You're Human Now

Chapter 8

**Dipper**

A guide to your demonic flaming hand! With your pal, Bill!

The boy stifles his breath. Thoughts go racing through his mind as his fears come creeping back. It is not me who is making my hand light on fire it is Bill! He is just trying to mess with me, get in my head. What is his goal with this? He debates whether to shred the piece of crumpled paper or continue reading. Despite his fear and worries he chooses the latter. His eyes scan the page. Under the title a crude drawling, as if he was the one who drew it, of a human hand on fire. Below that lied scattered revolving text which changed every couple seconds. Sucking in as large of a breath he could while remaining quiet he starts reading the text.

Hey there Pinetree! It is me, your pal, Bill! I know you do not like talking to me but I know you also want answers. Thus, I conjured up this fantastic guide to help answer some of those lingering questions I know you have.

1. What do you mean by 'your demonic flaming hand'?

Well it is pretty self explanatory isn't it? It is you who is causing that hand to light up and it is demonic. I will let you theorize how you are doing it, or you could ask...

The kid's anger rises. How could it be mine, I am human. Bill, your little mind games are not going to work especially if you try to leave cliffhangers for me. I may be a sucker for a good mystery but I know one involving you will just end ugly. As his miniature rant plays out in his head, his hand begins to get tingly. By the end, it starts to spark and ignite. His eyes go wide as he tries to not panic. Remain calm, that worked before, it should work now. Dipper starts to focus on his breathing, slowing it down. In seconds, the flame extinguished itself. A part of himself was scared that what Bill said is right. It could be me that is causing this. Tears began to form as fear overtook him. What is happening, why is this happening? He crumples up the piece of paper again and chucks it behind him to who knows where in his shared room. Wiping tears away, he rolls over in his bed and goes to sleep.

***

**Mabel**

Birds were chirping as a ray of sunshine penetrated the window, hitting the young girl in the face. With a yawn and a stretch of her arms, she woke up with a smirk on her face. Propping herself up she looks over at her sibling across the room. Her face turns neutral as she looks at her sleeping brother, who is curled up in a ball. A familiar feeling of worry that has grew over the past weeks returned. She senses he has been hiding something from her but she does not know what. She shakes off the feeling and rises from her bed, going towards the bathroom to wash up.

Finished in the bathroom, she goes towards her dresser to put on a new outfit for the day. Rummaging through drawers filled with shorts, skirts, and sweaters, she finds the perfect outfit for the day. Changing and throwing her dirty clothes in her hamper, her foot hits which she guess was some small ball. Picking it up, she further inspected it. Realizing that it was just a balled up piece of paper she crumpled it. She scanned the page and it was... blank. She turned it over and even on the flip side it was blank. Mabel glanced over at Dipper, assuming it was his, contemplated waking him up. Deciding against it because he would likely get cranky being woken up early over a blank piece of paper, she threw it in the garbage bin they shared.

Mabel made her way downstairs and made herself a bowl of cereal. Being the only one awake in the shack, she enjoyed having a quiet morning for a change. Listening to the ambience noise of birds and fridge hums she thinks about what she should do today. This became a struggle for her as the shack was on lock down for whatever reason, not even having the regular tourist area open. An angered frown formed on her face as she decided to confront Ford today and demand answers why they were on lock down. The only time they ever had the shack on lock down was because of Bill and he's dead. This has to be serious and Dipper and I deserve to know why.

Breaking her stream of thoughts was her brother coming down the stairs. Odd, he never gets up this early unless someone wakes him up. Obviously having just rolled out of bed, Dipper entered the kitchen with a worried expression on his face.

"Hey Dippy," She says to her brother in between slurps of milk from her bowl.

"Hey, uh, how are you?" He responds with slight hesitation.

"I'm fine, enjoying a quiet morning, you?"

"I'm ok, um... did you happen to find a balled up piece of paper earlier?" He asks as his voice quiets and turns into a murmur.

"Yea, why?" She asks back confused and intrigued about the blank piece of paper Dipper obviously cares about.

"Oh uh, no real reason, but did you read it?" He asked as his eyes went wide and a feared expression grew on his face.

"Read it? It was a blank piece of paper bro. I threw it in the trash." As those words left her lips, her brother's stiffened stance loosened as relief flowed through his face.

"Oh... ok... cool."

"You ok dipper? You are acting all weird and you are never up this early. What's going on?" Mabel asked her brother giving him a genuine concerned look.

"Nothing's wrong... um, I'll be right back." He says as he turns and runs back up the stairs.

Mabel, annoyed by her brother's constant dodging of questions, got up from the table to place her bowl in the sink. With her back turned she heard Dipper come back down the steps. "I'm heading out, you can tell our grunkles I will be back by dinner." He says running by the kitchen.

"Dipper wait! You know we are not allowed to go out alone!" Mabel says in a panic as she turns around to confront her brother. However, he is nowhere to be seen and has already left the mystery shack. Mabel hurries after him but by the time she is outside he is lost in the woods.

Concern for Dipper has reached a tipping point as Mabel goes back inside to awake her grunkles. A part of her wants to chase after him but knew better than to wander the woods alone. Ford obviously worried about Dipper's actions went searching for her brother. Mabel attempted to question why they were on lock down but was ignored, again. Before she got to press the issue more Ford left and Stan refused to let her pursue him. Now unable to do anything to help her brother or get answers she is left waiting for their return. Hopefully, he is back by dinner like he said he would be. So much for a quiet morning.

***

A/N-  Howdy! My apologies for leaving you all in the dark for the past 2 weeks or so. I know I said I would try to have a chapter out every other day at least but frankly, I am a liar. Honestly, I got to a point where I was burnt out writing this. I did not like where I had this story going and worked on figuring out what will happen the rest of the story. My other reason was that I did not like the quality my writing became the last few chapters. I feel I been going a little too in depth on our characters heads and dragged out every interaction. It seemed boring not very good, so I am trying something new. This chapter I tried to focus on purely telling the story and not get so wrapped up with the characters thoughts and conversations for the sake of keeping it interesting and shorter. Let me know what you think! Thank you for reading, I know you have no obligation to give me your time to read my little story, but please! If you like something I am doing or a certain story line/interaction let me know!  I am not a fan of these types of A/N but I feel it is necessary to do one at this point, I will likely delete this once I write a few more chapters. One last thing, let me know what you think of the chapter lengths, the first few were much larger than the sizes I am doing now but I am trying to give more consistent content, hence the shorter chapters. However, if you guys prefer the longer chapters I can work and do those but there will be larger gaps in between.