to the group nodded. "I-I think I'll get mine with a scoop of ice cream. My name is Wybie by the way."
"Dipper, do you think we should have found something by now?" It was now late afternoon and the two boys were walking on an uphill slope.
"I have no idea, Raz." Dipper was now thankful that he had a sister like Mabel growing up. This Raz kid was always asking questions. The first few questions were fine, but after the five hundredth question he was starting to get annoyed.
"Oh! Maybe we are victims of a child kidnapping case and it was only us who got away but we both hit our head so we don't remember anything. That would also explain why we don't know where we are."
"In that case wouldn't the kidnapper be after us?"
"Well maybe he…" Raz started, but slowed to a stop.
Dipper stopped and looked at Raz. Considering how much he was blabbering on about earlier, Dipper got the feeling that very few things could get Raz to stop talking.
"Everything okay?" Dipper asked after a few seconds. Dipper waited for the boy to acknowledge his question. Maybe it was just that he had grown used to the constant chatter, but the new silence was unnerving.
"Raz, come on, we need to keep moving." Dipper tried again.
Raz stood there in silence, staring out at the forest in front of them.
"Raz?"
"We need to run." Raz whispered, his voice taking on an edge that Dipper hadn't heard since he meet the kid back in the clearing. "We need to run now."
With that, Raz grabbed Dipper's hand and began running straight ahead.
"What? What's going on?" Dipper asked, very confused about Raz's new attitude.
A howl came from behind the boys, giving Dipper his answer. Bounding out of the bush came a lone wolf, fully planning on eating the two boys for dinner.
Oh gosh, oh gosh, gosh, Dipper thought to himself as he looked back at the wolf.
"Come on, Dipper!" Raz called, glancing back at the boy.
Dipper looked back at Raz, and then noticed where they were running towards. This entire time, they had been running towards a huge cliff. "RAZ, STOP!" Dipper shouted, stopping dead in his tracks.
"What?" Raz turned back around and watched as his feet ran off the edge of the cliff. "Oh no."
"Raz!" Dipper could only watch as his companion fell. Dipper ran until he was at the edge of the cliff and looked down. However, he couldn't see where the boy went. His mind was racing with thoughts. Did Raz just die? Is it my fault for not seeing the cliff in time? What am I going to do now? Dipper's thoughts were interrupted when he heard the growl of the wolf nearing behind him. Taking a deep breath, Dipper turned around, ready to somehow fight the wolf.
I can fight a wolf, right? I mean people on TV do it all the time, and I just need to walk away from it. Yeah, come on, you can do this Dipper!
Dipper quickly scanned his surroundings, trying to figure out what to do, and at the last second grabbed a nearby tree branch just as the wolf lunged. The wolf, expecting to taste the boy's flesh, only got a mouthful of tree bark. To avoid further injury, the wolf bounced back, its teeth bared in rage.
Knowing the trick would not work again, Dipper dropped the tree branch and ran to the nearest tree. However, the boy was not as lucky this time, and tripped on a rock. The wolf was on Dipper in a second, its yellow eyes staring down at the boy trapped under its hairy body.
Below the wolf, Dipper had curled up into a ball, protecting his body with his arms and legs. He shut his eyes tight as he tried his best to ignore the beast on top of him.
The wolf opened its mouth for the killing blow. That's when it happened.
Something crashed into the wolf, making it tumble off of Dipper and over the edge of the cliff.
"That will teach you to mess with us!" Raz yelled.
Dipper, realizing the wolf was gone, slowly uncurled himself to see Raz doing a victory dance next to the cliff.
"How… wha… You should be dead!" Dipper shouted.
Raz, realizing what he was doing, stopped his victory dance. "Uh, there was a branch on the cliff and, I uh, grabbed it. Yeah, that's what I did."
Dipper shook his head, but seeing that there was no other logical explanation he simply shrugged and looked out over the view the cliff offered. In the afternoon light, he could make out a road and a sign that said "Gravity Falls" below them.
"Hey Dipper, I see a town!" Raz yelled, looking off the other end of the cliff.
Dipper turned around to see that Raz was right. Glad that they at least had some idea where to go now, Dipper started to head down the cliff.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Raz yelled at Dipper.
"To the town" Dipper yelled back, laughing. "You coming?"
Raz looked down at his hands, then snapping himself out of his thoughts, ran to catch up with Dipper.
Lili sat at the table swinging her legs back and forth. In front of her was a small potted plant. The other two companions had gone outside to see what was around the house. Coraline said how they needed to get out of here and back to their families while Norman was just dragged along for the ride.
To her credit, she did wait until late afternoon to try to drag us out of the house. Not that I would ever like her though. Lili thought, quickly shaking her head. She way too bossy and acts like Coach Oleander.
Lili smiled thinking about the midget Coach. She had been going to Camp Whispering Rock for years now perfecting, her psychic powers and meeting kids like her. She had already master the basics of what all psychics had to before they went on to become agents.
The only reason I'm not a psychonaut is because dear old Dad thinks I'm not ready, Lili thought bitterly, but this time I'll prove to him I can take care of myself, and what better place to do it than Gravity Falls. Maybe I can find that monster that drives people insane when they look into its eyes. Then all I have to do is bring it to Dad and he has to make me an agent!
With her plan in mind, Lili turned back to the plant on the table. Now let's see if you know anything.
Using one of her favorite psychic power, herbaphony, she started to 'talk' to the plant.
'Hello,' Lili thought toward the plant.
'Forgot.' The words from the plant entered Lili's mind.
'Forgot? What do you mean? Did you forget something?' Lili tried again.
'Forgot' the plant repeated.
Lili would have kept pressing the forgetful plant, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Coraline staring at her.
"What?" Lili snapped at the blue haired girl.
"We're ready to go." Coraline spoke, trying hard this time to not lose her temper.
"If you think I'm just going to walk out of here with you–"
"What is your plan, then?" Coraline asked, cutting Lili off. "From what I can see, no one is coming back to this dump."
"How do you know that?" Lili said.
"Well for one, we waited all day, and Norman said he was here since 5 in the morning and no one was here. And two, we are taking the only vehicle here. So unless you want to live at some random tourist attraction for the rest of your life I suggest you come with us."
Lili groaned but walked to the older girl. Coraline smirked, knowing she won the argument.
Seeing the grin, Lili spat out, "I'm only coming with you until we find some kind of adult."
Coraline rolled her eyes but led Lili out of the shack.
Sitting in front of the shack was a golf cart that looked like it had recently had an upgrade. Norman was sitting in the passenger seat smiling at the two girls. When Coraline had gone to get Lili, he was sure that they would get into a fight.
"So who's driving this hunk of junk?" Lili asked, unimpressed with the escape vehicle.
Coraline and Norman looked at each other.
"I thought you knew how to drive." Coraline said
"I don't know how to drive, I thought you knew how to drive." Norman said.
Lili rolled her eyes. "Coraline, you get in the back. Norman, you're the navigator." She said getting into the driver's seat. Because of her training she was required to learn how to drive a car, so a golf cart should be no problem.
Coraline, shocked that a girl younger than her could drive, kept her mouth shut and got into the back seat of the car.
Soon the three of them were traveling at high speeds down the dirt road. Coraline and Lili smiling with the feeling of wind in their faces and Norman trying to look at the map they had stolen from the Mystery Shack.
Been bogged down with school stuff but hey new update right! Will try to post more over the Winter Break.
Hope you enjoyed the Chapter.