Sorry that I'm re-uploading this chapter, I just needed to fix some things I wasn't satisfied with. Thank you all for everything and enjoy! Xx
There are no such words to describe the shock that comes with waking up to a forest of ash and coming to the realisation that you had slept laying in the shallow waters of a lake in the middle of nowhere. Then seeing your unlikely companion and your unlikely guide laying next to you, tattered, burnt and torn like yourself and looking as if they were on the brink of death.
That is exactly what Dipper had felt when he woke up that morning. No birds sang, no creatures rustled in the coarse burnt forest. Suddenly all the safety he had felt when he first woke up in that forest had disappeared under a tidal wave of guilt and dread. They caused this.
They had to travel through this constant reminder of their piddly mistake of letting a campfire burn through the night. Where would they find food now? All the plants were gone, and all the animals either died or fled. Maybe it would've been better for them to have died in that fire.
Don't think that, Dipper told himself sternly, turning to lay on his side to face an unconscious Primrose. You need to get back to Mabel... you need too...
His body yowled defiance as Dipper heaved himself to his feet, tattered clothes and muddy brown hair clinging to his face thanks to the freezing lake water. How hadn't hypothermia caught him already?
If this was the way their journey was gonna go, he wanted it to be over as soon as possible. It was weighing on his very sanity.
A quiet groan made him look back. Primrose had begun to struggle against her pained muscles in fruitless efforts to get up. She looked like a reanimated corpse in the dim morning light. A dishevelled figure she was.
"Are you alright?" Dipper hazard asking. The dragoness shook her head and managed to push herself up to a sitting position. She was shaking from head to toe. "I'm sorry about asking you to come with us," he apologised, somehow feeling guilty for dragging the dragoness along. Primrose however made a funny noise of objection and shook herself like a dog, splattering droplets of water everywhere. She turned to waltz into the ashes and signalled that she would be coming back shortly.
So once again, Dipper was left alone with Bill, who also started to stir. However he pretended to be asleep when he noticed Dipper watching. The brown-haired boy sighed in disbelief.
"Bill get up," Dipper told him. Bill swatted a soaking hand at him.
"Let me die..." he groaned, pressing his palms to his tired eyes. "Let me die alone..."
This calls for drastic measures, Dipper decided. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs to the brim with oxygen. Dipper had a natural high-pitched scream which he wasn't particularly proud of, but was useful in various situations like this. His pubescent voice cracked multiple times like a crow having a fit.
Bill sat bolt upright, his hands darting to his ears. "Alright alright! I'm up! Stop screaming ear-rape already!"
Dipper coughed to get his vocal cords back into one piece, dripping droplets of water from his soaking hair and wet clothes. "Let's get out of the water."
Bill grunted unhappily and dragged himself out of the water, tiny water droplets dripping down his face.
"Where's the dragon?" Bill asked through chattering teeth. He hardly coped anymore, and it showed drastically. When he broke free from his stone prison, he had been a magnificent creature, hair sticking out from his head in a dazzling hairstyle, power reflected in his very eyes. However now he looked like a mere reflection through a dusty, broken mirror. His vibrant golden hair was now dusty, clung to his head in wetness, his hat and cane disappeared- which was somehow the only power Bill was left with- and his tailored golden jacket left behind. It wasn't just Bill either. Dipper was also tattered and torn, his clothes bearing the marks of being burnt and his whole state was a ragged mess. Both boys had so much in common now, the very mirror-image of each other. Hungry, exhausted and still smelled strongly of smoke.
Dipper didn't even look at him. "She said she'll be back," he told him simply, attempting to dry himself off like an animal would, but only attempted to make himself colder.
This was only their first night on their journey. If things carried on like this, they were as good as dead.
"Gravity Falls better be close," Bill snarled, trying to get some warmth into his arms by rubbing them. "This has got to be the worst possible-"
He didn't get to finish. A large, lithe amber shape snaked out of what was left of the forest, something hanging limply from her jaws. Even Primrose was now shabby and bedraggled like they were, limping greatly on all four legs as if she had been running on shattered glass. The dragoness lay the something she had been carrying onto the dry ground and spread it out.
Three dead rabbits...
Dipper's stomach gave a jolt at the sight. How could Primrose kill something? He caught himself again. The rabbits were prey, meant to be eaten.
"Well it seems you aren't as useless as you look," Bill shrugged and picked up a single rabbit. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving."
Dipper cringed as his companion pulled apart the rabbit with his brute strength and took a bite out of the raw meat. "Uh, Primrose? Could you set my share on fire?"
The dragoness, who had started to eat her share, choked at his strange request and gave him a quizzical look.
"Please?" Dipper didn't feel like explaining the concept of cooking food to anyone right now. Thankfully Primrose didn't ask any questions, mainly because she couldn't speak, and opened her mouth. A tiny ember of amber flame hit the rabbit dead on, causing its fur to catch fire and cook.
"Why did you ask her to do that?" Bill asked with a shrug, continuing to eat the disgusting-looking raw-red rabbit meat.
"Humans don't eat raw meat," Dipper told him simply. "You might get food poisoning if you don't cook it first and-"
"That's just human weakness," Bill cut across him. "I'm a demon, remember? Human sicknesses don't apply to me."
Dipper shrugged, hoping that the curse wouldn't make him share Bill's dumb consequences. He assured himself that the curse only made sure that he died when Bill died, it didn't say anything about sicknesses and poisoning.
Patting away the flames from his food, he felt a pang of relief to find that his idiot plan of setting his food on fire had actually worked.
The rabbit meat was bland without any preparation, however certainly better than eating it raw. He gave himself some silent praise for coming up with such a clever idea.
Despite exhaustion weighing down each of the three, they managed to muster the strength to travel through the burnt remains of the forest. The hot temperatures of the summer sun dried them off well, better than any hairdryer could've done.
Some plants weren't completely gone, they were charred and black, but somewhat still alive. Dipper knew that the forest would grow back in time, lush green would replace charred black, just like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
As time drew by, the ground began to slope upwards, the air getting thinner. Was this a mountain or just a hill? It didn't really matter, because it was steep and difficult to get up. However Primrose lead them on, gaining power as she walked. She would snap at the human boys if they fell too far behind.
"Hey Crescent Moon!" Bill yelled the seventh time Primrose meowed at them to get a move on. "Not all of us have the stamina of a freakin' dragon!"
Crescent Moon? Wasn't that Gruncle Stan's symbol? Or were there more creatures in the world that could take their symbols? Probably, since six fingers weren't that uncommon in the animal kingdom, and Bill had mentioned that Pine Trees, his symbol, were always animals.
It was kinda confusing, since Dipper was a human being, he was sure, and not some kind of mindless animal- no offence to animals. But the fact that many others were capable of fulfilling the symbols of the Cipher Wheel killed the feeling of special destiny Dipper had always felt. And now that he knew that Primrose shared a symbol with Gruncle Stan, that got him thinking. Were all the other townsfolk marked with symbols too?
Primrose however had no knowledge of the Cipher Wheel and its symbols, and was pretty confused on why Bill had called her that. Another weird noise gurgled in her throat, but only for a split second before she turned and continued to snake through the destroyed forest.
"Man she does not listen, does she?" Bill complained, crossing his arms and shaking his head.
"She's just our guide, not our pet," Dipper corrected him. He had been trying to keep his cool for who knew how many hours now, which was no easy feat since Bill was more annoying than Mabel playing Darude:Sandstorm on the kazoo. However he was doing a pretty fine job of it if he does say so himself. "At least we know we're on the right course. If Primrose really does know where Gravity Falls is, then we'll be home faster than it takes to brew up a jug full of Mabel-juice."
Soon the sloping hill ended and levelled, but the ashes of the dark trees also ended too, fading into the echoes of undamaged heather and bracken, which was a nice change from the forest graveyard. Primrose was sitting there on top of the hill, expecting them. She was smiling.
A spring found its way into Dipper's step as he made his way to her, then realised that she was staring off into the distance. He then saw.
They were so high that they could see everything... There was forest as far as eye could see in every direction, the black ashes covering only a mere fraction of it. The rest was so green Dipper had never seen anything like it.
His mouth flopped open like a fish's, not able to describe anything he was seeing. It was beautiful...
However the cloak of beauty only lasted mere seconds. There was not a town in sight, just deciduous trees in east, south, west and north and all the directions in between. The Gravity Falls forest just had pine trees, fir trees; trees with needles. Evergreens and coniferous. Not one was seen...
Bill must've figured that out too, since he was quick to point it out in the form of an offensive snap. Primrose looked appalled at his tone, just like a mother disappointed in her son. For an answer, she pointed north with a wide bat-like wing.
Dipper narrowed his eyes and put a hand above his eyes to get the low sun out of his vision.
There in the distance was dirty white smoke, and his heart leapt. Fire! However upon further inspection he noticed that the smoke was lighter than the wildfire smoke he had spent the previous night in, and it was moving along the horizon. What the heck? Then it dawned on him.
It wasn't a fire. It was train smoke.
Did humanity still use coal-fuelled trains? Perhaps? He had heard that electric trains were quite expensive.
"If we catch that train will it take us to Gravity Falls?" Dipper asked hesitantly, noticing that the land was much darker now and the sun lower. He breathed a sigh of relief when Primrose nodded her head in agreement.
"Wait, what's that?" Bill pointed to the west, turning all attention to something entirely different.
"You've never seen a sunset before?" Dipper questioned, but couldn't help gaze in awe at the horizon. He'd never actually seen a full sunset like this before, the trees and buildings were always blocking his view from a full horizon. The sky had turned orange and red, as if the whole horizon was on fire. The sun was bright, but dimming as it set below the land. The wind started to pick up again, blowing Dipper's hair back away from his face, freshness slapping him in the face. Soon the red melted below the horizon, replaced by dark navy, then black, stars stamped out clearly and the half moon glowing brighter than Dipper had ever seen it glow.
"In all my years I would never have thought..." Bill mumbled under his breath.
They had decided to spend the night out at the top of the heather hill under the stars, where northern lights began to wisp at the sky, not quite blue, not quite green, not quite purple, but an amalgamate of colour that looked like Mabel had spilt multiple tubes of paint over a black canvas.
"You've never seen a sunset before?" Dipper repeated his question once they've finished gathering materials worthy of a campfire and getting all the dry plants away from any possible way of staring another wildfire.
"Of course I have," Bill replied, dumping the few unburnt sticks they had found in the forest below into a neat pile. "Just never appreciated it before I guess." Thoughtfulness flashed through his narrow golden eyes for a split second before he shook it away. "Besides, you gotta admit it was pretty cool and-"
Before he could finish his sentence a great burst of fire was shot towards the bundle of sticks, exploding on impact.
Exploding dragonfire... Dipper had never seen that before.
Primrose made a deep laughing noise in her throat, sitting comfortably on a nest of plants she had made for herself and continued to listen to the boys' conversation.
"Anyways," Bill continued, his face now illuminated in a pale light of orange. "The view here ain't bad. I think I'll leave it alone once the world is mine again. Maybe this dimension was better than I ever gave it credit for and-"
Once again he didn't get to finish what he was saying. A wave a nausea hit him, and he went pale in the face. Maybe even slightly green. His hand flew up to press against his forehead in a lame attempt to make himself feel a little bit better.
"Ugh... why do I feel so... awful...?" he groaned, but only earned a large eyeroll from Dipper, who was not impressed.
Great. Just perfect. "I told you not to eat the meat raw," he snapped at him. "You've gotten yourself food poisoning."
"The what now?" Bill raised both eyebrows, now clutching his stomach.
Dipper rolled his eyes again. "Food poisoning, the aftermath of eating raw meat. I told you about it."
Bill's stomach made an unhappy noise, causing its owner to freak out. "What do I do? Help?"
A faint memory floated up to the front of Dipper's mind. Last year he, Mabel, Soos and Wendy had gotten food poisoning from unknown forest berries, and Ford had made them eat charcoal to ease the bellyache. Maybe that herb trick could work on Bill since he was human too? Now burnt charcoal was everywhere thanks to the wildfire. Maybe some good things would arise from the ashes after all?
He lead the way downhill to the burnt forest, where he began to tare off the charcoal off the trees. Bill wanted to question everything, but kept his mouth tightly shut. Eventually he couldn't resist asking.
"What are you doing?"
Dipper shrugged. "If you had taken my sister's power to turn yourself human, then it might be possible for you to share many biological characteristics with her. Mabel has a pretty strong immune system, so by that logic, so should you."
Bill looked more confused than he was before.
"And I'm picking charcoal off the trees because it helps with bellyache," Dipper continued in his smart-voice. "Mabel and I used to get poisoned all the time, and Great Uncle Ford would always make us eat charcoal to soothe the pain."
"Wait Sixer gave you burnt wood? Was he trying to kill you?"
"Eat," Dipper changed the subject, thrusting the burnt black wood into Bill's hands. He looked at the charcoal he was offered then at Dipper and back again.
"You really expect me to eat burnt wood?"
Dipper nodded his head.
Bill narrowed his eyes in suspicion, trying to decide whether Dipper was trying to poison him further or genuinely help. "You're lucky I feel absolutely horrible," he said while he popped the charcoal into his mouth hesitantly.
"If you weren't feeling horrible you wouldn't have to eat it," Dipper remarked.
Bill shrugged and mumbled "Touché." He swallowed and examined himself, expecting some magic to happen. "Why is nothing happening?"
What an idiot.
"I said it will help, not that it will cure you," said Dipper. "In reality it will take a few days for you to recover."
"A few days!" Bill spat.
"A few days," Dipper repeated emotionlessly. "Got any other problems other than your overall stupidity?"
Anger flared in Bill's eyes turning them red for a split second. If he still had his demon powers, Dipper would be scared, but no fear was felt.
This wasn't gonna end well.
Primrose made a lion-like roar from the top of the uncharted wold, warning them both not to escalate things any further, but there was no need. Bill had already rushed into the cover of the burnt trees to make an awfully loud vomiting noise.
"Well that's disgusting," Dipper mumbled under his breath and turned to see Primrose padding down towards him, her usually bright amber scales shining a dark silver in the moonlight. "Bill's gotten himself food poisoning," he told her as she sat down next to him. "I told him not to eat the meat raw."
They both listened for a few moments to Bill struggling, both pulling overrated disgust faces. "That's why I asked you to set mine on fire," Dipper continued speaking to drown out the awful sickness noises. "It seems Bill has absolute jack shit knowledge when it comes to human biology. He had been in human bodies before, notably mine- long story not worth explaining- but to my knowledge he's never really survived as one. He'd just ditch his vessel once it's been damaged enough."
Primrose gave him her full attention, her long ear flicked to let him know that she was impressed. But Bill's reaction to Dipper's smartness was less on the encouraging side.
"Oh shut up Pine Tree, you hardly know anything..." His voice was frail and weak, which didn't suit the former god of chaos.
"I am a thirteen-year-old boy bound to a demon with a dragon as a guide; your argument is invalid," Dipper called back, not letting him win any more arguments.
"Listen here you little shit," Bill snapped as forcefully as he could. "I am an all-powerful demon of pure energy and no weaknesses, you have no idea who you're messing with-"
He was interrupted by another round of intense vomit. Bill's threats achieved nothing more than a roll of eyes from both the boy and the dragon. Even Primrose was getting tired of Bill's ignorance.
"Bill you're human!" Dipper told him flat out straight. "You've got food poisoning! We nearly died in a fire and you nearly drowned! Face the facts, you're human for good! A real, mortal, human being!"
"THAT'S IT FUCKER I'M COMING OVER THERE!" Bill yelled angrily, a red glow erupting from the depths of the burnt black forest. Bill bounded over to him, his usually calm golden eyes now glowing a threatening bloody scarlet, giving off some sort of red gas in his fury. He looked slightly cross... scratch that- he looked very, unbelievably raging furious.
Dipper fell back onto his behind and shuffled to get away from him, the truth finally dawning on him. Bill had gone into a rage.
Accidents can happen when one goes into a rage. All reasoning is forgotten, anger blinding any logical sight. Friends can kill friends. Family can hurt family. Enemies can destroy enemies.
Bill may have been stripped of his powers, but that didn't mean he was harmless. Humans were dangerous even without a murderous past.
When Bill leapt at him, he looked like a golden red-eyed wolf going for the kill. Life flashed before Dipper's eyes as he screamed, arms flying up to shield himself from the threat. He waited for the blow that would end both of their lives.
But it never came.
He opened his eyes a fraction, only to see Bill lifted off the ground by the back of his shirt collar. He swung his arms and wailed at Primrose to let him go, but the dragoness had an iron grip. She had no idea about the curse, but no morally sane person would just stand by and watch someone hurt someone if they could do something about it.
Her tail was lashing in slight annoyance and she looked to Dipper. There was no animal naiveness shown in her this time, just disappointment. She swept her tail over Dipper, leading him back to the camp, Bill still dangling from her jaws.
Usually Dipper would object to being treated like this, but when the one treating you like a child is a massive, agitated predator dragon, you tended to keep your mouth shut and pad after them with your tail between your legs.
By the time they had made it back to the crackling campfire, all the dangerous red vanished from Bill's eyes like mist disappearing into thin air. Instead he gave in and allowed himself to be carried like a little kitten- he was too exhausted, too tired and too sick to complain any longer. Dipper himself trudged at Primrose's ankle, scared to say anything else. He knew he should be glad that this creature was his friend and not his foe, but now he wasn't too sure.
Bill had tried to kill him twice now, and who knew, maybe he would succeed after so many tries. Maybe he had lied about the 'if I die, you die' thing to keep Dipper from changing his mind and killing him instead? Bill was not above lying, he knew that all too well.
The warmth of the fire was comforting, this time the plants safely out of harm's way. Primrose lay Bill down on the soft heather and bracken tenderly, as if laying a glass ornament on bubble wrap. He was confused, shocked even, that he had been treated in such a way. He wasn't used to being treated like that, that was for sure.
Neither was Dipper, actually. His own mother had never yelled, not even when he really deserved it. She just became deathly sweet and thought out cruel punishments depending on what they've done, usually a ban on all electronics- for Dipper- or to sit in a corner all alone, not allowed to move or speak- for Mabel. Now Primrose, she was harsh and to the point, not afraid to roar and jump into action when needed. He had no idea which one to classify as a more motherly response to the current situation, but he was more used to his own mother's parental ways.
Dipper took to reassuring himself to get to sleep.
At least they knew where they were heading. The train wasn't that far off- a few days travel at best. And now all that mattered was to sleep with one eye open, because his trust in his companions was dimming quickly.
Mabel was never a strict timekeeper, but she had been keeping an exact time record of the time Dipper had been gone.
Eighty-one hours... eighteen minutes... and eight seconds...
Eighty-one hours... eighteen minutes... and nine seconds...
Eighty-one hours... eighteen minutes... and ten seconds...
The dream she had a few nights ago had scared the living daylights out of her. It was so real! As if she had really stood there in that ring of fire, really felt the heat on her skin and inhaled all that smoke. Her lungs still hurt, causing her to cough once or twice, but as the hours, minutes and seconds snailed by, it gradually wore off on its own.
For some strange reason, she was convinced that Dipper, wherever he was, had been in contact with some big fire. She could feel it in her veins.
The knock on the door was less than welcoming, since the Mystery Shack was "closed for repairs" to ward off any human socialisation for the troubled family. Usually Mabel would go around being a social butterfly, but now unwanting was beating along with her blood. She didn't want to see anyone right now. Neither did Ford, apparently, since he was fast asleep at the kitchen table, drooling on his work.
He had pulled out all his remaining loose notes combined with the Journal Three photocopies Stan had made and had took it upon himself to remind himself of everything he'd learned about Bill Cipher. It was weighing on him emotionally, since he, like the rest of them, just wanted to move on and forget about Bill.
"Somebody answer that door!" came Stan's call from the next room.
Mabel sighed with irritation and pushed herself to her feet. "I'll get it..." she called back unenthusiastically. The door swung open effortlessly on its rusting hinges for the first time that day.
"Hey Mabel!" The vibrant blonde had a cheerful smile on her face, her ice-blue eyes twinkling in the cloudlight. "Are you ready to..." Pacifica's voice trailed off when she saw the untidy, depressed state Mabel was in. "Are you okay?"
For once, Mabel had no idea how to answer a question. Her whole being started to shake. How could she answer a question like that? Simple three words.
Pacifica herself looked still as dazzling as she always had, a thick layer of make-up plastered onto her face with purple eyeshadow the exact colour of a ripe plum. Her hair was the colour of desert sand which flowed like water behind her, and a rose pink designer outfit was draped over her shoulders. Mabel, though she would never admit it, was always a little jealous at how Pacifica dressed, right from the moment she first saw her. Now though, Pacifica's designer clothes didn't spark up the usual wanting in Mabel's gut as it did in the past.
"I don't know anymore..." was the only answer Mabel was mildly comfortable with. She knew Pacifica was a great friend of Dipper's too, since he had helped her overcome some issue, she didn't really pay attention when Dipper told her all about it- she was already thinking out her next match-making mission, which Dipper put a stop to before it got too far. How would Pacifica react when Mabel told her the truth?
"Do you need anything?" Pacifica asked hesitantly after a short awkward silence. "Is there anything I can get you?" Did Mabel really need anything?
Soup? Glittery Smile Dip? Or maybe something else? Like the comfort of a friend?
"Can you just stay here?" Mabel sighed slowly and gestured the busted-up sofa on the porch.
They sat on the soft, ragged brown sofa, the springs creaking and resisting against the weight of the two girls. It jingled with the sound of stray coins she and Dipper had hidden there from Stan in case of emergency at the start of this holiday. In case of emergency... shame they couldn't help her now.
"Can you tell me what happened?" Pacifica pressed curiously. "It's okay if you don't want to tell," she added hastily.
Mabel's head slowly lolled onto her friend's shoulder, not even bothering to drag her long brown hair off her face. Pacifica, being the girly girl that she was, brushed Mabel's hair tenderly behind her ear and listened helplessly to the fast rate of Mabel's heartbeat.
"Bill's back."
Pacifica stiffened in shock, her muscles tensed up. "What? How?"
Mabel found herself shaking her head. She didn't want to go through telling the horrifying story again. She still felt its acid on her tongue from when she had told her family everything... everything she remembered. Her memories of the event broke off with a sting of pain at the side of her head.
"I don't... I can't... It was awful..." was all she managed to say. Pacifica ran her delicate fingers through Mabel's hair gently, realising that Mabel was in a state of shock. She tried her best to flip things around to a brighter side.
"Hey, we've beaten him before, we can beat him again!" she assured her cheerfully. "Maybe Mr. Ford's plan with the whole wheel thing could work this time. I can gather everyone and we can get to work!"
Usually it was Mabel who was this optimistic, but she shook her head again, pressing herself closer to her friend.
"That won't work," she croaked weakly. "Dipper's gone missing."
"Dipper's what!?"
Pacifica reacted just like Mabel predicted she would react. A small electric shock went through Mabel's right shoulder, but she didn't even flinch. It was probably static shock, nothing to worry about.
Pacifica didn't seem to notice, she was too caught up in trying to comprehend anything Mabel had just said to her. It was no secret that Pacifica was very emotionally attached to both of the Pines twins, and sometimes required both of their attention constantly.
"Mabel does the shack have a bathroom?" she asked, trying hard not to cry because of her foundation and heavy make-up.
Mabel shrugged matter-of-factly. "I live here. We don't take a piss out in the forest."
Her blonde friend managed a dry laugh before following Mabel's directions into the shack.
So Mabel was left alone again. A pain in her shoulder began to grow again, then fall, then grown again. It was exactly where Bill had struck her that day when she set him free. Was this a sign of him getting stronger? As Ford had said, there could be side effects to Bill's influence, whether he was human or not.
She was suddenly aware of everything going on around her, then nothing, as if she was floating in a vast emptiness. Why did she suddenly feel so sleepy? Her eyelids closed under the weight of tiredness. Mabel snapped open her eyes, but it was no longer the porch at the Mystery Shack.
It was just an empty black sky full of stars and a pretty half-moon, atop a hill full of heather and bracken. The wind slapped her in the face, making her whole being shiver. Mabel inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the cold, fresh air. There was the distant sound of a crackling fire, but no light came, only darkness.
Now Mabel was indeed clever enough to know that with fire came light and heat, Dipper had taught her that during a physics class she had snoozed through. But it was still dark and very, very cold.
Where was she...?
Before she could wrap her head around what she was seeing, thunder crashed and a sting of white lightening reached down from the cloudless sky and hit the high hill, causing Mabel to open her eyes again.
So it was just a dream again, just like the one with fire. But, just like the one with fire, it seemed so real. Her lungs were still cold from breathing in the cool night air, and the goosebumps that appeared on her legs and arms were beginning to disappear thanks to the summer day heat.
Now that she remembered, this little dream and that other nightmare had more in common than met the eyes. She was convinced that her first weird nightmare had lightening apart from fire, which caused her to wake up. She may be wrong, as Mabel often was wrong, but right now she couldn't be wrong.
Pacifica was probably still in the bathroom, and would be for the longer period. The rich girl was known to lament for a long time, and Mabel had put a timer on the last time Pacifica locked herself in a cubicle, and a record of a half-hour.
So Mabel stood to her feet and trudged back into the Mystery Shack kitchen, where Ford was still asleep on his own work. Tired was he, like all the other Pines. Poor thing.
If anyone was to know about strange dream anomalies, it was Great Uncle Ford. He'd spent a great portion of his life studying, researching the wonders of the supernatural, so he was the best person to turn to with a problem like this.
"Great Uncle Ford," Mabel whined lowly, poking him gently in the cheek. "Great Uncle Ford, wake up!"
"Ughuhuhwha...?" Ford yawned and raised his head from his papers. Bags were under his eyes and his familiar face looked more exhausted than Mabel had ever seen it.
"Great Uncle Ford, I need your help," Mabel said to him, eyeing the jug of coffee next to the sink. "What do you know about dreams?"
However Ford was unable to answer her past the fact that he was still deeply asleep inside. Thankfully there was a solution. Mabel poured a big mug of the mud-coloured drink and poured it into Ford's half-open mouth. Her great uncle swallowed with great difficulty past the breath he was taking, coughed a few times to ease off. Now he was awake, fully.
"Mabel? Mabel what are you doing?"
Mabel put down the mug of coffee onto the table and looked Ford dead in the eye. "What do you know about dreams Great Uncle Ford?"
Her question seemed to electrify the forgotten spark inside her great uncle, which seemed to light up his droopy grey/brown eyes with a light that definitely wasn't reflected. Like phoenix rising from the ashes, life seemed to seep back into him.
"Oh gosh, where to start?" Ford rambled instantly, rummaging through his notes and looking for something among his rubbish. "There are different things that dreams can bring, oh my. What are you asking about? Unicorn dreams? 80's towns?"
To his surprise Mabel shook her head. "Those dreams that feel like real life," she explained calmly, trying not to go off into unimportant tangents like she usually did. "I've had two now. One with fire, and the other one with a sky full of stars."
Ford nodded his head solemnly, unearthing a notebook from beneath the piles and piles of paper. He flipped it open and took out a pen that was tangled in his grey hair.
"Describe the first one you had," he commanded.
What did she remember from her first dream? All she remembered clearly was fire, the smoke she thought she inhaled disoriented her and made her eyes water, which shouldn't be possible in the dream world. She didn't mention the lightening, since that wasn't a certainty, but Ford looked awfully shocked at what she was describing in great detail.
Mabel always had potential for a great storyteller. For someone so young, so hyperactive, so carefree like her, when Mabel told stories, she spoke like an adult. Maybe it was because she spent so much time with Dipper and grown-ups, or maybe it was just because she was related to Stan, who was also told excellent stories.
Eventually she finished telling him about the second one, the one she'd just had, and no more sound came from her mouth. The shack went so quiet that the only sound was the friction of pen against paper.
Ford nodded, then bit the top of his pen, then nodded again. His eyes stared off into blank space, blinking and seeing, but not registering what he saw. Mabel's words had made an impact on him.
"Well?" Mabel asked after a while of silence. Ford nodded his head again and stood to his feet.
He told her to stay put and not move, then rushed out of the room, leaving Mabel behind more confused than she already was. The distant sound of the vending machine opening rang round the house.
Ford returned after a brief moment, carrying more equipment than a man his age ever could. A monitor, or a rectangular device that looked like it. Wires, many of them reaching out from the devices like tubes of red, blue and green liquorice. There was a shady briefcase that if it were Gruncle Stan's, it would be filled with either money or robbing equipment. If Mabel knew anything about her Gruncle, was that he should be playable in GTA.
"What are... those?" Mabel asked as Ford began to set the stuff up on any free surface he could find, and soon the kitchen was stuffed with so many things you'd have to be a parkour master or a ninja to get through it without breaking something in some way.
"Equipment I haven't used in quite a while," replied Ford, unhelpfully. "I have seen a situation like this before, Mabel. Let me ask you another question; did Bill harm you and Dipper at the same time when you two were close by each other?"
Oh great, another question that required her to think about that awful day. However the pain in her healing shoulder seared as if she had just received it yesterday, reminding her of how Bill's sharp cane had tore through their shoulders as Dipper threw himself into harm's way. Ford only nodded when Mabel told him that. He had that smug look on his face when he was right about something. He continued to ask her questions, which only one stood out to her. If she had any dreams about dying.
She did have those dreams whenever she had come across that mechanical tree in the forest, the one that was the entrance to the terrifying bunker. But Mabel wouldn't be her human self, she would have wings, and beautiful birdsong would escape her beak. The dream would be the same every time. Every time she would perch on one of the cold metal branches, sing the same song, and then hear the gunshot that would cause her to return to the waking world.
But Ford didn't dwell on the questions for too long. The monitor sprung to life after a full five minutes of fiddling with wires. Before Mabel knew it, it was already wired up to a full chemistry set that looked like a drunk four-year-old had set it up. How Stanford managed to work equipment like this was a mystery to Mabel.
"Now I'm gonna need a sample of your blood."
The blood Ford was asking for froze in their veins. Mabel bit her lip and nodded her head reluctantly. It was over quicker than it started, and Mabel was already pressing a small ball of cotton wool to the crook of her elbow while Ford proceeded to analyse it through the over-complicated spherical glass beakers and tubes.
"What's going on?"
Pacifica had decided to come out of the toilet, only to see the absolute mess that ruled the kitchen. Her surprised expression was priceless, but the closer you looked, you could see two streaming tear-tracks embedded into her foundation. Poor thing...
"Great Uncle Ford's checking my blood," Mabel told her, propping herself up to sit among the piles of paper on the round wooden kitchen table. "Maybe I have some powers I haven't unlocked yet. MABEL SUPERPOWERS ACTIVATE!" She threw her good arm into the air into a superhero pose, in which she stayed for a few moments until she realised that maybe she didn't have blunt superhero powers after all.
Pacifica sat next to her and rested her head onto Mabel's shoulder, letting her bright blonde hair droop over her face. They both looked on as Ford worked with the red liquid. He read the readings on the monitor once or twice, then returned to scribble on his notepad. He would mumble under his breath, the word 'curious' coming up more than once.
"Mabel, there's some blood there that does not belong to you," Ford finally announced. "Looks like when Bill harmed both you and Dipper, some of his blood found its way into you, and some of your blood found its way into him."
"That's creepy," Pacifica told them her shiver passing onto Mabel, who looked at her shoulder and then back again.
"IT'S COOL!" Mabel cheered with a mad tic in her eyes. "What does that mean?" she added as she cocked her head to the side.
"I have seen two people exchange blood before," Ford told the girls. "Those people have moved away from Gravity Falls, but I have written about them in my first journal. Those people could dream about the other's location and situation and wellbeing. When one was in danger, the other would be notified of it and vice versa." He tapped his six-fingered fist against the monitor, causing it to flicker then erupt with a brighter light. "This new ability could be useful, but one thing's nagging me."
"Which is?"
"The lightening. It's uncanny, unnatural. It's trying to tell you something, yet I don't know what."
Ever since Mabel had discovered her blood-connection with her twin, she had been trying to dream about him every night. Where he was, how he was doing... anything that could tell her that he was somewhere close to home, or at least safe. But no realistic dreams came to her. It was as if the dream power couldn't be summoned on purpose, which only added to the unhelpful.
It was disappointing. Finally Mabel could have a link to her brother, but most of the time it didn't even work.
Many nights had passed, dreamless, only causing Mabel's frustration to grow.
However a third dream came to her a week and a bit later, on a starless night which was only lit by the slightly-more-than-half-moon. It came unexpectedly, because inside Mabel had given up on trying to summon her dream power.
But this dream differed so much from the first two. It gave no feeling of hot or cold. It gave no sights of fire or stars. There was no lightening or thunder. And there was no air in her lungs.
However that in itself seemed to be a problem. Her lungs burned and screamed for air to the point where it hurt so much that Mabel tried to cry out in pain along with two streaming tear-tracks, but no noise emerged from her throat.
She lifted her head with great difficulty to try one last time to gasp for even the tiniest molecule of oxygen. No luck, her windpipe was blocked, her eyes blurry.
But the blur in her vision did not prevent her from seeing a pair of cold, shining, evil, yellow, golden eyes staring her in the face. Everything was clear in them. Fury... Hatred... Bloodlust...
Mabel sat up as if electrified, the nightmare fading away into the safe, dark attic. She took many, many upon many gasps to replenish the oxygen that had been torn away from her in the dream realm, never thankful as much as now for the cool night air she could breathe.
However the relief of her lungs didn't even last a nanosecond. It wasn't her that couldn't breathe, but someone else.
"DIPPER!"
