Sincerely Yours, Bill Cipher

Figments of My Imagination

     "Here. Eat," I tell the three of them, setting steaming leftover plates of lasagna in front of them on the table at which I've sat them down.
     "What?" Will pokes the food with his finger, utterly puzzled.
     It suddenly occurs to me that my siblings technically were killed millions of years ago, and would have no idea what food, or basically any other human necessity, was.
     "It's kind of like starshine," I try my best to explain to my impatient siblings. "It's how humans get their fuel and make energy. You put that stuff in your mouth, chew, swallow, and, well, you'll find out what happens after that later. You hold these silver objects to transfer the food to your mouth without getting your hands messy."
     Jill wrinkles her nose. "I liked starshine better."
     "Just try it," I urge them on with a wave of my hands.
     Jill and Phil hesitate with wariness, so Will (very cautiously and very clumsily) holds the fork in his hand, pries apart a piece of lasagna and sticks it in his mouth. After a moment of concentration, his eyes light up and he turns to our sister. "Jill, you have to try this!"
     Jill frowns, but does as Will says. "Okay, but only because I want to, not because you told me to." She eats a bite of her meal just like Will did, but in contrast, she makes an appalled face and spits out the food back onto her plate.
     "Jill, gross!" I yell at her, knowing that she will have no part in cleaning that up.
By the time Will has finished all of his food, Phil still hasn't touched his. He looks at me and says, "It's not natural, brother," then blows a puff of smoke in my face.
I scowl and counter, "Huff another breath of smoke in my face again and tell me it's not natural."
Phil scowls and continues to mind his own business. And it is driving me nuts.
"What's wrong with your face?" Jill asks, but does not wait for an answer. Before I can pull away from her grubby little hands, she snatches the eyepatch from my face.
"Hey!" I shout, trying to grab it back. "Be careful with that!" Mabel spent much time stitching those initials on it and sewing it together. I will not have my careless, foolish sister tear such a sentimental thing apart without so much as a second thought.
My sister frowns, looking between me and my blue haired twin. "You don't look much like Will anymore. Part of your face is gone."
"Part of my face is not gone!" I challenge her wrong opinion and take back my eyepatch. "Seriously, you're so annoying. It's only my eye."
"Does that... hurt you?" Will asks, staring, his voice scarred with concern.
"Of course not! Does not having a second heart hurt you?"
Will looks even more distressed. "I don't even know what a heart is!"
I sigh, tying the patch around my head again. "Of course you don't."
     Melody turns the corner, the baby in her arms. She stops short at the sight of the four of us, certainly baffled by the language she hears. "Bill? What's going on? Who are these children?"
"Alright, Melody, don't freak out," I coax back in English, much to the confusion of my siblings, "but you know those weirdness pulse things that have been going on? Well, I don't know exactly how it's happened, but these are my siblings, pretty much back from the dead and human, back when we all lived in my home dimension."
"Oh, weird," Melody simply says, inspecting the small new crowd of people before her.
"You aren't fazed in the slightest?" I ask, surprised, glancing back at the strange sights that are my siblings.
"Well, I am, I'm just trying not to show it- this is your family, after all, right? We should be civil around guests." Melody winks.
"Oh, that's really cool of you, Melody," I remark, impressed.
     "What is that?" Jill stands up and walks over to Melody. She stares at Rosanna, who is just waking up.
     I translate for Melody, and she answers, "This is a baby. It's my daughter. Her name is Rosanna."
      "This is a young human," I explain, translating in phrases that Jill can understand. "It is this human's," I gesture to Melody, "offspring. The little human is called Rosanna. Her mother is called Melody. I live with these people."
I hear the back door open and I freeze. Shoot. Mabel and Dipper must be home. "You all," I look right at my brothers and sister, "stay quiet. I will be right back."
     I speed walk to the back door to beat the twins to the kitchen. As the two of them are taking off their shoes, Mabel absently asks, "What's up, Bill?"
     I shrug and say, "Oh nothing, I just got my first weirdness pulse while you were gone."
     This catches their attention. As they pause and look up in surprise, Dipper asks, "What?"
     "What happened?" Mabel echoes, her voice rich with both curiosity and concern.
     "Come and see for yourselves." I beckon them to the kitchen. They look at each other, then agree and follow me.
     When we get to the kitchen and stand before the strange group that is my family, Dipper pauses for a moment, contemplating what's happening, while Mabel gasps and seems to get it at once.
     Dipper, however, understands as soon as Will turns to look at him. Dipper curses in realization, and Mabel elbows him.
     "This is Mabel Pines, and her brother, Dipper Pines," I introduce them to my siblings. "They are very good friends of mine. They live here during the summer."
     Dipper and Mabel's eyes go wide with wonder. "Teach me how to talk to them!" Mabel exclaims while her brother furiously writes the English spellings of my every foreign word.
     "Teach it to you?" I ask, amused. "It's a dead language, gone for thousands and millions of years! It would be useless to take all the time to teach you without a use in the universe for it anymore."
     "Are they real?" Dipper asks, as he's suddenly inspecting my sister, poking her cheek with the end of his pen. "How did this happen?"
     "Don't touch me!" she shrieks, hitting the pen away.
Dipper picks it up and starts writing again. "Quick reflexes, feisty..." he mumbles.
"I don't know if they're just figments of my imagination or not. They could be real, but I just don't know what this pulse truly is yet," I admit, watching my siblings' confusion with the language barrier. I see Phil finally eating his food out of the corner of my eye after I look away.
     If I don't find a way to put a stop to these weirdness factors soon, who knows the level of dangerous these pulses could become?