Chapter 2: Coronation

It didn't take the Pines' long to regret the breaking and entering.

"Is that a… mole rat?" Wendy asked cautiously.

"I'm not sure, but now I know we shouldn't have come here for sure." Dipper stated.

"Oh shush know it all." Wendy said, half joking. "Just don't make a sud-" As Wendy began to say this, she got her foot caught up in a piece of ivy. Dipper quickly caught her but then realized the mole rat had now turned its attention solely to the two of them.

"HHHMPHHGH!" It growled as it began charging. It couldn't have been going very fast as it was a very heavy set animal, but in the heat of the moment it seemed like it was intensely fast.

"Oh crap, what do we do?" Wendy asked Dipper, who was similarly shaking. As it reached ever so closely, Dipper gulped.

"Well I guess this is what I gotta do." Dipper said matter of factly.

"Huh?" Wendy asked.

"HIYAH!" Dipper yelled as he kicked the molerat square in the jawline, sending the feral beast flying right into the brick.

"Wow that was a bit… awesome!" Wendy said excitedly.

Dipper stuck his hand out in front of her as if to say "hold up." The mole rat stuck up it's head, the right side of it's head already swelling up. It then crawled off away

"Man, I really hurt that thing didn't I?" He responded remorsefully.

"Well it was either gonna be us or him." Wendy said. "Now let's go find our daughter before that thing finds her." Dipper nodded in agreement.

The bathroom was pitch black as the door closed behind Annabelle. The room had no windows, making the faint light coming from the bottom and top edges of the only sources of light.

"Where's the light sw-" Annabelle mumbled to herself before slipping face first onto the floor. The floor was drenched in something.

"Gross, it's all wet and sticky." She said. "What is it though?"

She took a quick sniff of her hand; she knew what it was right away.

"EWW! THE FLOOR IS COVERED IN PEE PEE!" She shrieked. Even worse it just reminded her that she still had to go herself. So after wiping her herself off as best as she could, she got to work at finding a toilet.

Looking down, she tried to see if the outside light was bright enough to make a shadow of at least one of the stalls long enough for her to find it. Unfortunately, all she see was the shadow of what she thought was a urinal.

Oh come on, there's gotta be a stall here! I'm gonna find it even if I gotta cr-

She then remembered what was on the floor. On second thought, I guess a urinal isn't all that bad.

Walking gingerly in her wet, soggy clothing, Annabelle tried to sit in the urinal and fell in rather unsurprisingly. Still she was small enough to fit in, almost held/strapped in like a car seat by the cleaning device in the middle and was stuck.

"Oh no, I'm stuck!" She exclaimed. "It's pressing hard on my bottom! Somebody help!"

Suddenly, and forcefully, she was ejected out of the urinal, face first back onto the murky urine covered floor.

"That's not what I meant!" She screamed at no one in particular, as she was covered in even more urine now.

Then, for a split second, the entire room was illuminated with a bright blue light. Before Annabelle could even register what was going on, it happened again, but didn't disappear this time. The entire bathroom was lit up.

And then, emerging from the very urinal Annabelle had been kicked from, appeared a ghostly figure. It had the appearance of a school aged boy, only about a hair or two taller than Annabelle. He was clearly not a mortal being as his body radiated the same blue aura covering the room and levitated slightly above the floor. Annabelle was certainly frightened by all this.

"Wh-What are you?" She asked, her voice missing that usual brashness and replaced with a meek and fearfulness.

The ghost stared back at her straight in the eyes. Annabelle got a good hard look at his: They were not empty and listless like Hollywood often generalized it, but they lacked the depth and shape of the mortal, human eye. His hair reminded her of some of the neighborhood prep school boys, never drooping and covering his eyebrows but also looking unkempt and not clean, perhaps a consequence of being a ghost she wondered.

"I… am free." Free from… that!" He shouted, pointing at the urinal. "For so many years, my spirit has been imprisoned within that infernal toilet! All because my family was so eager to get back on the road to Disneyland! They just left me! How dare they..."

Annabelle remained silent, trembling in fear still, as he continued on. After a while she lost her focus on him and subsequently was caught off guard not too long after when he finished ranting.

"I guess I should stop whining. Who are you?" He asked.

Annabelle took a deep breath in and out several times to help regain her composure. "I-I'm Annabelle Pines and I-I ha-have to go to the b-b-bathroom is all…" She said, her voice still meekly and her tone weak and scared as her arms were all crossed up with each other.

"Well, for a nice girl such as yourself, I can make that happen." He said, with a huge smirk, as he raised his arms in the air. In a flash, three bathroom stalls, created out of the same blue light in the room, sprung out of the floor and materialized in front of Annabelle.

"Have your pick of the lot and take your time." He stated.

What is going on? This is all too freaky and supernatural. I don't really know what to do… except go to the bathroom. And so she did. She didn't rush through it or anything but she wasn't gonna frolic through these stalls that just appeared out of the ground.

"M-Mr. Ghost?" She asked weakly.

"Please call me Eric. I was just like you once." He said with an awkward smile. What is with this dude being so… friendly? He's like a… ghost. If Daddy were here right now, it'd be such a "told ya so" moment I bet.

Annabelle didn't really want to upset it anymore than she already had, so she just nodded back. "Thank you... Eric for letting me use the restroom." She said with the slightest bit of hesitation, but sounding much more like her usual self. "I need to find my parents now so we can get back on the way to Sea World though."

Eric looked back confusedly. "Leave? But you just got here. Why leave so soon? We just met after all."

"Well you know… this is a restroom. Who wants to hang in a restroom for all that long?" She said with a forced, awkward laugh. "It was nice meeting you though!"

"Don't leave please!" Eric pleaded, stretching his ghostly arms out and grabbing Annabelle's hands. "Stay and be my queen!"

"Yeah, I don't know how well that's gonna work. You're a ghost, I'm a human, this is a rest stop… Yeah it's all a bit too weird. Plus we're going to Sea World! So yeah, I'm sorry." She said awkwardly.

Eric shook his head in disgust. "You humans and your theme parks! You'll never leave this room if I can help it!"

As Annabelle opened the door in an attempt to leave, it became doused in the same blue aura and began pushing away from Annabelle trying to close. It was not a strong power though as Annabelle managed to keep the door creaked open a jarringly.

"Really?" She said mockingly. "That's it? For a ghost, you're pretty weak."

"You will not leave!" Eric shouted as his magical grip on the door continued to increase. Still Annabelle was determined to leave and wasn't going to give in. This somehow gave her the strength to keep that door a jarred long enough for her to slip on through. Falling down out of the doorway, right on her knees, she screamed at the top of her lungs "Hey, I'm over here!"

Wendy and Dipper, who happened to be only a room away, quickly made their way over. "Oh there you are sweetie!" Dipper said cheerfully.

"Now, now don't get too lax honey. We all know she shouldn't just be running into a strange, dark area all by herself." Wendy said sternly. Annabelle put her head down solemnly. "Yes yes, I know better." She said. "We need to hurry out of here though before Eric comes back!"

Now nearly shouting, she looked exasperated. Her parents just responded with odd looks on their faces. "Honey you can't expect us to believe your ghost stories when you never believe in ours." Wendy stated.

"But it's true!" Annabelle shouted. "He's in that bathroom! Go see for yourself!" Now she was pointing at Dipper, whose face dropped in an instant down into a shocked frown. "Why me!?" He asked.

"Because you're the ghost hunter in the family. Now get in there!" Annabelle said as she nudged him towards the door. Dipper, with no issue, opened the bathroom door and went in. Several anxious minutes passed before he emerged again.

"Did you see any ghosts?" Annabelle asked.

"I saw nothing paranormal whatsoever in there." Dipper said. "I'm starting to think this is one big story you're making up."

"That's not possible!" Annabelle shrieked. "There really was a ghost in there! He was trapped in that urinal thingy!"

Wendy and Dipper just looked at one another and chuckled. "A haunted urinal? Is that the best you can come up with?" The two said in unplanned unison. "Lets not waste anymore time and get out of here already." Annabelle put her hand in the air as if to object, but then obliged realizing she wasn't going to get her point across no matter at this point.

She tried to stop thinking about Eric and that weird situation as they drove away.

As they pulled out, she turned around, and saw it; Eric's blue aura. It was emanating from the whole rest stop. She knew this dude wasn't gonna give up yet.