ᴄʜᴜᴄᴋɪᴇ ▲ ʙɪʟʟ ᴄɪᴘʜᴇʀ

𝟹. ᴡᴇ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ sʟᴇᴇᴘ

I sat in the room Stanford designated as mine, my stomach full from the burger and french fries that I had from a local diner.

Greasy's Diner was the local 'fine dining' establishment of Gravity Falls—a small logging-themed restaurant with food that was as greasy as the name suggested. It's greasy but delicious all the same.

It reminded me a bit of the trucking diner that I stepped foot in when I first woke up four years ago.

Gravity Falls did not have many food options, there was a small variety of diners (three to be exact, and all of them were in a business war with each other) and all of them served only American food.

There was no source of fast food—even the nearest Starbucks was over an hour away.

Gravity Falls is so small that by the time the local movie theater even got a movie, it was already on VHS.

Stanford had driven us to the diner in his brown Ford, something I just had to make a few stupid jokes about to which the Dr. only rolled his eyes. I noticed the way the townsfolk would stare and point him out.

Apparently, according to Stanford, he was a bit of a recluse when it came to the rest of the town—often choosing to delve into his work rather than form any bonds. Taking me to dinner was a special occasion seeing as he usually cooked all his meals—he dared to tell me it'd been six months since he had actually been out to eat in the town.

When we got back to his home, Stanford let me know that he would be up late working in his lab. I offered to keep him company, but he kindly refused and stated that he did not want me to end up like him... sleep-deprived.

Rather, he encouraged me to retire to my room and read through the journal before getting a good night's sleep.

According to him, once I get through editions one and two of the journal and start joining him in the forest—then sleep would turn into a rare gift.

The joke was on him though because I never sleep.

Literally.

The one thing that I had not told anyone in fear of being sent to either a psych-ward or some crazy government-testing facility was that since I had opened my eyes in that cold rain I did not sleep.

To be fair, I never tried, but that was because I never felt the need to.

I never really got tired—not tired enough in the sense that most people claim to be at least. Mental exhaustion was a real thing, but physical exhaustion was not so much. It's what helped me keep my grades up and my intelligence sharp all these years... I had to find something to do in the middle of the night when everyone except me was sleeping.

I did not tell this to Ford—hell, I did not even mention my amnesia. It appeared that he himself did not even know about it, the school had not told him.

Perhaps after a few weeks of working with him and getting to know him, I would tell him. After all, I wanted answers to my past, and if he could help me then I would certainly not look in the other direction.

And just maybe if I grew to trust him enough I would let him know about my inability to sleep. Once I deemed if he was a mad scientist who would turn me into an experiment or not.

But seeing that butterfly trapped in a jar earlier along with many other live and dangerous creatures in his lab was definitely not alleviating. To be fair though, everything he had trapped was some sort of monster that would probably kill someone if it was out in the forest.

I had long since shifted the couch and tugged out the pullout bed. Surprisingly, the mattress was thicker and more comfortable than I was expecting. I lay on my stomach, feet in the air as I smoked a cigarette and read through the book.