No Matter What

Chapter 9: The All-Knowing Eye

Yes, it's been a very long time.
I have been very busy with work and a major writing block. Updates will be slower than what they once were, but I intend to finish this.
~

Piano keys.

Soft, quiet piano keys playing a steady melody, its music urging Dipper to open his eyes.

He couldn't remember falling asleep.

"Oh we'll meet again...don't know where, don't know when..."

Dipper felt weightless, a strange fog of sleep slowly pulling away from him as he grew more aware of the light-hearted singing that accompanied the piano's melody.

"But I know we'll meet again..."

Dipper's eyes, when finally opened, were greeted with the void of white and red that had been haunting his nightmares. He gasped as his body jolted with adrenaline, fighting to move. However, as he looked down, it was futile; his body was suspended in the air by an invisible binding. Fear spiked through him in waves as he was forced to stare at the demon that had plagued him for years, finally getting his awaited encore.

"...some sunny day..." Bill Cipher was sat in the vast landscape surrounding them, playing a piano as he sang joyfully. He had not broken his song when Dipper's struggles became more urgent, but merrily sang happier.

The song finished with a flourish of Bill's fingers, the final key vibrating into the silence around them.

"You know how long it took me to find you?" Bill said, snapping the piano shut. With a snap of his fingers, the wood burst into flames and died completely.

"You didn't find me." Dipper spat, teeth grit. Pride still flared inside of him, however doomed he seemed to be. It was something Ford had said to always keep with him, to keep him strong in the most dire of situations.

"I didn't, did I?" As Bill hovered towards him, his body suddenly flicked and glitched, his voice becoming more static. It was like what had happened to his own body when he first entered the strange place in between dimensions, but on a much larger scale. Most interestingly, it actually seemed to give the demon some pain, but Dipper didn't have time to ponder this before Bill's glowing eye was glaring into his, narrowed in undisguised rage.

"Did you really think that rifts just open up underneath you like that? That you just happened to miss every single portal back to your pathetic world?!" Bill's body grew as he spoke, looming over Dipper. "That wasn't bad luck, Pine Tree!"

"You –" Dipper struggled in his paralysis, but he still couldn't break free. His mind was reeling, fitting each piece of the tortuous puzzle together. "You pulled me in here?!"

"And here I thought you were smart enough to figure it out! Ha!" The demon reverted back to his usual size, body glitching as it did so. Dipper felt himself slowly being pulled towards the triangle.

"You see this place? Do you know what it is, Pine Tree?" Bill spoke, twisting his cane in his hand. He gestured to the void around them. "This is the world in between worlds – a world where nothing exists. Nothing! Tearing up everything that happens to be trapped here!"

Dipper watched as Bill angrily gestured to the glitches that reigned on his body, less so on Dipper's own. He felt his heart quicken as the demon turned to him again, his eye flashing red, pupil slitted.

"It's where I was banished after your precious uncle decided to erase me from his mind. And I took that personally, you see." Bill laughed, the shrieking sound making Dipper's body freeze. He tried to hide it as much as possible, but some of his fear must have reflected in his eyes; Bill laughed louder, circling around him, and continued to speak.