TW: Mention of dead animals

"Ugh- This is taking forever! Can't your machine work any faster?" Stanley Pines groaned as he sat on a wooden chair, lifting his hand up to poke at the piece of machinery on his head only for his hand to be swatted by his twin brother.

"Don't mess with it, Stanley. It's working as fast as it can. I haven't had much downtime since I've returned to actually modify it so we will have to simply make do with the speed it is running at now," Ford explained, walking over towards the tv screens that were placed behind Stan, reading the words that would occasionally pop up on it.

This machine is as slow as a snail.
Why are we doing this again?
Man, it smells weird down here.
I'm going to miss The Duchess Approves tonight if this thing takes any longer to finish!

These were the current words appearing across the screen, causing Ford to roll his eyes. This machine helped him to read people's thoughts, get inside their heads. He was currently going through his brother's mind to see how much knowledge he has obtained, how much he remembers. There was also another reason he wanted to do this, however, that he had yet to mention to Stan.

Ever since Weirdmageddon ended, there's been this nagging feeling in the back of Ford's head that the end to the town's apocalypse had been too easy. He had a hard time believing that Bill Cipher, the dream demon that tricked him and the rest of his family and nearly destroyed the entire town, was truly gone. Using the memory gun had successfully erased all of Stan's mind as well as any being that might have been in it, sure, but it's not like he was there to witness Bill dying himself. What if something happened inside the mindscape? What if he had been able to escape death? He had to be sure, had to be certain Bill was gone for good. It didn't help that Stan could hardly remember what actually happened while in the mindscape when it all went down. Hopefully the machine might be able to help them dig down into Stan's memories and pull something from that day.

"Stanley, please. Focus. Focus on Weirdmageddon. I know it's hard with what little memory you have of that whole fiasco... but please, try to remember what you can. Preferably what happened within the mindscape after you made the deal with Bill."

"Alright, alright! I'm trying... I'm really trying," Stan closed his eyes tightly, trying to remember even just a little bit of what had ended up happening.

This is dumb.
I told him I can't remember what happened.
What happened.. What happened?!
I made the deal...
...my living room, I was in my living room.

Ford's eyes widened as he read the words. If Stan had been in his living room, that would make sense as the mindscape bends to create a safe haven within your mind of a place that is familiar to you and feels safe and secure to you. It would make sense if his safe spot was his own home.

Suddenly, the screen began to change and an image was shown to Ford. He could see Stanley sitting in his yellow lounge chair, a paddle ball in his hand as he played with it. He appeared to be waiting for someone, eyes on the singular door within the room. Ford took a step closer towards the screen, his breath catching in his throat as he quickly fell silent and began to watch the screen intently. He didn't want to miss anything that was about to be shown to him. He needed to know what had occurred. He had to be given peace of mind that he and his family were free from the demon's wrath.

The door that Stan was looking at within the memory burst open, and suddenly the screen turned to static. Ford growled, going to slam his fist into the side of the tv as though he would get a better connection if he did so.

"Come on... Come on!"

Another hit, and suddenly the picture came back. It was different, however, as the video was more blurry, almost like someone had taken off their glasses and could no longer see the exact details of the characters. He saw what appeared to be a yellow triangle entering the living room now, only he could not see the brick patterns in his form and his bow tie and black hat were simply a black blob on the screen. He supposed it was better than nothing, at least now Ford knew that Bill had gone into Stan's mind once the deal had been made.

Then Stan began to talk, and it almost sounded as though he was speaking underwater as the audio was very unclear to listen to. This only caused Ford to get more frustrated and hit the tv again. He wanted to know what was going on, what was being said to get a better understanding of how it all went down. He could only catch a few words here and there but it was extremely difficult to understand:

"The deal's-"
"...you're going down-"
"...idiot!"
"Let me OUT!"
"...fatal mistake."
"...anything!"

There was even more static as it continued, unable to get a proper image of the scene taking place. It must be because of how little Stan actually remembers of this event. He could only get bits and pieces, but not a full understanding of complete sentences that were spoken or clear images that he could remember seeing. It was upsetting, to say the least, but Ford continued forward with this little experiment, wanting to get all there was even if there wasn't much to see.

Ford watched as the yellow blob on the screen appeared to begin to melt into the floor when suddenly the screen went completely black. He gritted his teeth, hitting his fist against it again to try and bring the picture back.

"Dang it! Come on, you lousy piece of junk, work!" He was now regretting not repairing this machine before giving it a shot at reading Stan's mind. It could very well be because he couldn't remember, though, and this was all the information they would be getting and he'd have to accept that fact.

It stayed black for a while, static showing every so often before finally the picture came back, a clear picture of Stan holding a picture of the kids while the blue fire consumed him. Bill was nowhere to be seen, however. What happened during that period of the blackout within Stan's memory...? This was going to drive him insane, knowing he wouldn't be able to get an answer to this question so long as Stan couldn't remember fully.

Stan reopened his eyes, feeling a bit lightheaded from having to focus so hard. He turned around to look at Ford, taking note of how unhappy he looked.

"Did you not get what you were looking for?"

"No... I didn't. You were right, there was no point in trying. Your memories haven't all returned just yet. I wanted to try, though. See for myself."

"Sorry. I mean hey- I'm getting more of my memories back everyday. Maybe eventually I'll remember what it is you're wanting to find. Which is...?"

Ford looked back over at Stan, sighing as he walked over and began to remove the piece of machinery off of his head. "I wanted to check, to see if we truly had destroyed Bill and your sacrifice wasn't in vain... We've been tricked before by the demon, it concerns me thinking we might've been tricked by him once more. I don't want to get a surprise visit from him one day, ready to take over Gravity Falls and the world once again."

Ford walked away to go and put the head piece on his desk, his shoulders slouched.

Stan watched his brother before standing up and stretching his arms. "You worry too much, Ford.  Of course it worked, I can feel it in my gut we won and defeated the talking dorito. And even if we didn't? We've beat him before, which means we can do it again! Nothing can stop this family when we have our minds set on something! We're packed with two sets of twins, we're practically unstoppable!" He walked over towards his brother, standing behind him and grabbing his arms to shake him slightly.

Ford tensed up before relaxing and sighing, smiling softly and nodding his head. "I suppose you're right... I just can't help it, can't help worrying about it all."

"Well then let's distract you from your worries! We still need to plan out Dipper and Mabel's 13th birthday party, I think the whole town was wanting to come celebrate their birthday and say goodbye to the brats."

"Oh right- the party," Ford blinked slowly, having nearly forgotten about the twin's birthday. "I suppose we should start planning it. Hmm... we should start by figuring out the guest list, see who all is coming unless we are assuming the entire town will be on our front lawn. We will also need to figure out what presents we will be giving to the both of them- And we need to see who will be willing to bake the cake for us unless we're wanting to try and make it ourselves-" He began to mutter to himself as he headed towards the elevator to get back up to the first floor.

Stan chuckled, shaking his head. "And what'd ya know- he's distracted already!" He smiled before it faltered slightly, looking back at the screen. He didn't say or do anything, simply staring at it for a solid minute in thought before he turned and followed after Ford.

~~~

Meanwhile, somewhere in the woods...

There sits a lake, hidden away from the world as the trees cover its existence altogether. In this part of the woods, there is nothing but silence. Creatures within the woods surrounded the area, but never came near the lake itself. Especially not now as it reeked of death below its waters. The water was perfectly still on top, almost giving it the appearance of glass. Nothing dared to touch or disturb it, leaving it be as it laid still and unbothered while reflecting the image of the full moon that hung right above it.

The moon slowly shifted through the night, shifting its way towards the center of the lake so its light could shine down upon it. It took some time before the moon finally sat perfectly above the lake, and when it did, the night seemed to have been taken over by a wave of weirdness that could not be explained well enough for one to believe it truly happened even if they tried.

The moment the moon was aligned with the center of the lake, the full moon was taken over by this sudden change of color: a light pastel pink. The color coated it slowly like a blanket just to cover up the moon's original color and as it fully covered the moon, its moonlight that beamed down below onto the surface of the water changed as well into that same pastel pink. It was at this very point that the world seemed to freeze, all color draining away from the environment and creatures that were inhabiting the woods. All that was left was a greyscale of what had once been a colorful woodland scenery and all things that had been in motion were left unable to move for the time being. The only thing that still appeared lively and colorful in this moment was the full moon in the sky as well as the lake below it.

The effect of the strange moonlight wasn't immediate, but after some time passed the lake began to change in a different way than the rest of the woods had. First, the water began to boil like water might inside of a hot pan on a stove. It was bubbling and sizzling before steam began to rise up from the water and cause a thick fog to cover the lake. As changes were occurring above the water, one might fail to notice the changes taking place below the water as well. Not only was this pink light the only remaining color left in the woods, but now as the water began to boil and heat up a new color began to rise from the depths of the lake:

Yellow.

A golden yellow color glowed softly, barely noticeable at first. But that light began to flow brighter and larger as it began to make its way upwards towards the surface.

A loud ringing pierced the atmosphere, a kind of ringing that would have you covering your ears in an attempt to block out the noise and save your own eardrums. It only grew louder the closer the golden light got to breaking the surface, and as the light reached the top of the water and connected with the pink light, the ringing stopped.

...And an explosion similar to that of a nuclear explosion erupted in the center of that lake and expanded across the whole woods. Everything within the woods was covered by this yellow and pink eruption, all the trees in the area uprooting and collapsing onto their sides. None of the creatures were able to escape from this as they had still been frozen, not like they could've outrun the explosion if time were unpaused.

The explosion was silent, no sound coming from it like it had never occurred in the first place. And as quickly as it came to be, it finished just as fast.

The woods fell still, silent as color slowly began to return across the land.

No tree was left standing, laying on the ground now while appearing as though they had been chopped down for a couple centuries.

The corpses of the animals seemed completely decomposed, nothing but fragile bones left laying in the dirt.

The moon returned back to its natural light, having moved away from the center of the lake and continuing its course to push forward through the night.

As for the lake: it was no more.

Steam continued to cloud up the atmosphere, but the water had completely vanished, the lake having completely dried up. One might even question if water had ever been there to begin with. The lake had been deep, and standing at the bottom in the dead center of what had originally been the lake stood the source of the golden yellow light.

The light of his golden hair began to dim until the light was no more and all that was left was short, blond hair that had water dripping off of it like a mop. His singular golden eye with a cat-like slit began to slowly form into a circular pupil with the light fading to reveal a hazel iris that matched his other eye. The blue lips and pale skin that was shown and not covered by articles of clothing began to slowly revert back to how they had once been, the color and life returning to this frail and pathetic looking body. Though his body seemed to be recovering, the pants and shirt he wore still showed the damage that the water of the lake had done to it over time.

The woods might have died and been destroyed by this act of weirdness that had taken place, but the man that stood in the center of it all now looked to be more lively than he had been only moments before.

The man began to blink slowly, almost as though he was finally awakening from whatever slumber he had previously been in. His eyes began to scan his surroundings in a daze, unsure of his current location or what had happened to the area. He attempted to take a step forward, only to fall to his hands and knees. His wet clothes weighed him down and froze his body, and his shoulders shook as the wind hit him with a harsh chill. He gasped sharply, digging his fingernails into the dry earth below him as he lifted his head to stare up at the night sky.

The air was still pretty clouded by the fog, but he was able to see through it just enough to catch a glimpse of the full moon sitting up in the clear night sky, looking down upon him.

It started off as a slight hum escaping from the man, before beginning to grow into a short laugh. That short laugh quickly began to develop into a loud, crazed chuckle that interrupted the silence that surrounded him. He remained on his hands and knees inside the crater that had once been a lake, laughing out loud into the night air. There was a sudden feeling of freedom washing over him, realizing that tonight... he lived. Tonight, death would not take hold of him and he would get to live to see another day.

'Oh... it is good to be back.'

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Chapter 2: Sunday, May 29th, 2022