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The door shut loudly and abruptly, forcing Mabel to sit up. Her room, adjacent to Dipper's, was small and brightly colored. She had happily painted it, partially without permission, a year or so back. Waddles wiggled his face into the crack of the door, pushing it open. Mabel called out, watching the curly pink tail flop down the stairs.
"Waddles, no!" shouted Mabel, scrambling to her feet. "Waddles get back here!"
"Mabel!" howled Dipper, standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Mabel stood at the stop of the stairs, looking over her brother. He'd grown taller than her by now and his size had changed even within these short years. Shoulders wider and standing tall, he still shouldered a blue jacket, with pockets sown into them, and he had renewed his Gravity Falls cap, which Wendy had sent over through the mail upon request. These were the only constants with him, apart from his hair, which remained a ruffled mess as usual.
Dipper peered up at Mabel from the bottom of the stairs, holding off the playful pig at his heels. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail, which typically meant she was working on some craft project be her sweaters or a scrapbook. The current sweater she was fashioning was an orange-yellow color and a lovely beach setting sewn into it. It flowed softly into her rainbow skirt, which easily twirled about as she moved.
"Dipper, what is it?" perked Mabel, seeing her brother's disheveled appearance.
Mud was slopped across his pants, sinking into his shoes, connecting them in a blob of brown up to his jacket, which was a lighter shade brown now. His hair was more fluttered than normal, with sticks and mud caked into it. His eyes were wide, hand clasped around the camera, his bag barely hanging onto his shoulder.
"Mabel…" panted Dipper, gently pushing Waddles to the side. "You…it's not…"
He galloped up the stairs, throwing his bag swiftly into the living room. Grabbing his sibling by the hand, he whisked her into his room, slamming the door shut behind them. After a moment, they could hear Waddles struggling to get in.
Dipper's room was rather dimly lit, due to the windows being covered in posters and such. Some of the posters included maps, scientists, some of McGucket's inventions, some images from Stan and Ford, and a variety of pictures photocopied from Mabel's Gravity Fall scrapbook. The rest of the wall space went into his theories such as aliens, bigfoot (which Mabel disagreed on), more info on Bill Cipher and prophecy circle, and finally a collection of pages straight from Ford during their adventures.
"Dipper, you should really get some lamps in here," hummed Mabel, smiling gently.
"Mabel, look at this!" gasped Dipper, pulling out his camera.
"Digital, for once?" perked Mabel.
"Yes," groaned Dipper, moving to his laptop. "Just look at this, will you?"
Dipper connected the camera to the laptop, opening up the series of images he'd captured from the week. The final image he highlighted and selected, opening up in a bigger file so as Mabel could see it. He could hear the audible gasp she gave, feeling her lean in on his chair. It felt as though a lump was lodged in his throat.
"How…?" Mabel whimpered.
"I don't know," Dipper whispered. "I found it when I was walking through the creek."
"It's clean cut," commented Mabel, leaning in over Dipper's shoulder.
"No way its natural. Someone made it," Dipper added.
"But I thought…only Gravity Fall people know about…him," Mabel spoke in a hushed tone, making a barely heard noise with the final word.
"I don't know…maybe someone from there came up here…?" groaned Dipper, leaning back, hands pressed to his chin.
"As far as I remember, only us, Great Uncle Stan and Great Uncle Ford ever left Gravity Falls," purred Mabel, leaving Dipper's shoulder to rest softly on Dipper's bed.
"It doesn't mean that no one else left there, right?" questioned Dipper, spinning around to face her. "We can try messaging Wendy and Soos. You could ask Grenda and Candy…"
Dipper, why can't we just leave this alone," pleaded Mabel, pulling her legs into her sweater. "Last time you dug into a mystery…well, you know how that ended."
"With the greatest, scariest summer of our known lives," whispered Dipper, eyes looking up the ceiling. "But still…it's Bill, Mabel. We can't let this slide!"
Mabel pulled her sweater up to her chin, looking softly as Dipper. At some point, he had grabbed a pen and began crunching on it. She knew exactly what was going to happen, making her grin. She waited a moment, carefully eyeing Dipper. He seemed oblivious to the fact, happily chewing on his pen until it erupted in his mouth with blue ink. He sputtered, throwing the pen to the ground, and quickly turned to grab a spare shirt to wipe his mouth.
Mabel giggled.
"I really should stop doing that," grumbled Dipper, throwing the shirt away.
"You really should," Mabel chirped.
"Anyway…Mabel, please," pleaded Dipper, kneeling on the bed before her. "Just ask them."
"Okay," whispered Mabel.
"Thank you," grinned Dipper.
