Gravity Falls

Everything Will Be Ok

Prologue

The Fire

It was 3:00 in the morning when Dipper woke up. He found it strange that he had woken up at this time. Dipper was known for 2 things when it came to sleep: staying up late and sleeping even later. These did not seem to match well with Mabel's sleep schedule which was: rise and fall with the sun. He wondered what could have caused his sudden desire to wake up early: maybe it was back to school nerves. Tomorrow would be September 3, the first day of school. Well technically, it was already September 3. I just 3 hours dipper would be woken up by Mabel jumping on his bed until he couldn't stand it anymore and then they would head off to school together. But he had never woken up before do to back to school nerves. Heck, he had fought a freakin' dream demon this summer, something as easy as school shouldn't be worrying him. No. Him waking up probably had to do more with the unbearable heat in the house.

They're parents must have accidently left the heater on…again.

Dipper decided to go down the hall to the bathroom even though his first instincts told him to go back to sleep. But when he opened the door, he was meant with heavy, thick black smoke.

His goggled, early morning mind took him a little while to determine what this meant. His heart beat hastened when he saw the orange flames creep up the stairs that were down the hall.

He was now truly awake now, realizing the situation that he was in was anything but good. He slammed the door shut and tried to collect his thoughts. His mind instantly went to Mabel and was about to open the door to rescue her but his rational side stopped him. This could probably be the last time he was in his room. He grabbed all the things that he was attached too, including Wendy's hat and threw them into his adventure backpack. He threw open the door to his room, back pack on, and bolted down the hall to Mabel's room. He struggled with the handle of the door, finding the metal hot, but safely made it into the room. He slammed the door with a bang and made no hesitation about throwing himself onto Mabel's bed, shaking her awake.

"Dipper…" she groaned, sleepily, into her pillows, "It's still dark outside. You can tell me about what ever weird fan fic you read tomorrow when the sun is up."

"Mabel! This has nothing to do with that!" he yelled shaking her arms, "You don't get it! There's a fire down stairs! We need to get out of here now!"

"What?!" she bolted up and sprung out of bed, causing Dipper to be thrown onto the floor.

Mabel was about to open the door when Dipper rushed to her side to stop her.

"You can't open the door!" he said grabbing her arms, preventing her from opening the door, "You'll let in more smoke. Just quickly grab everything important to you and then we have to go."

Mabel did as she was told, grabbing a couple of sweaters, her scrape book and some of her stuffed animals and cramming them into her 'Party bag' and slugging it over her back. She then grabbed her pet pig, waddles and tucked him under her arm.

Dipper grabbed a few sweaters from off of her floor and gave Mabel some good advice.

"Cover your mouth and nose with this." He threw the sweater at her and demonstrated for her, "It'll protect you from the smoke."

Mabel not only covered her own mouth and nose, but Waddles' as well.

Dipper grabbed Mabel's hand and held on as if for dear life. He bent his back a bit, with Mabel following his example and then threw open the door.

As the Pines twins rushed through the smoke filled hall way of the second floor, their feet burning and being pierced by the splintering wood of the seared floor, Dipper noticed the smoke had gotten much thicker. The fire had gotten worse. They wheezed and coughed heavily as they rushed down the stairs into their family room that resembled a living, burning furnace. They pushed through the room, trying not to burn their feet, but ultimately failing.

Dipper glanced down the hall to their parent's bedroom and was about to drag through the fire in hopes to see their room empty, but a voice in his head stopped him.

"'They'll be fine.'" The voice in his head rationalized, "'but look at your sister, she might not be.'"

He glanced back at his sister, his best friend. He watched for a brief moment as she struggled to breathe, gasping like a fish out of water, her skin dosed in countless burns.

"'You have to get her out of here, no matter what the costs are.'"

His conscience was right. He pulled Mabel through the burning room, getting several more splinters and burns on their feet in the process.

With an immense amount of luck, the twins made it to the door. Dipper grabbed the metal door knob but instantly retreated away from it. It was boiling hot and he could see that it had left a disgusting mark on his hand: boils and blisters were already forming from the brief contact. He was about to find another way out of the house until he saw Mabel. She was coughing and heaving as if she was having an asthma attack…he couldn't waste time. he let go of Mabel's hand and forced himself to touch the scolding surface of the door knob with both hands, prying the door open to their freedom.

Dipper pushed Mabel outside, making sure she got out side of the inferno and then followed after her into the street.

Together, they ran as far away from the house as they could with their scolded feet. They were surprised to find that the neighbors from there street were outside of their house, far enough to not get hurt but close enough to watch the horror. A few of them rushed towards the fallen twins.

"Oh thank goodness you two are alright."

"We called 911, they should be here soon."

"Everything will be ok."

The last line stuck in Dipper's mind for the remainder of the evening. As he comforted the crying Mabel as hid herself in sweater town, he said the line to himself over and over again.

"Everything will be ok…everything will be ok…everything will be ok."

…

Everything was not ok.

For the last few hours, the twins were transported from place to place, finding out one set of terrible news to the next.

First, the twins were brought to the hospital. The numerous burns and splinters on the twins bodies had to be looked at. The splinters were removed and the burns were looked at. The burns weren't as bad as they felt, most just first degree. Their breathing was tested as well. The doctors told them that it was wise of them to cover their mouths and noses from the smoke and it had probably saved their lives and/or saved them from future hospital visits. The worst burns were that of Dippers hands, having touched several burning surfaces and then a hot metal door knob. His hands would have to be in bandaged for at least the next two weeks.

After that, the twins were taken to the police station to be questioned about the fire. The police inspector asked the twins if there was anyone that would want to cause harm to them or their family. Mabel began talking about Bill, an evil Dorito that hated their family but dipper elbowed her in the arm. The police shouldn't have to deal with a dream demon along with speeding tickets. Besides, Bill was gone.

Finally, they ended up at child services where the worst news was given: the fire fighters had found their parents…dead.

The twins went ballistic. Mabel burst into tears and cried into Dipper's shoulder. Dipper was in shock. How could this have happened? They had been in life threatening situations all summer, how did a simple fire kill 2 members of the Pines family? It was the worst feeling they had ever felt.

And it would just get worse.

"I am so sorry, kids. It's terrible to lose your parents." The child service agent said, pitiless. "But I promise you, everything will be ok. Now is there any family that we can call?"

Dipper instantly gave the agent Grunkle Stan's phone number. Dipper hoped his Grunkle would be awake. The incident had happened over 14 hours ago, but it was still fresh in the twin's minds.

The agent took the phone call in the other room, leaving Dipper, Mabel and Waddles alone.

"Dipper…" Mabel asked through tears, "…What's gonna happen to us?..."

"I…I…I don't know." Dipper admitted defeat for the first time in his life. "I don't know."