It was a pretty good day. The sun was shining, the clouds were fluffy and white, and the gnomes were searching for a new queen. Well… their way of 'searching'. And by that, I meant armed with rope and wooden pins. I just felt sorry for whoever they were looking for now…

But yeah… that was… expected here. I never really considered it out of the ordinary now. I guess when you've faced zombies, 'yandere' pixels (as Soos says…), shapeshifters, and… you know, just weird things in general, it's always just a regular day in Gravity Falls. Nothing's normal, apart from Tad Strange, of course… I mean, come on, he's like the most normal guy around.

But hey, I guess it's down to opinion, really. It helps to keep an open mind, when that isn't dangerous and a looming threat to society's greatest ones. It isn't that now, of course, but it doesn't hurt to remember that fact. At least… when you don't get super paranoid about it. That's definitely not me. Nu-uh. Nope. Certainly not.

Oh, er… I think I forgot something very important. I'm, uh… Dipper. Yes, yes, I knew that; of course I know my name, it was just the introductory bit and… never mind. I needed to get that out of the way…

Onto the real stuff though…

I vacation in Gravity Falls on a yearly basis. The first time we both came here, well… we weren't so ecstatic about it, but we've been through so much that it's kinda hard not to let this place grow on you. Especially its inhabitants and visitors. They're… really the best thing about it to me. We might have done a ton of epic things, but the most important thing is family. I know that sounds super cheesy, but trust me, it's true.

We've… been told it's wrong to believe in them. That you should trust no one. That… didn't help anyone. We were the most powerful united, so… trust turned out to be the strongest weapon of all. It's funny, really… but maybe it's because the person who'd written that advice was so isolated and alone from everyone else…

…Ah! I've done it again! Referring to people you guys don't even know about.

Okay. Well… I have a sister, called Mabel. She's… energetic, but she's one of the closest people to me. She's the person I've spent a majority of my adventures with. Sometimes, we fight, sure, but we're brother and sister… and those always make up, right? Reality's tried to rip us apart before, massive bubbles and evil triangles, but they all failed.

"Hey! Dipper, you daydreamer! I'm asking you a question!"

"…huh?"

Mabel's sat next to me on the bus, grinning widely and showing off her braces with that beam. Her hands are settled in her lap, and she's wearing a blue sweater with a star on it. Her legs are kicking against the back of the bus under the seat, seemingly imaginative.

"I said, do ya' have anything planned for when we go back?"

I'd… not actually thought about that. I mean, yeah, obviously, I dreamt of going back… Gravity Falls was like our home away from home, maybe even more than that, but… I'd not actually planned anything for when we actually got back.

"Not… really, Mabel. I guess I was hoping to improvise."

"Improvise, huh… hey! We could go have a waffle-sticking contest! It's like eating the waffles, but not really!" Mabel grinned widely, her eyes gleaming with inspiration. Her eyes looked at me hopefully, and I looked away with an awkward smile.

Yeah, this randomness was my sister. But our family loved her for it. Always so happy and cheerful, and… with her around, it really felt you could take on anything. And I could. With Mabel, I, yes, definitely, absolutely, could take on anything.

"Maybe," I responded, chuckling at my sibling with a growing smile. I'd been listening to her ideas the whole ride, but… now that we were nearing the Mystery Shack, well... I was eager to start the summer.

"Or MAYYYYYBE we could go visit Wendy." Her expression was… sly, definitely more than slightly suggestive.

I stiffened at that, and then glanced away impishly.

"Y-yeah, we could do that. Maybe."

"Awwww, c'mon, Dipper—just kidding!" Mabel snickered, playfully elbowing me.

Wendy… well, I… kinda had a thing for her. Maybe I still do now, but—no! It's as a friend… See, she's really cool and all, but… we discussed it before. It wouldn't work… she's older than me… and even if this was some fantasy world, I probably wouldn't take the chance of being with her… it'd just… feel weird, you know? Not that her doppelganger didn't melt into a blackness of leech-things right in front of me…

"Look at you, all red! JUUUUUST I thought you were over her, Dipper!" my sister commented, looming over me with a wide smile. She pinched at my cheeks, and I pulled away instinctively.

"Ow! M-Mabel!"

"Ah, young love—so beautiful, cute, and demanding of specific characteristics," Mabel sighed, smiling and lying back against the bus seat. She'd left me alone, thus, I rubbed my cheek.

At that, my sibling frowned, and I knew I had to change the subject for her. Her last summer romances… though obviously friendzoned by now, didn't go so well…

"Hey, u-uh… so… Mabel. Apart from the waffles thing, and the water balloon catapults, what else should we do this summer?"

"Gee, that's a big question," Mabel responded innocently, perking up again. "Everything!"

"E-everything?" I asked, looking slightly confused… one half of that expression didn't want to know, nor question her.

Mabel's ideas were always outside of the box. Unique, and she just had this element that… well, made everything a lot more fun than it was meant to be.

"Yep! Even burying the dead!"

"…what?" I blinked at her, looking slightly unnerved. I know our adventures involved the supernatural, but… "…oh! You mean the rebellious dead, right?"

"Duh! The funeral directors have the non-rebellious dead sorted out already!" Mabel replied, giggling.

"The people who are way too comfortable with the job…?"

"Let them be; they're spirits of true happiness and purity!"

"…not sure how to respond to that." I looked at my sister with a fond expression.

Outside of this vacation, even if we were together most of the time, we hardly got to talk about what we'd done and will do at the strange little town of Gravity Falls.

"…huh. There's a blue spiky thing on the side of the road."

This summer we'd be able to gain that time again, and, really, I couldn't wait for it. I even missed the weird conversations, not that I didn't hear bits of them every day. I—…what?

"…Mabel, what did you say?"

"I just said we drove past a blue thing."

"What?"

"That!"

Mabel stood up in her seat, pointing through the back glass window. I blinked, shuffled, and looked where I thought she'd pointed.

There… was a blue thing.

It was a spray paint canister.

"Mabel, I don't see—"

"Next to it, doofus!" Mabel pointed, lifting her hand again.

The moment I saw that creature, lying unconscious next to the road, my eyes glinted with the longing I'd had for the adventure we'd had the last season we came here. It… wasn't sadistic at all, don't get the wrong idea. There were so many things my uncle might not have covered in these journals! Discovering more things, before we'd even gotten to the Mystery Shack, could really impre—help Uncle Stanford!

"…Hey, driver!" My voice hollered, looking back to the front. "Could we stop the bus?"

"Sorry, kids, you have to wait until we get to the next stop sign."

My frown became evident to Mabel, and she too felt anxious.

"That poor blue unicorn…"

"I thought you hated unicorns now."

"Shhh! It's a love/hate relationship," she whispered hoarsely, her finger on her lips. "They're too adorable to hate, but they're also massive jerks."

"That said, I don't think it's a unicorn… too many spikes…"

"That could just be its mane!" my sister responded hopefully. "I'm glad the first thing we saw here was a possibly-dislocated unicorn!"

I sighed, and then looked to the front.

"…we've stopped," I observed. And so shortly after that guy had said… now that I think about it, we weren't too far away from the supposed 'unicorn' either. "That didn't take long."

"C'mon! Let's go snag us a unicorn!" Mabel grinned widely. She jumped off her seat and ran down the centre of the bus, and sighed irritably.

"Mabel! Wait! Our stuff! Don't make me…"

She was gone so instantly. I guess she was just as eager as I was. I'm glad, though… I wasn't the only one who missed this life.

"…carry all of this." I pouted, watching her high-tail it back to the blue thing, and I looked down at the mass amount of bags at my feet.

I'm pretty sure a lot of these had Mabel's 'treasure' inside… Hardly any of it felt like clothes. I sighed and started making myself useful, picking up the bags and lugging them across the bus floor. With a little difficulty, I managed to get them to the door, and glanced over my shoulder to see the driver boredly waiting, watching the road.

Well, he could have helped me a little…

But I didn't bother giving him a remark about that.

"Hey, sport. How's it going?"

"…AHHH!"

I jumped out of my shoes, then glanced to see a red-haired female smiling warmly at me. Still wearing the same checker shirt and jeans… I tensed up.

It had been such a long time… I didn't know what to do or say. I knew nothing big was to come of this… so, I guess I took it like a man and acted… well, natural. Like a man. Heh.

"Oh, er, hey, Wendy," I responded casually, secretly trying to stable myself inside. "How're you?"

"Watching a technical teenager struggle with bags, but I'm okay," she responded with a playful smirk. "Do you need help, Dipper?"

"I'm okay!"

…at that very moment, the weight on my left arm, from the rucksacks, the arm straps, and the teddies sent me toppling to the ground.

"…or so I thought," I sighed.

Wendy laughed, then bent over to help me. She held out her hand, and hesitantly, I took it. I regained myself, and dusted the dirt off my clothes.

"Thanks."

"No sweat, bro. Now let's get this to the shack."

"Oh, you don't need to—"

"Your arms are going to fall off if you carry all of this," Wendy responded, shaking her head with a smile. "Stop trying to be tough, man. It's okay. It's a vacation. And what do you do on vacations?"

"…Relax," I responded sheepishly, though with a slightly exhausted tone of voice.

Wendy started picking up my bags, and I watched her as she did so.

I smiled, reminiscent of the past. Really, Wendy was one of my best friends around here… despite our age gap, we got along really well. Me and Mabel even hung around with her and her friends, too… It was great.

"Hey, Dipper! Come on! Said I was going to help, but you're not making me do all the work, right?"

"…! Ah! I'm sorry!" I apologized quickly. Wendy was already walking down the path to the Mystery Shack. I started picking up the rest of mine and Mabel's belongings quickly, and then started after her. Speaking of Mabel…

I made a note to get to her immediately after I'd gotten everything inside. Hopefully nothing would happen…

"That was a very casual greeting, Dipper," Wendy remarked, looking at him with a smile. "You know, I'd think you didn't remember me until you came back."

"Ah, well… I thought about you… sometimes…" I muttered under my breath. "…! Ah, I mean, not in the creepy way! I just couldn't wait for the summer to see you guys again—Soos, Uncle Stan and Stanford, and—!"

"Dude, it's fine," Wendy replied, chuckling to herself. "Even though you're a teenager now, well, it's good to see you're still yourself."

"Y-yeah, I guess…" I laughed nervously, looking away.

A beaten up shack came into the view… well, the usual beaten-up old shack. Of course, it must have been patched up… with Soos taking care of it, especially. That guy could fix anything…

When we reached the front porch, I settled the belongings down. I immediately turned to run away from the shack, back the way I came, but Wendy's voice stopped me.

"Off somewhere already?"

"I need to go get Mabel. We kinda saw something, so I have to make sure it isn't lethal as all heck," I told her assertively.

"Okay then… just make sure you get back alive, all right?" my friend joked, smiling down at me. I smiled back and nodded awkwardly, before running to the road where the stop sign was.

The bus was long gone now. Good thing, I guess. You don't get many passengers from this spot outside of the Shack's opening hours…

"Okay, time to find Mabel…"

I turned back, then looked down the road, before sprinting down it, towards where I recalled spotting the creature. Hopefully it wasn't dangerous…

"Dipper!"

I heard a yelp, a panicked one, and my instincts forced me to run faster.

"Mabel! What's wrong?!"

"…it's so CUTE!"

"…huh?"

I stopped a little away from her, where I could see her and the creature clearly.

"I've been trying to wake it up. Shaking it, yelling at it, using Wake-Up Smack on it, but nothing's working." Mabel frowned.

There was a noticeable red mark on the creature's cheek, and at that, I sighed. Poor guy… whatever he was… if he… was a guy…

I walked over and inspected the creature.

It was something a little taller than us in stature. Had a tanned muzzle, chest, and arms… It was blue in colour, and it was wearing red and white shoes, and gloves… It had spikey hair, too… or… quills…?

"…Is this a hedgehog, Mabel?"

"You tell me, journal guy. I've never seen a thing like this ever in my life, but it's so cute!"

"Mabel… we see a lot of things."

"I know, but not, SPECIFICALLY, this thing!"

"I don't remember it being mentioned in the journal…" I frowned. I really didn't, and I'd memorized what I could of the journals last year… "Not through any sketches or descriptions, anyways… Maybe we could start a new one with an entry on this!"

I brightened, suddenly cheerful and excited.

"Uncle Stanford will love this!"

"Awww, look at you with your little senpai act." Mabel giggled.

"…what?"

"Never mind!"

"But anyway… how do we help this guy?"

I noticed, then, that the creature in front of my sister was twitching… its eyes were, anyway…

"…you two… hah… you two could help me… sure, suuuuurrreee… SO LEND A HAND AND HELP ME ALREADY!"

"What the…?!"

"Mabel, get back!"

Mabel jumped back at the suddenly loud voice, and looked down at the creature with wide eyes.

That voice was… new… but… it sounded weird… But regardless, that tone was violent… angry…

"…"

Suddenly, the creature was silent again. There was a small breath, a tired one, coming from it.

"…Mabel, did you see that…?"

"Ye-yeah…" Mabel shook slightly. "I hope this unicorn isn't scary all the time…"

"…ugh… what…"

Its eyes slowly twitched open, and its blurred vision caught us.

"…oh… hey… there… k-kids…" the blue creature smiled, its weak eyes trained on us. "Don't… m-mind… m-me… got a little scratch… I-I'll be… f-fi…"

Suddenly, its head hit the ground, and I stared as it fell lifeless again. I was speechless, until I decided we should—

"Dipper, we need to get it back to the Mystery Shack!"

Interruption…

"Shouldn't we call an ambulance?"

"Mystery SHACK!"