The Puppeteer (BillDip)

Chapter 27

I drifted to the kitchen in an abyss, staring at the home around me, barely allowing my hollow eyes to blink. The picture frames, glazed with smiling people, pale eyes and pink skin, their white teeth glimmering under the flickering light bulbs. Moths flocked to them, their papery wings fluttering to a chaotic rhythm. It all felt so familiar, yet like it wasn't really there. Like a dream. I wished it was a dream, but I couldn't seem to wake up. I'm trapped in this dream, this never-ending nightmare.

"I don't care how he feels!" A muffled voice exploded through the shivering walls. "I stand by what I said! It's wrong, Stan! Why can't you see that?!"

"You think I'm too dumb to see that, seriously?" A different voice yelled back, louder than the other. "Of course it's wrong! But I promised I'd do everything in my power to keep him and Mabel happy! And after all this shit, he needs that! If you actually cared about him, you'd realise that we have to let him go, no matter how we feel! This is his decision, not ours!"

"I do care, about both of those kids!" The first voice exclaimed. "I care about their wellbeing, and living in hell with Cipher is not good! Why would you think this is right, just because of some promise?"

"Is that what you thought of the promises we made when we were kids? The promise that we would stay together forever, always a team? Hmm, what was the end of that story, huh? You left me alone with nothing, while you had everything! It was always perfect, precious little Fordsie and his deadbeat brother to you, wasn't it? Well, that was how everybody else thought! Everyone just loved you, while I was the dead weight dragging you down! You know what, sometimes I wish I never even fixed that portal!"

"You don't mean that, Stanley..."

"Who are you to tell me what I mean? I don't regret saying it, it's how I feel!"

Icy silence intoxicated the air. I closed my eyes, trying to listen, but only seeing Mabel through the darkness under my eyelids. Seeing her shatter like glass, again and again, wishing over and over I had pulled her back, tried to prevent this tragedy. I could've stopped her. I could've helped her. But instead, she was laying limply in the earth, just outside our front door, flies falling onto her fingertips.

"Let's not speak of this now! The kids might hear, and I don't want them to feel uncomfortable... how could you say I don't care for them? They're one of the most important things in my life!"

"But they're everything to me. Those two, they're the whole world, and if anything were to ever happen to them, I-"

"Grunkle Stan? Gr... Great Uncle Ford?" I interrupted meekly, staring through the cracks in the floorboards. They turned around with a start, blushing furiously, their shifty eyes glancing quickly from each other to me, while I refused to touch them as they drew close.

"Dipper?" Ford said formally, like all his compassion for me had been forgotten, lost in the quarrel in which he said he loved me and the girl in the soil. And, hearing his loveless tone, I refused to believe that anything he had just said to Stan was the truth.

"Where's Mabel?" My other uncle said anxiously. "Did she tell you anything?"

"She said that she cares about you both a lot," I struggled through the urge to weep. "And knows that you love her deeply. She's sorry that she put you through everything that's happened recently, and didn't want to see you suffer with her. She didn't think you deserved that. She hoped she made you as happy as you made her."

"And she's feeling okay now?"

"M-Mabel is... she's... she feels better now, better than she did before."

"Where is she, then?" They both looked at me sceptically as I savoured their last moments of ignorance. I peeled my eyes off the floor, just to witness that faint shimmer of hope that still burned inside them, just a tiny spark, rapidly running out of oxygen. I had no choice but to consume all their light with the shadows that I would reside in soon.

"She was tired, so... she went to sleep in the grass."

***

That last line punched me in the feels, crap... now I'm dead XD. I said it before, but I'll say it again; I'm so sorry for killing her off. Forgive me. Love you guys,
Em xx