Hey I'm back with another chapter! Enjoy!
-Gravity Falls Oregon, 2:42 p.m.
"Okay are you guys ready to go for a swim?"
"Are you sure this is safe to swim in this river?"
"Who cares! It beats going to the local pool area."
"No kidding, there are so many people that the lifeguard put a waiting period between the amount of people allowed to come in. And since I'm not going to wait another hour or so to get in swimming in the lake is the better option in my opinion!"
"Aren't lakes rather known for having murky water that is contaminated with all sorts of parasites?"
"Where do you hear that from?"
"From the internet and even from certain doctors, nurses and the news!"
"Pfft you're just trying to scare us."
"Ugh! You know what? Fine, go swimming if you want! See if i care! But don't come crying to me if any of you get's sick."
"Whatever!"
Deep within the Gravity Falls forest were four teenagers, three of them were boys, while the last teenager was a girl, as they were currently walking along a small water trail, hopeful it would lead them to a nearby lake. It was very hot outside, with the sun beaming down and the skies clear and blue, with barely any clouds in it's vicinity. Because the city pool was overrun with dozens of people wanting to cool and fight the unbearable heat, the four teenagers decided to ditched the idea and find an alternative of going swimming; after what felt like a very long trek, they found it in a form of a lake located in this forest. Despite being inside a forest and the fear of parasites within lakes, this lake was surprisingly clean and clear, so much so, that several native animals were drinking from the lake. A significant amount of sun rays pierced through the trees and hit the water, giving it a beautiful reflection that further add the pleasant scenery of the lake.
All the teenagers were in awe at the sight.
"Wow…" A teenage boy, with blue eyes and short long blonde hair spoke.
"This is breathtaking," The second teenage boy, who had black afro hair and brown eyes stared in amazement.
"This. Is. Perfect!" The third and last teenage boy in the group, who had spiky red hair and black eyes shouted as he took off his clothes and charged towards the lake with his blue swimming trunks.
The two boys followed suit and charged towards the lake as well leaving the teenage girl alone.
"Ugh, despite the breathtaking scene and clear water I'm not going swimming." The teenage girl, who possess midnight black hair and chocolate brown eyes walked towards a nearby tree and sat there resting on it as she watched the boys splashing and wrestling in the water.
But unbeknownst to the teenagers, something was lurking within the depth of the peaceful lake. Something that would prove that ancient long myths do exist in the world, as a set of green eyes merged from the water.
"Kukukukuku…"
Elsewhere in Gravity, Falls Oregon laid a large gift shop called the Mystery Shack, that was fairly crowded with a number of customers, with the majority of them being tourists, while local residents would occasionally drop by every once in a while.
Grunkle Stan, who happened to be the owner of the Mystery Shack, was up on his feet, is walking around making sure the place is spiffy clean. Age apparently hasn't slow him down one bit and still up to his no good tricks, conning unfortunate people out of their money. His workers consisted of two people: Wendy and Soos.
Soos was currently giving the tour around to a group of customers. While still chubby and and all he has lost a bit of weight and have a lot more energy compare to him a few years ago, especially since Stan let him take over running the shop with Soos even sporting his usual outfit. As for Wendy, she still had her laid back personality, but her appearance had changed significantly; her ginger hair have grew even longer and her freckles darkened a bit into beauty marks making her more attractive compare to her four years ago, causing Dipper to drool over her from afar, who was currently standing behind the cashier along with his sister Mabel helping out the customers.
"Wow, the Mystery Shack has gotten popular over the years., Dipper spoke, watching countless of people looking around.
"Of course, Dipper!" Mabel boasted confidently. "Speaking of which, have you seen Joshua?"
Dipper scratched his chin. "Come to think of it, I overheard Stan wanted him to go run an errand for him."
"I hope Grunkle Stan isn't pushing him too hard," Mabel begin to worry.
Dipper waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry. I'm sure he wouldn't make Joshua do anything life threatening. Well, almost like threatening."
"All right kid, I want you to go to the store and get some more cleaning materials," Stan ordered.
"That's fine and all, but I don't even know where the store is!" Joshua argued. "I'm new here, remember?"
Stan glared at his new employee before shooking his head in frustration. "Ugh, fine kid! Wendy!"
The red haired young adult popped her head from the window was between Joshua and Stan startling the two. "Yo."
"Ack!" Stan jumped back in surprise. "Wendy, can you show this brat where the store is?"
"Excuse me?" Joshua glared at his new boss with irritability.
"Sure Stan," Wendy instantly jumped through the window and landed on her feet ready to go. "Come on kid, follow me."
Joshua continued to glared at Stan before rolling his eyes and followed Wendy.
"Don't take too long either!" Stan yelled from the distance.
"We won't, Stan!" Wendy waved before turning around and forming a smirk. "Yeah right. We are going to take our sweet time." Wendy faced Joshua. "Isn't that right, dude?"
Joshua didn't respond right away as he was too infuriating from his boss insulting him like that. Wendy noticed it and patted on his shoulder. "Come on you have to let that go dude."
Joshua let out a long sigh before facing Wendy. "Fine."
Wendy smiled brightly. "That's the spirit! Come on, I'll give you the tour of the town."
"I would like that," Joshua nodded, feeling a bit relief that his new fellow co-employee would give him the tour around Gravity Falls, the town that the Pines Twins mentioned so much about when they were back in California. It would also get away from his new boss Stan, who have been treating him rather poorly since he arrived. Wendy and Soos were unaware why he's getting the second class treatment from him, Joshua and the Pine Twins themselves knew the real reasons, one they kept to themselves.
"Awesome, stick by me dude and you won't get lost." Wendy instructed.
Joshua only rolled his eyes. "Ha ha."
For the next half hour, Wendy and Joshua walked around Gravity Falls, with the red haired teenager showing the blonde haired teenager around. For a small town like Gravity Falls, it has shown to be quite lively and crowded, with people with so much energy, it made Joshua forget the impression of all small towns tend to be rather sleepy, with little to know residence in sight.
"For such a small town, it sure it's lively around here," a shocked Joshua commented.
"Yeah, it has been this since a few years ago when we saved this town," Wendy said.
Joshua gave Wendy a look. "Wait, saved this town? Did I hear that right?"
"Yes, everyone here banded together and stopped Bill," Wendy answered before raising her eyebrow. "Wait, don't tell me that Dipper and Mabel didn't tell you this?"
"No, neither of them even mentioned it," Joshua frowned.
"Oh well, I'm sure they will tell you later," Wendy insisted.
"…Yeah" Joshua only sighed as he looked down.
Wendy and Joshua entered the store and quickly got what they needed and exited the store with their stuff in a blue plastic bag. As they left, they saw four teenagers running towards them, each of them drench with sweats from head to toe and with fear and panic on their faces, as if they saw something so traumatic. So traumatic, that all four the them charged towards Wendy and Joshua, causing all six of them to get knocked down on the ground.
"AHHH!" Wendy gasped in surprise.
"Hey, watch where you are going!" Joshua scowled the teenagers.
The three boys groaned in pain, while trying to get while the sole girl teenager quickly got up and shook her head.
"I'm sorry!" The girl teenager apologize hastily as if she's in a hurry. "But we saw something hideous and it attacked us out of nowhere!"
"Really?" Wendy gasped in shock, before she got serious. "What does it look like?"
"It look like some kind of humanoid frog!" The first boy teenager spoke.
"It wasn't a frog!" The second boy argued. "As far I know, frogs don't have a bald spot on their heads!"
"It had green reptilian skin!" The third teenage boy points out. "If it wasn't a frog, then what else can it be?!"
"Okay, everyone!" Wendy yelled trying to calm down the teenagers. "Just calm down and start from the beginning."
All four teenagers stopped fighting amongst themselves and explained to Wendy what happened, giving more description of what attacked them, doing their best to described it with whatever details they can recall. Wendy, despite seeing her own shares of different creatures, can't make out on what this new creature was. Joshua however, had begun theorizing on what the creature was, based on their descriptions.
"Hmm…a humanoid in form that is roughly around the size as a eight year old child, has green reptilian skin, a beak, a shell and a bald spot where there is a plate resting on top them…wait a minute…the description of the creature that attacked the teenagers awfully sound familiar."
Before the blonde teenager could make out more of the creature he was thinking, Joshua's train of thoughts were swiftly interrupted by Wendy shaking his shoulder.
"Joshua? Dude?" Wendy spoke up.
It didn't took long for Joshua to respond. "Oh, hey Wendy. What's up?"
"Um, are you okay? You kinda spaced out for a moment there."
Joshua shook his head. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was just thinking."
"Thinking about what?" Wendy asked.
"The creature that attacked them. I was trying to think on what could it be and it sound like I may know," Joshua replied.
"You do?!" Wendy was surprised by Joshua's quick thinking. "Do know what creature it is?"
"I… can't say," Joshua shot down. "It sounded very familiar, but I'm not so sure yet, since there are other creatures that shares similar traits but be different creatures altogether, so unless I know more I don't have a clear answer."
"Oh, alright then," Wendy was disappointed by Joshua's answer. "Anyway, let's head back to the Mystery Shack. Stan and the others are waiting for us."
"Right," Joshua agreed, before turning to the four teenagers who are now on their feet, still shaken on what happened to them. "Anyway, thanks for your time, guys."
The four teenagers waved at Wendy and Joshua, before resuming their way. As the two walked towards their destination Wendy decided to resume talking to Joshua.
"So…" Wendy started. "Joshua, it sounded like you had a clue of what creature attacked those teenagers. Are you into stuff that Dipper liked?"
"Which is?" Joshua asked raising an eyebrow as he no idea what Dipper like despite becoming his friend as of recent.
Wendy playfully punched Joshua's shoulder. "Dude, come on! Supernatural stuff! Paranormal activity stuff!"
"Wait, Dipper is into those kind of stuff?" Joshua asked.
"Oh yeah, man. Dipper is a geek for that kind of stuff!" Wendy laughed. "Trust me you have to see whenever Dipper go crazy."
"I'll keep that in mind, Wendy," Joshua nodded his head as he chuckled, very amused to see Dipper go bonkers.
Wendy and Joshua made it back to Mystery Shack and resume their work for the rest of the day. Business went by fairly normal and without any hiccups, much to the relief of Stan. The day went on by fast and around seven in the evening, the gang decided to close up and call it a day. Wendy and Soos left the shack and went to their respective homes, leaving only Stan, Joshua and the twins alone. When they heard their stomachs growling, they knew that it was time for dinner.
Stan cooked the kids dinner, consisting of pork chops, mash potatoes and peas. While the twins enjoyed their food, Joshua however ended up not liking it; he ate he saw a few strands of hair inside his food, much to the blonde teenager's utter disgust, to the point that he almost threw up. In the end, though, Joshua decided not to continue eating and put his food in the garbage disposal, having lost his appetite from having something so gross like hair in his food, but waited for everyone to be gone, as he didn't want to hurt the twin's feelings, nor doesn't he want to hear Stan going into a rant on why he didn't finished the food that he provided him, since Joshua could tell that his boss was the type of person to freak out over the simplest of things.
Joshua made his way to his room on where he is staying in and upon entering the room, he was greeted by the twins, both already in their sleepwear.
"Hey Joshua…" Dipper was the first one to greet. He wore his usual black shorts and orange t shirt. "How was your first day working here in the Mystery Shack?"
"Passable, for lack of a better word," Joshua answered as he went to his bed and got out his pajamas. "What are you two doing here?"
"We just wanted to drop by and see how you're doing that's all," Mabel answered. She wore her usual purple nightdress. "Oh and watch out for that aqua blue rug next to you."
"Why?" Joshua then made an annoyed look. "Don't tell me that there are dust bunnies or god forbid lice living in that rug!"
The twins looked at each other before facing Joshua.
"No dude, nothing like that," Dipper pointed out.
"Just.. bad things happen if you try walking on that rug," Mabel added.
"Like what in particular?" Joshua folded his arms, clearly not buying the twins claims.
"You don't want to know!" Both twins yelled in unison causing the blonde teenager to jump back in slight shock.
"Okay, okay!" Joshua waved his hands finally decided to end the topic there. "I won't walk on the rug. Happy?"
The twins nodded. "Very happy," Mabel said.
"Anyway, we'll be taking our leave right now," Dipper got up on his feet and walked towards the door. "Come on Mabel."
Mabel followed suit and made her way out. "Good night, Joshua."
"Night, guys," Joshua closed the door and quickly changed out of his clothes and into his pajamas which consisted of blue PJ pants and white t-shirt.
He turned off the bedroom light, quickly got into bed and laid down. What a day has been for Joshua, he soon as he arrived here was forcefully thrown into working for Stan that he dreaded to acknowledged as his "boss" and he hated seeing that con artist as his superior, just seeing or even mentioned him in his mind makes him shiver.
Letting out a sigh he closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.
In the dead of night, a young woman who appears no more than in her late 30s, was walking towards her car that is parked near a streaming river. When she got in front of the door, she dig into her small purple purse to fish out her keys, but it became apparent that her car keys was hidden under a variety of other things.
"Are you kidding?!" The woman groaned in frustration as she continued to look for her car keys.
Unbeknownst to her, however, there was a creature hidden in the bushes near the streaming river and it was setting its sight on the vulnerable woman.
"Oh…she'll make a perfect bearer for my offspring," The creature formed a lustful smile before disappearing into the darkness before instantly launched itself towards its wanted target; before long the unexpected woman caught a glimpse of the creature before blackened out.
A horrifying and loud scream echoed throughout the night.
And now officially Gravity Falls has a mystery on their hands! Sorry for the long wait. Work has gotten to me as usual and due to how long writing this chapter was, my beta reader and I have decided to split chapter 4 into two parts. I didn't like the suggestion at first since I resort to splitting chapters unless the length and pace make sense (like Weirdmageddon length for example) but given how long writing chapter 4 was (roughly about 42 page worth in fact) it's decided that we split chapter 4 into two parts.
But despite this I'm in the works of writing Chapter 5 and hopefully the wait wont be long this time.
Until the next chapter, Ciao!