Gravity Rises (S1)

MM: Part One

Mabel's hands shook as she sketched, but she wouldn't let that stop her. Her hands moved over the page with her pencil, making scattered marks and lines everywhere until a picture began to emerge. The movements were precise, yet she was hardly paying attention to what she was doing. If anyone were to look closely, they would see her eyes focused a little bit above her sketchbook, her mind lost in another world as she drew.

This trance continued on for about ten minutes, until Mabel finally snapped back into reality and looked down at what she'd created.

The scene depicted a young boy in the center of the page, kneeling over something, his back turned to the viewer. Closer inspection showed some hair, an arm, and a leg of a girl's body, shielded by her brother. A few strokes of carbon depicted a pool of blood. On the side stood a third figure, covered in shadows, their face invisible to detail save one manic eye.

It took Mabel less than a second to take all this in, and she cried out, hitting her head on the wall as she shied away from the drawing.

"Mabel? You all right, kid?"

Mabel hurriedly flipped to a blank page in her sketchbook. Robbie Corduroy had turned around from his post at the checkout counter; he was watching her with a concerned look on his face.

"I-I'm fine," she stuttered, rubbing the back of her head.

Robbie didn't seem convinced. "I dunno, kid: You've been hiding out in corners drawing for, like, three days now. Are you sure you're okay?"

Mabel set her sketchbook down and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her ankles. "I'm fine," she said again, looking away.

Robbie shrugged. "If you wanna lie, I guess I can't stop you. Just know I'm here if you need to talk or anything."

Mabel lifted her eyes from her shoes. "R-really?"

A customer wandered over to Robbie to purchase a Mystery Museum trinket. "Sure, kid," Robbie replied, turning around and taking the money for the product. "Just don't freak me out by hiding in corners, okay?" He shot her a wink.

Mabel's attempt to make herself smaller felt more effective than it probably was.

She knew she could never confide in Robbie. Only Dipper had any idea what she was going through, and right now he was cleaning exhibits back in the Hall of Mysteries. She hadn't shown him the increasingly dark drawings she'd been creating, though he probably knew about them anyway. This wasn't the first time that her favorite escape — drawing out her frustrations — had become her prison.

Her fingers twitched. She had to keep drawing. She had to get it all out: get the nightmares out through her fingers. But it wasn't working, not even after three days. Why wasn't it working?

She picked up her pencil with trembling fingers, stared at it for a moment, and set it down again. What would she draw this time, if she let her fingers go unchecked? She grabbed her sketchbook and flipped through the last ten pages or so that she'd filled over the last few days. The pictures were all similar: shadows and vague figures lurking in the background, glowing auras around people or objects, small details of blood, subtle indications that someone was dead. . . .

"Hey, Robbie!"

Mabel fumbled again to close her sketchbook from prying eyes.

"Hey, Dip-kid," came Robbie's cool reply.

"Have you seen Mabel any—" He stopped as he caught sight of her behind the checkout counter. Mabel drew her knees closer to her chest and rested her forehead on her kneecaps in an obvious gesture of, "Leave me alone, but I actually want you to come over here and comfort me."