Quentin crept into the room and almost found himself recoiling.

The laboratory may have still been drenched in ominous darkness, its numerous wooden, leather-topped counters, shelves and cupboards all standing firm and surrounding him, like an enormous labyrinth that oriented him towards the centre of the room.

The centre of the room was a particularly sinister sight. By the flickering, yellow, electronic candlelight in his mouth, the errant president saw nothing short of a sensory nightmare. He leaned in with brows furrowed, pupils like pindots. The chills travelling up and down his spine were like ice water. If it weren't for the plastic candle in his mouth, he'd have yelled in pure herror. Which was a word Quentin had created himself, for something so horrible and terrifying that it fused the two.

There, bubbling, blistering and slowly knitting together, a thin red smear of mucus continued to manifest from the cracks and woodgrain of the building's foundation. A skull was oh-so-slowly knitting together before his eyes, mounted on a suitably putrid-looking collarbone.

He stepped around it, trying his damnedest to keep his feet clear of the bubbling, writhing mass of bloody detritus.

Muscles.

Organs.

Vertebrae.

All were slowly, crawling, building, and sliding - like giant slugs of offal and cockroaches of weathered old bone - towards a bulging, misshapen whole. A fizzling, hissing, popping and belching whole of not-quite-humanity.

The smell was putrid. Burning sulphur with rust and smouldering oak. The sound was horrendous. It sickened him. A presidential man was used to violence - by all that was fiendish, he had once seen a man eat his own horse for the promise of a shiny thruppence in the centre of New York - but this? The sight of it was enough to turn even the most powerful stomach.

Quentin was not completely unaware of the occultish ideals of the Northwests' past - but had never seen this twisted alchemy in person. He had never dreamt that a man could be brought back from the dead without the influence of peanut brittle.

Frankly, he preferred his methods of playing God rather than this assembling kit of human parts.

The president roamed the room, carefully examining the inventory and, in the process, trying his damnedest to ignore the belching, bulging mass of thick, sticky fluids and body matter in the epicentre of the darkened, devilish laboratory.

There, still set on one of the leather-topped counters, developing a strange halo of moisture underneath it, the book that Preston had made use of remained firmly in view. Still perspiring. Still pulsating, breathing and sopping in its peaceful, twisted presence, somehow seeming only more bizarre and otherworldly within that artificial, flickering yellow light.

It was beyond sinister. The scratched illustrations, the thick, rough-hewn packages and the blood-red, almost mouldy-looking scrawl made it very, very clear that this was not something any normal man should - or usually would - get involved with. Quentin Trembley, for one of the first times in his life, felt genuinely hesitant and fearful.

He pulled on a pair of his patent leather 'unholy-herror-handling-handcovers'. Or gloves, to the layman. Slowly, he wrapped his still-shaking hands around the gently writhing tome and strapped it to his waistcoat. If nothing else, it was a fine heist, but the fact this book had seemingly caused this monstrous, damp and splattering scene in the centre of the room…

The eccentric president considered for a moment if he should destroy it there and then. But he had grown acutely aware of the Pines and their expertise for the bizarre and unknown. Destruction, Trembley reasoned, could take away their ability to put things right…

Good grief. That was almost a logical thought. He was sure to do a silly jig to straighten things out before he made his way out of the room, and went back to humming his own tailor-made theme tune, tip-toeing in his presidential brogues as he rapidly left the laboratory and ventured through the cinderblock hallway.

He felt himself - almost subconsciously - speeding up once the exit into Gravity Falls' subterranean tunnels came into view. He was usually such a fearlessly determined man - usually such a fiercely demented man, if you were to ask Congress circa 1837. But the experience had evoked such a visceral, emotional response in him, his face had stained itself white, his legs rattled, and the gentle clinking of flasks and books taped to his Corduroy waistcoat seemed to only exacerbate the shaken nature of his stance.

The damp, moss-infested corridor seemed to wrap around him. Seemed to throb and pulsate every step, every thump, every clink and clatter. Seemed to exacerbate every ounce of fear, intrigue and fury that rumbled between his ears.

The hollow centre of Gravity Falls felt as empty and sinister as that of the Northwest's hearts. The town's true founder had never dreamed that things could go so wrong in the place he had founded. Certainly, there was no denying his decisions had - occasionally - proven odd. Yes, he had insisted on a series of complex mining labyrinths in the cliffs so they could finally find the philosopher's stone, and yes, he had started a war on pancakes that left a hundred soldiers either dead or MIA. Those were his numerous crosses to bear. But he had always been convinced, in his wild, unkempt way, that he was doing what was right.

That cynicism was embedded into the Northwests. They always knew they were doing wrong. And never cared.

That shook Quentin to his core.

This town - this place - for all of the genuine goodness in its people, was one of dark origins, darker secrets and an increasingly dark feeling in its cavernous belly. Once Nathaniel Northwest was back to life, there was no telling what could happen.

Quentin had often heard tell of a mythical beast, triangular in form, with but a single eye, joined by his fellow 'Hench'dmaniacals'. It was nearly over 150 years later when he had learnt the truth from the Pines family, and it was all the more worrying. Nathaniel had always been fanatical. Obsessive over the prospect. Had he wanted to become a Hench'dmaniacal himself, or was he simply fixated on the suffering of his fellow man?

By his death, Nathaniel was so reclusive, so secretive and so utterly twisted that it seemed nobody had ever dared to clarify.

Yet all for the love of their daughter - or love of control, perhaps - the Northwests were now attempting to raise him. To bring that murderous fiend, that unthinkable wretch of beard and bone, that - that - idiot back to life.

And for Quentin Trembley, that insanity was unthinkable.