He is seven years old, snot and tears running down his face as he cradled his arm to his chest, the bones underneath the reddened skin angry and cracked, the taste of blood in his mouth as bitter as defeat.

The bully was older, larger, and a Hell of a lot angrier about things than he could even begin to fathom- he was in a semi-conscious daze just from the pain. He had never broken anything before, let alone had it broken by someone else, it just didn't make any sense, why would someone just do that?!

In the back of his young mind, concepts that he was dimly aware that he shouldn't have knowledge of yet- words like Hate and Fear and Survival, things a seven-and-a-half year old shouldn't have any sort of inkling of yet- were forming in some unknowing haze, his eyes burning in pain and shame and anger as the older boy turned on his sister, face twisted in that rictus grin that bullies got when they knew they've stepped over that invisible line that got Adults involved in a Bad Way.

It made him so, just so, so ANGRY, the way that STUPID BOY was staring right at his TWIN like he wanted sympathy, like he hadn't just hurt him so much, like-

He is 13 years old, bruised, bloodied, and terrified beyond anything he could have ever imagined in his worst nightmares- indeed, his nightmares seemed pleasant in comparison to what Bill had wrought upon all of them in Gravity Falls.

He creeps around like a beast, low to the ground, breath caught in his throat at every stray sound and tremor that makes itself known against the unnatural, angry sky, and he is so scared and he is so angry because it's his fault and for all he knows everyone he loves in this town is dead.

He curls into a little ball, on his side, arms clutched against his knees, face buried askance to his shoulder, sobbing as quietly as he can because he knows that there's something horrible and terrible and dangerous out there and it's hunting him like an animal, like prey, like-

He is 15 years old, hands clenched tightly at his side, all gangly limbs and acne, face bright red and chin quivering, only through sheer force of will he isn't actually sniffling- not yet, at least, but he knows he isn't far off.

The girls are laughing at him, so hard one of them is actually doubled over, the rest leaning against either each other or the lockers next to them, harsh, vicious laughter cutting through his flesh like blades, ringing in his ears so loudly it's all he can hear-

"You?! Why would ANYONE want to go out with some creepy nerd? Who the Hell even gave the idea that I could ever like you?!"

He kept his eyes downcast,hat brim kept firmly as a shadow over his increasingly ashen face, not even finding his voice enough to answer the cruel words,

Stupid, stupid, why would you ask, so stupid, so-

He is 17, holding his sister as she sobs against him, again, for another night. It had been a week since they put Great Uncle Ford to rest, since they had buried an empty casket in a cemetery far from anywhere the man had ever called home. Another fresh set of sobs, harsh and shattering, wracks her body, and she seems so small in his arms that he can't help but feel a looming sense of defeat dredge up within him.

They had comforted each other like this all week, the finality of such a great influence on their lives breaking against them like great waves, fresh and hot grief welling up from them at intervals. She had held him just like this, too, and no doubt would again.

He can't even offer her words of counseling anymore, because he's just as broken as she is, and he's only a couple moments from bawling himself, eyes red and watery and he wishes he could take all her pain, all his sisters grief, right into himself, curl it up deep inside him and let it fester far, far away from her bright smile and loud laughter, far away from the place they learned that their mentor, the saviour of the entire fucking world was taken away by sheer ugly happenstance and bad luck, swallowed by the cold sea, down deep and dark and-

He is 19 years old, and Dipper Pines is in more agony than his mind had ever conceived possible. He wasn't really sure if he was screaming at all anymore, but his throat was sure as fuck going through the motions of it, his eyes almost rolling back into his head as something dug itself out of his bones, skin cracking and bursting like wood caught in a fire, blood flowing down his face from his eyes, his ears, his nose, bubbling and hot like a lavaflow.

He wants to die.

He wants it all to end, the pain, the sheer unadulterated agony that has become the only thing he can focus upon as something long and large and horribly corporeal tears its way out of his chest, the rune upon his skin breaking and firing in a futile display that only serves to bring all of his misfortune into a sharp, daggerlike focus.

Something keeps him upright, pulling forward just as gravity seeks to bring him back down, blinding light keeping him aloft as Wendy looks on in some sort of horror, her eyes clearing of all malice as whatever thing that guided her like a puppet stopped using her.

BREAK

Dipper is spread eagled in the open air, feet dangling an inch or so off the ground, a horrid, hollow sound coming from his throat as his teeth and tongue, flecked with blood, seek to keep screaming as his body no longers acts of his own accord.

I killed Dipper, the thought rang through her skull, chill and echoing, her body numb with shock as she found herself thinking clearly for the first time all night.

It turned out to be her last one, as whatever thing that was crawling out of her friends chest lashed out at her, solid and hateful, violating her and damning her and becoming her. It set cold fire to her skin, bathed her in malice and starlight and consumed her as it entered her body and used her. She screamed.

It was too late.

BREAK

Mabel, with Soos two steps behind her,burst out of the door just as the screaming stopped. She wished it hadn't, as her body stopped for a half second to try to process the horror in front of her eyes.

Something long and slimy and unfathomably red was crawling out of her brothers chest and into Wendy, and she could hear the crack of skin and bones as it forced its way out, a parasite evacuating its host. With a final, sickening squelch, the end of it finally fully slithered out, and Dipper collapsed to the floor, a marionette with it's strings cut. A ragged, angry wound took up most of his chest, shirt torn and ruined, the sick white of bones glistening in the twilight.

Mabel let out a sound beyond words, a strangled cry that wasn't language, but sheer animal grief as she rushed towards her twin, sliding next to him and grabbing his head towards her,

"Dipper?! Dip! Dipper, please, come on, bro, please, no, please please pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!"

She shakes him, tears blurring her vision, voice gaining a higher pitch with each please please please until she stops speaking at all, mouthing grief at her brother's body until she's simply shaking in disbelieving grief.

He can't be dead, he can't, no, never, not him, no, we only just came home, no-

With a sickening crack, Soos goes flying above her, whatever Wendy became dismissing his charging at her with a casual offhand that lifts him bodily off the ground, sending him twenty feet until he careens into the mud behind her in a heap. He groans, but lays still.

She looks up, eyes warring between hatred and defeat. "You killed him," she states with watery certainty, voice harsh and guttural from her screaming.

"I did," says the Wendything, eyes flickering with unseen fire. She is floating slightly off the ground, toes idly flickering towards dirt and loam. "He is no longer necessary."

"I'm going to kill you," Mabel says, unflinchingly meeting the monsters eyes. "I'm going to stop you."

"I am a God. I am Magog. I am forever."

"I don't fucking care." She gently traced her hand down his ashen face, closing his eyes, caressing his cheek for one last time. Placing his head upon the ground, she stands up, casually dusting herself off as her hair falls lank about her face. "I'm still going to kill you. You took Dipper. You stole Wendy. You're going to die."

And with a voice like thunder, the newborn good laughed. "You are brave, human. I commend it. But still, foolish. I reclaim this world for the wilds; I am Magog, Lord of Beasts and all the Wild Places, and I will not be stopped." The Wendything raised its arm, and clenched it's fist, and the wind around them picked itself up into a mighty gale, seconded by the crack of tree limbs as they bend and break in the sudden maelstrom.

And, from the woods surrounding them, there came a mighty howl as ten thousand animals burst forth their wild supplication to their God.

"Come and try, little one. I'll be waiting."

And the newly reborn Beast God rocketed into the sky, bathed in thunder and wind.

Break

He groaned, eyes struggling to open themselves against the horrid, nightmarish sleepiness that threatened to drown him, an ocean of distant starlight exploding behind his eyelids. He tried to move his arms, but they barely twitched. His legs were jelly, boneless, useless, uncaring of his predicament.

With a supreme effort and a hard will, he managed to wrench open his right eye, and then his left. He blinked. He blinked again.

He was, he reasoned, in Hell.

There was no sky. It was a jagged void, a dangerous nothing stitched from all the shadows and all the places reality refused to look. It loomed and crashed into itself with such a deafening silence that he started crying, unaware of the tears running down his cheeks like priceless jewels.

The ground was made of gaunt darkness, something less than dirt but more than rock and stone. It burned against his skin for a moment, before freezing him, back and forth and again, more times than could be comprehended, faster than thought, but still agonizing, and growing worse all the time.

But that wasn't the worst part.

No, that was his companion.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't my old buddy Pine Tree!"

Bill Cipher gazed at him with his single, thing eye, red and hostile and growing larger and larger and larger, enough to swallow him, enough to swallow the whole of the world in weirdness and chaos and murder.

"Aren't we going to have SO MUCH FUN TOGETHER, OLD FRIEND?!"

Dipper really, truly, tried to scream, but he no longer had a mouth.