This fic is mostly gonna be hurt/comfort and protective grunkles, but the first few chapters will be adventure and suspense and etc because I want to establish a good plot (and also practice my adventure and suspense writing because i am not good at it at all)

helpful hint: "Ijiraq" is pronounced like "EE-yuh-rack," and the messages at the end of each chapter will be in a basic +3 ceasar cipher

happy reading, and please remember to leave reviews!

"I wonder how long we've been walking," Mabel mused, twirling around as she skipped through the deep woods. Trees stretched far above the twins until they disappeared into a cloudy sky, painted a heavy gray with mist and fog as crystal snow rained down on them. Suddenly, she gasped, a broad smile finding its way to her face. "What if we find the unicorns again?! I won't let that good-for-nothin' Smell-lestabelle get away alive this time! I'll get to use those new punches Grunkle Stan taught me!" She threw a couple of uppercuts into the air to demonstrate.

Dipper hummed momentarily as if considering the possibility, but then he looked up from his navy blue journal and shook his head. "No, Grunkle Ford said that unicorns take at least two years to resurface after encounters with humans."

"Aw, poo! Well, at least it's really pretty out here."

She was right; the forest was coated thickly with bright white snow that glowed a gentle blue through the mist of the foggy afternoon. She resumed walking as Dipper thoughtfully sketched the view of winter conifers onto a blank page in his journal.

"Still, though, I don't think we've ever been this deep in the forest before."

That gave Dipper pause. He looked back up and glanced around warily, starting to rapidly click his pen. It was true—he didn't recognize where they were.

The twins had arrived in Gravity Falls for the first time nineteen months ago, when they spent the summer there. They visited again for winter break that year, then again for spring break, then again for their second summer. Now, it was the twins' second winter in Gravity Falls—their fifth visit overall. They knew every last part of the forest.

Nothing should have been unfamiliar.

He tried to calm himself; everything would be okay as long as they had a horizon, a sense of direction, a method of determining which way's which. But Dipper carefully noted the thick fog all around him and began to realize he wasn't sure that they had any horizon, anymore.

"Where's the sun?"

"Right here!" Mabel quipped, spinning around to grin brightly at her brother and point at herself with two thumbs. Her face fell, though, when she saw the concerned expression on Dipper's face. "What's wrong, bro-bro?"

"Where's the sun?" he asked again, voice even and patient in a forced way that Mabel recognized. It was the sort of voice that meant Dipper was thinking too much again. It was paranoia and desperate control of tone, because he knew that if he let his voice show the anxiety creeping up, it would become real all too quickly.

She wanted to answer his question definitively to help ease his mind, but she looked up and the fog was thicker than ever, the clouds low and dense and dark. There was no sun in sight. The hairs pricked up on the back of her neck and she scrambled for a bright side (ha, a bright side to the lack of brightness—that would've been hilarious under different circumstances). "Who needs the dumb ol' sun, anyway? Don'tcha have your compass?"

Momentary relief crossed the boy twin's face as he remembered his compass and reached into the pocket of his coat to retrieve it, but the smile faded instantly when he looked at it and found the needle spinning uncontrollably around its bearing. He sighed shakily, turning it to show Mabel what it was doing. "The compass has been compromised."

"Compass-mised?" she tried weakly. Her shoulders slumped in defeat when Dipper only shot her a scowl. "Okay, yeah, that wasn't my best work. But don't worry about it! I'm sure my puns will get better on our way back to the Mystery Shack!"

"Which way is the Mystery Shack, Mabel?"

"Uh, that's easy! It's-"

The fourteen-year-old tensed when she saw something move in her peripherals. Her right hand hovered instinctively over her grappling hook.

"Mabel?! Did you see something?!"

The answer was yes. At first, Mabel was sure of it. She had seen something, a quick little flash of movement, a brush of darkness against the stark white of a snowy December tangle of trees. It was real, it was there, and it was black like coal.

Or... was it grey, like ash?

Or... was it blue, like smoke?

Or... was it colorless, like air?

Like nothing?

It must have been nothing.

She looked all around her but whatever she had seen was gone, or it had never been there in the first place. It must have been her imagination.

"No... No, I guess not."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah!"

"No, you're not."

"Why does it matter?"

"Because whatever you saw could be dangerous! If we've never been this deep in the forest before, that means the creatures we find out here might not be anything we've ever seen! They could be-" He jumped and whipped his head around when a shadow brushed around the corner of his eye.

"New," Mabel breathed, finishing her brother's sentence. "You saw it too, didn't you?"

Dipper held his eyes wide open, walking backward in cautious circles and searching for what he saw. But nothing was there. He knew that something had been there, he was certain of it. It was real, it was there, and it was black like earth.

Or... was it grey, like dust?

Or... was it blue, like wind?

Or... was it colorless, like air?

Like nothing?

But it couldn't have been nothing.

Because Mabel saw it too.

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