~TCCBJVLRGVRCQUVNQWTWRHWNNP~

Mabel cracked open her eyes, feeling the crust that had collected during the night flake and fall off. Her stomach was rolling with hunger and her mouth was parched. Twisting around in her bed, Mabel felt her disgusting mass of hair tangle around her even more, filled with sweat from the heat in her room along with the tears she had cried into it last night and the snot that had dripped out of her nose.

Taking her hand out from the thick comforter she was under, Mabel rubbed her eyes, picking out the rest of the crust that coated her eyes.

Rubbing her nose next, Mabel wiped some stray snot away from her nose, rubbing the hand off on her sheets afterwords. Blinking slowly, she cracked her neck and swung her feet out from her bed, letting them touch the shaggy carpet.

Mabel let out a face-consuming yawn, feeling every single muscle stretch out from the force.

Rolling her shoulders, Mabel padded to her door and cracked it open, glancing down the dark hallway.

Seeing no one milling about so far, Mabel shut her door quietly before meandering down to the bathroom, briefly pausing to glance at Dipper's bedroom door before shuffling into the bathroom in the need to go to the bathroom and get clean.

After emptying her bladder and scrubbing herself down, Mabel wrapped a towel around herself and grabbed her brush, wrestling with the left-over tangles. Her mind was in a tizzy, blank yet full of all the events that had just took place.

So she didn't focus on it.

Instead, she just grabbed her hairdryer and dried her hair, ignoring the heat that started burning her scalp some.

Finishing up somewhat quickly, Mabel walked back down the hallway, glancing at Dipper's door once again.

Slipping back into her room, Mabel grabbed one of the very few sweaters that didn't have anything on it, just a nice a blank light blue one made of the softest yarn she had.

Pulling on a clean purple skirt she had, Mabel briefly checked herself in the mirror, making sure she was presentable before leaving her room for the day.

The girl paused in the hallway, stomach snarling like a monster. Glancing at the light bleeding in from downstairs, Mabel turned and ventured deeper into the dark hallway, standing in front of a very important door she had already passed twice.

A soft knocked echoed from her clenched fist. "Hey, Dip-dop. You there? I'm coming in." Taking a breath, the young girl turned the knob and stepped into her brother's room.

It was dark, to say the least. The lights weren't turned on and the blinds were still tight against the windows, only letting in a trickle of morning light that did little to break up the darkness.

Not even looking to see where the switch was, Mabel flicked the lights on, bathing the room in harsh yellow.

As she expected, the room didn't change whatsoever since the beginning of summer when they left. Well, that wasn't 'entirely' true. The dirty laundry left 'had' been taken up, washed, and hung up considering the lack of the clothes that usually littered The floor.

However, his bookcases were still crammed to the breaking point with all sorts of books. From fantasy to sci-fi to text books to nonfiction, there wasn't a single genre left out.

His desk was still there too, along with a small whiteboard she remembered Dipper asking for for his birthday a few years ago. The board was covered in both old math equations and doodles she had drawn on it to annoy him. Meanwhile, the desk was crammed with papers and small models, wood stained with ink and a large box to the side filled with broken pens. The sight brought a slight smile to her lips.

The only other pieces of furniture in her brother's room was a simple end table with a lamp, alarm clock neatly set and blaring a bright 8:47 am along with his dresser which had partially built models of alien spaceships and monsters from old movies.

Mabel's eyes snapped to her brother's twin bed, where Dipper himself was currently floating, legs crosses, staring at the opposite wall with a blank, almost hopeless expression.

Seeing her brother so...'lost' made her heart break a little, but she didn't let it show. Letting a wide grin take place across her face, Mabel said, with great cheer, "morning bro-bro!"

Her joyous greeting shook Dipper out of his own mind. Blinking rapidly, the boy turned around, meeting Mabel's eyes with a pair of new gold ones. A broken look was across his features briefly before being wiped away by relief and a warm smile.

"Hey Mabel. Already ready for the day?"

She laughed. "Of course! The early bird gets the worm!" She replied. Striding over, she collapsed next to her brother on the bed with a dramatic sigh, nearly pushing him off.

"Hey!" Dipper shouted in protest.

Mabel laughed. "Sooo...what are our plans today?"

Dipper have the girl a questioning look. "Plans?"

Mabel rolled over and sat up, leaning against the headboard. The comforter under her, which should've been messed up from sleep and warm was tucked in perfectly and cold.

Mabel didn't think about it.

"What, you thought we'd be staying in the house all day? Pfft, as if!"

Dipper blinked at her before cracking a small, shark-toothed grin at her. "Of course not! I was testing you." The boy-turned-demon joked.

"Sure you were." Mabel said suspiciously before cupping her hands around her eyes. "But I'm going to put my skept-Icles on anyways."

This time, it was Dipper's turn to push her, almost causing her to crash to the floor. "Whatever." He said playfully before straightening himself out.

Mabel let her hands drop to her lap. Standing up, the twins looked at each other before looking out at the open door, impending dread settling over both of them, crushing their cheer.

Last night, they had gotten home so late, everyone went straight to bed.

Well, almost everyone.

But now, today, was a new morning. A morning both could feel would be anything but pleasant.

Dipper broke their silence first with a sigh. "Let's try and get this over with." He muttered.

His sister didn't reply for once, she simply reached out her hand and clasped his in a tight grip.

"Ready?" She whispered to him.

"Ready." Dipper replied, his voice shivering a bit.

The twins left the bedroom.

The two stared at where the lights were creeping up from downstairs. Usually, it meant wonderful things. A fresh breakfast with pancakes, waffles, eggs, or any other wonderful foodstuffs with fresh juice and morning greetings and kisses from happy parents.

However, right now, that light was more like the flames of hell, ready to judge and burn them for their past transgressions.

Still holding each others' hand in a tight embrace, the two didn't even look at each other as they descended the stairs, one soundless step at a time.

Both twins wished for the creaks back at the shack. The silence was too unnerving.

Much too soon the duo reached the bottom of the stairs, glancing at one another, nervous and unsure.

Letting out a small breath, Mabel pulled her brother along into the kitchen.

The sharp smell of coffee was heavy in the air, blending with the stink of the full trash can pushed in the corner. The counters were filled with dirty plates and old plastic bags, forgotten in the wake of what had happened.

Both their parents were sitting at the small kitchen table, hunched over their own cups of coffee, looking as if they hadn't got a wink of sleep last night.

"Morning!" Mabel greeted, hiding her nerves behind fake cheer.

Both parent's eyes snapped onto the young girl. Their orbs were heavy with questions and forced calm, tearing the two apart.

"M-morning, Mabes." Her father replied, voice shivering slightly.

Going over to a cabinet, Mabel looked for a bowl.

"They're all dirty." Her mother murmured quietly from behind.

Mabel nodded her head slightly to show that she had heard her. Closing the door, Mabel went across the kitchen and opened a second cabinet. Taking a small glass mixing bowl off the shelf, she proceeded to grab some random cereal off the shelf. Turning to the refrigerator, she pulled out the milk and poured it into her cereal, sloshing it everywhere in the process. After returning both milk and cereal to their proper places, she pulled out the only clean spoon left, a wooden mixing one, and sat down next to her parents, shoveling food into her mouth without really tasting it.

"Mabel." Her mother asked quietly, her hands twisting together in nerves. "I know it will be hard with- with everything going on but we 'do need to talk about- about all this." Her mother gestured around vaguely.

Mabel winced, shoveling the last dregs of soggy cereal into her mouth. She'd already explained before...but that was different. They had already known about the supernatural of Gravity Falls.

Known it.

Faced it.

Fought it.

But this was new to her parents, who grew up in the city, who barely went into the woods, who didn't know the difference between a wolf print and a bobcat print.

How was she to explain everything? From Bill Cipher to his plan to Dipper to- to everything?

Mabel's shoulders tensed up under the stress, uncertainty in her mind. How was she even going to start?

Meanwhile, her parents looked on at her, watching the young girls' brows furrow, her brown eyes spark, the biting of her lip, and the stiffness that grew in her bones.

Mark and Anna were terrified. Terrified and confused and shocked, just as they had been before, when they stumbled in on this mess.

Mark tightened his hands into fists, struggling to not bark out an order for Mabel to explain.

Anna simply continued to toy with her thumbs, eyes sharp and focused on her daughter, teeth worrying the inside of her cheek.

And, invisible to all but one, Dipper floated over the seat where he used to sit at, arms wrapped around himself, eyes darting between the three corporal beings around him.

His frustrated father.

His worrying mother.

His scared sister.

The air was oppressive and tense, heavy with events that weren't fleshed out.

Floating closer to his sister, the boy-turned-demon placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, giving a light squeeze of support.

Mabel glanced up at him and flashed a tiny grin, eyes shining.

Taking a deep breath, she started.

Mabel began with the supernatural in Gravity Falls, explaining a few of the creatures they had encountered in their wild adventures.

Including one Bill Cipher.

Mabel sped through her stories a bit, focusing on the Dream Demon more than anything.

After all, everything that's happened so far had been his fault. Right?

Her parents reacted as any parent would; worry mixed with relief, uncertainty along with slight acceptance for what happened in those past adventures.

At the mention of Bill Cipher, and the outlining of his plan to meld the Mindscape with reality, both Mark and Anna went pale.

Mabel's voice shuddered slightly. It was one thing telling friends that an accident happened to make her brother a demon.

It was an entirely different thing to explain to the two people she'd trust her entire life how exactly their son was ripped away from the physical world in detail.

Wrapping her arms around herself, the girl's voice finally trailed into silence, story complete. Truth and events laid out for the both of them, to see and feel.

To accept.

Both Mark and Anna stared at their daughter in horror, fear and sorrow on both their faces.

The quiet around them was deafening; no one knew what to say next, what to do.

What was there to do in this situation.

Mabel glanced at her parents between her lashes, taking in her mother's tears and her father's trembling.

In return, Mark and Anna stared back at Mabel, speechless and, in a way, even more confused.

But not what was in the past.

No, as both husband and wife clasped their hands together in a shaky grasp under the table, both decided that it wasn't what had happened that struck fear into their veins, that made headaches flare and hearts clench.

No, it was the unpredictable and rocky future that not only affected their small family, but the world all around.

And, in a strange and detached sort of way, Mabel understood. The chaos was here, after all. In the form of bloody and fiery riots breaking out all over the world, in the form of arguments, in the form of radio stations and news and any other media in the world screaming look at what is happening here! Just look! Preaching about the end of days, the beginning of the end...

The Apocalypse.

Mabel peeked over at Dipper, who wore a grim expression on his smooth face, eyes alight and in that moment, Mabel knew Dipper was thinking about the same things she was, agreeing with every flicker of thought that ran through her mind because the same wondering, the same realizations were running through his.

The Apocalypse.

It hadn't come in a rain of fire. No Anti-Christ risen up to take the world.

Nor did it come by ice, freezing people in their methodical lives, taking over soul after soul after soul until nothing on the Earth was left but paralyzed apathy.

It didn't even come in a crash of nuclear warheads, tearing the world apart as women, men, and children screamed as they were vaporized on the spot; cruel orders from ruthless men in nice suits who deemed the world must be at war once more for whatever moronic reason they could come up with.

No, it hadn't been any of that. The Apocalypse had crept in on tiny black feet that didn't even touch the ground, sweeping over a nowhere town in a nowhere state that lied right above a hubbub of the world, taking it by a storm of cold blue fire in a basement under just another tourist trap.

The Apocalypse had come with a pair of twelve-year-old's and an old Great Uncle and only now were the ripples from that single event rippling around the world, changing everything.

Mabel felt all her energy leave her body, collapsing onto the table before her. She had known before, but only now did she know.

It had been a slow realization to be sure, and feeling the familiar pair of arms wrapping around her once again, an invisible comfort only she could feel, Mabel knew that the realization had just hit Dipper as well.

Hit both of them like a runaway freight train, invisible and unnoticeable until you were dead, flattened by metal gears grinding away at the burning track.

A head buried into the back of her neck, but no tears fell.

Like her, Dipper couldn't cry.

Like her, all he could feel was the numbness and oh my god this really is all my fault!

She trembled all over, the weight of the world literally on her shoulders and soul, dragging her down into depths she couldn't fathom.

Gravity Falls had been a blanket over her eyes, a simple town with not-so-simple secrets and folks that blinded her to the merciless reality that was taking place right outside the forest.

After all, all television could do was show you what was happening in some foreign and crazy part of the world.

But now she was in that crazy part of the world, was smack in the middle of the mess she and her brother unintentionally caused. Sure, it was Bill's fault, but they had been the catalysts; the harbingers of this confounding and terrifying future.

Mabel glanced up and through her mound of hair to see her parents silently stand up and wander away, unable to look at her anymore.

Her heart broke.

They need time. She told herself.

I need time.

Mabel didn't know how long she laid there, her brother's arms wrapped around her in a backwards hug, heart barely beating as her emotions played across her mind. She felt both tired and energized at the same time, a confusing energy that didn't make any sense to her. It was like pure cafine had taken over her, pumping through her veins, integrated into her blood.

And she knew she would crash.

After all, she was burning already.

However, as these dreadful thoughts played out in her mind, vile and thick with a sudden depression she didn't know she was capable of feeling, Mabel knew at the very least, she wasn't feeling alone in her thoughts.

No, Mabel wasn't alone. She was never really alone, after all.

Dipper gripped his twin in a careful hug. He could feel his form flicker- glitch in and out of who he was and who he didn't understand yet and didn't ever want to understand. It was a abhorrent feeling, the two sides of him not exactly battling for dominance of his mind, but more like teasing around with him, a quiet game of cat and mouse with himself in which he didn't know who the players even were, never mind the cat and mouse.

He was torn in so many ways, in so many different directions, feeling a torrent of emotions that both belonged to him and didn't...

It made his head spin. Made his teeth grit. Made him want to scream. Made him want to whimper.

But all Dipper did was hang on tighter to his anchor, to the one solid thing in his universe of illusion.

Dipper didn't want to focus on his thoughts, on his realization that it really was all his fault just look at your parents...

Look at the world...

He didn't want to think about any of that but the mind was a fickle and cruel thing, loving to reply the most terrible of things over and over, twisting it a bit every time, making everything seem so, so much worse. But in this sort of situation, where the world was tearing itself apart at the seams without abandon or care, it was hard to imagine something worse.

No, not just hard. Impossible.

Just as his mind was a disaster of half-thoughts and fears, his heart- no, he didn't have that anymore, did he? Hell, did he even have a soul anymore?

Do- do creatures like him even have souls?

Dipper didn't want to know, but whatever that was left that allowed him to feel emotion, was a mad torrent, an ocean swirling with hurricanes made of hurt and confusion and anger at himself with clouds and wind of self-loathing to boot while tsunamis battered him with a sick pleasure of delight, exhilarated at the carnage, proud of what he had brought upon the world.

Mabel may had been the god of destruction, but he was the harbinger of the collapse.

He had brought this terror, this agony upon the world.

He had caused the Apocalypse.

And the part he recognized, him, truly him at his very core felt what any halfway-sane person would feel at this revelation.

Horrified. Self-hate. Repulsion. Rage. Sorrow.

But that small part of him, that part of him that he could feel but not accept, never accept, felt...elated. Pure pride at the thought.

He had brought the Apocalypse. No one else.

Dipper closed his eyes. He couldn't handle these emotions.

And through that storm of confusion that was his mind, Dipper found the eye of apathy lingering in the middle, a safe-haven from himself.

And the child demon numbed his metaphorical heart.

~TCCBJVLRGVRCQUVNQWTWRHWNNP~

Sorry it's so short, but I have some bad news.

Even though I have the first 10 arcs planned out for this story and such, I've had the most terrible writer's block for this story recently (as you can probably tell with the shortening chapters and fall in quality) On top of that, I want to focus on my other fics I'm working on, namely my new one, Life is A Fairy Tale Because I want to get that one done before the new episode in July.

So, as of right now, this story will be put on hiatus.

I have no clue if I will return or not, it matters if I'll still be hanging around in the GF fandom after LiaF is over with and if I still want too. I do want to continue and finish this story, but with the writers block and current lack of motivation, it's not going to happen.

Plus, I wanted to kinda end this on a...not a positive note, but this is a good cut off point. So yeah.

For now, I'm going to go ahead and mark this story as complete. But as I said before, I will try to return to it and finish it!

Thank you guys oh so much for reading and enjoying this. It was a blast to write.

Stay classy, folks and maybe I'll see you again next time!