Disclaimer: I do not own GF!

This is the sequel to Life is a Fairy Tale. If you haven't read that, this won't make a lick of sense!

Edited 2/12/16

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Mabel stared at the leftover blue flames evaporating in the air.

The brunette collapsed onto the ground, an agonized sob ripping its way through her chest and throat, piercing the world. Fat alligator tears welled and fell down her face, twin streams of lost sorrow. She bent forward, curling up into the dirt and cried into her arms.

Her entire world was shattered. Not just cracked, not just broken. Shattered. Completely and utterly gone.

"Dipper...Dipper...Dipper!" She chanted to herself, over and over again like the name itself could summon him back. She screamed it out, trying to persuade the heavens to turn back time if only a few seconds, to wake her up from this- this nightmare.

Her sleeves grew heavy with the fluids running from the orifices of her face- tears and snot and drool running down pale, sticky flesh morphing her into something entirely new. She curled up tighter on the ground, tucking her knees into her chest. Teeth pierced her bottom lip and crimson flecks joined the waterfall of sorrow that dripped off her full and split lips.

She just lost her brother.

Dipper was gone.

Gone.

He had fallen between the cracks formed by lies and misplaced trust, unknowingly wandering into his own obscure destruction with Bill guiding him with candle light.

Mabel didn't know how long she stayed crouched there on the grass, crying herself out. Didn't know how many times the same thoughts ran through her head, over and over and over again.

Mabel slowly picked her head up off the ground, dirt sticking to her face, grass upset that they had to leave her as her legs uncurled from beneath her, splaying out as she retched violently onto the ground, bile exploding from her gaping lips, tongue and esophagus burning.

For once in her young life, Mabel felt not just torn, but absolutely empty. An emptiness so vast that she could hardly put it into words. It was like reality itself was just ripped out from under her feet, leaving her to fall down into a dark void below, unable to reach something that didn't even exist in the first place.

Mabel gasped as she drew back from her spilled guts on the ground, falling back onto her bottom. Her eyes were wide and raw, face stinging and stained with tears, snot, bile, and drool. Gasps squeezed out of her lips, each one just as fervent as the last. Mabel's entire body trembled as she slowly dragged herself up to her feet, falling down twice and hurting her already sore body before finally being able to reach a standing position on her third try. Knees still shivering, ready to collapse again any second, the brunette found herself crouched in her own sweater, creeping and frigid fingers scratching at her skin, prickling her brain and digging into her all the way to her bone, as if ready to rip out her marrow itself.

Lungs uncurled, she sucked in greedy amounts of air as she tried her best to clear her face, feeling very disgusting at that moment. Her wet sleeve shocked her back to life some and she made a face as she gave up trying to clean herself off. She'd need a shower to get all of this mess off.

Biting her lip, she stared at the place Dipper once stood, blank eyes seeing nothing, reflecting what she was inside.

He...he was really gone.

"Mabel? Dipper? Where are you guys?" Stan called out, faraway sounding. His voice bore an obvious worried undertone that she wasn't quite used to, but didn't surprise her in the slightest.

Blinking slowly, Mabel forced herself to turn around to face the shack again, staring blankly at all the charms, chimes, crystals, and dolls hanging from the porch which had miraculously stayed strung up during all the struggle.

Mabel wanted to call out to her Grunkle, wanted to call out a number of things but her tongue refused to budge, content with sitting like a dead weight in her mouth, completely and utterly useless.

Wavering on her two feet, she stumbled forward, one weak step at a time, up the stairs and right against the door frame, using the old wood to keep standing.

Blinking hard, she made out the figure of Stan standing in the middle of the room, panting, sweating, and shivering.

"St...Stan?" She finally croaked out, voice nearly gone.

Stan whipped around, his worried and nervous face relaxing just a tad. His lips were still pressed into a thin line, eyes bugging out a bit too much and his clothes were still torn.

Overall, he looked like a complete mess.

Then again, Mabel figured that she probably didn't really look much better.

"Mabel!" Stan cried out, his normally gruff demeanor melting into one of relief as he strode over and bent down, wrapping her up in a bone-crushing hug. "Thank the gods you're okay! I heard screaming..."

Mabel tentatively returned the hug, sniffling as she did so. Everything was just moving by so fast. Too fast.

Stan slowly pulled away and as he did so, a frown tugged at the corners of his lips. "Mabel, sweetie, where's your brother?"

Mabel felt herself freeze all over again as a new, fresh batch of tears came to her eyes. Unable to really say anything, the brunette squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, gnawing on the bottom of her lip, uncaring of the metallic taste that was filling it. Right now, anything would be better than the bile simply sitting at the back of her tongue.

Stan's face fell and a twisted look of both worry and terror came over him. "Mabel? Where's your brother?" He repeated. "Where's Dipper?"

Mabel buried her head into her own shoulder, opening her mouth to bite herself weakly.

She wasn't so sure how she got the dry, papery word out of her mouth. She wasn't sure how her lips and tongue could still move, how her sore vocal chords could ever utter anything ever again and yet, despite all this sure doubt and hurt, one word fell through.

"Gone."

It was simple in the most complicated of ways. It spoke of everything that just happened in front of her eyes as well as nothing at all. Her heart ached at the word and the lost hole it left, tearing her apart piece by piece, sucking her up until she felt like she would just be gone herself, though gone in a much different sense than in the way Dipper was lost.

Stan's mouth dried and his entire body locked up, completely paralyzed.

He...Dipper was the stupid kid who always thought too hard and too much…

"Mabel...sweetie..." Stan gasped out, stumbling forward to embrace the girl in another hug. "What happened?" He gulped thickly, trying to listen over his own erratic heart, trying to listen over his own dread screaming inside him. Time fell still and everything flew out from him, breaking down and burning up.

Mabel shook her head weakly, leaning her full weight on him. The brunette buried her head into his shoulder, arms wrapping around him weakly, possessing no real strength at the moment. She let out another broken sob.

"Sweetie, what happened to Dipper? What happened to your brother?" Stan repeated frantically.

Mabel still stayed silent for a few beats, preparing her chords and her mind for what she was about to say, say as a true confirmation that yes that actually did happen and no this wasn't some sort of twisted, messed up nightmare that she should be waking up from any second now because all of this that just happened couldn't just be real. She'd wake up, no worse for wear, Waddles snuggling up next to her and Dipper already sitting at his desk, writing or reading some nerd thing or another…

"Bill. Bill took Dipper." She choked out slowly, barely believing her own words.

Stan's muscles tightened even more so, eyes widening in disbelief.

The blue flash...The notes in the journals…

He should've known.

He should've fucking known.

Bill had been freed and Stan, without a doubt, knew who had done it.

And Bill had taken him away. To where...well, that was impossible to guess.

Dipper was gone.

He had gained a twin…

And in the process, Mabel had lost her's.

Crushing guilt and hatred weighed down on his very soul, drowning him and killing him with only a thought. Suffocating him in the darkest of places where no one else could ever journey. He held onto his niece, her body hot, face and clothes wet and crusty.

He didn't know how long he held on to her, or how long she held onto him. The two simply stayed there in the doorway, time desolate in the wake of their tears of disbelief and horror.

Finally, Stan slowly pulled away. As much as he would love to stop; to simply stop everything and sit and think about what just happened, what he just done, and what he just completed, now was most definitely not the time. Soos couldn't stall the NMA forever and his brother was still downstairs in the basement, body functions working, but dead asleep as his soul settled down into its new host body.

"Stan..." Mabel muttered, staring up at him with dull, tired eyes. "What just..." She shook her head. Recent memories were playing over and over and over again in her mind, chronological but nonsensical as she tried to tie everything together. The ID's, the newspaper clippings, the sigils, the body, the chanting, the...the everything.

What was Stan trying to do down there? Why was he making another body? Was he truly trying to cheat death? Or something else?

Why would her Grunkle do necromancy?

"What was...all that...do-down..." She gestured weakly to the still open secret door, lips pressed into a thin line.

Stan leaned back onto his heels and sighed, brushing a hand through his hair. He knew he would have to explain eventually, but he always hoped it would be a gradual and calm thing, slow and steady to ease the two twins into the idea and reasoning of what he was doing. Not...this disaster. This mess.

"That is a very long story." He sighed, glancing over her head and out the door, staring into the deep woods beyond.

It seemed like everything revolved around those damn woods.

First his brother.

And now Dipper.

It was like a curse. The Pines' clan curse.

"We should get downstairs. I don't know when the NMA is going to be back but it's best we hide out till they're gone."

Mabel nodded mutely as she slipped past him and through the hidden door, clomping her way down the cement steps, back into the magic, machinery, and darkness.

Closing and locking what locks were left on the front door, Stan made sure the vending machine was completely closed and locked behind him before joining Mabel on the elevator downwards, nervously rubbing the back of his neck with his palm at the cool and heavy silence that filled the once-comfortable air between him and his niece. There was a permanent oppression of dread that hung in the air like a bad smell, penetrating his insides and making him feel positively vile.

After both too much time and not enough time, the doors creaked open to reveal the third floor once again, the only light coming from nearly dead machinery and the deadening sigils beyond.

Stan lead the way back in, his footsteps louder than life against the dusty ground as Mabel trailed behind him in a quieter fashion. The two slipped back into the large room from before.

Mabel blinked as her eyes finally adjusted to the near-darkness. The first thing she noticed was that the sigils were now dulling ever so slowly. The second thing was that the body on the altar was now covered in a moth-eaten blanket, covering up everything that needed to be covered, much to her relief.

The third thing she noticed was the steady rise and fall of said person's chest, even and slow breathing that told of a deep sleep. The man, for all intensive purposes, looked dead to the world.

"Who is he?" She murmured. She couldn't think straight, she couldn't feel straight, she wasn't so sure what she was doing right now to be considered normal. Everything was thrown on it's head and shaken sideways to boot, everything sluggish- the world itself caught in molasses and yet, running and rushing by too fast for her to keep up. She was running in place, having no clear destination, just moving to move.

Right now, the only thing Mabel wanted more than her brother back and answers to what happened, was a nice long sleep. Preferably one so long, when she woke up everything would be normal again with her and Dipper worrying about schools and homework and friends and bullies and things such as the next Nightfall movie. Not the very tangible reality of Dipper being gone and her Grunkle being a liar.

Stan sighed and stared down at the body before him, nerves and worry and hate and struggle and sorrow all mixed up into one, still tugging him down to the place where he knew he belonged. It was such a simple question, which had a much simpler answer and yet, everything connected was a complication that spread out over years and years and years of hardship and bitter anger and agony. It was hard to balance the word on his tongue, hard to spit it out. He'd been living this lie for so many years now, enough for lines to blur and happenings from long ago be forgotten in detail.

Stan turned to face her.

"He's the true Stanford Pines. He's my brother."

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EXW ZKDW KDSSHQHG WR GLSSHU?

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*Is still in pain over new episode*

Okay...I-I think I might be okay. Actually, probably not but that's okay too. Anyone up for discussion?

This is very short- I know that. Think of it like a prologue because the next chapter is going to be fucking long and complicated and I wanted to get this posted.

On a side note...that new fucking episode. Like, I don't even know anymore. So much was revealed and not revealed, it was painful, though it was amazing and did leave this getting written and posted 3 days earlier.

I'm also proud of myself for waking up early and actually watching the entire marathon. It was great and amazing. On top of that, I finally got my mom to sit down and actually watch Gravity Falls. She always liked teasing me for writing fan fiction over it, but now she really likes it and wants to get into the story, so for me this day was a major success in every way, shape, and form. Plus, she can no longer tease me for still liking cartoons.

On another side note, I've finally gotten around to editing LiaFT. The first 6 chapters are already done so I'll also be working on that as well as this.

Okay! Now let's get to actual sequel stuff!

"You said this would be posted in a few weeks!"

-Yeah, I did because that's what I expected. I got a huge chunk of all this planned out and now the first 5 chapters are actually all fleshed out, so that's pretty great! I got a lot more planning done fast than what I expected, so that's why it's out early!

"Daily updates?"

-Not for a while. I need to sort out how the Stan's fit into everything as well as McGucket and such. On top of that, chapters still need to be planned out and the story needs to be fleshed out more plus my summer is starting to draw to a close. I only really have the rest of July and the first few days of August. Mattering on what I get planned and written, we might not have daily updates this time around. I'll try and keep them weekly, but even that's really up in the air.

"This is short!"

-Yes it is. It's pretty much a prologue. Next chapter will be much longer and I'll even give you the name- it's called "Limbo is the Answer"

"How dark is this going to be/scale?"

-This is going to be darker than LiaFT, but not nearly as dark as the darkest thing I've ever written. On the scale I made up back in LiaFT, this will probably be rated a 5 or 6 overall while jumping up to around an 8 at parts.

I think that's it to be honest. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! As long as they don't spoil anything, I'll answer!

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this short taste for things to come and, as always, thanks for reading!