On My Way Home (A Gravity Falls / Over the Garden Wall Crossover fanfic)

Ch. 1: Lost

Mabel

They wouldn't stop coming. The tears forced themselves out of my eyes, burning my skin and sinking into the cuts slashed across my face. They were both screaming at me, but the words were lost over the pain searing in my chest.

"Look into my eyes, Mabel!" The worry and desperation in my grunkle's voice rip another sob out of me. "You really think I'm a bad guy?" I shut my eyes.

"He's lying! Shut it down, NOW!" The only thing I can hear in Dipper's voice is pure anger, pure fury. My hand was shaking more than ever, and my whole body was sore from trying to keep me intact.

"Mabel, please!"

There's something else in his voice, an emotion I couldn't quite place. I looked up, but the tears in my eyes blocked me from seeing anything. I had to trust him. I couldn't believe, I wouldn't believe that he was the monster in this story.

"Grunkle Stan..." I sobbed. "Grunkle Stan, I trust you - "

"MABEL!"

My head jerked toward my brother as he hurled something toward me. I looked at him and what I saw in his eyes shocked me. The brother I love, the brother I thought loved me, stared at me with such intense hate, that I knew he wasn't yelling to warn me, he was yelling at me. The shard of scrap metal slammed into me and into the button.

"NO!" I heard Grunkle Stan's scream rip across the basement.

Suddenly, I couldn't breathe. My lungs froze and time seemed to have come to a standstill. I felt the air start to fold over me, faster and faster until I, along with what seemed Gravity Falls, was caught in the whirlwind.

"DIPPER!" I screamed. Or at least, I tried to. I was falling, we were all falling, and it seemed that it really was the apocalypse. A maroon fez slapped me across the face and tumbled into the glowing machine. The blue mass of energy was getting closer, but I felt no motivation to try to escape. If everything was falling apart anyways, what was the point?

Dipper's black sneaker smashed into my nose, releasing a flow of crimson. He appeared to be swimming in midair, reaching for the worn journal just out of his reach. Watching him felt unreal. Like this was all a dream, like it wasn't me being tossed in the air, like I didn't exist at all. There was no noise, no feeling at all.

It was the sound of Grunkle Stan that brought be back down to Earth.

"Soos! The kids!"

Still being rapidly thrown about by the force of the doomsday machine, I caught sight of Soos trying to move towards us, but that was all I saw before I felt myself being sucked backwards. Screaming, I reached for anything within arm's reach and grabbed the first thing my hands touched - Dipper's leg. We were all screaming now, all terrified of being torn apart by the machine.

"Let me go, Mabel!" Dipper yelled, trying to kick me off. Despite all the fear, this made me mad. Didn't he see that if I did, I would be a goner? Didn't he realize that we were ALL in danger?! I opened my mouth to yell back at him, but I never got a chance. With a thundering roar, the Doomsday machine pulled me through the shockingly blue substance, my hand still wrapped around Dipper's ankle.

I don't know how long we fell - I only know it felt like an eternity. Then suddenly there was ground. Dipper fell on top of me, and I knocked him off.

"What were you THINKING?!" I screamed at him. "Why would you throw that at me?!"

"YOU WERE GOING TO LET HIM WIN, MABEL! YOU KNEW HE WAS LYING!"

"But maybe he wasn't! Dipper, he was telling the truth!"

"You NEVER listen to your head! You only believe what you want to believe!"

"That's not true!" I protest, tears racing down my cheeks.

"Forget it, I'm getting out of here." Dipper stated, hard and emotionless. He snatched his muddied hat from the ground and shoved it on his head. He suddenly paused at the sound of his foot rustling the dirt and we scanned our surroundings for the first time. Surrounding us on all sides were trees. The sky had turned black, stars dotted across it like it had been shot with a bedazzler.

"Dipper?" I asked, trying to sound brave and indifferent, but ended up squeaking like a mouse.

What sounded like a distant footprint grabbed hold of my heart and shook it so it was beating thrice as fast. A voice, eerie and far-flung but clear and deep spread through the trees. Its song sent chills down my spine and made it hard to breathe. A pit of dread and hopelessness pulsed in my stomach.

"Come wayward souls,

Who wander through the darkness,

There is a light for the lost and the meek.

Sorrow and fear,

Are easily forgotten,

When you submit to the soil of the earth."