Dipper PoV

The next few days passed quickly. Mostly because I was busy having my soul shredded to pieces and materialized and wasn't quite aware of time passing. We left enough of our souls in us to not be an empty, lifeless shell, which is almost always a good thing, so now there was just a group of not-actually-that-normal humans and a gnome. And of course, we can't forget the pile of sparkly demon-soul hoodie-capes. In short, this is not how I expected summer vacation to turn out.

Stanley coached Mabel and I for about a day before we made our cloaks. So I felt pretty prepared when it was time to do it for real. I learned then that there was an enormous difference between knowing about something and being prepared for it. The pain was so intense that no existing words can possibly be used to describe it. Other than that sentence. On the bright side, I think I finally understand what Bryan is talking about whenever he mumbles something about pullastigation.

Although the only other experiences I've had with the guy revolved around him trying to destroy us, I was feeling a little worried for Bill. He was constantly secluded, muttering things to himself. Before I went into that weird state for soul seperation, about three days ago, he'd talk and interact with everyone else just like everyone else. Now he just looked like some sort of Dorito Frankenstein gone terribly wrong. It kinda creeped me out.

Mabel stumbled over to me. She had just finished her cloak, apparently. It was draped over her shoulder, a deep, velvety purple that shimmered pink. I wish mine did the shimmery thing. All it did was confuse me as to whether it was blue or grey.

Her mouth was moving, but it was just that unhinging jaw movement reminiscent of a dying fish. Her eyes were wet and twice their normal size, frozen in fear.

"It's pretty fun, huh?" I asked bluntly.

Instead of replying, she closed her mouth and fell onto her knees.

"Mabel?" I said gently, just as Dierdre came over.

"Is she okay?" she inquired.

"Would you be okay if you just had your soul ripped out of you over the course of almost three days?" I snapped.

"Geez, looks like someone else is still not okay either!" she huffed.

Mabel rubbed her eyes and shook her head. "Sorry," she sighed with a wavering voice. "I'm fine now."

"What are you apologizing for?" I smiled and gave her a soft punch to the shoulder. I wouldn't have if the pain was physical, but it wasn't, so the punch wouldn't hurt. "I think I cried a little when I finished, too."

"Yeah right," she said, along with a pained attempt at a laugh.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I questioned. I wasn't sure if I was annoyed or confused. But I shook it off. "You should really get some rest."

But she was already asleep.

Mabel PoV

When I woke up the next day, the pain was gone for the most part, leaving only small traces here and there.

Grunkle Stan came around to check on me, which is when he told me that we had all ten cloaks. He said that we either tonight or tomorrow night, Bryan would make the eclipse, depending on how much stress was still on the Mindscape. I wasn't really very awake when he broke the news to me, so I pretty much comprehended every third word.

Although it didn't hurt anymore, there was still this weird feeling of something small figuring out how to fill something much bigger.

When I told Stan, he explained that it was because souls had a sort of casing. During the cloak-making deal, the casing is split open or something like that. Most people have one part of their soul. But, as Pines, we have two. The Ciphers have three. One main part which is basically what you think of as a soul. As for demons, each 'power' gets their own soul extension thingy because it's too much to store in the main part. He said that the cloaks were made from the extensions, but they had to be separated from the main part and the casing, which is why it hurt so much. All that remained was the main one, so it thought it needed to fill out the entire case, big enough to hold the extension, but it couldn't really so yeah. It was kinda confusing, but I think that's the gist of it.

I know Dipper started earlier than me, so it only made sense for him to finish as so, but I only started a couple hours after him. I ended almost a day after him. Even though we weren't competing, I still felt like I'd lost at something.

Oh well. I figured I should probably get up now. Since it was the middle of the day and all.

I stood up, brushed some leaves off my legs, and made my way over to where everyone was gathered.

"Hey Mabel. Feeling better?" Dipper asked. I nodded. "Good. Because it looks like we're getting this thing over with faster than we thought."

A/N: SSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! I've been watching much anime lately. And I just got some new Pokemon games, so I've been pretty busy. Also Christmas was not especially helpful in giving me writing time and the December hiatus hasn't exactly put me in a very Gravity Falls-ish mood, so yeah. But it's my last day of winter break, so I'm going to try to update as many stories as I can today. Hopefully I can do more than one more :P Anyway, I hope all's good with all you childs :3 So farewell for now, and remember that REALITY'S AND ILLUSION THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM BUY GOLD BYYYEEEEEE!