Dipper Pine's Prophecy

Chapter 1: Returning Home for the Summer

"Dipper! Get your nose out of your nerd book, how can you read boring stuff when we're almost back to Gravity Falls?" Mabel asked, practically vibrating in her seat.

At least her hands were still firmly on the steering wheel. Dipper thought.

"Mabes, the GPS just told us that there's still another three hours until we get there." The male twin said, not looking up from his mystery novel.

Without looking away from the road, Mabel reached over and grabbed her brothers book, "Yoink!" She said as she pulled it away from him before throwing it to the very back of the van where it fell between the suitcases.

"Hey! What was that for?" Dipper yelled, glaring at his sister, she just smiled sweetly at him.

"There, brother dear, now that I freed your eyes from their paper prison, why don't you take another look at where we are?"

The boy huffed before doing as instructed. He shot ramrod strait in his seat when he saw the old faded sign for Gravity Falls just ahead of them, his seatbelt stopping him from jumping completely out of his seat and into the windshield.

"Holy shit! Since when were we already here? The GPS didn't say that we were here!"

His sister tsked at him, "That's cuz I turned it off Bro Bro, I knew the rest of the way here like the back of my hand. That and I didn't wanna risk the force field thingy around the Falls to mess up my baby. I just bought her and she's too young to deal with the weirdness here, so she's gonna go into hibernation while we're here."

"Sis, your GPS will be fine here, the force field doesn't really interfere with technology that much, it would have been a little static and it saying some gibberish, but no permanent damage", she just stuck her tongue out at him in response, "Still though, I can't believe I didn't notice three hours had passed, time really does fly when you're having fun."

His sister scoffed, "Fun? No offense Dip, but your book's not fun. I'd believe it more if you said that the ink was swirling and hypnotizing you in order to steal your soul. I don't trust those things after last year."

"Mabel, that was one book that just happened to be cursed and trapped souls between its pages, not every book does that. Books exist to hold and share information and/or provide a temporary escape from reality."

Mabel made a noise in the back of her throat as she turned down a dirt road that led to the Mystery Shack.

"Yeah, no. I'll just stick to the internet and digital books for information and TV for reality ditching. The only physical books I trust are scrapbooks and adorable picture books. I suspect that every other book just take smaller pieces of your soul than the one from last year. Well I refuse to be a victim any longer! No siree, you can't turn me into a bland soulless member of society!"

"I'll pretend that that wasn't a jab at me in any way about me being a bookworm or as an author of a couple of my own books. Also, did you just create a new conspiracy theory? Because if you did, I'll have to argue that television makes mindless members of society while books encourage individuality, creativity, and learning."

"Spoken like a true slave to the worded paper, bro. Is it a conspiracy theory? Ooh! If it is, I'll tell Grunkle Stan about it! People love a good conspiracy, make a website and set it up just right, and BAM, a bunch of suckers with lighter bank accounts!"

Dipper just shook his head, a fond smile on his lips, "You spend way too much time with Stan while he's scheming."

"Hey! I don't see you complaining when that scam money pays the bills and fills the gas tank."