A Rift Between Worlds

Chapter Three: On the Prowl

The woods were dark and quiet... eerily quiet. It wasn't usual; no monsters were roaming around, no insects were chirping... It was as though the forest feared the one who walked through it.

A girl with dark hair made her way through the trees, her strides quick and tense. There was something– no, someone– she was after. The trail that had led her here was so faint, it could barely be made out... but there it was. The girl crouched, grinning as her fingertips grazed the ground. Blood. It was dry, barely visible, but it was there. She was headed in the right direction.

The girl increased her pace, ecstatic. The trail would lead her to her target. Surely, with this much blood loss, they wouldn't have been able to go far. They would have had to settle in close. Any minute now...

The girl burst out of the trees. Immediately, she was blinded by street lights that cut through the night. She blinked madly until her eyes adjusted. With a scowl, the girl realized where she had ended up: the bus stop. No. She bristled with rage, her blue eyes alight with bloodlust. She screamed, a green glow emitting from an amulet on her headband. The streetlamp crumpled.

"Figured the trail would lead you here," A voice sounded from across the street. The girl turned to find a boy who looked almost exactly like her lounging on a bus stop bench. He looked remorseful, examining a rose that he held tenderly in his hand. He looked up, frowning. "I told you she would leave Gravity Falls, Mabel."

The girl– Mabel– drew a sharp breath. "Dang it!" She screamed. She turned to the boy, her breath uneven. "Okay, then, Dipper, if you're so smart, where do you suppose she went?"

The boy seemed to ponder this, then leaned back, sighing. "I don't know. I can't think of anywhere she would go. We've already checked with her parents, and anyone she was close to here in Gravity Falls... it's like she's just disappeared off the face of the earth."

As Mabel continued to rant, Dipper returned his attention to the rose. He ran his finger down the stem, careful to avoid the thorns. Where had she gone? Dipper sighed, opening his bag and placing the rose inside, on top of a pile of wilting flowers. One for each day she had been gone. Eight flowers. Eight days. Each flower had been carefully picked out just for her... for Pacifica...

"Hey, how long are you going to mope?" Mabel interrupted his thoughts, crossing her arms.

"As as you keep throwing temper tantrums," Dipper shot back. Mabel frowned, but she didn't get a chance to speak as Dipper continued, "We can figure this out in the morning. It's almost midnight. Let's get back home, okay?"

Mabel looked as though she wanted to say something more, but she sighed in acceptance. "Fine. Let's go, Dipper." She offered her brother a hand up, which he accepted, and they headed off into the night.

Both siblings wanted to find Pacifica Northwest for very different reasons. For Dipper, it was because he had a huge crush on her. He'd been trying to ask her out for years, but to no avail. For Mabel, her motive was simple: Pacifica was in the way. She could foil their plans at any time. Therefore, she had to be eliminated.

Dipper didn't want that. Of course, he loved the plan: join the human and demon worlds, use Will Cipher to gain control over all dimensions... it was all he'd been able to think of for the past three years. That's when it hit him. Surely, the best way to please both siblings...

"So long as Pacifica isn't around," Dipper started, "we might as well get things going."

After a few seconds, his sister started to laugh. "You know, that's the most reasonable thing I've heard you say this past week. I hope you're ready for a few all-nighters. This is going to take a while."

Dipper pulled out his phone, squinting at the bright light of the screen. "Might as well start tonight, then. It's only a quarter to midnight, anyway. There's really no point in sleeping now." His sister muttered in agreement.

As soon as the twins reached home, they started calculating. They got their supercomputer up and running, then started with the scans. After a while, Dipper got bored and started playing video games. Not that Mabel cared. When it came to smarts, her brother only ever got in the way.

After about three hours, Mabel glanced up from her calculations in surprise. "This can't be right..." She dashed to the computer, started typing furiously, then double-checked her calculations. "Dipper, come and look at this!"

"Can it wait?" The call came back, "I'm sort of in the middle of a dungeon! Illfang just summoned his nail, and if we don't destroy it– hey!" Mabel had just disconnected the PlayStation from the TV. "I was the healer! How the heck is my party supposed to–"

"For the love of– just shut up and look at this!" Mabel dragged her brother to the computer, then shoved his face into the screen. "I was calculating the effects of a rift between dimensions... Look!"

Dipper squinted at the screen. "Sis, I don't read science. All I see are a bunch of ones and zeroes. Did robots inspire you or something?"

"Ugh!" Mabel could barely resist the urge to slam her brother's face into the wall. "Would you just shut up for five seconds and let me explain? As I was saying, I was in the middle of my calculations, and something came up that didn't make sense. According to this, there's already a rift open somewhere!"

Dipper was so surprised that he momentarily forgot about beating Illfang. "What? How is that even possible? We've been trying to open a rift for years! And besides, Will said that if we were ever to open a rift, the demons from the Nightmare Realm would come and take over!"

"Either Will was lying, or this rift isn't noticeable. It might be somewhere where you can't just stumble upon it..." Mabel frowned, lost in thought. "I don't know... I'll try to narrow down the possibilities of where it might be..."

As his sister turned back to her computer with a huge yawn, Dipper noticed how tired she was. There were giant bags under her eyes, as though she hadn't slept since...

"Mabel, have you slept at all since Pacifica disappeared?" His sister didn't answer. "I'm worried about you. You've devoted all of your time tracking her down... but you're only going to get sloppier if you keep wearing yourself out. Please, get some sleep."

For a few seconds, Mabel kept her gaze on the screen, unmoving, then, she heaved a sigh, giving in. "Fine. But only because I don't want to screw up my calculations. If I make a wrong move here, we'll never make any process." With that, Mabel sat down, then curled up into a ball right there on the floor.

"Jeez," Dipper laughed, "You can't even sleep in your bed? Is your goal to be as uncomfortable as possible?" His sister muttered something that sounded like too tired. Dipper sighed, smiling. Honestly, Mabel could be a cold-blooded demon sometimes, but if he looked hard enough, he could still see the little girl that came crying to him when she scraped her knee on the sidewalk. People only saw the worst in her, but she was his sister. He knew there was some good in her, too... if only a little.

"Okay," Dipper grunted, heaving Mabel onto his back. He wrapped her arms around his shoulders, then headed towards the stairs. "Let's get you to bed." Dipper glanced at the computer one last time, lost in thought. Somewhere out there, a rift had formed. Maybe... that's when it hit him. Maybe, somehow, Pacifica had found the rift, too. Was that where she had gone?

Stifling a yawn of his own, Dipper returned to his task. This could wait until morning. Until then, it was time the twins got some rest... before things got so intense that they might not be able to sleep again.