Okay this is a long one, but not the last one!
Mabel ran for what seemed like hours, although she never tired. She had to keep remembering she was in a dream, and avoided looking off the path. The clouds now covered every scrap of night sky, and there were no more stars to guide her.
"It's your dream, Dip," she whispered to herself. "Help me find you..."
She heard the weak crack of his voice from the distance, but it seemed to come from every direction. She kept moving.
"Watch for the star!" she said, daring to speak a little louder. Give me a sign, she urged mentally.
Something in the middle of the endless path slowed her to a trot, then a walk. Mabel approached the object slowly. It could be a trick. But it was small and dim in the twilight, and she had to get close to see it.
It was Dipper's hat.
Mabel's first inclination was to gasp, but she choked it down. Poker face, Mabel, poker face, she told herself. The slightest hint of fear and whatever was trying to torment her would take hold again. She crouched down, but didn't touch the head wear. It was facing away from Mabel, and slightly to the right, the brim pointing off the path and into the trees. Holding her breath, Mabel touched the well-worn object. When nothing happened, she dared to pick it up. She held it in her hands for a moment, as if trying to weigh it. She told herself she would know, know if it was Dipper's. She ran her fingers along the edge of the brim and around the inside. The inside label was worn completely away from so much wear, and there was a fray starting on the left edge of the brim from where Dipper always tugged it. The white was still pretty clean, and the stitching on the blue pine tree was immaculate. Mabel was conflicted...she knew this dream was good at creating convincing fakes. VERY convincing. Still, Mabel looked at the hat tenderly...Dipper. She ran her fingers over the blue pine tree...the Pine Tree...
*Don't cry, Mabel, it's okay..."
"Th-they huu-uuurtt!"
"Aw, it's alright sis" said Dipper, sitting on Mabel's bed in her room. Dipper looked at the walls, plastered with posters of tacky boybands, and hid his usual shudder for the sake of comforting his sister. Mabel wiped her eyes, only to have her cheeks wetted almost instantly again by the next flow of tears. She hid her mouth behind the collar of her biggest, blackest sweater.
"Can you at least let me see?" Dipper asked gently. Mabel quivered for a moment longer before finally lowering the collar and exposing her teeth in a painful grimace.
"Whoa! Those are awesome!" Dipper said enthusiastically. Mabel hid in her sweater again.
"No they're not. That's just what people who don't need braces say to people who do."
"Come on, I'm serious. They're cool."
Mabel said nothing, but stared at Dipper morosely. Finally, she spoke, her words mumbled as her lips navigated around the new metal attachments to her teeth. "I hate them. And I hate that I even need them...why did I get the bad teeth genes?" Dipper shrugged.
"Luck of the draw, I guess. Do they...um...hurt bad?"
"Yes!" Mabel sobbed. "Mom was gonna drop me off at school after but my mouth feels like there's a whole lawn mower in there. I couldn't even eat a banana for lunch. Plus." Mabel said, blushing, "I look like a dork."
"Mabel, you ARE a dork. That's why everyone loves you," Dipper smiled at his sister, and Mabel sniffed. "Listen, your teeth are gonna look amazing in a few years, and when mine have started rotting and growing out of my nose you'll be the one having to feed me mushed banana and you can laugh your way into the nicest, funnest parties where only people with super straight teeth can go and crooked, gap-toothed monsters like me'll hafta beg in the gutter for scraps. 'Oh, please, please have mercy, you people of the wonderous gnashers! Give us but a crumb of your elegant dinner!' " Dipper talked with his lips around his teeth like an old man, and he could see Mabel trying to hide her growing smile at Dipper's jokes. "Until then," he continued, "you'll just have to amuse yourself picking up radio signals from secret government transitions on that half-pound of metal you got in there."
"Dipper!" Mabel giggled, throwing a pillow at him, but she looked excited at the prospect of unlocking a government conspiracy. Downstairs, their parents called them to dinner, and Mabel gave Dipper a thankful hug before the two trotted downstairs, with Dipper promising to eat only mashed potatoes for a week in solidarity.
Mabel jolted out of the dream within a dream with a shock. Her heart hurt with the memory...Dipper's memory...but she forced herself not to cry. She gripped the hat tightly, and turned to walk through the trees where the brim had directed her. Her feet snapped fallen twigs but no sound seemed to echo around her. With each step, she saw the strange glowing blue and green lights grow brighter, and soon the endless trees started to thin. After another few paces, Mabel could make out a clearing, and saw a lumpy shadow laying in the middle of it. Her heart beat so hard she thought it would escape her chest. She inched closer, keeping in the trees, when suddenly, the heap groaned.
"Ma...bel..."
Mabel ran forward. Dipper! She had found him!
Grunkle Stan lay a hand on Mabel's forehead. It was hot, but not as hot as Dipper, who was twitching as short seizures gripped him for a few seconds at a time.
"Hurry, kid, get 'im outta there," he urged.
Just as he spoke, Dipper's tense body relaxed. Wendy stepped forward.
"Look," she said, pointing.
Dipper and Mabel's eyes fluttered in exact synchronization. Their eyes moved around under their lids in complete tandem.
"I think they're together...in the dream," Wendy ventured. Grunkle Stan nodded, but he spoke darkly.
"Maybe so, but they don't have much time. Either of 'em. If they don't get out soon..." the old man drifted off, and turned his face away from the teen at his elbow.
"What?" Wendy asked, fearing the answer.
"We'll...we'll lose 'em."
Wendy felt the breath leave her body. Grunkle Stan hid his shining eyes, and stared down at Dipper, dripping with sweat, surrounded by sopping blankets.
"Mabel..." he croaked softly. "...nooo..."
"Dipper! Dipper!" Mabel ran to her brother's crumpled form, dropped the hat, and lifted his head and chest in her arms. He groaned. He wasn't warm to the touch. Dream Dipper didn't have a fever. But he was in a bad way. He had no shoes, his blue shorts and orange t-shirt were ripped and stained with mud and dried blood. He was covered in cuts, scratches, and bruises. His eyes were closed.
"Dipper, it's me!" Mabel cried, giddy and scared all at the same time. "Wake up, it's me, Mabel!"
Dipper flinched. "Mab...el...?" His eyes creased open, his left one opening as much as the dark bruise around it would allow. At first, his soft eyes scanned Mabel's face, and relief washed over Mabel's brother's pained face. But then, his eyes widened, and he started screaming.
"No! Mabel! No! You have to get out of here!" He flailed in a panic, trying to sit up, but too weak to do so. Mabel tried to hold him still and comfort him.
"Dipper it's okay! It's just a dream! Wake up and everything will be okay," she said, but something about Dipper's wild face scared her to her very core.
"No, Mabel, run! Go! GET OUT OF HERE, THEY'RE COMING!"
"What?"
"IT'S A TRAP! MABEL, GO, PLEASE!" Suddenly, Dipper was yanked out of Mabel's grasp, as if tied with an unseen rope. It dangled the screaming Pine boy a few feet in the air, Mabel staring up in shock and horror at the spectacle. It slammed Dipper into a tree several times.
"Dipper!" Mabel screamed, running towards the edge of the clearing where Dipper was pinned by the unseen forces to the tree.
"MABEL, NO, NOOOO! GET AWAY FROM HERE!"
"I won't leave you!" she cried.
"MABEL! GET OU-" but something invisible hit Dipper in the face with such force it jerked his head to the side. Dipper fell silent, his head drooping over his chest, and blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"Get away from him!" Mabel screamed, although she wasn't sure at what. She tried to run forward, but something grabbed her feet. She looked down.
It was the gnomes. But not the cute, slightly annoying gnomes from Mabel's Norman-adventure...they were horrifying...their flesh was pallid and their eyes completely black. They moaned like zombies as they tugged Mabel's socks and pulled at her shoes. Mabel kicked her flats off, sending some of the gnomes crashing to the other side of the clearing. A sound turned the girl around. From the misty, dark forest, now pulsating with a sickly green colour, every monster and foe the Pine twins had faced since coming to Gravity Falls emerged, but each was a more terrifying version. The manotaurs foamed at the mouth, the ghosts of the shop clerks weaved in and out of the trees with gaping holes instead of eyes or mouths. Two sea monsters, one real and oozing, the other a metal behemoth sending vicious sparks through the air, broke the trees as they lumbered slowly towards the clearing. Blendin Blandin stumbled forwards, covered with what looked like blood, his camouflage outfit changing through a series of hellish nightmarescapes. Lil' Gideon shuffled forward, arms outstretched, moaning, eyes rolled back in his head and bloody footprints following behind. A small golden triangle, Bill, laughed as it vanished and reappeared in the tree tops. Each horrific creature rambled, zombie-like, and Mabel was frozen with horror. Above her head, a huge black triangle floated down, and its singular red, gold, and white lidless eye glared at her. Other smaller shadowy triangles floated up from the trees.
"We've been waiting for youuuu, Shooting Star," the large triangle taunted. Its voice was surprisingly soft, as if it finally achieved what it had calmly been waiting for.
"Get away from him!" Mabel screamed, trying to reach Dipper again. The monsters closed in and drove her back from her twin.
"I'm not scared of you!"
"Oh yes you aaaare," said the shape again. "And because you're scared, you'll do as I saaaaay."
"Never!" shouted Mabel, gritting her teeth and running straight through one of the ghosts, making her blood turn to a sickening ice inside of her. Mabel managed to stagged to Dipper where he was lashed to the tree by unseen bonds.
"Mabel...noooo..." he uttered.
"Dipper, please, please wake up!" she pleaded, grabbing her brother's bruised cheeks. His eyes opened again, and his face was gripped with the same terror.
"MABEL! NOOOOO!"
Mabel felt something grab her from behind, tipping her onto her stomach. She heard Dipper screaming hoarsely as she was dragged through the dirt into the center of the clearing by the same invisible force that bound her brother. It hoisted her into the air and smashed her to the ground, where Mabel felt something snap. She yelped with pain and Dipper sobbed, struggling weakly against his bonds. Mabel was pummeled several times into the dirt, and tasted blood and saw it run into her eyes.
"MABEL! NO PLEASE, PLEASE GOD NO!"
The manotaurs grabbed one of each of Mabel's limbs and held her taught several feet above the ground, Mabel screaming as one gripped her broken arm. The triangle hovered above her, shimmering through Mabel's tears. Dipper continued to beg from his place of capture.
"NOOOOOOO! MABEEEEEEL!"
"SILENCE, PINE TREE! Shooting Star, you can make all this pain go away. Yours, your brother's, even your uncle's. All you have to do is give me your body. Be a good girl, and I'll make it all go away."
Mabel was nearly catatonic with pain and shock. She stared up at the shape hovering over her, wordless, choking on half-formed screams. Finally, she found enough of a voice to grunt "I...don't...unders...stand..."
With a quick shift, the shape eyes the brainless manotaurs, and they dropped the girl. The impact of her body hitting the ground made Dipper's crumpled hat bounce next to her. Mabel quickly curled up around her broken left arm, which throbbed with unbelievable pain. She looked up, whimpering, as the shape became smaller, almost her own size, and hovered directly in front of her. The monsters backed off to the edges of the clearing, and the smaller triangles closed in. Soon Mabel was facing the shape on its own, a ring of triangles encircling them, with the top of the circle Dipper's squirming form.
"You see, Shooting Star," the shape began. "You have something I want. A body. I originally went after Pine Tree here, but he proved too weak for the task itself. But I knew you'd be tough, and you proved me right. If you let me take you, I can get and read everything I need to know, and no one will be the wiser. I'll make sure of it. Let me use you, and I'll make it so your uncle and Pine Tree and even your stupid friend Question Mark won't remember any of this. It'll all be...well..it'll be like a dream. And then, when the end comes, they won't even feel it." The shapes words entered Mabel's throbbing head, but she wasn't sure she was processing them. A nasty cut on her forehead was bleeding substantially, but did she hear him say the end? She blinked slowly, blandly. The triangles around them began showing grainy blue pictures, like an old TV. They flashed images of cliffs falling into the lake, the Shack burning to the ground, floods washing away the town, gravity switching and sending people careening endlessly into the sky. Mabel gasped, and looked at Dipper. He looked desperately up at her, shaking his head, but a triangle held a shadowy hand over his mouth, muffling his protestations.
"Whaddya say, Shooting Star?" the shape continued, as if offering Mabel a car deal. "Your family will never even be aware of all this happening. All you have to do, is give. Me. Your. Body."
Mabel stared in horror at the moving pictures. "If I...l-let you do this...h'he'll be okay?" she stammered. Dipper frantically shook his head, but Mabel turned her eyes to the shape, which had grown a little larger.
"Of course, Shooting Star."
"What'll happen to everyone else?"
The unblinking eye narrowed slightly in irritation. "They'll all perish, but what do you care? Your brother will be okay, and that's what matters, right?"
Mabel bit her lip, trying to ignore Dipper's muffled cries. The shape formed a black arm and extended a hand to her. Mabel, fighting back a sob, reached out to shake it, when something caught her eye, past the ring of triangles, and in the shadows of the trees.
Grunkle Stan, a lot younger than he was now, and a young boy. Wait...she knew that young boy...it was her dad! She had seen pictures of him when he was a kid. He held hands with two toddlers, whom Mabel immediately recognized as her and Dipper when they were little. Her vision was still blurred with blood and tears, and she thought she saw double, as there was another Grunkle Stan face behind the first one. It was faded and ghostly, but it matched the worried expressions of the others. Mabel squinted. Did...did the second Stan shake his head? Suddenly, a voice echoed in her head. The voice of what Dipper had told her that the journal had said when they first read it.
Trust. No one.
Mabel pulled her right hand back from the black shape, just before its skeletal fingers met hers.
"Never! I'm not going to let you take away everyone...everyone I love!"
The triangle flashed red and grew to a fearsome height. The figures of Mabel's family vanished. The shape flickered with violent flames and it let out a frustrated curse, before it lowered its haunting eye, as big as Mabel herself, and stared into Mabel.
"VERY WELL," it said, voice booming. "I GAVE YOU A CHANCE, SHOOTING STAR." The shape returned to an endless black and shrunk again. It circled Mabel slowly, and she turned to see Dipper crying tears of relief from behind where the black hand clutched his face. When the shape spoke, its tone was almost...bored.
"Never let it be said I didn't give you a chance. Now, you'll never see Pine Tree again."
"I'm not giving you my body! You can't hurt us!" Mabel snapped. "I did it, I saved him. We're going to wake up, and you'll have no power!"
"Won't I, though?" the shape sighed. "I may not be able to have your body, but I will find a way. And when I do, everyone you know and love will burn. Until then, I'll just take your brother."
"You can't! You didn't get either of our bodies!"
"Shooting Star, Shooting Star, Shooting Star," the shape shook itself, as if explaining itself to a child. "I couldn't get your bodies, but I'm happy with the consolation prize. Pine Tree's mind will do, I've broken it enough that I think I shall buy it, and when I take that, his physical body will finally stop fighting and he will die. So. There's that."
"N...no," Mabel stammered, clutching her arm. The triangle shrugged what could pass as its shoulders, and gave a final sigh.
"Good bye, Shooting Star. And remember. I gave you a chance." With that, the triangle became a shapeless cloud that filled the clearing with thunder and wind, and it swept over Dipper, who let out one final scream as the blackness swept over him. Mabel screamed but the noise was lost in the swell. Dipper's eyes lost their shine and went dull, and his head lolled forward. The silence that followed was only pierced by the ring of triangles, who stood like morbid sentry around the Pine twins, broadcasting nothing but muffled static.
Dipper gave one final thrash in Grunkle Stan's arms, where he tried to hold the sick boy tightly as he was engulfed in another seizure, before going limp. Then he went cold. Wendy stood up from where she was trying to cool off Mabel with a cloth, and watched in horror as Grunkle Stan released his grip on the still boy.
"...Stan...?" said Wendy.
"Mister...Mister Pines?" Soos whispered.
Grunkle Stan stared down at his great nephew, laying motionless on the sweat-soaked pillows.
"...no."