It's Where My Demons Hide

Chapter 19

Pacifica

I only remembered pain. It wasn't the pain when I was thrown at a mud puddle by a crazy criminal looking for revenge. The true pain that hurt the most came from him. Seeing him like this . . . It was impossible to believe that was the Dipper I knew, yet it was.

Why did he avoid me? I was not a damsel in distress. No one can hurt me, and even if they did, I could help myself.

I began to stir, fearing what I would see if I woke. But then I heard his voice, far away in the back of my mind, telling me to stay away from him. I would never leave my friend's side. I would never give up on him. I will get him back, if it was the last thing I had to do. I promised myself, feeling very determined.

"Paz? Paz, do you hear me? It's me, Mabel!" I caught my best friend's voice from far away, trying to bring me back to reality. I didn't want to go back there; I wanted to stay in my unconsciousness forever. I wanted to stay in my world where everything was back to normal. My wish wasn't granted, however. My eyes began to open. I blinked wildly trying to sharpen her vision. Then I sat up violently, a gasp escaping from my mouth. My cheek was wet with tears and my body pumped with pain.

Mabel had a concerned look. "Are you OK?"

"I guess," I muttered. I looked around my surroundings and realized I wasn't in the forest anymore. I was under a tree that was few distances away from where the fire started.

"What did the criminals do to you?"

"Just dumping me into a mud puddle and looking for revenge. Well, until he -" I stopped, and looked down, trying not to let the tears fall down. Mabel raised her eyebrow, and asked her who he was.

"Nothing," I lied, deciding to drop the topic. Mabel looked as if she wanted to ask more questions but stopped herself from doing so.

After a moment of awkward silence, Mabel decided to break the ice. "Let's call this Operation Unicorn. It's a code name for our mission."

"Are you serious?"

"I love unicorns! I'm literally obsessed with unicorns! My first word were "unicorn," I once made my own unicorn by taping a traffic cone to a horse's head. I'm banned from the petting zoo after that." Mabel laughed as she showed me her unicorn earrings.

I laughed. I had never seen anyone so obsessed with a mythical creature. It was hilarious to hear that Mabel was banned from a petting zoo just because she had taped a traffic cone to a horse's head. I could imagine her doing it.

"And saving Sir Dipping sauce is our mission!" Mabel exclaimed, waving her arms in the sky. "Operation Unicorn, it is?" She raised her clenched fist.

I smiled. "Operation Unicorn, it is." Our fists met together and thus, Operation Unicorn had begun.

I trudged behind Mabel as we both went into the woods. While walking, I saw a beautiful flower on a bush. It had a nice scent. Its petals were round and had the color of the sunrise. Red, orange, pink, yellow and tiny hints of blue seemed to be mixed and blended well together. When I was admiring the beautiful flower, Mabel was searching around random trees and kicking the trunk. I didn't know why that would help our search. After kicking a few, she went next to me. Then she kicked a tree that was right next to the flower.

Suddenly the tree trunk opened in the middle, revealing two creatures having ... Tea?

The creature wearing a pink frilly dress, looked like it was half goblin, half gremlin. He was muscular, had green skin, clumps of body hair, and a prominent lower jaw with two large fangs protruding out of it. Mushrooms coated his shoulders and hair his arms and his ears are pointed like a bat's. He was wearing sunglasses.

The other one was wearing a blue dress. He was very small and looked more human. He wore a dark red hat, had a pink nose, brown eyebrows and a brown beard.

They were each holding a small cup and sipping tea from it peacefully.

"Gremlobin and Jeff?!" Exclaimed Mabel in surprise, her eyes widening to the size of tennis balls. Not really the size, but it was still very big. "What are you doing here?"

The creatures jumped in their seats and screamed when they saw us standing there. They immediately threw away the tiny tea cups and dress they were wearing too. The little man was wearing light blue shirt and dark blue trousers now.

The little man cleared his throat and spoke, "Oh if it isn't my lovely Mabel? What a surprise to see you here!" He chuckled nervously, and received a glare from Mabel. He glanced at the large creature. "We were... um... just enjoying ourselves."

"It's not often you see two creatures wearing dresses and having a tea party in the middle of the woods," I snickered.

"Who are you?" snapped Jeff, annoyed.

"I'm Pacifica Northwest."

Jeff grinned mischievously. "Oh hello Miss Northwest. Such great pleasure this is!" He took out his hand and I shook on it. But suddenly the large creature – Gremloblin, I think- grabbed me and didn't let me go. I struggled but his grip was too strong.

Jeff turned around to face me and took out a blue diamond ring. Little men appeared out of nowhere and surrounded us, forming a large circle. Some little men wearing tuxedo, took out their instruments and started playing ... Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe"?!

"Let her go, Jeff!" shouted Mabel, who was captured too by some little men.

Jeff ignored her and knelt down, holding out the ring. "Will you be my queen, Pacifica?" proposed Jeff.

"No, no, NO!" I yelled. "I would never be your queen!"

"Yeah! She's Dipper's Queen!"

"Yeah! Wait, what?"

"I guess we had to do this the hard way," said Jeff, snapping his fingers. The gremloblin nodded its head and took out his sunglasses, showing two scarlet red eyes without pupils. The eyes slowly turned bright yellow. I could feel it looking at me. I tried to avoid looking into its eyes but something was forcing me to do it. My mirror! Closing my eyes, I reached for my pocket and remembered that I didn't have it anymore. Dang it!

Jeff crossed his arms. "If she won't be my queen, I will make her see her worst fear. Let her know who she's dealing with."

As he said that, I bit into the gremloblin's arm. The gremloblin was shocked at the sudden pain in his arm and lost his grip. I hit the ground when he let me go. Jeff screamed and barked an order to capture me to the other little men.

But suddenly, all the little men were blown away as if they were sucked by something. Jeff tried to grab a random tree, but both of them were too weak and got blown away.

Behind a pine tree, there was a dark figure holding a leaf blower. Only his golden eyes were visible in the shadows.

"Why?"

***

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