Mabel

I sat in the jacuzzi, eyes closed as I leaned against the seat. Steam drifted up from the water crystal blue water into the dark sky. After the golf incident, a little time to relax was nice.
Except I wasn't relaxed. While my eyes were closed, my body was tense, ready to react to whatever could come at me from the safety of the patio.
I couldn't stop thinking about Gideon, either. He had ultimately betrayed me, running away, leaving me to die.
He still loved me, right?

The truth sank in. He had run from me, no regard to my well-being. He never cared about me at all.

But why?

"I'm such a great person." I whispered, opening my eyes to look at the sky. The sun had started to rise, and a streak of orange shone through the horizon. "Why doesn't he love me?"
I felt a salty tear roll down my cheek. I lifted my hand out of the water to look at it. My fingers were wrinkled like raisins from the water, and my black nail polish was chipping away.
"Should I change myself?" I looked down at the chipping nail polish.
A hard laugh sounded from my throat, and I took a breath to laugh some more, when I felt tears rise up and I started crying. I started to sob.
Gideon... he doesn't love me. I thought, taking a big gulp of cold air. I swallowed my cries of grief and took another breath.
"Think, Mabel, think." My voice trembled. "You always have a plan! Always."
I splashed water at my face. "Come on, think."
I submerged myself underwater for a moment, eyes wide open and breathing in the water, then after a second I reached my head back up and coughed up the bitter water, blinking my burning eyes.
"TH...ink...." An idea popped into my head. "I don't need to change... all I need to do is trick Gideon into loving me."
I looked up at the stars and smiled. "Don't worry, Gideon, you will love me soon."

Pacifica

"Today is the day we find out who the author is!" I squealed, placing down the laptop on the table.
"Are you sure that's safe to use?" Gideon asked.
"Nonsense!" I said. He was right, though. I had to duct tape some parts, and even then, there was a few wires and green pieces poking out and sparking with electricity. "Besides, I replaced the cracked screen. And that took a lot of time. As long as it works, right?"
"I hope so." Gideon took a deep breath, and pushed the power button.
There was a small beep, and a weird sound like the crinkling of clear plastic wrap as the laptop flickered on.
"Yes!" We cheered, from the corner table of the library, then we did a fist bump. "Cousins!"
The laptop suddenly let out an alarming beep, with the words UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS FORBIDDEN across the screen. Then, it showed where we had to enter a password to get in.
"Ugh! A password!" I flopped against my chair.
"Don't worry, Paz, we'll crack it in no time." Gideon reassured me. "There is nothing that can distract us from-what is that?"
We looked behind us to see from bookshelves away, in the kid's books area, there was a girl holding puppets and singing about reading to some kids.
The puppets started kissing, and the girl laughed.
"Okay, Gideon, let's get back to- Gideon?" I poked Gideon with a pencil as he stared at the girl putting on the puppet show adoringly.
"You have a crush, don't you?" I sighed.
"What?" Gideon snapped out of his daydreams. "What was that you were saying?"
"Woah, Gideon has a new crush!" I squealed. "Oh my gosh!"
"No!" He protested, and we turned back to the laptop.
"Anyways, I can probably find a way to hack this, should be easier than- Gideon?" I looked behind me to see Gideon walking over to the puppet girl as the puppet show ended.

Gideon

"Hi!" The puppet girl turned to me, as she was unplugging a keyboard. "I'm Gabriela, master of puppets! Nice to meet you."
"Hi." I shyly waved., smiling. "I'm Gideon. You're really good with those puppets."
"Really?" She asked. "Most people think they're dumb or just for kids."
"Are you kidding? People call me puppet-crazy Gideon!" I said.
"Really? People used to call me puppet-crazy Gabriela!" She grinned. "So when's your next puppet show?"
"Puppet show?" I asked.
"Yeah, you can't love puppets if you aren't throwing puppet shows." She said casually.
"Yeah, I'm definitely working on a puppet show!" I said. My brain had know idea what I was doing, all it was focusing on was pretty much digging me into a deeper hole.
"Really? What's the details?" She asked.
"There are so many details." I bit my lip.

Pacifica

"Ugh! How do I hack a laptop from the 80s?" For some reason, my hacking skills weren't working for once. Gideon plopped down on a stool next to me.
"So, how did your friendly chat with your future wife go?" I asked him, and he took in a large breath.
"How hard do you think it would be to write and compose a sock puppet rock opera with original music and pyrotechnics by the end of the week?" He asked.
"What?" I asked, turning to him, as the computer beeped again.
"I don't know what happened!" He exclaimed. "I got lost in her eyes... they were so blue..."
"If you want to stare at blue eyes look into your own." I said. "Mirrors were invented for a reason."
"But I'll be so embarrassed if I don't have anything by Friday!" Gideon protested.
"But what about hacking the laptop?" I asked. "Mystery cousins?"
"I promise I'll help you if you help me with this!" He said. "It's for love, and we all know how much you love shipping."
"Ugh, fine." I groaned, leaning back in my chair.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Gideon said, jumping up and down. "This girl! She's number one!"
We were starting to attract attention, so I laughed and shushed him. "Come on, we should get going if you want to work on your puppet show."
"Okay." He said. "Any books you want to get before we leave?"
"Nah, I'll probably figure it out. I can return later to get books if I need them." We stood up, and I closed the laptop, and we started walking towards the exit. "We're close to something big."

That night, while Gideon worked on his sock puppets, I tried hacking the laptop some more. Nothing seemed to work, this seemed more complicated than hacking the Pentagon or NASA.
I was in for quite a few long nights.

Mabel

"It worked, it worked, it worked!" I danced around the living room in my wig cap and the black shirt and jeans I had been wearing.
"What did?" Dipper asked, as he came inside.
"Everything!" I exclaimed. "Gideon is going to put on a whole puppet show for me!"
"You didn't borrow my journal and read some of the spells, did you?" Dipper asked skeptically.
"Nope!" I smiled. "All it took was a wig and some makeup!"
"So what will you do when Gideon does find out you aren't his 'undying love'?" Dipper crossed his arms.
"He won't mind, because he'll love me so much." I said. "Anyways, if you tell anybody, I'll kill Pacifica."
"How many times have you threatened to kill her and never went through with it?" Dipper asked.
"I've come close a few times!" I pointed out. "I pushed her out of the warehouse once, and I was going to kill her after I won mini-golf-"
"You mean after she would have won."
"If those weird golf people hadn't interfered, I would have won fair and square!" I sat down and started taking off the wig cap. "Ugh, I can't wait until this puppet girl thing is over, anyways."
"Puppets?" Dipper started laughing. "You must be desperate."
"Hey! If this doesn't work, what else would?!" I asked Dipper.
"Kidnapping. I'm surprised you haven't yet." Dipper shrugged. "If Pacifica never liked me back, I would have."
"Blah, blah. I don't want to actually have to chain up my sweet little Gideon. He's too adorable for prison life." I took a photo of him out of my pocket. "Isn't that right, sweetie?"
"Well, I'm going to hang out with Pacifica. I'll see you later." Dipper walked out of the room.
"Oh, yeah! Go spend time with your cute little girlfriend instead of your sister!" I called behind him, but he didn't answer. Instead, I heard a door from down the hall open and close. "Argh! Yeah, don't listen to your sister. It's not like I can barely bear you blab on about that sneaky little blonde all the time."
I crossed my arms, slumping against the couch cushions, then looked at the photo of Gideon. I giggled.
"You're going to be all mine, Gideon." I laughed. "And we shall rule this world together!"
I squealed giddily at the thought, and hugged the photo to my chest. "I can nearly imagine it now! No more of this dump, we can go wherever we please. Do whatever we please. Get rid of Pacifica and the idiotic townsfolk." I sighed. "Life will be perfect. Nobody will get in our way."

Dipper

"Hi, Dipper!"
A sock puppet popped up in front of me, startling me and sending me back, onto the floor of the Mystery Shack.
"Hi, Pacifica." I said, as she waved the sock puppet in my face.
"Hi! I was just making sock puppets with Gideon for his new GIRLFRIEEEEND!!" Pacifica waggled the sock puppet of her and its eyes bounced around.
"Shut up and help me!" Gideon called from the set he was painting on a tarp in the living room. "We don't have much time! Everything has to be perfect for Gabriela!"
I nearly laughed. He was playing right into Mabel's hands, so blindly. Instead, I remained neutral.
"So, Gideon has a girlfrieeeeeend?" I snickered. "Did you meet her at preschool?"
"No!" He protested. "It's not that big of a deal!"
"Yeah it is! You're in loooove!" Pacifica picked up the sock puppet of Mabel in her disguise and shoved it at him. "Kissy kiss kiss!"
"Just stop it!" Gideon pushed away the puppet. "Let me paint."
"Fiiiiiiiine." Pacifica sighed in defeat. "Dipper, do you want to help me with the laptop you found?"
"Sure." I said, and Pacifica led me up to the attic, where she took out the briefcase laptop. It was hard to contain my excitement. "So? What did you find on it?! Who is the author?!"
"Nothing so far." Pacifica picked up the laptop and sat on the window seat. "Between helping Gideon with his sock play and trying to find how to hack this thing, I haven't gotten much sleep. And when I do try to sleep, I can't. I have to figure this out."
"How about you go to sleep and I take over the hacking for a bit?" I suggested. Pacifica looked up at me as I sat next to her, and I could see the bags under her eyes.
"No, I....can do....this." She sleepily said, and she yawned. She laid her head on my shoulder, and closed her eyes. Suddenly, she shot up. "No! No sleep! I have to figure this out!"
"No, Pacifica, you need to go to sleep." I started to take the laptop away from her, but she slapped my hand away.
"Sorry, it's just that..." She sighed, her head leaning forward to rest on the top of the laptop screen when she sat back up. "I want to figure this out so bad."
"So do I, but you shouldn't be depriving yourself of sleep like this." I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
"No...must sleep...I mean, hack!" She shook herself awake and took a thick book about coding from the 1980s from the floor and opened it, then started pushing random keys on the laptop, resulting in numerous beeps.
"I'm sorry, Pacifica, but you need some sleep. I hate to see you suffer like this." I said.
"What're you going to do? Sing me a lullaby?" She kept absentmindedly pressing keys.
"No." My amulet started to glow, and a blue haze grew over her eyes before she fell back against the window and fell asleep. I took away the laptop and put it beside her, then put away the book, and took off my black cape and laid it on her. I kissed her on the forehead. "I'm sorry, Pacifica, but you'll figure that out much better in the morning after some sleep."
I trudged down the stairs.

Mabel

"Ugh, you finally came back from your stupid girlfriend's place!" I said, as Dipper walked in through the front doors of the mansion. "I've got somebody in the basement to torture! Want to go cause pain?"
Dipper shook his head. "No, thank you."
"Why not?" I complained, leaning against the wall. "You've grown soft since you met that little blondie."
"No, I'm not. I just don't feel like torture right now."
"You never feel like torture anymore!" I said. "Seriously, what's wrong? I'll listen."
"Well, Pacifica has been pushing herself trying to hack into a laptop that the author may have owned." Dipper said, sitting down on a bench. "She's been really tired lately, and she hasn't slept in days. I had to knock her unconscious."
"Poor her." I rolled my eyes sarcastically when Dipper wasn't looking. "So, you're close to finding the author then? You haven't found the first journal?"
"No." He shook his head. "But in my journal there's almost of possible hiding places for the first in invisible ink. Tomorrow I'll go searching."
"Can I go searching with you?" I begged.
"Sorry, I was hoping to do it alone." Dipper said. "It'll be quieter. You with your explosives can alert the whole town."
"We just never do stuff anymore." I sighed, sitting on a bench across from him. "You're always with Pacifica, holding hands and kissing."
"Well, maybe I wouldn't have to protect her so much if you didn't try to kill her." Dipper stood up.
"Didn't you say at the beginning of all this that you didn't really like her? That this is just for the third journal?" I asked him. "And where's the journal right now? You've had plenty of opportunities to steal it from her. Stop fooling yourself with love."
"Says the girl who is dressing up as someone else to get her crush to put on a sock puppet show for her. And where's that journal you said you would get?" Dipper turned and walked away.
I was infuriated. How dare he criticize me?! I'm only doing what I have to! It's only so easy for him because Pacifica is a blind, blonde, blue-eyed super hyper unicorn-girl who is all too desperate to fall in love. It's so easy for him he's lost sight of his goals.
But I won't let him forget.

While Dipper was in the bathroom, I snuck into his bedroom and took his Journal off his bookshelf, then flipped through the pages with a black light as I walked down the hallway and outside, into the woods.
"Alright, since Will probably wouldn't be able to do what I want very well, maybe it's time I summon his twin."
I went into a clearing, and took out a can of yellow spray paint, which I used to draw the same summoning wheel for Will, except the symbols were slightly different and instead of the triangle's arms being down, they were raised.
I placed a photo of Pacifica in the center of the wheel, and crossed out the eyes with red sharpie, then I placed eight candles around the wheel.
"This better work." I mumbled. "They're too close to ruining my plan."
I opened the Journal to the incantation and started to read aloud, "Triangulum entangulum, meteforis dominus ventium. Meteforis ventisarium!" After I chanted those words, the world around glowed a light blue in a foggy daze, as I kept reading. "Asetnoheptus, asetnoheptus, asetnoheptus, asetnoheptus, asetnoheptus!"
The world around me slowed to a stop as a squirrel froze in midair and the rustle of tree leaves stopped. The world grew black and white.
An eye appeared in the sky, and a yellow triangle sprang from it, the exact opposite of Will.
"So, you must be Reverse Pines!" He cackled. "Great job capturing my crybaby brother! He was so annoying. Here, deer teeth, for you!"
A mound of bloody deer teeth dropped into the palms of my hands, and I let them drop to the ground. "Yeah, Will tried the deer teeth one already. You're a bit late."
"So, where are we in the timeline?" Bill surveyed the landscape. "Oh! Are you summoning me to invade someone's mind?"
"Stan Southeast's? No, not his. We're past that piece."
"What are you on, then? Don't tell me it's Weirdmaggeddon already!"
"Weird-a what?" I questioned.
"Never mind that, Shooting Star." Bill chuckled. "So, what do you want me to do for you?"
"I need you keep Pacifica and Gideon from discovering what's underneath the Mystery Shack."
Bill adjusted his bow tie. "Ah, so we're on the Sockopera, aren't we? That was fun in my universe!" He laughed. "Possessing Pinetree was too easy!"
"Okay, I just need you to break Pacifica's laptop and find a way to keep her out of my way." I said, holding out my hand. "And you can do whatever you want with her. However, you can't involve Gideon with this."
"Sounds like a deal! And in return, you can help me with something in my universe!" Bill held out his hand, which became ablaze in blue fire. I shook it, and blue fire envelopes my arm.
"Well, time to go fulfill my end! Sooner I do, sooner I get my physical form back! This should be fun! Reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, bye!" Bill disappeared, and the world became in color again as it all started to become alive.
"This will work perfectly!" I laughed, hugging the Journal to my chest. "And if this works, everything will be mine."

Pacifica

I can't believe he made me fall asleep. I could have figured that out in a few more minutes, and I know I was about to get how to hack it.
I sat on the roof, in the evening, while the sun was sinking below the trees, drinking another cup of Pacifica juice. After chugging all of it, I crumpled up the red plastic cup and threw it weakly at the trees.
"Ugh! When will I be able to get into this?!" I slammed my fists on the keyboard, making another beeping sound. "Concentrate, Pacifica, concen-" my words were interrupted by a loud yawn. "Must...finish..."
A gust of wind blew into my face, making my weary eyelids drop for a second. When I opened them back up, the world around me had become black and white. As I stood to look around, the moon rolled into an eye, which shone down at me from the sky as a triangle materialized around it.
"Huh? Are you like, a yellow Will?" I asked, hugging the closed laptop to my stomach.
"Well, well, you're awfully persistent, Llama! Hats off to you!" The yellow Will tipped its hat, and the world flipped sideways for a moment, leaving me suspended in air, about to fall, until he put his hat back on.
"Who are you?" I asked, narrowing my eyebrows. "Why are you here?"
"The name's Bill Cipher!" He said, twirling his cane. "I'm here to help you!"
"With what?" I asked.
"That little laptop, of course." He tapped the briefcase with his cane. "Seems Miss Computer Nerd can't get into it. I'll be happy to give you the password, I only ask for a small favor." He held out his hand, covered in a blue burning flame.
"Wait! You're a dream demon like Will!" I backed up, hugging the briefcase tighter. "How can I trust you?"
"I've been keeping an eye on you, and I'm sure impressed! Here, have a head that's always screaming." He clapped his hands, and a screaming head fell onto the roof, screaming as blood dropped out of the torn neck.
"N-no, thank you." I shook my head, trying not to gag at the scent of the blood. "Look, you seem like a nice triangle and everything, but I'll figure this out on my own."
"If that's what you want." Bill snapped his fingers, and layer by layer, the flesh, muscle, and bone ripped away and floated up into the sky until nothing was there. "But I'll always be here, ready to make a deal! Hey, wanna hear my impression of you in about 30 seconds? AHHHHHHH!"

"AAHHHHHHH!" I woke up screaming, and when I rubbed my eyes, I saw it was late at night. "I guess it's just a dream."
I reached to open up the laptop again when I saw writing on my hand. Written in pen on my palm, was "the dream was real. -Bill P.S. Look what I did to your other hand!"
I looked at my other hand, and on it was a drawing of a turkey, and "look! It's a turkey!"

The next morning was the day of Gideon's show. After breakfast, while Gideon and Wendy worked on the finishing touches, I stayed up in the attic, trying to hack the laptop. My fingers ruthlessly pounded each key, but still, nothing worked.
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and I saw Dipper.
"Hey, Dipper." I smiled.
"Are you feeling better?" He asked. "You got some sleep, right?"
"Yeah, I feel great. Lots of energy." I smiled. That was true, if you counted being paranoid because you had a dream about another triangle (but this time it was yellow) and being hyped up on Pacifica juice lots of energy.
"Great." He sat down next to me on the window seat. "Have you got into it yet?"
"Nope." I shook my head tiredly, focusing all my concentration on not yawning. I typed in another line of code. "It should be easy, though. This is the dinosaur of computers we have here."
"I'm sure you'll get it soon." He kissed me on the cheek, and I blushed, smiling.
"By the way, here's your cape." I picked it up off of the floor, and handed it to him.
"Thanks. I'll meet you at the play, later. Bye." He stood up, and I kissed him on the cheek back. He went down the stairs as he tied the cape around his neck, and I kept on typing.
"Come on, come on, I know I've got it this time." My fingers furiously pounded against the keys.
/delete :\gfbyah |
Suddenly, a loud beeping came from the laptop. I leapt back, and the screen switched. A robotic voice said out loud, "Security breach attempted. Five minutes until memory erase. One password try left."
"No, no!" I tried searching my mind. What had I done wrong? I kept pushing down the shut-down key, but it didn't work. The laptop stayed on, as the timer ticked down. "Think, Pacifica!"
I blinked, and the room washed over with black and white, stripping color away from everything except me and the laptop. From the stained glass window, Bill formed in the triangular hole. I jumped away, backing against the wall.
"What do you want?" I demanded, keeping one eye on him and another on the ticking timer.
"Just noticed you were in trouble." He laughed, coming out of the window. "I think it looks like you need a little help."
"I don't trust you! That stuff you wrote on my hand took a half hour to scrub away and two bottles of soap!" I crossed my arms. "Why would you care?"
"Just hear me out, Llama." Bill said, twirling his cane. "I want to make a deal."
"No way!" I cried.
"It would be a shame to lose all of this, though." He pointed to the laptop's timer. Three minutes left. "Wouldn't Pine Tree and Pentagram be mad?" Pictures of Dipper angry and a sad-looking Gideon flashed on his skin.
I hesitated, then shouted out. "Fine! What do you want, anyways? Draw more turkeys in Sharpie? My screaming, decapitated head?"
"Yeesh, kid. All I want is a puppet, and it seems like you have a surplus." He pointed to the box of sock puppets Gideon was using in his show.
"I don't know, Gideon has been working hard on them..." I rubbed my arm, being gentle where the cut from Mabel's knife was.
"One measly puppet seems like a small price to learn all of the secrets of the universe." Bill said. My eyes darted between him and the box, as I filled with uncertainty. Then, he added, "Tick, tock, kid."
He held out his hand, ablaze with blue flames, and as I looked over at the laptop, I saw that it was at one minute.
In my moment of weakness, I caved.
"Fine!" I reached out my hand to shake his, and we shook. "What puppet do you want, anyway?"
"Hmm..." Bill pulled his arm away and scanned the room. "Eeney, meeney, miney..." He pointed from puppet to puppet, trying to decide, when he pointed to me and his body became red and his veins popped out. "YOU!"
He reached to my arm, and started to pull out something that looked like the ghost of my hand, but instead of yanking it out, it started to turn yellow.
My body burned with agony as he slowly went inside, and I screamed.
I woke up, gasping for breath on the ground, sweat dripping from my forehead. When I opened my eyes back up, I saw the world was in color.
"Just a dream." I took a huge breath. "Phew."
"Look in the mirror." Bill's voice cackled in my ear, and on instinct, I whipped around. Nobody.
Still, I walked over to the mirror, which was covered in a thick, musty old sheet, and pulled it off, then looked closely at myself. Nothing looked different as I studied myself, when...
I yelped and jumped back.
Slowly, I approached the mirror again.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no!" I sucked in a breath as I looked at the pupil of my right eye. Instead of the blue pupils, my eye glowed an eerie yellow and my pupil was a long, black strip, like Bill's eye. "What did I do?"
"I'm inside your mind." Bill said. I turned around, but nobody was there. "If you don't obey my orders, I will completely possess your body and do what I want with it."
"What?" My mouth hung open, and my normal left eye grew bigger. I glanced over at the laptop, which had thirty seconds left. "Just give me the password! I don't have time for this!"
"Oh, right, the laptop!" Bill laughed, and suddenly, I felt my conscience being pushed out of my body, like I was a ghost, and my left eye became like my right eye.
"No!" I screamed, reaching out my transparent hand to my body, but Bill was in complete control of my body. He chuckled, and grabbed the laptop and held it in the air, then let it fall. Small metal bits fell off and the glass cracked.
He stomped my footing it, destroying my hard work. "Why did you just do that?!"
"Listen, you were way too close to discovering some real answers, and unless you want Gideon's precious sock play ruined, you will listen to my orders or I will take control." He pulled my soul back into my body, and I immediately started looking through the broken pieces of the laptop, but nothing looked salvageable.
"Why don't you just take complete control?" I asked.
"Because last time I did that, somehow my impersonation of Pine Tree wasn't convincing to Shooting Star, and his soul possessed a puppet and he told her everything, the whiny snitch."
"Fine." I sighed. "How long will you be in my body?"
"Not long." He said. "Now, cover up your right eye."
"Huh?" I asked, and looked around. "With what?"
"I don't know, an eye patch?" I could hear the annoyance in his voice, and my vision was directed to an old eyepatch on a table that Grunkle Stan had bought but never wore because it was too small.
I walked over and put it around my eye, then rolled my eyes. "Now what?"
"Since you asked..." I could hear Bill scratch his bow tie, thinking. "I haven't experienced pain in a while."
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"Fall down the stairs." He demanded.
"No way!" I protested, but he pushed me out of my body and walked over, then tipped over and started to tumble down the stairs in my body. I looked like a weak doll.
I flew after him, and he pulled me back into my body. I cringed as I felt myself raked with agony.
"Ugh, seriously?" I reached a hand up to my aching forehead. "I better not have a concussion."
"How about we do what I want now?"
I flopped onto the stairs. "What do you want me to do?"
"I need you to get me Dipper's journal and destroy it."
"No way! He's my boyfriend!" I crossed my arms, but Bill had other ideas.
"That's too bad, Llama." His voice deepened menacingly, and he pushed me out of my body, then stood up and walked into the kitchen. I flew after him, and when I came in, he was opening the knife drawer.
"Oh no, you aren't!" I screamed, lunging at him, but I went right through.
"Welcome to the mindscape, kid. Without a vessel to posses, you're basically a ghost." He said, waving the knife in the air.
"I'll let you destroy my journal instead! Please!" I begged, but Bill laughed.
"No way!" He shook my head. "That comes after."
"Please, listen!" I pleaded, as he pulled up my jacket sleeve to reveal the scar from the when Mabel had taken the Shack.
"It would be a shame for this cut to reopen." He held the knife over my scar, and I tried grasping at the knife, but my hands kept going through it.
"I'll give you my journal! I'll make another deal! I'll let you draw another turkey on my hand! Please!"
He considered, but he smiled evilly, then he swooped the knife down on the scar. He let me back into my body as the blood started to spill out, laughing obnoxiously inside my mind.
At that exact moment, Dipper came in. "Pacifica, Gideon took my journal for the sock play and I need you to ask him-" He froze when he saw the blood dripping down and the knife pressed into my arm. "Pacifica, what are you doing?! Crap, are you cutting?!"
"I..." I took a deep breath, and tears filled my eyes, as Bill laughed harder inside my mind.
Dipper snatched the bloodstained knife away and threw it across the room. It clattered to the ground. "Pacifica, why are you cutting?! Why didn't you tell me?! And what happened to your eye?!"
"Take off the eyepatch." I said.
"Pacifica, I-" Dipper started, but I spoke, my voice trembling.
"Take it off." I insisted.
He flipped up the eyepatch and pulled it off my head, then studied my eye. "You look fi-" he stopped midsentence. "Pacifica, is Will possessing you?! Will, get out, now!"
I shook my head. "No. It's another demon named Bill."
"Llama! You are on a thin line right now!" Bill's voice sounded angrily in my mind, but I continued speaking.
"I made a deal with him. He said he would give me the password to the laptop and I would give him a puppet. And I guess...I was really the puppet."
Dipper stood there, as he stared into my eyes. I looked down, ashamed, at the pool of blood gathering on the floor. I wasn't even noticing the sharp pain in my arm, instead, it felt like a dull throb.
"You need bandages." Dipper ran to get the medical kit, but at that moment, Bill pushed me out of my body and my left pupil switched to Bill's, like my right one. He grabbed Dipper's shoulder and yanked him back.
"Pacifica, what are you doing?!" He pulled away from Bill, and saw both of my eyes were different. "Oh my go-"
"Surprise, Pinetree!" He laughed. "Geez, you're so different in this dimension! I like it, lots more chaos! Not all sweaty and awkward, like in my former dimension before... complications and I had to come here."
"Get out of Pacifica's body, now!" Dipper's amulet glowed, and the toaster and various silverware floated up.
"I can kill her body." He said. "So don't try. Let her bleed."
"What?!" Dipper demanded.
"She needs a little pain to remind her to listen to me." Bill crookedly smiled, tilting my head. "Besides, I need your journal. I'm not getting out until I get it. Destroyed."
Dipper grabbed a butcher knife and slammed Bill against the fridge, holding the blade to his neck. "Get out of her body, or I'll kill you first!"
"That won't do no good. So I lose my vessel? Plenty more. Meanwhile, Pacifica only has one body." He laughed.
"I've killed people before without the bat of an eyelash, why should this be any different?" He growled.
"Because it's your girlfriend. You'll be playing right into my hands. I love pain, but her on the other side," Bill pointed to my spirit. "Even if she isn't in her body, she'll still feel the agony of her conscience being ripped apart, fiber by fiber from the mindscape."
At that moment, Bill pulled me back into my body, and I screamed when I felt the pain of the cut in my arm return, except worse than I remembered. Dipper looked into my left eye, which returned to blue, and he took away the knife and dropped it on the ground. "I'm so sorry, Pacifica, I'm so sorry." He ran his fingers through his hair, tense. "I almost killed you."
"Don't worry, I'm fine." I tried to smile, but it fell along with the blood from my arm. At least the cut had started to clot, but it still wasn't very fun.
Dipper suddenly hugged me, and I hugged him back, my arms gripping around him. I started to cry into his warm shoulder, as he stayed silent. There was no noise except for the sound of Bill laughing in my head.
"What are we going to do?" I whispered.
"We get my journal back from Gideon, and then he'll leave your body, right?" Dipper asked.
"Yes." I buried my head deeper into his shoulder. "But this is the journal we're talking about. Are you sure you want to..."
"Yes." He said. "I'll do anything for you."
"This is the journal, though, are you sure you want to-"
"Trust me." He said.
Inside my mind, Bill laughed. "You dumb humans will do anything because of your stupid love!"
After hugging for a little longer, I lifted my head up and looked into his eyes. "Let's go get the journal from Gideon."
"Okay." Dipper nodded, and took the eyepatch off the table, then handed it to me. I put it back over my eye and pushed my sleeve down over the cut.
We walked out of the kitchen, and outside to where Gideon and Wendy were loading the backdrops for the play onto Grunkle Stan's car.
"Where's my journal? I need it." Dipper said. Gideon let go of the rope he was tying.
"Oh, it's at the theatre already. We dropped it off along with the rest of the props." Gideon said. "We need it for the wedding scene. You can have it after that."
"We need it right now." I said.
"Yeah, why can't you use your own?" Dipper added.
"Look, I'm just really stressed with all this stage stuff. If you need it for the laptop, it can wait." Gideon got into the car with Wendy. "Right after the show you can have it, okay?"
"But-" Dipper started speaking, but Wendy started up the car.
"See you guys at the show!" Wendy turned the ignition and drove away.
"What do we do now?" I asked Dipper.
"We get there and get that journal no matter what!" He pulled my hand and we got into the Mystery Shack golf cart. "Where's the keys?!"
"One sec!" I took a bobby pin out of my hair and pushed it into the ignition, then turned it. The golf car rumbled to life.
"Great! Let's go!" Dipper stepped on the gas pedal, and we went speeding as fast as we could to the theatre.

Mabel

"So, if this whole play thing goes well, want to go out and get croissants?" I asked Gideon. I had just arrived at the theatre.
"O-of course!" Gideon smiled, blushing. Everything was going the way I planned.
"Great! I'll be in the front row. See you after the show, and good luck." I used a puppet to kiss him on the cheek, and I skipped away to the bathroom. "Gosh, this act is tiring."
I adjusted my wig, and took out my bag of makeup to reapply it. "But this is actually working. Soon, Gideon and me will be a thing. Nothing can tear us apart now!"
I returned to my seat, just as the show was starting.
The music started to play. "Hello there!" Gideon's puppet popped up from behind a log as the curtains were pulled back. "Hit it, guys!"
"Who's that guy, with the hat and white hair, he puts a smile on everyone's faces," various puppets popped up from behind the log also. "When he's around, you're never bored!"
"I'm the mayor, I give you an award!" The puppet of a mayor holding a fake trophy came up.
"Thank you, mayor, it's all so great, but the perfect guy needs the perfect daaaate!" Gideon's puppet sang off-key, but I still smiled, lovesick.
"Hey, what's up, I'm Gabriela!" A puppet of me in my disguise came onstage. Gideon's puppet gasped.

I knew this play was going to be amazing.

Dipper

"Come on!" I pulled Pacifica backstage, and my eyes darted around. "Okay, you look over there, I'll look over here. If anything happens, come and get me, okay?"
"Okay!" Pacifica nodded, and ran off, starting to look through the piles of puppets on a table. I started looking behind the backdrop as quietly as I could, when I bumped into something.
I looked up. A ladder.
Above me, hung a wedding cake that I guessed was for the wedding scene.
Maybe Gideon had hid the journal in there! It would be most convenient, after all.
I climbed up the metal ladder, and up onto the catwalk. I ran across it, my shoes clattering on the shaky bridge, to where the large hollow cake was hung.
It was in there!
Instead of reaching for my phone to text Pacifica a picture, I reached my arm out to grab the journal. My hands were almost there, just grasping at it.
"Come on..." I swung my hand to grab it, leaning as far over the railing as I could, when I slipped and fell into the wedding cake. Before it could go tumbling down, I used my amulet to levitate the cake. A soft blue glowed as I flipped through the pages of my journal. There had to be a way to get Bill out of Pacifica's body!
Unfortunately, all I could find was information of Will that I already knew, and my black light wasn't on me.
Distracted, I let my guard down, when I felt something try to snatch the journal away.
"Hey!" I swiped the journal away, and looked up to see Pacifica. Except, this wasn't Pacifica. Both of her pupils were thin, black slits that glowed an eerie yellow. "Bill!"
Bill/Pacifica grinned. "So, looks like you found the journal, huh? Give it to me, now!"
"Hey, guys, we need the cake for the wedding scene." I heard Wendy walk down the catwalk.
"Sorry, there's something wrong with the cake." Bill/Pacifica said to Wendy. "You'll have to do the show without it."
"Sure, whatever." Wendy shrugged. "Not like I worked for a whole day on that and it's going to the junkyard after this, right?"
As she walked down the catwalk, I could hear her silently curse and kick a railing, making the catwalk vibrate for a second.
"So, back to our business." Billifica, my new name for Bill in complete control of Pacifica, turned to me. "Give me the journal, now."
He held out her hand, outstretched for the journal.
"Or what?" I asked. "You're in Pacifica's body. She hasn't gotten much sleep and she's weak, you can feel it, can't you? And I have my amulet, giving me more power than you in this dimension."
"I may not be able to hurt you, but I can still hurt her." Billifica said, as I heard the curtains close behind us, the music stop, and clapping start. The show was over, I guessed. "Give it to me, now."
"No." I said, and quickly used my amulet to float Billifica up in the air and restrain him. "I don't trust you."
"Fine, seems you've bested me." He laughed eerily. "But I'll be back! Very, very soon, in fact."
Billifica's pupils returned to normal blue, and I let Pacifica gently fall to the catwalk. I got out of the wooden cake, and rushed to her.
"Pacifica? Pacifica?" I knelt next to her.
"Dipper." She smiled, and looked up at me. She sprang up and hugged me. "Ugh, it's so nice to be in my own body!"
"I'm glad everything's back to normal." I said. Pacifica stopped hugging me and stood up.
"Why did I stand up? Anyways, we should-" Pacifica suddenly fell against the railing.
"Pacifica? Are you okay?" I asked, starting to help her up, but she jerked away from me.
"Surprise!" Her pupils turned back into black slits, and Billifica pushed me away to the other side of the catwalk. "Maybe this will convince you to give me the journal."
Billifica stepped to the side of the catwalk, where there was a frayed rope instead of a railing, and stood teetering, her heels on the edge.
"Pacifica!" I stood up and rushed to her, but her eyes switched back to normal. Surprised in the sudden change of bodies, she lost her balance and fell off the catwalk, down below onto the stage. The last thing I saw in her eyes was fear. The silent begging to save her.
There was a large thump!
My amulet wasn't quick enough.
When I climbed down the ladder as quickly as I could, all I could see on the ground was Pacifica lying face-down on the ground, blood pooling from underneath her.
I quickly ran over and checked for a pulse.
None.

Gideon

"Great job, man!" Wendy nudged me with a puppet.
"Thanks." I smiled, handing her mine. "I hope Gabriela liked it!"
"Who wouldn't? Go greet her, I'm going out to get some junk food. I'll clean up later." Wendy waved to me and walked past the controls, set down the puppets, to the exit. She walked out, the door swinging behind her.
I took a deep breath, then went out to the seats. Everybody was already leaving, and as the last person filed out, I saw Gabriela looking cross, tapping her foot.
"Hi! Did you like it?" I asked.
"Are you kidding?!" She shrieked. "I was the villain! You made me look like some evil psychopath, which I'm not!"
"What do you mean, Gabriela?" I asked. "The only villain was Mabel."
"There is no Gabriela!" She ripped off her hair, revealing it to be a wig, and threw down the wig cap. "I was tricking you, you fool! Ugh, I'm leaving."
She was about to turn around to leave, when from the stage, there was a scream and a thump.
"What was that?" She asked.
"The wooden cake probably fell." I sighed. "I guess Wendy felt like taking it down now."
"Ew, her. What a slut." Mabel rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'll see you in my dreams, Gideon. Later."
She walked away. I stood in shock.
She had just called the play I worked for a week terrible, disguised herself to trick me into loving her, and called one of my friends a slut.
"I can't believe I fell for her." I cringed. "I need to delete those weird fantasies from my head. It's almost as if in some alternate universe I would be obsessed with her." I lightly laughed. "Yeah right. Maybe I should ask Wendy to help me burn those puppets later. Maybe with leftover pyrotechnics."
I left the auditorium.

Pacifica

Everything seemed to be falling in slow motion. Everything went by so slow.
Until I heard a snap, and everything disappeared. Just Bill's laughing carried me out of existence.

Dipper

"What do I do? I can't...I can't just...l-let you stay dead!" Tears formed in my eyes. I turned her body around and shook her. "Just wake up! Tell me this is some sick joke! Wake up!"
I pressed my crying face into her side, and sobbed into her jacket. I looked up and saw her blank, glassy eyes, the lifeless pupils.
"W-wait..." An idea formed in my head. I reached into my pocket with my trembling hand, and took out the amulet ring that Will had found along with Mabel's new amulet. "I-I can't let her go..."
I shook as I pushed the ring onto her still-warm finger. The ring started to glow, and i squinted as it glowed brighter and brighter on her hand until I had to close my eyes because of the harsh bright blue glow.
I heard her draw in a shaky breath.
The amulet's glow faded, and I heard her start to breathe rapidly, until it slowed to a normal pace.
Tears of joy fell from my eyes, and I smiled.
"Pacifica, you're back." I stroked her hair, as she lay unconscious. "Don't worry, you're fine now. And that ring will protect you from any dream demons who want to go into your mind, so we don't have to worry about Bill."
I picked Pacifica's sleeping body off the ground. "Come on, I'll take you back to your house."