Grey. Soft shadows and suffused light all around. The feeling of mist against his skin. He drifts through the atmosphere, just flotsam in the universe.
The mystery shack here is in ruins, blown apart and coated still in scorch marks and dust. Dipper reaches out with one fingertip to drag it along the charred end of a fallen beam as he floats through, knocking a piece of the charcoal loose. All is silence.
Other things are here, too. A sweater floats past — in real life it would have been pink. There's a framed picture of Waddles. Over there, a binder covered in star stickers. A leaf blower. A disposable camera. Even an old rowing boat, which tipped at an angle as it floated over the roof, almost catching on the shingles. Everything drifting.
Dipper sighs and closes his eyes. At least here, in dreams, he can't feel.
"Well, well, well!" A grating static voice intrudes on his mind, ripping his peace apart. "Look who's come back to Gravity Falls!"
Dipper's eyes fly open. Everything around him experiences the invention of gravity and crashes, silently, to the floor of the burned-out shack. Dipper's feet anchor there, too, standing him up tall.
Bill, glowing bright yellow against the monochromatic grey, appears in a swirl of color.
"Bill!" Dipper snarls.
"Zzzzzzz!" Bill makes a shrill buzzer sound. "Wrong!"
Dipper has no patience for this. This is his space, and Bill is the intruder here. Dipper is no novice at dreaming. "Get out of mY HEAD!" Flames appear on Dipper's arms, licking their way over his shirt; hot, red, rageful, bent on destruction.
Bill backs away, his arms up. For a flicker of a moment, he looks really alarmed, but the next instant, it's covered up by an expression of amusement. "Whoa, hey kid! Is that any way to greet an old friend?"
Dipper's teeth grow sharp, but he grinds them down. "We're not friends, Bill."
"Oh, you wound me, Pine Tree, you truly do." Bill sinks and comes to rest against one of the shack's crumbling walls, his spindle legs crossed. "I just came by to say hello, and—" He disappears and reappears at Dipper's shoulder with a pop! and a bow. "Wellllllcome back to Gravity Falls!"
Dipper spins around to face the dream demon again. "Leave me alone!"
"Hoooooooooooo boy, you sure are cranky." Bill turns his hand up, pretending to inspect fingernails that he doesn't have. His voice is too light and casual. "Guess you miss old Shooting Star, huh?"
Dipper freezes, hands still clenched. Everything in him goes cold. "What?" He sputters. "What do you know about — what could you — WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO DO WITH MABEL'S DEATH?!"
Bill ducks Dipper's swinging fists effortlessly, spinning a couple times like a fortune wheel. "Easy, I had nothing to do with it," he reassures, slowing and raising his hands. "That was allllll you."
Dipper can't actually cry in the dreamscape. Doesn't keep his throat from stopping up with a lump. "I swear to God—" He chokes.
Bill, in a rare show of good sense, backs off, hands behind his back. "Alright, alright, I'll get going. I've got lots of other things to be doing anyway. I'm a very busy triangle, you know!" He winks. Or blinks. Something about the eye-twitch says 'wink' to Dipper. "Oh, and before I go, one more thing: better keep your eyes open, Pine Tree! With you back in town," here, Bill nudges a cocky elbow against Dipper's dream shoulder, "things are gonna get verrrrrrrry interesting around here again."
Dipper swipes at him. "What does that mea—"
"Okie dokie then! See ya later!" Bill salutes. A wind kicks up, blowing like a storm, setting everything around them swirling. "And remember — the universe is a hologram, life is meaningless, don't forget to accrue wealth! Byyyyyye!"
"Bill—!" With a burst of cold, everything disappears.
Dipper is in the middle of the midnight forest, alone and freezing and lying on the ground, heart pounding in this throat. Hands scrambling, feet kicking out to search for the ground, he is up and running without stopping to think, to look around, to figure out where he is. All he knows is get away get away get away, and the cold night air in his face, and the tree branches that whip his skin. There is no light to see where he is going; only dark, the stars hidden by the towering tree tops.
Bill is back. He's back and he's up to something, because Bill would never appear like that, would never come to Dipper unless he had something else he wanted, some ulterior motive, some trick hidden up his sleeve that he needed Dipper for. And while Dipper didn't agree to anything, he knows that Bill knows him well enough to expect this. This might be exactly what Bill wanted: Dipper upset and panicking by himself, on edge and watchful now.
He doesn't stop running. His breath comes hard, harsh, desperate. Gasping. His skin is too hot, and he's sticky with sweat. His legs begin to ache and his lungs burn, but he keeps going. His brain feels fuzzy, filled with crackling static like a dead radio channel, and it takes him a while to realize that he's lost.
Where am I? Where are Wendy, and Soos? He knows these woods like the back of his hands, he's been through them so many times before, but now he doesn't know down from up, left from right.
His foot catches on a tree root and sends him crashing to the ground, skidding across the pine needles. Pain shoots up his leg. Instead of getting up again, he sags into the ground, waiting until his breathing and heart rate slows and the pain fades into a dull throb. Tired, he curls up, tucks his head between his knees, and tries to breathe evenly. He's cold, tired, in pain, alone, and hopelessly lost in the middle of the forest at night.
The best thing he can do right now is wait until morning to try to find his way back.
The last thing he wants is to sleep. The thought of seeing Bill again knots up his stomach, makes him feel sick, and now he won't be able to visit his own mindscape for a while without it being tarnished by the memories of Bill there. This is his worst fear: feeling unsafe even in his own mind. He tries to keep himself awake, pinching at his cheeks to keep alert, but he has no energy left.
Curled up among dry pine needles, he black outs.
"Morning, sleepyhead!"
A clanging of metal pots rouses Dipper from deep sleep. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he turns over to glare at the source of the noise. Wendy is making camp coffee in a saucepan and kettle; boiling water in one and mixing it with sugar, coffee beans, and syrup in the other. Soos is sitting at the flap of his tent, pulling on his socks sleepily.
Wendy gives him a sly smile. "Well look who's awake."
"I'm…" Confused, Dipper peers around.
He's lying, face down, on the ground, not two feet from the open flap of his tent. He's still wearing the clothing he had on the night before, covered now in a layer of thick forest earth, and the same earth is smudge across his face. He puts his hands up and feels scratches across his cheeks, the kind left behind by whipping tree branches. His hands are scraped up, too.
"So, mind telling us why you took so long to come back last night? And why you decided to sleep on the ground instead of your sleeping bag?" Wendy motions toward Dipper's unused sleeping bag.
He's back at the camp.
He sits bolt upright and stares around, but it's real; he's definitely back at the camp, as though he never left, sitting next to the campfire between Wendy and Soos and his own tent. There's a steady fire crackling and the water in the coffee pot is bubbling away. A bit of morning chill is still in the air. His leg is fine, just a bit sore.
"I don't…know…" he says slowly. Then, more quietly to himself, "I don't understand."
