Pines, Reporting for Duty

Chapter 16

(Dipper pov)

I groan in pain, feeling blood dripping down the side of my face. I try to move my arm but stop feeling an intense pain. I can barely even use my fingers.

Using my free hand I feel to my shoulder that hurts the most. It's bruised, tender, and I can feel that it isn't right. Just like I thought, it got dislocated when that bastard threw me down the stairs.

Painfully I manage to sit up and lean back against the cold stone wall. I know how to fix this, I dislocated my shoulder back in the police academy and watched a youtube video on how to fix it. It's an easy enough fix for me, it's just going to hurt like a son of a bitch.

"You can do this, Dipper, just like last time. 1, 2,...." I slam my shoulder against the wall, crying out in pain. "Okay, okay, almost there....1,2,...." I slam my shoulder against the wall again but harder, crying out in pain again as I feel my shoulder finally pop back into place.

Grimcacing in pain, I rub my sore shoulder as my eyes slowly adjusts to the darkness of the room. I cover my nose with my hand as this wretched smell hits my nose.

I look towards the center of the room as I remember why it semlls so bad down here. Tears stream down my cheeks as I see Mabel's body still tied to that damn chair, blood splattered on the floor around her.

I hug my knees to my chest, tears silently pouring down my cheeks.

"Dipper...."

The hairs stand up on the back of my neck as I hear a voice whisper in the darkness. I look up glancing around the room not seeing anyone.

"H-Hello? Who's there?"

"Dipper...."

"Bill, if that's you just stop it. Just fucking knock it off, I'm not in the mood for your stupid jokes. It isn't funny."

A dark laugh fills the room and in the darkness, I watch in horror as Mabel lifts up her head and it turns in my direction.

"Silly silly, Dipper. Have you forgotten about me that quick already?"

"No no no no.....this can't be real....y-you're dead! You aren't real!"

That horrible laughter fills the room again.

"Poor poor little Dipper. You always have to play the victim no matter what the situation turns out to be."

"That's not-"

"Ever since mom and dad died you always just had to play the victim."

"That isn't fair! They died in front of me! I could have died with them!"

"There you go, playing the victim once again."

"What the hell do you even want from me?! You're already fucking dead!"

"I want you to suffer like you've made me suffer." She rises from the chair and slowly makes her way over to me, blood still dripping from her slit throat wound.

I grantically scoot back, desperate to be as far from her as I can.

"No no no! It wasn't my fault! You were tied up and killed! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"You tried to run away. If you had just listened to him then I would still be alive."

"I didn't kill you! I was just wanting to get away, scared that he was going to kill me!"

"So it's okay for him to kill me instead?"

"That's not what I said!"

As her horrible laughter fills the room again, bouncing off the cold stone walls, I curl up on the ground with my hands tightly clamped over my ears as tears helplessly spill down my cheeks.

I feel a hand clamp down on my shoulder, knowing that she's going to kill me or worse. I swat the hand off my shoulder, thrashing as I feel hands clamp down tightly on both of my wrists.

"L-Let me go!"

"Pinetree, just calm the fuck down right now."

Looking up I see it's just Bill restraining me, not my dead sister. I look over ot the center of the room and see her body is still tied to the chair, showing no sign of her having ever even moved the slightest in the first place.

"She....she was moving...."

"She's dead. You know this, you saw me kill her."

"But she was moving and talking! She was going to kill me for what happened to her!"

He just sighs, letting go of my wrists before he picks me up bridal style.

"If you stay down here any longer, than you're really going to end up crazier than I am."

He carries me back upstairs and I see it's pitch black outside, the moon and stars not even visible.

He sets me on the couch and I wince sharply as his hand brushes against my shoulder. "What happened here?"

"It got dislocated when I was thrown down the stairs."

"It doesn't seem dislocated to me."

"I managed to relocate it by throwing myself against the wall."

"Where did you learn to do that."

"Youtube. There's practically a youtube video for everything now days."

"Stay here and I'm serious this time." He walks out of the room. I pick at my nails until he comes back with an ice pack wrapped in a hand towel. He presses it against my sore shoulder. "You were shouting a lot down there."

"So you heard all of that?"

"Yeah, you were a bit loud down there after all."

"....How much did you hear?"

"Lots of yelling about how her death wasn't your fault, and something about your parents. Is there a story there?"

"It isn't a happy story."

"Happy stories are boring anyway. Give me all of those depressing and fucked up details."

"When I was in high school, some kid shot up the school. Mabel was at home sick but both of my parents were teachers. I was still in class when the first shots went off. I ran out to the halls looking for my parents when I saw both of them get mowed down with an assault rifle right in front of me."

"Did you run back into the classroom?"

"No, I just froze. I knew what I should have done but I couldn't. I was just frozen in place."

"So how did you survive?"

"I got lucky. The shooter simply wasn't wearing his glasses." I unzip the jacket slightly showing the bullet scar on the right side of my chest. "He couldn't see clearly and just aimed at the wrong side of my chest, missing my heart by mere chance."

"Oh....That's hell of a thing to happen to someone."

"Everyone expected me to do something with my life. I became a cop to stop more people from dying. But the pressure kept building and the more I tried, the worse the pressure got. I just can't do it anymore, I just can't."

He wraps his arms around me, pulling me to his chest as he runs his fingers through my hair.

"Don't worry, you won't have to deal with that shit anymore. I swear on it."