"Okay…I'm going to try…this! I'm saying…it was Doctor Peach in the bathroom with the rusty crowbar!"

Dipper Pines sighed at his twin sister's theory and shook his head in disappointment. "What?" Mabel asked. "It was a good guess!"

"It would have been…" he explained. "…if any of that stuff actually existed in the game!"

"Pfff!" the braced girl shot back. "Don't be a spoil-sport!"

Frustrated, Dipper covered his face with his hands. It was a boring Saturday night, and unfortunately for him, playing board games with Mabel was the only interesting option available. Soos had already gone home for the evening, and Grunkle Stan was sound asleep in his recliner. Dipper had originally offered his co-worker (and secret love) Wendy Corduroy an invitation to a night of retro video gaming and all the junk food that they could eat, but she politely declined. His gothic nemesis, Robbie V. had already asked the charming redhead out on a date, adding to Dipper's chagrin.

Dipper looked back to his pouting sister, "Come on, Mabel! If you're going to play the game, you gotta do it right! You have to think and act like a real detective!"

Mabel stuck her tongue out at the semi-reasonable boy, "But that's so boring! Can't we play a game I'll actually like?" She reached down and pulled up a sparkling pink and purple box. "Like this one, "Precious, Precious Duchess?"

Her slightly younger brother crossed his arms, "Absolutely not!"

Mabel raised an eyebrow, "Oh, are you too embarrassed to play this game?"

"No, I'm not too embarrassed to play. I was embarrassed when you took a picture after I won the last game we played…and decided to show everyone!"

"But it was adorable!" Mabel implored her twin. "You wearing all of that fake jewelry, and that crown?" A devilish grin crept up the girl's pie-face. "Besides, Wendy thought you made a great "Precious, Precious Duchess…""

Dipper groaned to himself as the memory of trying to justify his actions to his hysterical, red-faced, giggling teenage crush came flowing back.

"Oh, Dipper! It's not so bad…"

Suddenly, Mabel's complaining was cut off by something banging. Dipper turned around from the table to realize where the sound was coming from. "Hmm…" he mumbled to himself. "Someone's knocking on the Shack's gift shop door…" He found it very odd, since the Mystery Shack had been closed for several hours. If it was someone they knew, they would have tried the family entrance.

Mabel waved away her brother's concerns. "Let them knock. They'll go away in a minute or so! It's probably just some jilted customer that Grunkle Stan ripped off…"

Finding reason in her explanation, Dipper took his sister's advice and returned his attention to the game displayed on the table. A minute later, the thumping resumed, only this time, vastly increased in volume.

"Argh!"

Annoyed, Dipper pushed against the table and hopped off the chair. He looked at Mabel, "I have to go answer it, or else, Stan is going to wake up, and chances are, he won't be happy about it…" As Dipper headed towards the gift shop, his twin called out:

"Wait, Dipper!"

As Dipper turned around, Mabel tossed an object at him. Utterly surprised, he just barely caught the item, as it nearly slipped through his fingers. He looked down to see that she had given him her trademark Grappling Hook.

"Take this along with you. You might need it, just in case…"

Dipper gave her a confused look, "And why would I need this to answer the door?"

Mabel backed up her intuition, "Why wouldn't you need it?"

Not wanting to argue, Dipper nodded in pseudo-appreciation and tucked the gun into his vest.

"I'll be back as soon as I can…"

Dipper stumbled his way through the darkened gift shop. The pre-teen was given goose bumps due to the surreal change in the Mystery Shack's atmosphere. He thought to himself, "When there aren't any customers here, this place can be kinda creepy…" Dipper unlocked and opened the door – to find no one there.

He stepped out into the porch, looking up at the gorgeous Oregon skyline, filled to capacity with endless amounts of twinkling stars. The sight was something that was extremely hard to find back in Piedmont.

Before he had a chance to investigate the sound further, a darkness quickly overcame him.

"Hey! Wait!"

Within seconds, Dipper could feel himself being whisked away. He punched and kicked against the blackness without any prevail.

"Mabel! Stan! Anybody?"

The boy cried out in pain as it felt as if he was being dragged across the ground. After a countless amount of time, Dipper felt himself being hoisted upside down. He immediately fell face first onto the cold, hard landscape. He rubbed his eyes in order to clear away the fuzziness blocking his vision.

Dipper found himself in a huge clearing in what appeared to be the Gravity Falls Forest. Once again, starlight was shining down on his tiny form. He looked to his side to see that a burlap sack was discarded right next to him. Dipper analyzed the bag, trying to put two and two together.

"Was…Was I kidnapped?" the young detective silently asked himself. "And if so…why?" All of a sudden, his thoughts were shattered by a stern voice coming from overhead.

"How's it hanging, dork?"

Dipper looked up in horror to see the towering goth, Robbie V., standing over him. The teen's dark eyes were solely focused on the terrified boy in front of him. Dipper tried his best to stagger to his feet, only to slip in the dirt, scrambling away bit by bit.

A billion different thoughts began to run through Dipper's panicked mind. "Oh, man! This is it! He's finally snapped! He'll make sure that I'll never see Wendy ever again!" He could easily visualize the image of Mabel and Wendy, searching in the woods in vain, crying and calling out his name as they unknowingly stepped over his shallow grave.

Robbie stopped his approach, only to look down at his struggling nemesis in confusion, "Uh…what's your problem?"

Dipper was dumbstruck by the sincere tone in Robbie's voice. "Are you kidding me? You kidnapped me from my home! And you ask me what my problem is?"

Instead of getting mad, the lanky teen simply rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Yeah, I guess…anyways, the reason I brought you out here was…because…I need your help…"

"WHAT?!" Dipper immediately stood up and stared at his romantic rival in disbelief. Taking a few steps forward, feeling that all senses of danger had vanished, he asked, waving his hands around to demonstrate, "Then, instead of doing all of this, why not just ask me, like a normal person would?"

Being put on the spot, a hint of anger started to appear in the gothic boy's demeanor. "Well, sorry, kid! This is one thing I can't have you going around yapping about!" The saddened expression quickly returned. "Besides…" he continued on. "It's not exactly me who needs that favor…"

Dipper's eyes lightened as Robbie made that ominous comment. A sickening feeling swiftly rushed to his stomach as he came to a realization:

"Wait…didn't Wendy have a date with Robbie tonight?"

Turning incredibly silent, Robbie used his black-covered arms to guide Dipper to a pathway behind him. Without hesitation, Dipper ran past his abductor, hoping that his gut feeling was dead wrong. Further down the road, he finally saw what Robbie was referring to.

In the darkness, Wendy Corduroy stood still, frozen like a statue. The evening breeze brushed against her long, frizzy red hair. Her bright, emerald-green eyes (Dipper's favorite feature) were eerily replaced with pure white, merely staring into nothingness. Her freckled-dimpled toothy smile had transformed into a blank, motionless frown. As Dipper examined his friend from head to toe, he came to the conclusion that it seemed like the life had been literally sucked dry from her slender frame!

"WENDY!" Dipper's high-pitched, almost girly voice echoed throughout the almost-silent night sky. The lanky teenager paid no heed to the stressed-out tween at her feet. As Robbie watched soundlessly, Dipper picked up her hand and held it to his cheek. It was ice cold! How long was she left out here in the wilderness?

"Wendy? It's me, Dipper. C-Can you hear me?"

The girl continued to stare into empty space with the soulless pure-white eyes. A lump grew in Dipper's throat. Still clutching her hand, he held Wendy's wrist up to his ear. Dipper could barely make out a heartbeat. A terrifying thought clouded the twelve-year-old's mind:

"I can't find a pulse! Was she already…gone?"

Dipper shook his head in defiance, while mumbling to himself, "Nononono…" He had no intention of getting Wendy go without a fight.

Standing on his tip-toes, Dipper placed one hand against her back and another gently on her flannel-covered stomach. He placed his head against her chest, hoping to find some signs of life.

"Hey! Hey!"

Dipper turned his head to see a snarling Robbie pointing straight at him. "Look, pint-size! This isn't "Baby's First Cop-A-Feel! " I brought you out here to help her!"

Annoyed, Dipper sighed to himself before shouting back:

"Would you please SHUT UP?! I'm trying to listen for her heartbeat!"

Robbie shrunk back upon hearing his rival's justification, "Oh…" He returned to his steady vigil over the two adolescents standing in front of him.

Closing his eyes, Dipper returned to his previous position against Wendy's torso. He attempted to force any or all distractions out of his mind, becoming incredibly desperate to find proof that Wendy was still with him.

"C'mon, Wendy…" he silently pleaded to his ginger crush. "I know you're a fighter, so fight for me! Just…Just give me a sign. Let me know you're in there…please?

*THUMP*

Dipper opened his eyes in shock.

*THUMP*

A smile quickly formed across his face. Dipper started to chuckle nervously in a form of celebration.

Robbie cupped his hands and called over from his distance, "WHAT?! What is it?"

Dipper looked back at the concerned gothic teen, "I can hear it! She still has a pulse…but…" He went back to her side. "It's…tremendously slow…like two or three beats every thirty seconds…that's insane!" He also watched her ribcage silently raise and lower sluggishly. Why was her breathing so shallow?

"What does that mean?!"

"I'm…not sure…" Dipper headed back to Robbie. While he was grateful that Wendy appeared unharmed, the scientific part of his mind constantly nicked at him. Dipper struggled to fight the thought brewing through his consciousness:

"How was she still alive? No one could survive like that!"

Robbie's anger flew off the handle, "Then, what good are you?"

Dipper held out a finger, "Well, wait a second here! What exactly happened? How did Wendy end up like this?"

Robbie threw out his arms, "Look, I didn't do anything to her, all right!"

The tiny boy raised an eyebrow. "I never said you did…I just asked what you were doing when this happened…but since you mentioned it, did you have anything to do with it?"

Robbie threw his arms out, "We were just talking, and all of a sudden, she froze up like that! I didn't know what else to do so…so I came and got you…"

While Dipper was highly suspicious of Robbie's story, feeling that he might have left out a part of the tale, he couldn't help but feel a bit humbled that he was thought of as "Wendy's last hope…"

"Just a sec…I might have seen something about this kind of condition…" He reached into the pockets of his blue vest, and pulled out the ruined, seemingly ancient tome simply labeled #3. As Dipper ran his fingers through the pages of the book, Robbie questioned the odd sight before him.

"Umm…what's that thing?"

The young detective froze as he realized that he had let his second-nature get the best of him. The most important lesson that the journal had taught him was "Remember, in Gravity Falls, there is no one you can trust." Granted, while in Dipper's mind, Wendy and Mabel were the furthest things from "no ones," he wasn't about to let his gothic nemesis in on one of his most protected secrets (since he already knew "his other one…").

"Oh, this?" Dipper fabricated. "It's the…um…"Nerd's Guide to Ghosts, Monsters, & Other Oddities"…third edition…"

"Ah…" Robbie breathed. "It suits you."

After shooting Robbie a dirty look, Dipper returned to his studies in search of the familiar passage. A few moments later, Dipper raised his head upon finding the discovery, "Ah-ha! Here it is!" He read the section aloud so that Robbie could follow along:

"Trances:

In my journeys through Gravity Falls, I have bear witnessed to several forms of this ailment. Victims will have appeared to have very little to no showings of life, as if they had become living statues. I believe that this façade of death is due to a sort of out-of-body experience, where the spirit becomes tangibly detached from their physical form. Many have reported that such instances have been caused by a form of trauma or shock received beforehand…"

Dipper looked up, ready to make a wisecrack about Wendy being stunned by possibly "seeing Robbie naked…" but upon seeing the nervous teen hang on his every word, he swiftly decided against it. He continued on with his narration:

"...A possible way of awakening one under this sickness is through the use of a symbol of love. I have watched as the victim's most cherished ones gathered their favorite earthly items as a lure to help the disembodied souls find their way back home…"

As Dipper closed the tome, Robbie began to laugh to himself. Dipper questioned his sudden change in behavior, "What's so funny?"

Robbie, still grinning, reached behind his back and pulled out his trusty six-stringed guitar. "Thanks for the tip, junior, but I think I got this. There's nothing Wendy adores more than a loving rock ballad from her man!"

Dipper watched in awe of his opponent's arrogance, as he propped himself on a rock, and started to serenade the frozen-solid redhead.

Covering his ears to avoid Robbie's screeching, Dipper carefully watched his crush, hoping for any sign of response. He instantly felt bad for the young girl, unable to move away from the horrid sound. In this case, the cure sounded worse than the disease! After a few minutes, Dipper lowered his hands, certain that the music had no effect.

He put his hand up to his chin and began to think. It was up to him now. Surely, there had to be something that he had that could prove how much he loved Wendy. Finally, an image struck his mind like lightning. Dipper ran up and tapped the still-singing Robbie on the shoulder.

"What, kid? I'm busy!"

"Look…" Dipper rubbed the back of his head. "I have an idea, but I need to borrow your bike for a few minutes. I want to get something from back home."

Robbie scoffed at Dipper's idea. "Like I care! Besides, I'm going to be here for a while. We're only on track three of a thirteen track playlist! Sooner or later, she'll come around."

Dipper offered a fake smile to the delusional dark teen. "Sure, whatever you say…" He ran to the oversized bike and jumped upon of it. Riding away, Dipper turned back, "Thanks again!"

"Whatever…" Robbie muttered under his breath. "I probably didn't even need your help anyway…" With that, he returned to singing for his captive audience…