"Ha...Ha...Ha..."
The cacophony of my footsteps echoed through the night as I bolted out of the shack, finding myself in the midst of the road. Gasping for air, I retreated to the roadside, trying to steady my breath.
"...No. No...No..."
My phone vibrated that second.
[drr...]
[New Message!(1)]
Breathing heavily, I checked the phone. And there was a message from an anonymous person.
[503-544-****: (Video file)]
[503-544-****: Do you think that you just 'ran' away?]
My heart raced, refusing to settle. I checked the message, found a video file, and opened it. The footage depicted me stumbling backward, my figure blurred by a strange mosaic effect as if it were clumsily edited, and Wendy appeared to be the one filming.
[...He told you, didn't he? I'm not sure whether you're the doppelganger Wendy or just Wendy, but I...]
[Ray. Just... give up, man.]
[...]
[You know already.]
[...]
[You're super smart. You can think faster than I'll ever do. If I understood the situation, you'd already done that like three times. I still don't understand your powers, but... There should be a way to solve this...]
[...No.]
The blurry figure dashed out of the gift shop and beyond sight. Wendy chased, but once out of view, I vanished. The camera swiveled in a frantic search, confirming my sudden disappearance.
[...He disappeared.]
[503-544-****: Don't you think you've been moving places around way too quickly nowadays?]
[503-544-****: How did you get to the post office, that's about 10 miles away from the shack? Do you think we're in Korea? It's Oregon. We don't have things all close together.]
"...No, We rode a...we rode a golf cart. That's why..."
[503-544-****: By now, you must be making the golf cart as an excuse. The highest speed that it can make is approximately 12 miles per hour, which isn't possible anymore in that old cart. Did it take that long to reach the post office? And what about my house? It's more than 10 miles away from the Mayor's office.]
...Memories flooded into me like a panorama.
In no time, we arrived at the mayor's office.
It didn't take us long to reach the post office.
The cart eventually stopped in front of my house.
-flicker!...The sudden flicker of the lights made both Wendy and me jump, still haunted by the memory of that day's darkness. I recalled Soos had repaired the lights not long ago, and their sudden malfunction was unsettling.
Upon arriving at my house, I tried to open the digital door lock, but it wasn't responding. Had the battery died? The door opened smoothly when my mother touched it. Strange, but electronic devices could be temperamental at times.
The room dimmed as the lights failed, casting a dark atmosphere as we locked eyes.
However, the room's light was still malfunctioning.
"...So, we call the person who looks identical to us a doppelgänger. According to stories, if you try to find them, they vanish within sight. And in modern times, there are stories that if you try to film them with a camera or other devices, they fail to work at that exact moment. The person who has a doppelgänger dies within days of encountering them."
[drr..]
[503-544-****: If you understood]
[drr...]
[503-544-****: Would you please just go away?]
"DON'T FUCKING JOKE WITH ME YOU SICK SHITTING BASTAAAAAAAAAAAAAARDDDDDDDDDD!"
I screamed loudly in the middle of the road, in the same time...understanding, every single thing that happened.
[drr...]
[503-544-****: Now that's the spirit.]
And, within seconds, some noise...noise of a nail gun and screaming came near the shack.
Ray Chiu of somewhere just killed himself. Soon, the Memento Mori gave me a message.
[Critical user function failure detected. Life signal... Negative. Commencing respawn sequence at the last checkpoint...]
"Negative life signal? I'm still alive!"
I quickly looked around. I had to go back faster than him...I...
...I can't win. His checkpoint is in the past of that of mine. But...I need to try. I need to die again, right now...!
There was this truck, that was driving towards the shack in the road. I clenched my teeth and jumped right in front of it. And with a neck-breaking force, my body folded into a shape that vertebrates are not meant to be folded...
[Critical user function failure detected. Life signal... Negative. Commencing respawn sequence at the last checkpoint...]
[Calculating amount of caused time paradox... 0. Expurgation complete. Restoring Data...]
[Restoration complete.]
[Critical user function failure detected. Life signal... Negative. Commencing respawn sequence at the last checkpoint...]
[Calculating amount of caused time paradox... 0. Expurgation complete. Restoring Data...]
[Restoration complete.]
And as my consciousness wandered beyond rational interpretation, I closed my eyes.
'The mountain walked, or...'
I hurled the book aside, fixing a piercing stare at Wendy. She set down her magazine and returned my gaze, appearing both sympathetic and composed.
"...Saw the future, huh?"
Wendy's question hung in the air.
This time, though, I was calm. Now, I grasped the situation. I was a fabrication, a tool of Bill Cipher. And for the other Ray to survive, he had to end me; I was a threat.
But what was my role? Just a character in the tragic legend of that absurd doppelgänger. Could I lead the life I wanted? No. I could merely strive to survive. It was the reason I ingested that absurd pocket watch.
And the other Ray? A stalemate. If he saw me, he died. But his death was no true death. It held no weight. And neither did my existence. He couldn't rid himself of me.
"I'll turn on the phone and leave. You two talk."
Wendy departed, leaving her phone behind. We both stood silently until the voice began.
[Heh. You're thinking this is a stalemate, right?]
"..."
[Well then, you're right. You can't do anything to me, and neither do I. I can't kill you. You'll just respawn in that same checkpoint, over and over again...]
"But I have the ability to teleport. Let's face it, 'Ray'. I'm not so different than you. The only thing is that I have this ability to teleport...which means, that maybe I'm just better."
[Maybe. But I think...We are more fundamentally different than just that. You don't have that 'goodwill' in your hearts. You know, Kant. I'm now moving by Kategorischer Imperativ. Just because saving the world is 'right', I am doing it. Not just because I have to survive.]
"...Kategorischer Imperativ? Seriously? Immanuel Kant? We don't even like his ideas. We do things for a reason. Not because something is just right, or wrong..."
[Bill Cipher will challenge me like this over and over again. Try to make me just give up fighting against him. I don't know why he's trying to end me this desperately, but I do know that he'll use this strategy. Making me give up. So, I thought that I might need another reason to fight against him.]
"...Doesn't that make it Hypothetischen Imperativ...?"
[Enough talk. Let's end this. You've probably thought about that same idea to end this stalemate, so let's stop wasting our time. I'll be there.]
[Beep-]
"..."
It was a curious spectacle: two figures, identical in form, voice, personality, and memories, unable to coexist for even a fleeting moment in the same world.
"I won't end here. I'm Ray Chiu, the improved version. He may label me a monster, but I'm not. I'm an enhancement. Now, how to teleport?"
I focused on the location, picturing where I needed to be to rid myself of the other version of me once and for all.
"...I walked towards the bottomless pit."
As I opened my eyes, I found myself standing at the precipice of the bottomless pit. There he stood, the other me, his eyes masked by a blindfold.
"Hey."
Oddly confident in his demeanor, he refused to meet my gaze.
"So, doppelganger. Here to rid yourself of me? Planning to exploit the 'glitch story,' huh?"
While he maintained his composure, I observed keenly. He surely had a plan, given our fundamental similarities.
"...Whatever you do... you'll never be real. That's the fact."
"...Shut up. Whether I'm real or not doesn't matter."
"But it does."
The other me smirked a sight that grated on me unexpectedly.
"One day, Mabel mentioned seeing me by the road. A signal. An omen of the Doppelganger story."
"..."
"So, I devised a plan, analyzing Bill's intentions as always."
"I possess the memento mori. Your discovery doesn't change that..."
"Imagine. If you had to fight Ray Chiu, what would you do? We're paranoid. Frankly, I'm surprised we don't have paranoid personality disorder. But we know our weaknesses."
"..."
I hesitated. What was I vulnerable to? Sudden emotions, social connections... and...
"...Wait, you...!"
"That's right. I'm susceptible to cringy 'virtues,' like the 'power of friendship.' But in this Disney show, nothing beats the 'power of friendship.' NOW!"
In an instant, someone pounced from behind, pinning me to the ground. He was hefty and robust.
"...Soos...?!"
"Sorry, double Ray dude. Got to do this."
Soos's tone had never been this stern. He held me down, making it impossible to rise.
"...Thank you, Soos. Now, Wendy."
"On it."
Wendy was present too. While I couldn't see, I sensed her securing me with a rope.
"What... what the heck are you trying to do...! Stop! Stop!"
"...Ah, finally. Now I can remove this blindfold. Doppelgangers can teleport, and you've just proven that. But it seems like you can't teleport when caught directly like this."
"...Let...me...go...!"
The other me chuckled. I could sense his gaze, seeing me pitifully captured by Soos and Wendy.
"...Sorry. I truly am. But I know myself. If I were in your shoes, I'd be contemplating how to survive... and I'm certain you're already plotting to ally with Bill. That won't happen."
"...I am going to end you!"
"Good luck... Ah, right. Let me explain one thing. This Bottomless Pit is a wormhole—a peculiar glitch in this world that defies normal laws of physics."
"...No. You can't..."
"If I didn't do this to you, you would've done the same to me. Anyways, to finish the explanation... There are stories of a 'clipping bug,' a phenomenon allowing one to pass through objects in a game... in real life. You find a place where physical laws don't follow the same order, and the world just stops recognizing you. Then you simply fall through the ground, indefinitely. Or maybe you end up in another dimension. There are variations to this story... but the crucial point is that most stories don't involve dying, just lingering endlessly and never returning."
"No...!"
"You're going to fall into this hole. Yes, you'll resurface, I suppose... But we won't make it possible. You'll return to this hole, right? What if you just keep going up and down, repeatedly? The mechanism of this hole is more like respawning you in a specific space. So what if you stay in that space mid-air?"
"..."
"You'll clip to yourself. To your own body."
The pit teleports whoever is inside and makes the person unable to go to the other side of the pit. That's how the pit works. What this Ray is saying is that he is stopping me precisely at the point where the pit teleports me. Since I'd be in the pit, it'll try to teleport me anyway...to the place I'm already at.
That'll create a glitch...making impossible things happen.
"...No. No...No...!"
I screamed, but Wendy shoved a towel in my mouth so I couldn't move my mouth and tongue. The baffled sound came out from me, as Soos made me danging in the pit.
...It was pitch black inside...and I was there, dangling inside the pit with only a rope holding me.
I could feel the pit, that was trying to make me leave.
"Mph! Mmph!"
"Goodbye."
And the moment pit teleported me...I clipped.
That's when it happened—my own body, my own existence, collided with itself in this impossible space. The collision triggered an inexplicable reaction, and suddenly, I was hurtling through the ground at an unimaginable speed.
The sensation was overwhelming, terrifying. I couldn't control my trajectory or velocity. It was like I was a bugged character in a game, moving erratically, glitching through the terrain. The layers of earth, rock, and soil blurred into a disorienting mosaic as I soared through them, unable to halt this uncontrollable journey through the depths of the earth.
I shivered in terror, the realization sinking in that I might be condemned to this existence, perpetually phasing through the very fabric of the earth. The experience was nightmarish as if I had become a ghostly specter traversing through realms where I had no place, no control, and no escape. It was a terrifying and chaotic journey, an eternal fall through the unknown, a prisoner of the bizarre, distorted laws of this impossible space.
All I could see was a blurring image of the underground...and a giant triangle-like thing, buried underground Gravity Falls...
...Giant, triangle-like thing...?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
...No. it...can't...be...! After all that...!
...Wait. Does it even matter to me anymore? It's not my business. All I have now is infinite time to go completely insane, not able to do anything in this place.
That Ray will have to deal with...that.
...Ha.
It was a bad ending for both of us, huh?
