WARNING! This story will contain violent imagery, adult content, obscene language, drugs, moments engineered to fuel your nightmares, death, and mental illness. Do not be surprised if the most deprave acts you can imagine start showing up in this story. The characters in this story are based off those in Gravity Falls, but they are also a bunch of freaks and losers. Don't expect heroism (don't be surprised if heroin shows up either). You have been warned…

Episode 1: Trapped (in more ways than one)

He stood on a hill and watched as the sky turned blood-red.

As the world met its end.

A giant smile of black and yellow eyes stretched across the sky. Those eyes had always been there, he knew. Lurking just behind the clouds and watching their every move. Their sideways eyelids were studded with teeth that gleamed with the light of the meteors which tore through the thinning atmosphere. Hands of monumental strength dived forth from the unblinking eyes and closed their ashen fingers around buildings. People crashed to the ground in heaps, their little black bodies charred with the unholy blue fire which would never be put out.

Ashes streamed into the air the blue and yellow fire razed the thick forest. The lake boiled from the heat which filled the air, causing the heads of the tortured survivors to explode, showering the pavement in gray matter. From the sky poured plasma coated brimstone, crushing houses, stores, and churches. The stench of sulfur wafted through the valley as time began to shred at the seams.

A sick smile crossed his mouth, and he realized, that he was not the victim of the Armageddon. Not someone displaced from normal life and a loving family. Not fodder for the elder gods. He was not a corpse to encourage the hero to save humanity, and definitely not the hero.

He is the god of this dying realm.

"DIPPER! Wake up sleepy head, WE'RE HERE!"

He opened his eyes, and the nightmare (or perhaps, he realizes grimly, horrifying power fantasy) slipped out of his grasp. He isn't the god of anything. He is fourteen-year-old Dipper Pines. He can't convince his parents not to send him on summer vacation to a two-bit tourist attraction in Middle of Nowhere, Oregon, let alone cause the downfall of mankind.

Not that he would want to.

Looking around the back of his great-uncle's junkyard excuse of a car, he wondered why they packed so much. He knew that Mabel was bad at bringing the essentials, but this was ridiculous. Their baggage formed a mountain, and he considered himself lucky that the pile had not squashed him.

"Hey! You've haven't been sleeping for THAT long. C'mon, I want to see the shop that Stan told us so much about!"

Staring up at his glittery twin, Dipper smirked. "Oh, is that what he was rambling on about?"

Mabel giggled, and his heart jumped.

That wasn't right. His mind immediately mentioned. He heard her giggle all the time and didn't react that way. He

He heard her giggle all the time and didn't react that way. He shouldn't react that way. He definitely should not react to anything she did in a way which mimicked his seventh-grade crush. Or any crush for that matter.

For a second she sensed his confusion and opened her mouth to ask that everything was alright.

Luckily, he beat her to the punch. "You go check it out, I'll get our bags."

She beamed, and gave him a light hug before rocketing off to no doubt be disappointed. "Thanks a million bro!"

He watched her go with a sinking feeling. "No prob…sis."

Something about her seemed strange, almost…wrong. Her enthusiasm was as per the norm, but her hair, her manner…both seemed refreshing. More so than usual. He should be used to her antics. But this time, her presence energized him.

They woke him up and got his blood pumping. It shouldn't be that way.

Her fuschia-pink sweater, with a star stitched crudely into the center of it, was one of her favorites (and she had an entire trunk full of hand-knit sweaters). Normally he might poke a little fun at her fashion sense (she would insult him and they would both laugh). But the sweater didn't look as flashy, her eagle earrings looked less tacky than usual. And her skirt…well, he didn't remember it being nearly that short when they first had clambered into Stan's rust bucket.

For a moment, he had the image of boys leering at her because of that skirt. His sister had never been pretty enough for others to treat her as "popular", but he couldn't remember the faces of half of the guys who tried to use his sister's naïvety and boy crazy nature to take advantage of her.

The hoarse voice of Stan Pines, his semi-deranged great-uncle, emitted from the hovel they had parked in front of. Dipper rolled his eyes, adjusted to the emotional abuse by now, thanks for the first hour of driving. "Hey, Dipstick! Grab the bags and get your bony ass in here! I want to introduce you and your sister to the folks who are gonna be your fellow employees for the rest of the summer."

Grabbing a few pieces of luggage, he kicked the door close and approached the strange house.

A massive sign, almost comparable to a billboard in size and obnoxiousness, stood to watch over the jutting out metal and wood which constructed the roof. The words "MYSTERY SHACK" stood in wooden block letters, each held into place by chains and rope as though they were attempting to escape their depressingly commercial existence. It cast a great shadow across the front of the house and made the various statues which cluttered at the summit of the stairs appear sinister in nature.

Animal skulls hung from strings, and ancient symbols which his great-uncle probably did not understand, had been painted all over the stairs. They mixed with the neon profanity which adorned the porch, like a lost alphabet. A golf cart which appeared to have gone through hell and back sagged beside a rotting totem pole on which red was the only remaining color. A dozen wind chimes, constructed mostly from broken glass and scrap metal, tinkled grotesquely against bleached bones as he pulled Mabel's pink wheelie luggage up the creaky stairs. It all gave him a sense tentative déjà vu, but also made him feel uneasy with how abnormal and unexpected it all was. A scarecrow, wearing a pumpkin as a head, cast a rotting glare at him as he heard Mabel introducing herself with double the enthusiasm as normal.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he tried to prepare himself for what horrors lay within, as he wrenched open a busted screen door and entered.

Mabel stood beside a plywood counter on which an ancient cash register, beaming at him. His great-uncle leaned on his cane beside her, his wrinkled face projected a level of distaste parallel with Mabel's cheer. "You certainly took your time…"

This was going to be one of THOSE summers, wasn't it? Why did his parents have to torment him by sending him to live with this ugly bastard for three whole goddamn months? Was this a sick joke? He could stand it if the miser didn't insist on humiliating him in front of his twin sister, at seemingly every opportunity. He had only known the old man a day, but already he hated him.

He acted and looked like a shriveled up version of the sadists who bullied him back home in Piedmont. Stan seemed to catch this train of thought and looked ready to smack him over the head with his cane.

With that thought, Dipper felt the urge to do something violent to the peering old man, and the horribly ventilated room did nothing to settle that reaction. Tribal masks decorated the walls, each daring him to surrender to ancestral rage and perform a primal duel with the old man. They bored into his tired conscious with their eyeless sockets, reminding the teen of skulls. The odors of refuse mixed intolerably in the stuffy air, originating from nowhere he place he could easily locate.

Mabel cast a desperate look his way, and his frustration slid loose of his form. One pleading look from her was usually enough to melt whatever emotional state he was in. Why he got so angry in the first place buzzed about. He had never been violent. He had always "taken it like a man" and ignored his harassers. They eventually grew tired of getting and left him be.

Except that one time in fourth grade, but he tried not to think about that.

"Sorry for being late Great-Uncle Ford."

Stan took this peace treaty with a nod of the barest approval. "Since you two will be working for your meals, I figured you ought to meet the people you'll be working beside."

He snapped his fingers and yelled "CORDUROY!" loud enough to force winces from his niece and nephew. They were both astonished when a willow of a girl with ratty red hair, stood up from behind the counter. A bong, appearing to have first been brought into use in the 1980's, was clutched in hand. Leaves clung to her faded plaid shirt, just as they did to her tangled locks. She must have been older than him, but Dipper couldn't help but be transfixed by her glorious emerald eyes. They drifted lazily around the room, as though the world were of little to no consequence to her. Freckles stood out on the girl's thin cheekbones, her head bobbing up and down in a lethargic manner, atop a form so lanky that Dipper questioned how it supported her head.

Stan pinched his brow at the pothead's antics and rapped lightly on the counter with his cane. "Introduce yourself Corduroy…"

In response, the cashier girl straightened her name tag, and Dipper's eyes locked onto the poorly scribbled name before they becoming embarrassingly interested in her sizeable breasts. He moved his gaze to the floor with red cheeks when she noticed his gaze and winked at him. The ginger laughed, and stretched a hand out in Mabel's direction before Stan could embarrass him with instruction not to hit on his fellow employees.

"Wendy. And who might you be…?"

Mabel leaped at the chance to introduce herself, first impressions being her forte. She shook the ginger hand ecstatically, and Wendy absorbed her fast talking introduction with unparalleled patience.

"Well aren't you just a ball of sunshine..." Wendy observed after Mabel finished her two-minute long introduction.

Mabel blushed under the praise, and Stan rolled his eyes.

Wendy turned her attention to Dipper and raised an eyebrow. "Who's Mr. Short and Sturdy?" Dipper's cheeks turned red again, and Wendy burst out laughing.

She punched his arm and grinned when he rubbed it and shied away, "I'm just kiddin' with ya'…almost everyone is short compared to me!" Dipper didn't feel the compulsion to argue. "C'mon over here and I'll get a better look at you."

Not feeling terribly enthusiastic, but also finding any chance to get closer to the beautiful girl riveting, Dipper did as requested. She certainly wasn't beautiful in the classical sense of the word, but Dipper's preferences and views weren't classical in the sense of anything. He knew that she would never stoop (socially or physically) for him, but saw no harm in a little daydreaming.

Better than boiling rivers and burning skies, that's for sure. He told himself.

He approached as one would an incredibly well-crafted tiger stature, unsure if it would come alive at any moment and claw your eyes out. The incredibly high girl giggled at his caution. She grabbed his collar the moment Dipper came within arm's distance (which turned out to be quite long for someone with as apish arms as her). The older teen pawed at his orange tee, causing him to grow statue-still.

She ran a hand across the brim of his cap. Feeling incredibly uncomfortable under Mabel's grinning gaze and the cashier girl's inspection, Dipper let the first thing which comes to mind slip out. "You…you aren't old enough to smoke pot, are you?"

She broke into hysterics, and he regretted letting the words ever leave his mouth.

Wendy's reply his mental self-flagellation. "No way silly...nothing is fun if you do it when it's legal!"

"Ah."

"I'm 17."

At the very least, this confirmed that the girl was not an adult, and it wasn't as weird as it could have been that he liked her. Wendy giggled to herself and leaned down to eye level. Dipper felt like he was sweating bullets when she pushed up his hair and traced his birthmark with a slender finger. Had her chest not been in practically eye level, he might have taken note of the fact that her arms were double jointed.

This would not have turned Dipper off his newfound crush, however. Obsessed with the abnormal since receiving a Ripley's Believe It or Not book for Christmas as a six-year-old, Dipper would have stared in fascination rather than been disgusted. He had dreamed of meeting someone with a medical oddity, similar to his own, for years.

He still had the leather-back notepad which his father had given him to write his own observations of the supernatural in. It was tucked under a couple of layers of half folded pants, in his carry-on.

Wendy's eyes lit up and air exited his lungs with the knowledge that she was not going to mock him for his birthmark. "Dude, that is awesome!" A relaxed smile crossed his features, but she put him on guard with her own conversation.

"How old are you again?" She asked upon glancing down at his head, which happened to be at chest height for her.

Dipper had the instinctive urge to lie but instead told the truth in a red-faced squeak, "Umm, Mabel and I are twins so…"

The ginger giggled and slapped her forehead, "Right. DUUUUH! Heh-heh, stupid Wendy!"

"I don't think you're stupid." It slipped out before he could think twice. I like the way that you think kid…you're going to make this summer interesting."

Stan gave him a dubious look and Mabel covered her teeth. Wendy had the most interesting reaction. She grinned, squeezing his shoulder and staring into his eyes with her own whacked-out ones. "Aww, you're so sweet. I like the way that you think kid…you're going to make this summer interesting."

Dipper nodded, backing away as the girl nearly pissed herself with laughter. The strange mix of fear and infatuation with the bizarre girl ceased when he backed into Stan. It felt like accidentally colliding with a brick wall.

The old man addressed the twins with a warning eye and a gravelly voice, "Neither of you accept any drugs from her…I'm not sending you kids back with one or both of you druggies. Your parents would kill me."

Dipper rolled his eyes, whereas Mabel examined her shoes with a look of slight disappointment.

"Now that we have that over with, handyman…" Stan gestured to follow as he moved into the next room, Mabel eagerly skipping after him.

Dipper cast one last look at the still giggling Wendy, before dragging the luggage into the hall. After leading them through two rooms stuffed with oddities, their great-uncle opened a large black door labeled "HOUSE."

Leaning towards Mabel, Dipper whispered in her ear. "Are we going to go through this door and find out that everything he owns is labeled?"

She tried, and failed, to hide her laughter and hushed her grinning twin. She looks so pretty when she's laughing.

Before he had time to scold himself, Dipper received a scowl from his uncle. Sick of their lollygagging, Stan tapped a single shoe against the wood boards until the silence was achieved. Appropriately convinced, he removed a key from inside his suit and jammed it into the knob.

The door creaked open, producing a noise which would have belonged in a cheesy horror movie.

It led into a dimly lit kitchen, with somehow even worse ventilation. A yellow bulb illuminated the rusting stove, which leaned against the water damaged wall. A tiny refrigerator lay stuffed beside a beaten up washing machine. Heaps of dirty clothes lay strew about on the filthy tile floor, and Mabel held her nose with disgust, keeping a hand on her body in an attempt to avoid touching anything.

Dipper felt the splintery boards of the room creak beneath his feet and watched as Stan opened the small door and yelled down a flight of stairs into the boiler room. "HEY FIDS, I GOT SOMEONE I WANT YA' TO MEET!"

A clatter emitted from the stairs and was followed by the scampering of feet. An old man reaching the top of the stairs, his whole form heaving with perspiration. Overalls stained with god knows what clung to his oil-slick stained form and he approached in boots which were falling apart at the seams. His scruff of a beard hung over the bandages which circled the left side of his exposed chest. He looked almost as lean as Wendy, but his form of thinness seemed to be a result of starvation, rather than his body type. The old man's exposed shoulders jutted up against the taut skin peppered with burns and abrasions. His weary blue eyes stared absently at Stan, as though Dipper and Mabel did not exist.

"This is Fiddleford McGucket, he repairs everything around here. Fids, introduce yourself…" Dipper noticed that the curmudgeon showed a hint of sympathy for McGucket, which granted him a glimpse of a less hellish summer.

But his attention was soon grabbed when McGucket removed a glove with his mouth and stabbed a bony hand in his direction.

"Nice t-t-t-to m-meetcha... Or h-he-h-ha-have we…" He hesitated, and Dipper shook his hand for fear of that the nervous old man might faint otherwise.

A strange paleness seemed to cloud his irises, almost milky but not quite. In conjunction with his skinny form and collection of scars, it made him look more like some bizarre gremlin than an old man.

Mabel noticed his shyness and took his hand the moment he removed it from Dipper's grasp. "My name is Mabel! Nice to meet you too Mr. McGucket!"

He nodded slowly, and a smile flickered across his features. "You too…you remind me of my son…Tate…He uh, he umm…how old is he a-a-again S-St-Sta-Stanford?"

His eyes flickered towards the younger man for guidance, and Stan put a hand on his shoulder with a sad look.

Then he turned him towards the staircase as he half whispered his tired response, "He's 22 Fids,"

The handyman nodded as he began to descend the stairs, an atrocious sadness seeming to come over him all at once. "Oh right…he's all grown up…d-d-doesn't need his pa…I uh,"

He looked back up at them, and for a moment, Dipper felt a spike of paranoia run through him. His head told him that he shouldn't worry about anything other than this strange man hurting himself with power tools. But the rest of him was insistent that McGucket could tell what he was thinking. That the old man stood, peering straight through him. Eyes narrowing, inspecting Dipper's thoughts, emotions, ambitions, and the nightmare which had afflicted him not twelve minutes ago. He turned away with a tragic shake of his head, clearly troubled by what he saw.

"I'd best be gettin' back to work." McGucket turned back to the boiler and descended the staircase at a slow and cautious pace.

Stan eased the boiler room door closed and gave the twins another threatening look. "I don't want you to spending too much time with him. He uh, he can have violent spells just as much as sad ones…"

Mabel raised a hand, and Dipper almost laughed at the childish action.

Stan did not find it amusing but gave Mabel the go ahead. "Umm, should he be working with power tools? I mean, if he has mental problems than shouldn't he get like, help for that? He seems old enough to retire and-"

"He's not senile." Mabel closed her mouth at the venom in Stan's voice and nearly shrunk behind her brother.

Sighing, Stan moved into the next room as he spoke. "McGucket functions well when his mind is focused on work…he had a nasty accident with his wife a few years ago, and since then he hasn't been the same. BUT,"

He swiveled towards them as they came to a halt in front of a moldy armchair. "He isn't crazy. He just has...jumbled memories…amnesia...whatever the quacks call it. So both of you need to stay away from him, or else you're gonna just...confuse him."

"But why would that be so? He's never met us before."

Stan glared daggers at Dipper for pointing out the obvious and hobbled over to the armchair.

Pointing a scabby finger at the couch, he addressed them like a disgruntled dog owner, "Sit."

Wondering if Stan was going to ask them to roll over next, Dipper sat down beside his sister. They had to squeeze up against each other, and Dipper became keenly aware that his sister's bare thigh was pressed against his own. He could feel her every breath, he could smell her perfume, and he could feel her hand brushing against his. He ordered himself to get a grip, as the swindler removed a small slip of paper.

"Welcome nieces/nephews, I hope you enjoy your stay in my hometown…Gravity Falls. That said, there are a few rules which I must insist you abide." Dipper recalled the dilapidated wooden sign which they had crossed on their way here and the words which some lunatic had taken the time to carve into the welcome sign. The alteration, "DEPravity Falls" seemed to fit the crumbling town more than the cutesy original name.

"And most important…you will not, under ANY circumstances, enter my basement. Doing so will be a one-way ticket to the a-I mean back to your parents."

Dipper raised an eyebrow, finally interested. "Why? Are you hiding something?"

Mabel sniggered at his comical tone, but Stan remained stone-faced until all humor had drained from their faces.

"I keep my guns down there smartass, and the last kid who went down there happened to have butter fingers. He accidentally blew his brains out. Took me a week to get the stuff out of the carpet. I will not be subject to another lawsuit. Stay. Out. Of. The fucking basement."

Turning away, he jerked a thumb in the direction of the staircase. "The room for you two is the last door on the left. You two can start earning your keep by clearing out the attic once you unload your junk from my car."

Mabel stood up as Dipper processed the fact that he was going to share a room with his teenage sister. Things just kept getting worse and worse.

Sensing his pessimism, Mabel tried to give him a smile. "C'mon bro, it won't be that bad. We can play cluttered room mini-golf!"

Dipper summoned his own smile, one which, as always, failed to meet hers but was enough that her moment of worry would end. "Okay, you're right. We're gonna be fine."

"As long as we stay away from the basement…otherwise, Stan will blow us away."

Mabel giggled, but the anxiousness in her voice forced her brother to realize that the jest wasn't particularly far from the reality or the assumed punishment.

[0]

The room turned out to be smaller than Dipper imagined, and the only thing which kept him from feeling claustrophobic was the triangular window which allowed sunlight inside.

While Mabel unpacked and began "beautifying" the room, Dipper started in the attic. If the house was eccentrically planned, then the attic was beyond abnormal. Half finished statues and moldy cloth mannequins formed a procession, the latter of which, clung to wireframes and slumped like meat on a hook. Dust bound tomes, each the size of his head,had been stacked, creating a sea of precarious towers. Chests filled with glass sculpture (most of it broken), formed an impasse in one direction, a dozen empty cans of paint a wall in the other. Soon he had filled a trash bag with the useless junk and was climbing the stairs with the bag over his shoulder. Mabel gave him a thumbs up as he passed their room, and he tried to smile despite the strain of the bag.

Moving through the kitchen in as quietly as he could, so as not to attract the attention of McGucket, Dipper opened the black door and stepped into The Shack.

"Hey, Stan! Where should I put this?" The old man turned away from the crowd and gave him a "do not bother me right now moment" look.

"The dumpster is behind the house, you moron." Stan removed a rusty key from a pocket within his suit, as he had done once before, and flung it towards the teen.

Dipper fumbled with the key, having only one free hand. Stan smirked and the crowd giggled at his nephew's expense, and Dipper's grip tightened around the garbage bag. For a moment, he considered flinging it at the old man. Instead, he turned around and marched back into the kitchen. He mumbled a variety of threats as he kicked open the back door, and marched into the blazing dusk heat.

The redness of the sky reminded him of his apocalyptic dream, and he felt a chill run down his spine as the setting sun came into his peripheral vision. It's light filtered through the stretch of the earth which crossed the valley and towered above the town. Shaking himself, he turned towards the massive brown compactor. Setting down the bag on the sandy ground, he noticed the rusty hatchet lying beside it as he unlocked the dumpster. The vivid image of him slaughtering the tour with that ax came and went through his mind without much deliberation. What is wrong with me? This town was not doing good things to him. First, he had developed violent fantasies, then he had started finding his own sister attractive.

The feeling of insanity closing in, like a lion stalking prey through tall grass, became almost suffocating. He didn't even notice that his hands were shaking until he had reached the dumpster. Opening the mighty bucket, Dipper promised himself that once he was done doing chores, he would take a moment to relax and maybe take a walk in the woods.

Then a blood red book cover caught his attention.

A book, with brass edges and a heavily stained cover, peeked out from beneath a trash bag. The stench of the dumpster was vomit inducing, but he stuck a hand in regardless. Slipping his fingers into the bag which lay on the mysterious book, he avoided the colony of maggots and gripped the cover. It was torn, he could feel that in the texture of the cover. Grunting, he yanked the object of interest-free. Wiping it off, he turned it over and stared at the golden hand in the center of the book. It must have been actual gold-leaf, for how it reflected in the sun and almost gave his reflection.

The number 3 sat in the center of that six fingered palm, marring Dipper's reflection. He gulped, and almost dropped it for the shivers which drifted down his body. The teen stuffed it under one arm before heaving the trash bag into the dumpster and slamming it close.

He sprinted into the woods, intent on finding somewhere with shade before opening the book. His heart began to pound as he felt energy racing out of the book and coursing through him.

Finally, when his heart felt ready to burst with this new energy, he plopped down beside an over cropping rock. Leaning against the soft lichen covering it, he flipped open the book and nearly screamed at the image which met him. He stared at the sketch in fascination, drawing a finger down the sharp angles which it was constructed with.

A rotting face, eyes long since dribbled out of the sockets, had been drawn by shaky hands. On the page beside it, was a creature with no eyes, nose, or ears, but a massive mouth. The monster stood on two feet and boasted four arms each ending in thick hooks of bone. Mouths with reptilian eyes were sketched out, with gnashing teeth scattered across the head. The face had been written sideways, mailing it even more unnatural, and the strangest thing of all was that no matter what direction he moved, those eyes seemed to follow him. He turned the page, beginning to wonder if opening the book was a mistake. As he did, a note slipped loose and landed upon his shorts. Picking it up, he read it in the descending sunlight.

"Whoever you are, you must hide this journal from others…"

He squinted and continued reading in the dimness of the afternoon, "I have spent the last few years accumulating information about the supernatural powers which rule this valley, and I filled this book with that information. Should it fall into the wrong hands, the consequences could be...cataclysmic? This is not a joke, and I am not insane." Dipper considered closing the book right then. His curiosity got the best of him. "You must protect this book with your life...or doom humanity. I have encrypted most of the data, but whoever finds this, you are now a guardian of something which MUST stay a secret. I beg of you, DO NOT show this book to ANYONE. My enemies have connections everywhere, anyone could be an operative. Remember; Trust no one, especially not yourself."

The moment he reached the end of the note, cawing in the distance. As he looked up, he felt static course from the tome into his fingertips. Yelping, he dropped the book and rubbed his tingling fingertips against his shirt as the book fell to a page depicting a bloody maw rising out of the water.

Glancing about, he found that the sun had dipped out of sight all of a sudden and that fog had rolled in off the mountain and steadily crawled across the valley. The distant crowing grew louder, and the wind began to propagate creaking and moaning from amidst the trees. The boiling heat of the day had turned to a light chill, but his shivers were not a result of the temperature. Instead, the eerie feeling of being watched refused to leave him. Glancing down at the book, he stuffed the note into his pocket. Slowly, he ran a hand across the bloodstain which lay beside a strange pentagram.

"What are you doing out here?"

Jumping to his feet, Dipper snapped the book closed and held it behind his back as he looked up. Mabel stared down at him from atop the rock, her feet dangling as she grinned. When she noticed that he was hiding something, her right eyebrow raised in interest. For some reason, her voice had sounded deeper and more demanding when Dipper first heard it, but he chalked this reaction to his bout of paranoia.

"Oh just…reading, one of my books."

The lie felt too natural, like the image of him going ax-wielding-psycho on the tour had. But whatever he had just found, be it merely the scribblings of a madman or the real deal, he did not want his twin anywhere near it.

Mabel knew him too well, however.

She hopped down beside him, before trying to poke her hand around his side to grab the book, "C'mon broseph, what did you fi-"

Dipper swatted aside her hand, almost snarling his protest. She looked at him like he had admitted to killing a kitten, and he pushed himself to his feet. Turning away, he leaned on the redwood for a moment and caught his breath as she stumbled for words.

"Dipper…what's going on?"

He detected so much worry in her voice, that it nearly broke his resolve. But his face tightened, and his fingers closed around the book. She could not know, he had a duty not to tell her. Slipping it under his arm, he tried to put distance between him and her without looking like he was running.

His hair fell over his face, giving him a steelier disposition as he replied, "NOTHING. Just please…drop it, Mabel."

Confusion and hurt struck her, but he turned away, eyes focused on the ground. He refused to make eye contact, for fear that he would break under that pathetic gaze of hers. Resisting her would be useless the moment he looked at those big, brown eyes and those big, pouting lips. Instead, he kept moving forward, clutching the book to his chest so tightly that it dug into his ribs. He ran a hand down the back of his neck, scratching as though attempting to escape his own skin. His grip on the journal tightened when he sensed Mabel's shuffling footsteps. He increased his speed.

She could not see this, bad things would happen if she did. He knew that bad things would happen. Dipper had never followed his instinct before, but everything inside of him insisted that this was the correct course of action. Whatever this was, Mabel didn't deserve to be anywhere near it. His mind conjured the results, and he wanted none of them to become a reality. So he moved at a pace somewhere between a distressed jog and a leisurely stroll, eventually breaking the façade and tearing into a full blown sprint.

He slammed the screen door close behind him and not once looked back.

[0]

Dipper sat in the attic of The Shack, his uncle running a tour below. Occasionally the old man's loud showmanship distracted him, but the book was too intriguing for him to spend more than few moments being irritated. Already his notebook was filled with codes which the encrypted information might be in.

Everything that wasn't in a code had been written hastily in chicken scratch, with no time for proper punctuation or capitalization. There were a couple entries which looked like they had been written in Japanese while there were others which could swear had been written backward. One note had been written in such thin, scarlet letters, that Dipper could swear it was written in blood.

Since growing infatuated with the supernatural, he had as well studied various secret languages and ciphers. So he could tell by one look that some messages had been written in one code while others had been written in a different code. The author had gone to obsessive lengths to keep the book hard to understand.

Eyes, hands, triangles, and X's were doodled about, as though the book had been at some point been in the possession of a morbid three-year-old. They reappeared over and over again, popping up beside a note or marking faded background on which a monster or object was drawn. Someone seemed to have gone through with an eraser and attempted to remove not just the symbols but also many of the messages, so he knew them to serve some importance. But never once did the scribblings or the code make reference to them.

Some of the notes conflicted with others and some were so faded that they almost disappeared into the crisp page. The entire book was written upon parchment, so old and thin that his penlight gave allusion to the words on the next page whenever he shined it down upon the journal. There appeared to be multiple handwriting in the book, one of which looked startlingly very familiar while another looked overtly foreign in nature and diction. Notes were written lengthwise, diagonally, and occasionally upside-down, and they grew so frustrating in their total lack of consistency (in both format and discussion topic), that Dipper almost snapped the journal closed and returned to his room for a good night's rest multiple times.

Almost.

After an eternity, the trap door to the attic opened and reawakened him to the real world. Someone had finally interrupted his inspection. As the hall light pierced his chamber of darkness, he shielded his eyes and back glanced down at the book. He was only on the fourth page.

As the sting of obsolescence began to set in, a sigh at his refusal to acknowledge the open trapdoor reached his fuzzy mind.

"Dipper…" The sound of Mabel's voice, not the call of his own name, got his attention and he looked to find his twin peeking her head through the trapdoor. "Dipper…you, you didn't have any dinner…" She held up a plate, and he looked away from the book with visible reluctance.

Taking the plate from her, he thanked her and promised that he would be down to their room in a couple hours.

"Dipper!"

He stopped halfway back to the attic windowsill. "Yes, Mabel?"

She blushed at the outburst and rubbed her hands together, "Dipper I know…that you want your personal space, but…why are you hiding that book from me?"

Sighing, he adjusted his beaten cap. "Mabel, it's just not the kinda thing you would be interested in."

She crossed her arms, "And I suppose you would know!"

Dipper rolled his eyes, "Mabes, can you please just-"

"No! I am not going to let this go! I don't hide anything from you, I don't think it's very fair that you get to hide something from me!"

Dipper turned away, "There are some things that I'm sure you wouldn't want me to know about, why can't you-"

"Is it porn?"

He spun back towards to her with gritted teeth, and most of his dinner spilled across the creaky boards at the sudden movement. He didn't care.

Dipper could feel his blood begin to boil at her blank-faced reaction. Why did she have to be so annoying? Why couldn't she just do as he asked?

"NO! Why would you even think-"

"Well until you tell me the truth, I'm going to assume that it is." She folded her arms and turned away.

That same intolerable itch began to creep up his skin, and his mind informed him as to how easy it would be to just grab the book and launch it at her. Maybe getting a couple bruises or a broken nose would shut her up. Maybe she would stop asking so many goddamn questions if he showed her how dangerous this could be. Taking a deep breath, he tried to banish the violent thoughts (he didn't dare consider them fantasies).

He was doing this to protect her. Let her win. Let her think what she would, and then maybe she would leave him alone.

"FINE. Think whatever you want…" He turned towards The Journal, "It doesn't matter anyway."

She watched him reach the windowsill, before letting the words out. "You can't treat me like a little kid Dipper."

He turned towards her with a spiteful grin, "Oh REALLY? I didn't notice…maybe it was hard to tell because you act like a spoiled brat all the time!"

He could tell that the insult stung, by the way that she struggled for a comeback.

"Yeah well…at least, I have a boyfriend! You couldn't get a date if the girl was stupid drunk, or high like the cashier girl that you have the hots for!"

Dipper told himself that her rebuttal was pathetic, but felt a twinge of self-loathing as she spoke what he knew to be the truth. He refused to discuss his love life, however, keeping totally silent and hoping that his twin would leave it at that. Unfortunately for them, both, she did not.

Mabel took it one step further, as she always did. She wanted to make him feel the way he had just made her. She didn't understand that the two of them had very different limitations for psychological abuse and that she was about to step over a line. It was made worse by the fact that the two of them had always relied on one another, an insult from her was far worse than anything his many tormentors could have created if given years of planning.

"You might as well tell her right now since you're going to be jerking off all summer anyway! Do you know why? Because you'd rather be miserable than face your problems! And do you know who always has to cheer you up, to make you actually care about yourself and not die of sleep deprivation? ME. I ALWAYS have to do it, because you don't have any friends who you can lean on. I love you Dipper, but you only make this worse for yourself and it kills me to see you wasting away like this! You're supposed to be the smart one, but sometimes you can act REALLY stupid."

It stung horribly.

He had always been the introverted one, hell, he hadn't received a single Valentine from people someone besides his sister for the majority of his life. He didn't have a gaggle of friends like her either. He didn't need them either. All those people, focused on the stupid stuff which came out of his mouth? All those people who just distracted him from work? No, thank you.

All he needed his books, his Sasquatch, his lake monsters, his moth-men. He had never bothered her and her friends, he had never insisted that she share whatever piece of gossip they were discussing at the moment. He was fine being the only person at one table in the lunch room.

He went to parties when she wanted him to, he was always polite to her friends. He never divulged knowledge of the various unsavory behavior which they all indulged in. The stealing. The cheating. The smoking. He didn't say a word. He only knew all that because they acted like he didn't exist, one of them, he was quite sure, believed him to be autistic.

For every one of her crummy events, and for every one of her crappy friends, he put a smile on. When he needed to stay up late to finish his mountain of homework, and she asked him to come shopping with her, he conceded. Because he loved his sister. Because that was the deal.

He spent as much time as possible with her, and all she had to do in return was LEAVE HIM ALONE when he asked of it. But that didn't matter to her. All that mattered to her was to throw cheap insults at him, because she couldn't get her way and when she didn't get her way, then the problem must be someone else. "I love you Dipper", he wanted to vomit. She was a keen manipulator but he refused to be roped into giving his sister what she wanted.

Did he pitch a fit when she received all she wanted for her birthday, and he did not? NO. Did he try to guilt trip her into telling her everything she knew? Of course not, because he wasn't a fucking psychopath.

Something deep within him snapped, and as the words began to fall free, his mind goaded him on. The more you make her hate you, the more she'll leave you alone, it said in a silky voice.

Dipper couldn't help but agree. Fine, she asked for it.

"Oh, you have to take care…of me? I guess I am the stupid one because my memory says otherwise. I'm pretty sure my whole life, I've been taking care of YOU. BUT FORGIVE ME IF I'M WRONG." Her face scrunched up as he continued, cavorting about the attic and speaking in a voice which oozed with contempt. "I'm sorry I'm not always prancing around like pixie and walking on tiptoe to make everybody happy! I'm not that kind of person. You think I like the way I am? Guess what? NO. I don't enjoy the fact that everyone hates my guts! I don't relish being attracted to a girl who'll never give me the time. I'm sorry, I give a damn about you!"

"Dipper, I-"

"I'm sorry I give a damn about you! All those years I tried to shelter you, well stupid me for thinking that you, might actually be GRATEFUL!" He swung his arms about, possessed with simmering rage, his eyes rolling over the attic as he sneered. "Fuck me for actually expecting that you wouldn't backstab me like the spoiled little princess that you are! I'm sorry that I can't fall in love with the first person I meet in a two-bit town. I have to jerk off because I don't have tits that I can flash at the FIRST MORON I meet in the town like a whore!"

This time, she was completely silent, unable to even move her mouth. A sick grin tugged at his lips. He knew it was sick because he drew pleasure, not just from the silence resulting from her shock, but also from the look on her face. The knowledge that finally she would finally cease asking stupid questions and just leave him alone, made him giddy.

His twin's eyes turned red, and the grin vanished. The whisper in his mind had disappeared, the rage had faded. His fists unclenched and fell to his sides. Now you've fucked up.

"Mabel…I-"

Her glare forced him to silence. He had said enough, there wasn't any point in speaking. Dipper slumped forward, his drawing a hand across his face in preparation to become her emotional chew toy. I deserve it. Why did I open my big mouth? Why do I ruin everything? He tensed for the insults, the screaming, the picking apart of his immaturity one word at a time, letting him stew in his own self-loathing before slamming the door (trapdoor in this case).

But she was silent.

He removed his hand, raising his head to stare at her. Mabel's lips twisted in hate. The emotion looked unnatural and ugly upon her, her eyes cutting through him. He was worthless now, his Mabel was staring at him like he was worthless, and this he knew made it valid. If he could truly drive the people he loved to despise him, then he was unworthy of their affection.

She spat out the first two words which came to mind. "Fuck you."

And with that, she had slammed the trapdoor close and left him alone with his flashlight, spilled dinner, and obsession-inducing journal. Dipper wanted to feel angry at her, at himself, even at his parents for sending him and his twin here. But he had never heard Mabel curse before, up until this point he had believed she didn't even know that word. The very idea of being the thing that made her angry and hurt enough to be profane, it felt like a tapeworm eating away at him. The emptiness just grew the more he thought about it, not so much guilt as it was despair. He turned back to his book, dropping the cold dinner plate beside it and glaring down the sketching of a two-headed cyclops.

He awoke the next morning, curled up in the attic windowsill, the journal lying in his lap. He had only reached page 20.

[0]

Entering the kitchen, he avoided eye contact with Mabel as he fetched milk and cereal. Stan read the newspaper, something about wild animals, as Dipper took his bowl out onto the porch to avoid the stuffiness. Wendy hadn't arrived yet, for which he found himself thankful.

Had she been available, he probably would have ended up breaking Stan's rule by asking for some weed.

Sitting down on a decaying rocking chair, with the words "HAUNTED" painted across the front, he slowly adjusted to the waking world. Last night was a blur of information, and he didn't feel like uncluttering any of it right now. Staring at the gray sky, he watched the morning fog settle in upon the world below and hide all its secrets away. The emptiness of last night returned with a vengeance.

He HAD to apologize. But if she would not accept his apology if he didn't show her The Journal. His spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl lazily, and he looked down to find it empty. Removing his notebook, he scribbled down a note to remind himself to check about time slips and déjà vu in The Journal. He didn't know completely whether to trust it the book or not, but it seemed to have too much detail to be a fake. Perhaps it was an exaggeration, but he knew that there were too many Cthulu-esque drawings, creepy descriptions, and blood stains for it to not have been created seriously.

"Mourning good sir! Might Mabel Pines be located here?"

Looking up from his pad, Dipper set down his bowl and moved to the top of the stairs. Staring up at him was a teenager, maybe two or three years his senior, wearing a gold suit with vertical pink stripes. He wore a disfiguring level of makeup, his eyes almost disappearing into his skull thanks to the eyeliner which encapsulated it while his lips leaked blood red lipstick.

He looked like a more deranged version of what Dipper had when Mabel and her friends had ambushed him and covered his face in every source of make-up they could find.

Each green iris narrowed in on Dipper, as the stranger read his thoughts. His gloves tightened around a small ivory walking stick, each finger as thin as a spider's leg. A spike of fear drove through Dipper, as the image of the older teen smashing his skull in with impeccable precision arose.

He cleared his throat. "Who wants to know?"

The obviously rich teen smiled a crooked smile, revealing a housing of wolves' teeth. Dipper took note of the scarred lip which the stranger ran a thin tongue across in

"Norman Fairs, from just across the river. My family owns a mansion there. Your uncle and I are neighbors."

Dipper shivered and decided to put his vest on when he got back to his room. "Umm, how did you-"

"Mabel informed me yesterday. Would you be a good chap and fetch her for me?" The person adjusted his tie, not giving Dipper a moment of his precious attention. "Were it not for the fact that Mr. Pines detests me, I would enter myself and retrieve her…"

Dipper was surprised to find that he and Stan had one thing in common. They both despised this idiot.

He nodded nonetheless and entered The Shack. "Mabel…you're uh, your boyfriend is here."

Mabel shot up from her seat, and nearly knocking her twin over in her passing. Dipper followed her back out and picked up his bowl as he watched his sister flirt with the rich boy. Norman looked ready to bite into her, those black-green eyes sweeping over her as she told him about her dream. He nodded robotically, not listening to a word.

Don't say anything, just keep your stupid mouth shut until they're done, he told himself. He had no intention of making the situation between him and Mabel worse. The strange unease while in eyeshot of Norman didn't help either. Still, he lingered at the door and watched with growing dread as she descended the stairs and he wrapped an arm around her.

That son of a-Dipper stopped himself, realizing that his nails had begun to claw into his palm.

He had always been protective of Mabel, but that solicitousness had somehow turned into paranoia and loathing towards anyone who touched his twin. The two of them strolled towards forest path, Mabel giggling at every other thing he said, and only once glancing behind at her twin. He could see in her eyes, she knew how much he didn't like this guy. She knew that it was killing him to see her like this.

So, like a true sadist, she turned towards the over-dressed teen and pressed her lips against his. Norman obliged, wrapping his spiderlike fingers about her hips, and lowering them to-

Dipper turned away, disgusted by his sibling for doing such a thing just to piss him off, and himself for caring so much. He practically tore the screen door open and marched past the indignant Stan to the retreat of his room.

Slamming the door close, he found that Mabel had folded all of his clothes, and put them in the cupboard. His oddments lay beside his books, all arranged perfectly. Why does she have to be so fucking perfect?

Roaring at how quickly he could go from despising and loving her, he tore open the windows to get fresh air into the stuffy room. It smelled too much like her. He stared out at the pane glass, realizing that Mabel had neither made her bed nor put away her clothes.

She was always the neater of the two. For her to abandon that forced him to consider that his rant may have had a greater impact upon her than expected.

Pink, purple, and neon blue rags lay about in piles. He spotted her panties lying beside her pillow, their little maroon hearts staring up at him. He turned away with red cheeks. A strange buzz coursed through him as he looked through her clothes and inhaled their scent.

Oh, my god, I need therapy. Or drugs, whichever will keep me from being aroused by my sister.

He exited the room, guilt-ridden at just being close to her possessions. Meandering down the halls, he felt inhabited by a restless spirit. He didn't know where to go, only places which he shouldn't go, and any second now Stan would put him to work. For a second, he considered descending the basement stairs, but he was a tad too intimidated by Stan to do such a thing. He didn't feel like holing himself up in the attic, as it was stuffier and his eyes ached from reading.

Then it occurred to him that The Journal was up in the attic, lying out where anyone could see it.

Rushing down the hall, he found the ladder had already been extended down. Someone was up there. With his book.

Gulping, he tore up the ladder, and instantly located the blood red book. Even in barely any light, the golden hand shined. The tome was gripped by two skinny, elderly hands. McGucket towards him, adjusting his spectacles.

"Mr. McGucket, I would very much like my book back." It came out harsher than intended, mostly because of how shitty he was feeling.

The old man looked back down at the thing and sniffed lightly. "This old p-p-piece of junk…?"

Dipper felt offended by the terminology but nodded anyway.

At least, he hasn't looked inside.

"You know…most kid's your age don't like to read…they find i-i-it...b-b-b-b-boring…there always on their computers and th-their phones…a-and…and…and f-f-f-forgetting things. That's right…yeah, all th-tho-those s-scr-screens make your m-my m-memory get w-w-worse…at least, that's what s-six-s-sick-six-scientists have learned."

The man didn't address him as he shared this useless piece of information. Instead, staring out the attic window. His wrinkled brow furrowed in an avalanche of skin.

Coughing to get his attention, he extended a hand towards the mechanic. "Can I please have it back?"

The old man looked at his hand and smiled. "I-I-I-I remember when kids used to have f-f-f-four f-f-f-fingers…"

Observing his movements with growing discomfort, Dipper reached forward and found the man's fingers flinch and slip away to avoid contact. Flipping through the pages, Dipper found a dog ear on a page that he had not reached yet. Shutting it close quickly, he watched as McGucket turned away, pressing his fingers to the triangular window.

He was about to question why the old man had come up here to begin with but decided that it wasn't a good idea. "Well thank you, Sir."

The mechanic rubbernecked towards Dipper, "S-s-shame about your sister." "Wha-what…do you mean?"

The man closed his mouth as though he had said too much, and when opened it back up when Dipper stepped closer. "I don't…I need to get back to work…I need to, I mean…I don't need work I need to get back to work."

Dipper extended an arm to prevent him from descending the staircase. "No. Tell me what you meant."

The old man shrugged lightly, "I just…I was up here, and f-f-from the window, I-I saw her ki-k-kill-k-kissing and being sinful with that young fella. Sh-shame th-that she should fall for s-s-someone outta town."

Dipper's arm dropped to his side, "What do you mean? He lives in a mansion across the river…"

The old man coughed harshly and brushed past Dipper without another word. Stalking over to the windowsill, Dipper looked at the spot of gray which peeked out of the sea of trees. It was the rotting roof of the Fair Mansion, as expansive as it was decrepit. He had to question why anyone would build a house so far away from the town, and why he hadn't noticed it earlier. Why as well, would a rich family allow their house to fall into such disrepair? Grabbing a vest from his room, he decided it was time to find out just who "Norman Fair" was.

[0]

The town turned out to be just as underwhelming as Stan's house. Most shops had boards over them and the ones that did not usually and broken windows. A cracked fire hydrant sprayed water across the street, and two police members merely stood nearby, observing it with vacant eyes. The town hall lay at the end of Main Street, with looming gargoyles. Beside it stood the museum, an extremely narrow building. Dipper headed for the only place which looked half decent.

The diner.

The inside of the building was poorly lit and it smelled of the title-grease (the restaurant was named The Greasy Ladle). If it was someone's job to clean the white checkered floor, then they had failed horribly. A fan drifted lazily over the scene, dust clinging to its blades as papers rustled and workers on their lunch break swapped stories in a barely concealed hush.

Everyone stopped what they were doing to eyeball him when he first entered the building, and Dipper marched to the counter, trying to ignore their gazes. A woman with a bandage covering half of her face came to take his order (cherry pie) and gave a sad smile when she realized he was new in town. The woman retreated into the steam-filled kitchen, and Dipper glanced over at the massive lumberjack which sat beside him. "Umm, you wouldn't happen to know anything about the Fair family…uh, would you?" Everyone in the diner gave him a look like a rat had just crawled out of his mouth. Realizing that this was a touchy subject, Dipper gulped and tried to keep his questioning at a low key. The man finished sipping his beer and brushed foam from his beard.

"I don't want to bother you, it's just that I'm new to town…and I-I-I-" Dipper nearly fell out of his seat when the lumberjack stood, and towered over him.

"Okay, never mind. It was a stupid ques-" The redheaded hulk grabbed his collar and pulled the teen into the air.

He focused his dark eyes on the trembling investigator and spoke in a low yet perilous voice. "Stay AWAY, from that place."

His fist unclenched, and Dipper hit the floor with a pained whine. Gasping for breath, he stood up in time for his pie to arrive.

Had he been a more compliant person, he might have stayed away from the mansion and warned Mabel about how everyone in the town did. Had he been a wise soul, he would have tied rocks to that awful book and chucked it in the lake, and then apologized to his sister, promising never to hide stuff from her. Had he been either of those things, he could have saved the world a lot of pain and suffering.

Instead, he scarfed down the food, and headed in the direction of the thing he should have avoided.

[0]

It took hours to locate the mansion, but Dipper was not disappointed when he finally found it. At first glance, the manor looked exquisite and the grounds surrounding were superbly kept.

But as he approached, the house and grounds began to decay before his very eyes. The paint peeled off more and more, and the path began to blur as the mansion underwent great change. A beaten up "FOR SALE" sign lay half submerged in the muck. The hedge maze became rattier and rattier, until it eventually just transforming into a landmine of brambles and potholes. Statues and fountains crumbled before his eyes, and Dipper had to sit down on a log to avoid falling over from the overwhelming sense of confusion and vertigo.

With one hand to his head, he flipped open the journal and searched for anything and everything relating to hallucinations. His flipping finally slowed, and his glazed eyes slowly absorbed the words on the page.

ENCHANTMENTS MAY BE OVERRODE BY ACCEPTANCE.

Dipper frowned, unable to decipher, even though the words were in English. No clear meaning present itself, however. Acceptance? Acceptance of what?

That word seemed important, something which he had promised someone a long time ago that he would not forget ever forget. Whenever Dipper tried to comprehend how the message pertained to his current situation, however, his mind rejected it. He looked up and saw a well-kept mansion. Then he blinked and saw an abandoned one. He blinked again and saw the beautiful illusion. Then he rubbed his eyes and saw the power of time. Glancing back down at the page, he shut his eyes and did as the forest wanted him to.

Everything is fine. The mansion is not rotting. Everything is fine. Nothing is suspicious. Everything is fine. The mansion is not rotting. Everything is fine.

He opened his eyes, and a husk of a house stood, unwavering in the stiff wind. A grin spread across his face, and he rose with a clear mind. He ambled down the path, finding more and more "FOR SALE" signs consumed by the unkempt grounds as he proceeded closer to the mansion porch.

Do they want to sell it or not?

A rocking chair resided on the porch, creaking with the wind. Dipper removed the journal. The first type of creature he found to live in mansions was Strigoi (or lesser vampires). The page depicted a creature with handsome features, morphing into a hunched corpse, its jaw swinging loose as its abyssal eyes closed on the skull it fondled.

Dipper snapped the book closed after reading the two entries in regular English, too anxious to sit down and decode more.

As he got closer to the house, the stench of rot infiltrated his nostrils, and he stepped over the anaconda sized vines which choked the path. The front door hung on by one hinge, swinging towards him. Dipper peered inside to find that the inside was in greater disrepair. The royal staircase strangled a tree which grew straight up through the house and penetrated the skylight. Shards of glass lay everywhere, each a different shade of green, pink, or purple. Blood trickled down the steps, and he traced the liquid's origin to the dead animals which been nailed to the walls.

Gagging on the aroma, Dipper retreated and clutched his stomach to prevent from vomiting. A light giggle filled the air, and something flashed in the corner of his unblinking eye. He turned towards the open doorway and could swear that he saw a woman dressed in black and red by the staircase.

Then he heard more giggles and turned towards the path to see a well-tended grounds and Mabel walking hand in hand with Norman.

"Oh my god, you're so funny!" The person who Dipper was 99% sure not a human or actually seventeen-years-old smiled graciously and continued to grin as she complimented him.

"Mabel; this afternoon has been simply delightful. Would you be interested in joining me for a spot of tea?"

Dipper felt his face grow hot and his fists tighten. "MABLE!"

She looked up, eyes wide at his appearance. Norman's mouth twisted in displeasure, his scar suddenly looking larger and darker in hue. "Dipper…I did not expect to find you spying on my estate. I expect some would find your obsession with your sister commendable. Personally, I find it a touch perturbing."

He raised an eyebrow, and Dipper swore that his eyes blackened. A predatory cunning lay behind those perfect orbs, and Dipper got the awful feeling that if the rich boy glared any harder, lightning would strike. He took a step back, his head beginning to ache from trying to comprehend the madness which lay coiled in the creature's skull.

Mabel glanced nervously at Norman, before stepping up. "Dipper…what are you doing here?"

The investigator ran a hand over his mouth and try to put himself between her and the stewing Norman. "Mabel, this place…it's not what it looks like. We need to go home, right now!"

She glared and stepped away, "Oh right! It's a good thing you were here Dipper. God forbid that I might actually be happy! Is that the big threat? That I'm gonna die because I'm too happy?"

Dipper ran a hand through his hair and attempted to indicate the levity of the situation without alerting Norman, "Mabel, this is serious, this guy-" Norman bristled and stepped closer as he finished his sentence. "-he's not human."

"Ohhhh, RIIIIGHT. He's not human! Silly me, I thought he was." She slapped a hand against her forehead, rolling her eyes in the most exaggerated manner possible.

"Mabel…" Dipper's teeth had become a machine, grinding within his mouth uncontrollably.

"I guess it's a common mistake because he talks like a human. He walks like a human, and he certainly kisses like a human."

She huffed, turning towards the doorway. Dipper panicked. He grabbed her hand, refusing to allow her to enter the mansion. "I'M SERIOUS MABEL!"

She didn't look his way, just pulling against his ever tightening grip. "Let go of my hand Dipper! NOW!"

"Please…you have to trust me, I'll explain everything later but you have to-"

She looked his way. "Right. Like you trusted me?"

He stopped, and her rebuttal taking the words right from his mouth.

Before he could respond, the brace-toothed girl raised her foot and kicked him in the stomach. She yanked her hand away and watched silently as Dipper toppled backward and hit his head on the final porch step. Her twin moaned, struggling to get to his feet, and gripping his bruised scalp. He looked up at her desperately. Her face was completely expressionless, and for a moment, he thought that she was going to help him up.

"Leave me alone Dipper." She slammed the door close, and her twin scrambled to his feet.

"MABEL-"

His call was cut short when he received a cane across his face. Blood spurted from his nose, now broken, and painted his shirt. He stumbled again, this time landing in thickets.

Norman approached with black eyes and yellow pupils. The emerald irises, used to lure teenage girl's back here, just like his perfect hair and sharp nose, had disappeared. He was no longer in need of them.

"Listen up…friend...you are going to run on home, and forget all about your sister. She belongs to ME NOW. Humans have not once overcome my kind, in actuality you, imbeciles frequently worship us. Understood?"

Dipper wiped the blood from his cheek and pushed to a standing position. "YOU CAN KEEP HER!"

He turned away and felt his vision blur with pain and rage. The sun was at its highest point, and once again its heat tore into his back and dried the blood on his shirt. Digging his fingernails into the journal, Dipper stared down at the golden hand with tears.

What's the point in trying to save people, if they don't accept that they need help?

"This is all your fault."

The Journal remained unimpressed by his accusation.

It wasn't that great a life anyway, if anyone's life was going to be ruined, it may have well been yours. He told his conscious to shut up as he glared at the mud beneath his, feet.

Yes, his life hadn't been great. But she had. Mabel had brought fireworks, finger paintings, and bad music into his life. She had brought color. Without her, life wasn't life. Mabel had helped him when he attempted to prove the existence of ghosts as an eight-year-old. She still had the scar from when they messed around with the fish hooks.

He tossed the book into the bushes and panted for a moment. Then he reached into the river and splashed water on his face. For a moment he sat there, staring at his reflection in the stream and trying to think of a reason to do anything besides go to sleep.

Then he heard a light shriek and raised his vision. A big-eyed, grey-skinned creature stared back at him. It lacked a nose or ears, but a little mouth popped up beneath its bug eyes and revealed a mouth and throat full of needle teeth. Every hair stood on its end as he stared into its bug eyes, and it growled lightly. He nearly fell over when it shrieked again, and it occurred to Dipper that this forest was a very dangerous place to be alone.

The teen sprinted back onto the winding path and followed it towards the Shack. He kicked gravel as he listed all the problems with Mabel, and how great life would be without her. By the time he had gotten back to his great uncle's tourist trap, he was out of insults and had begun insulting himself for ever thinking she would believe him. He stepped out of the forest in time to get a mop thrown at him.

"HEY LAZY! FRONT PORCH NEEDS CLEANING!" Stan removed a bucket from inside and Dipper fought the urge to hit him with the mop.

Instead, he climbed the mighty stairs and swiped the bucket from Stan. The man wasn't amused at his misery per usual. Dipper tried not to dwell on it, focused entirely on finishing the chore so that he might sleep.

He felt stupid for even thinking that Stan would care about where Mabel was, and why his shirt had blood stains all over it. Why would he? No one cared about him, no one cared about Mabel. They were lost in a sea of hostility, and all they had was each other.

At least, they had been until he had broken that pact.

His eyes got misty as he continued to mop the moldy wood and toss buckets full of dirty water off the railing. The spicket clogged and shook with every attempt to refill the pail, another frustration to push him towards the snapping point. Soon his head ached twice as hard, his fingers were coated in splinters, and he had more aches than he thought physically possible. Looking back at the woods, he realized that it had been hours and Mabel had still not returned.

Nothing I can do about it. He lied to himself.

He moved inside, ignoring Wendy's gentle wave and Stan's insult (something about taking too long to do a simple job). The moment he reached his bedroom, he flopped down on it and tried to let exhaustion take hold. All he could picture, though, was the look she gave him as he fell backward…

[0]

Dipper awoke with a horrible headache and heaved himself out of bed. He felt sick to his stomach, and entered the bathroom, retching into the toilet and watching his own vomit float in the water. The sun had not come up yet, and he struggled to even flush the toilet. Returning to his bed without washing his hands, he fell into more sleep. Another nightmare of hell breaking loose, although now it felt strangely comforting.

Stan woke him up from this never-ending apocalypse and asked where his sister was.

"Check the Fair Mansion…" On some level, Dipper hoped the old man did just that and got the blood sucked dry from his wrinkly husk of a body.

Instead, Stan just instructed him to get to work. Dipper was surprised that he wasn't worried about what their parents might say if Mabel went missing. He spent the rest of the day cleaning, shingling, and chopping wood. With every passing hour he felt worse and worse, and soon he felt ready to fall over in misery. The splinters in his hands burned, but he enjoyed the pain. It was a speck of the repentance required of him.

As he collapsed on the bed, Dipper felt himself grow claustrophobic to the world. He realized, as his eyes ached for the relief of tears but received none, that he had never gone this long without his twin sister. To some people, that might be pathetic, but, to him, it felt awful.

He fell into sleep quickly this time and was rewarded with no dreams. When he awoke, his throat burned.

Great, now I've got a cold.

Cursing every power he knew, Dipper spat up some phlegm on the blanket. Morning light had just begun to enter the room, and as he tried to locate tissues from his luggage, a note beneath Mabel's bed caught his eye. He scrambled for it and almost tore the crumpled paper in his haste.

"Dear Dipper,

I'm sorry for whatever I did to make you run away from me in the forest, but please forgive me! I know this isn't the summer you were expecting, but please give it a try! We haven't been able to spend this much time together since middle school I really, REALLY want us to stay close. So…please forgive me? Signed, Mabel"

Dipper's tears began to strike the multicolored text, and he shuddered. His fingers gripped the paper, the sound of crinkling joining his light sobs.

"What have I done…?"

The note nearly fell as his grip disappeared. The energy, the will to care had left his body. It was replaced by the desire to rewind time.

"Oh god I'm sorry…what have I done…?"

Reaching down with a still shaking hand, he grabbed the note and stuffed it into his pocket. He stood on unsteady legs and made for the back door.

There was no more time for dicking around. He had to save her.

[0]

Sneaking the keys from the sleeping Stan had been easy. The hard part had been retracing his steps and finding the journal. He knew he would need it for the upcoming battle. Even harder, had been driving through the maze of dirt paths.

When Dipper finally reached the mansion, he parked just short of crashing into the porch. Grabbing his hatchet, and making sure that it was safely tucked in his backpack, he exited the car and found that the forest looked dangerous and imposing from this angle. Another mind trick. He turned away from the blood-colored sky and climbed onto the rotting porch. He began striking the front door as though it was responsible for all hardship in his life.

Ferociously he kicked down the remains of the oak door and snarled as he entered. "GIVE HER BACK!"

His rage faded, replaced with confusion at entering the mansion. He blinked rapidly, unable to fully absorb how the darkened wreck of a house had become this extensive ballroom.

"What the-" The masked crowds all turned to him, and grinned cruelly. They began to crowd around him, jeering and taunting as he swung the ax to keep them at arm's length.

A familiar voice filled the air, and Dipper looked up to see Norman hover towards him.

The creature addressed him like a human would an ant, "Well hello there, Dipper, nice to see that you still give a shit about the one thing that makes your worthless life bearable."

"WHERE IS SHE?" He jumped forward with a swing of the ax, forcing his enemies to part as he neared the smug bastard who levitated above.

"Oh, your sister? She's in the dining hall, entertaining everyone…" He jerked a thumb in the correct direction as his eyes split apart to reveal black slug-shaped iris

Dipper kicked a gray skinned woman away and darted towards the dining hall. "MABEL! I'm here! I'm sorry for abandoning y-"

He entered the room expecting to find a horde of these bastards draining Mabel of her blood.

Instead, he found his twin in a faded ballerina costume, dancing on the table as strangely dressed people clapped, giggled, and gurgled. They watched her movements with slobbering anticipation and cheered every time that she stumbled or made a noise to signal that she was in pain. It wasn't their eyes which Dipper was staring into, but his sister's.

Once bright and full of fire, they were now empty and useless, just decorations for her skull. Mabel had them focused on nothing, not paying an ounce of attention to her voyeurs or her own routine. Dipper didn't think that she could even hear the music.

Every movement was painfully slow, her face staying completely stone even as he called out to her. He couldn't help but be a touch mesmerized. She would have looked pretty, even beautiful, had her appearance not been so disheveled.

Her legs were covered with bruises from missteps, her movement clunky from exhaustion. Her dress clung on just barely, almost entirely shreds at this point. But she danced nonetheless her, feet narrowly avoiding the piles of decomposing food. Cracked stained glass windows shed early morning light upon the mob of masked individuals who watched her dance with slack jaws and incomprehensible muttering. He called out again but she ignored him and continued her perfectly performed routine.

She doesn't even know ballet-what the hell is going on here?!

Norman answered Dipper's unspoken question as the people on the table stood up and began nearing the newcomer. "She ate some of the fare and in accordance with our rules, any humans who consume our magnificent cuisine-"

The masked crowd finished his sentence and promptly burst into a fit of giggles which clawed at Dipper's ear drums, "-HAS TO ENTERTAIN TILL THEY DROP DEAD!"

They fell into hysterics, as though this was the funniest joke told in their magnificent lifetimes. Slapping each other with the hilarity, they choked and spat, lurched and wobbled, a mob of madness on the verge of regurgitating across each other and then just laughing at that. They moved with too much lunacy and spoke with too much well-executed flair to be drunk or high.

Dipper realized that they were just made this way. Every vowel in their words, every snicker, and every movement gave off an air of snide cruelty which went unmatched by anything Dipper had been given the displeasure of experiencing. And that observation came from a guy who had been bullied since second grade.

They were not human, they could not be when their brains operated on an entirely different emotional spectrum. For so many centuries they had been alive, that mortality had become a joke. They had no respect for human life, for humans were toys, pets, and circus animals. Humanity existed solely to provide momentary entertainment for them.

Cruel, sadistic entertainment. But the most horrible thing about the monsters was that Dipper could not blame them. Such knowledge of the arcane was held within their misshapen skulls, that by comparison humans were dumb as bricks.

His observations were broken when The Guests all turned on him and began removing their masks one at a time. They giggled at the look of horror which crossed his face. Dipper stared at his new foes, unable to understand what they were or how he could have been so wrong about their species.

Some inspected him multiple eyes, others had knives for chins and branches for arms. Their eyes shined like river pebbles and their teeth like needles. Blood rolled down their cheeks like tears, and their hideous laughter made him want to curl up in a ball. He swung out, but the blade of the ax stuck into the neck of one chortling minion. Sap oozed from the wound and clung to the blade.

Had the creature been a Strigoi, it would have died to decapitation. The garlic in his pocket felt useless as they got closer and closer to him and he realized that he had committed crucial miscalculation.

"You-you aren't vampires…" He let go of the ax to avoid being scratched, and the gargoyle-esque beast tore the weapon free of its own neck, before flinging the weapon to the side.

"Of course, we aren't vampires, you silly little city slicker." Norman burst into flame as he spoke, and the words came out as a crackle of discord and ambivalence.

Dipper shielded himself from the massive pillar of heat with his hands and looked through his fingers as the shadows of the creatures began to spin across the hall. He clutched his ears as the sounds of wild birds echoed through the hall. Crows and owls landed upon the rotting rafters of the grand dining hall and watched with cold eyes as The Guests became closer and closer to the human they would soon scavenge.

A claw swiped out and dug around Dipper's neck, pulling him into the crowd. The arm was made of bark and infested with wasps and had thorns which curled off and tore at his cheeks. Claws gripped his limbs and raised him above the floor, his form wriggling against their iron strength as they licked their lips.

Norman watched with those terrible slug eyes of his, smirking as Dipper struggled like a bug about to be torn apart by baby birds. "We are one of the oldest things in this world, we are the stuff of your dreams and nightmares…"

Norman lowered himself and stuck his face incredibly close to Dipper's, too sadistic to not enjoy the look of shock. "We're FEY."

He giggled and pulled away as the teen began to scream at the bites and scratches. "We'll tickle you until you can't breathe and then we'll strip the flesh off your bones for interrupting our lovely show. Face it, that's what you humans get when you don't respect your elder-"

At that moment, someone lobbed an ivory candlestick into the fairy leader's head, interrupting his moment of gloating. He turned with burning eyes and found Mabel Pines was charging towards him. She kicked him in between the legs and slammed a skillet down upon his head. The lesser fey ceased attempting to kill Dipper and looked up in confusion. No one had ever stood up to their king before.

"DIPPER! CATCH!" Mabel flung her knitting needles through the air. Dipper broke free of his captors in time to grab them and stare at his sister questioningly.

"What am I supposed to do with these!?" The mob got control and he could feel his strength sapping away.

Norman stood to his full height, antlers sprouting from his head as his lanky form grew dark and foreboding. The fire which surrounded him turned green as his claws extended to become branch sized. The rafters broke under assault from his growing form, and the birds scattered to the four winds to escape his wrath.

"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT MABEL DEAR…"

Dipper cried out as the fey picked up his prize, and muffled her screams with a cocoon of quickly growing moss. "MABEL!"

Before she was totally sewn up, he heard her scream "IRON." The word clicked in his mind, and he stabbed the needles into the fair folk holding his right arm. They hiss and retreated leaving him able to stab the ones holding his left leg, and then kicking himself free. He and Mabel had used to huddle in bed while he read The Spiderwick Chronicles to her. He would always give the character's silly voices to entertain her. If the series was to be believed, iron was poisonous to the fair folk. It was Dipper's turn to charge at the monster.

He hoped to God that the authors of the children series had done their research.

Evading the balls of scorching light tossed his way, Dipper used the needles to mount the wooden leg of the angry fey. Norman screamed and tried to crush his insectile assailant by smashing his own leg against the walls of the mansion. This tactic failed, however, and Dipper leaped onto Mabel's prison of vegetation and fungi. He stabbed the needles into it and used all the strength he had to tear open the moss.

A horrible stench struck him as the capsule broke, and oxygen reached Mabel's lungs. Grabbing her by the wrist, he leaped from the hand and braced himself for pain. He stabbed out a leg as they descended towards the window. The two of them went crashing through the window to their left and rolled across the garden.

A deep roar echoed from within the mansion, as the twins lay on the grass, recovering. Dipper grabbed Mabel's hand the moment he stood up, tugging her towards the car before she could even get a few good inhales. He turned the ignition and began driving before she had even locked her seatbelt.

"Mabel…I told you that something was wrong with him! I told you not to go inside of that house!" He half whispered as Norman burst out of the house, screaming after the retreating teens. The sky darkened, as though even the sun feared the fair folk.

"I'm sorry Dipper…I should have trusted you…" He gave her bruised and ashamed face a once over, and looked back at the road. He swerved to avoid the roots which snapped out of the ground to grip his vehicle.

He pulled it to the side as he muttered his own apology. "Well I'm sorry for being an asshole…this is mostly my fault…" Glancing at the quickly approaching Norman (now of a titanic stature), Dipper handed the needles to his twin.

"Let's focus on escaping. We can have an awkward sibling hug later, kay?" Mabel asked.

He nodded and watched as the needle rose up the speedometer. Norman was still gaining, his mouth a cage of crystal shards slamming up and down in unfathomable profanities. He had turned entirely inhuman, skin replaced by cracked bark.

Mabel noticed as well that he was gaining on them. "Dipper…I don't think we can outrun him."

Dipper looked in the rearview mirror and nodded in solid agreement. "Yeah, we can't…but we can slow him down…"

Grinding towards the river, Dipper aimed for a cliff. "Uh, Bro…you know that we're about to go over a cliff…right?"

Dipper ignored her and clung to the wheel as they went flying off. Mabel gripped her seatbelt as they plummeted through the air, into the bushes below. He streaked off through the ever-widening trees, Norman jumping the river and crashing to the ground close by. He swiped at them and Dipper felt the whole car nearly fall apart. The cracked windows began shuddering and shattering. The wheels began to lose air, and the engine burned faster than ever, propelling them towards what would no doubt be a gruesome death.

"Dipper we HAVE to do something!"

"You cannot outrun me foolish mortals, I am the epidemic, I am the tempest, I am the famine, and I am the drought. I will flay your hides and string up your corpses. I will find you no matter where you go. Your children will be mine, your loved ones will drown…"

Dipper nodded, doing his best to think as he drove precariously. "Wait, doesn't Stan have a gun in the glove compartment?" He remembered his great-uncle chiding his twin for removing it on the way up from Piedmont. "Yeah…YEAH!" Mabel yanked open the glove compartment and removed the revolver.

"Yeah…YEAH!" Mabel yanked open the glove compartment and removed the revolver.

"HEY NORMAN! YOU WERE THE WORST BOYFRIEND EVER!" She fired off rapidly, and the semi-iron shots ripped through the worst nature had to offer.

Green blood splattered across the sandy path, and Norman let out a terrible moan. The godlike beast collapsed to its knees as Dipper hit 90 and they whizzed through the remainder of the forest. He hit the brakes in time for them to crash into the dumpster.

As the twins clambered out, a roar of anger filled the air and Stan exited the kitchen wearing a wife beater and boxers, a shotgun in hand. "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU BRATS DO TO MY CAR?"

He glared at them, and they both responded with a shrug. Mabel spoke up, handing him the revolver.

"I also used some of the bullets in this…" She handed it to him, and he stared at the smoking barrel with utter shock.

"Get. Inside. The house. NOW!" They did as commanded, and Stan began to mutter innumerable curses as they climbed the steps, and waited in the kitchen.

"I'll take the fall for it…this is all my fault anyway…"

Mabel placed her hand on Dipper's, and he tried not to notice how nice it felt. "No way Dip, either we both get blamed for this or neither of us do." Her eyes closed briefly as she inhaled. "But you are no more responsible for this mess than I am. I love you Dipper,"

His breath hitched in his throat, and he tried not to look too happy at this news. "And if we can fight a giant fairy-monster-rich-boy than we can survive a summer of being grounded, and mom and dad being angry."

Dipper looked into her deep brown eyes and felt his anxiety, his sexual frustration, and his distrust vanished from his mind. His sister was alright, somehow, she was alright. If he couldn't be happy because of that, then nothing would ever make him content.

Everything was right with the universe for this infinitesimally small moment.

[0]

Stan glowered at the wreck. Then he sniggered. He had to raise a hand to his mouth to prevent the twins from hearing his laughter.

Those two would fit in just fine, and would survive what could consume the souls of most navy seals, that was for sure. He looked down at the gun and smirked. The girl wasn't too girly, and the boy wasn't too nerdy. They would make a fine pair, and everything would go according to plan.

As long as they stayed away from the basement that is.

Turning his attention to the forest, he sensed the horrible moan which reverberated between.

The old grinned, revealing his many yellowing teeth as he spoke to himself, "Bout' time those assholes got their comeuppance…"

As he climbed the stairs and called for McGucket, he couldn't help but turn back and add, "And from Hansel and Gretel no less."

[0]

The twins spent the rest of the day buying the parts which McGucket required and discussing all the things which they had ceased talking about since high school. Dipper revealed how much he had missed her, but assumed that she didn't want to be around him, since she had a myriad of friends, and every one of them basically hated him. She revealed how jealous she had been now that he was getting better grades (and their father's praise by proxy) while she struggled with Algebra and History. They had embraced, and he had shown her the journal, before asking if he should keep it.

"With all the trouble it got us into…"

She closed the book and smiled, "Dipper, it's just a book. You can keep it if you want."

He exhaled and thanked her for being the greatest sister in existence.

Near eleven-o-clock, Dipper sat in bed, using a nightlight to make additions to The Journal. He added "IRON, GUNS," and "CARS" to the Fey page, before glancing over at his sleeping sister. She had helped him fill in all kinds of things which the Author had been totally ignorant to.

Slipping the beaten up book beneath his pillow, he closed his eyes and received a good night's rest for the first time since arriving in this strange place.

Long first episode I guess! Tell me what you guys think, and I'll see if I can make any improvements.

There is a reference to the band "Creature Feature" in this chapter. Review if you find it.