Hello again, readers. This chapter isn't very good, so I apologize in advance. I haven't had much time to work on it this week, unfortunately. I really love writing this, and you guys all seem to like it so far, so it's disappointing when I am unable to write... And when I am, it turns out to be something bad like this. But at least I managed to make it around 2,000 words.

I'm going out of town, so I won't be able to update for the next week or so, but hopefully I'll be able to post a new chapter after that at some point. Thanks again for all the support, and enjoy.

Feedback always appreciated.

~ Three

The day was winding to an end, and customers were filing out of the Mystery Shack. Stan shouted something about refunds at them, they all got onto buses, and soon the woods around the building were quiet.

Bill had been waiting for hours for this. It hadn't really been all that long, but being forced to watch the tourists gawk at the Shack's fake oddities and listen to their incredibly boring thoughts had made it feel like an eternity.

But finally, he had his chance.

Stan had disappeared, Question Mark had gone home, Shooting Star was with her hideous friends, and Pine Tree was alone at last.

Bill had been wanting to look through his memories for some time now. Entering one's dreams to try and get deeper into their mind was risky, especially with someone like Pine Tree, who was so much more aware during the dream; there was a greater chance of being caught and even expelled from the mind. When someone was awake, they were a lot less aware of what occurred in the mindscape and therefore were easier to penetrate.

Bill floated over to where Pine Tree was sitting in the living room. The human boy didn't really seem to be paying attention to whatever stupid human show was playing on the television in front of him. He was staring off into space, daydreaming.

The dream demon frowned. It would be easier for Pine Tree to sense what was happening in the mindscape now, since his mind had drifted off into it.

An idea popped into Bill's head. He started changing the channels back and forth on the TV, which made Pine Tree's focus return to it for a brief moment.

Bill seized the opportunity and, without hesitation, plunged himself into the boy's mind.

When he appeared inside Pine Tree's mind, Bill was somewhat underwhelmed. It looked just like any other human's, with random objects scattered around, and a staticky, monochromatic version of the world.

He had thought that the boy would've had something more interesting going on here, since his brain was so much more active than everyone else's.

Bill reminded himself that he was here for a reason, and began to search for the place where Pine Tree's memories would be contained.

In every human mind was a specific compartment designed to store memories, but each one was different. Stan's was the Mystery Shack, for example.

Bill closed his one eye and tapped into Pine Tree's thoughts, from the past and present. That was something that didn't require any additional searching. He had learned a lot since the time he had been defeated inside Stan's mindscape, and he could do so much more.

There was something small, a very subtle hint drifting through the undercurrents of Pine Tree's hazy stream of thoughts- it was the place where his memories resided.

Bill smiled to himself, snapped his fingers, and was standing in a forest somewhere.

Surrounding him were thousands of tiny, iridescent crystals were jutting out from the ground all over the place. This was the only area of the mindscape that Bill had seen so far that had any color to it, and it was striking. Every little part of everything was beautifully colored and everything seemed so precise. Each needle and leaf on each tree was immaculate, with designs that went down to the finest detail.

And the crystals were the best part. They shone and glinted in the sun, casting beams of multi-colored light.

Bill knelt down and examined one of the crystals closely before tentatively extracting it from the ground. He held it in the palm of his hand and stared intensely into it. An image appeared on its surface. It appeared to be Pine Tree and Shooting Star working in the Mystery Shack gift shop.

So these are Pine Tree's memories...

Most people just had buildings filled with doors, but not this one. He was different.

Always has been, Bill thought as he returned the memory crystal to where it had been.

Bill poked around inside the boy's mind for some time, occasionally removing a memory crystal as he worked his way further into thoughts of the past. Many of Pine Tree's older memories were incredibly boring. They depicted things like the Pines twins' summers back in Piedmont, and their normal lives. Bill could hardly imagine how excruciatingly bland it must have been for the kid before he arrived in Gravity Falls.

No, wait... He could. He remembered the millennia before he had met Pine Tree, and how rare it had been to find a mortal this interesting. It must have been like that.

A particularly large pyramid-shaped prism caught Bill's eye. He carefully made his way through the sea of shimmering memories and pried it out of where it was wedged into a tree stump.

Bill gazed into it, but no image came.

Well, what's missing?

It had been easy before, so why wasn't it now?

Come to think of it, this one did feel exceedingly light. Bill tapped his chin, confused.

The demon submitted, figuring it probably wasn't worth it anyway. He already knew that the boy, although he was suspicious about the demon's plans, wasn't plotting to do anything against him. He was just doing his normal thing, solving random mysteries as they showed up around town.

It couldn't be anything important.

Could it?

Bill slowly lowered the memory prism back into the stump where he had found it and began to float off to a different area. A shrill, staticky noise came from behind him, and he froze in the air. He looked over his shoulder and saw a picture slowly start to appear on the face of the crystal.

It was Pine Tree. He was lying on his back in his bed, staring up at the ceiling with a forlorn and lost expression on his face. Then it cut away, and revealed the boy sitting on the front porch of the Shack with Journal 3 in his hand. He was frantically searching through it for something, muttering, "Where is it, where is it, where is it...?"

Puzzled, and with interest piqued, Bill returned to the pyramid-shaped prism and sat down in front of it.

These memories went on for longer than any of the other ones had. This crystal seemed to be a compilation of a certain type of memory or thought.

And they were steadily growing worse, and harder for Bill to watch.

The dream demon looked on, his stomach slowly twisting into knots as he witnessed the transformation that Pine Tree was undergoing.

Pine Tree, lying on the roof of the Shack for hours. Refusing to eat for days on end until forced to. Being dragged around by Shooting Star, barely able to move. Standing beneath an oak tree in the middle of the woods, slamming his forehead against its trunk and repeating something incomprehensible.

Bill was shocked, and felt rather nauseous. What was causing the human boy so much pain?

Oh...

Oh.

It was all suddenly so clear.

How could Bill not have realized how much he had really been tearing the kid apart? It was the little game he had entered them both into, and it had all been fun until this. This hurt. This hurt worse than anything he had ever experienced before.

This is all my fault...

~~~TIME SKIP~~~

Mabel had been following Dipper around at a distance for some time now. He had definitely been sleeping a lot more, but he was still constantly depressed and lacked pretty much all motivation to do anything except stare at the journal.

And then there were his nightmares.

Her brother had always had nightmares, but they had become increasingly worse as the twins had aged, and being in Gravity Falls had really accelerated the downward slope. Mabel didn't quite understand why. She loved the town, and she knew he did too. Sure, there were monsters and magic and conspiracies greater than anything they had ever seen or ever would... But that really couldn't be why, could it? Dipper had a passion for those mysteries and getting to the bottom of them.

So Mabel had narrowed it down to relationship problems. But the thing about Dipper was that he had never been in a relationship and probably wouldn't be in one for a long time. There was always the possibility of Wendy's rejection, but that had been a pretty long time ago. No, it wasn't that.

Mabel was sitting on her bed, knitting another sweater for Waddles. She was deep into her work and completely lost in thought. She tried to remember as far back as she could to try to get to the start of whatever issue this was.

What had happened to the twins that had been life-changing?

Nothing, Mabel thought, frowning a little. In truth, their lives back in California hadn't been exciting in any way. It was just routine, normal stuff, every day for twelve years.

The only thing that had been different in the way things were was coming to Gravity Falls.

But it had been more than half the summer, and Dipper hadn't been this way at the beginning. It had gotten bad recently, and had happened both extremely slowly and quickly at the same time.

Ever since the puppet show, things had been weird with Dipper. His focus had been somewhere else entirely-

Wait a minute.

Of course! It was Bill Cipher! That's why Dipper was feeling this way, acting this way. He had been obsessed with the dream demon.

Why? Was he worried about what Bill was planning? Was he angry with him for everything that had happened? Was he plotting revenge?

Did he secretly have a thing for Bill?

Mabel chuckled, shaking her head and continuing to work the needles.

She cracked herself up.

~~~TIME SKIP~~~

Dipper was trying to fall asleep that night. His mind was hard at work, all sorts of thoughts swirling around inside, but it wasn't nearly as disorienting as it had been about a week ago.

He didn't feel especially tired, or even as tormented as he had been even the night before. Things were finally looking up for him, and everyone had noticed the change. Dipper had gone back to hanging out with Soos and Wendy on a fairly regular basis. He was starting to work again, and had been able to help Stan out a bit more with running the Shack. Best of all, Mabel hadn't seemed as concerned about him anymore.

She was acting strange, though. She was constantly trailing him wherever he went, and appeared to be very intent on achieving some goal that was unclear to Dipper.

He dismissed it as just more of her standard Mabel oddness.

The days were getting brighter, and Dipper was almost always ready to get up and get going in the mornings...

But then the dream demon would pay him a visit each night, and all the confusion would come rushing back.

Happy holidays, readers! Chapter 5 will be posted at some point during the next two weeks.

~ Three