Gravity Rises (S3)

TTF: Part One

SUMMER 1978

At first, Fiddleford thought that Bill Cipher must be a figment of his imagination.

The yellow triangle appeared in his dreams. Fiddleford thought nothing of it, but when a yellow triangle — occasionally with a top hat and a bowtie, of all things — kept showing up in his dream journal, he started to take notice. Fidds faithfully chronicled all his dreams, as he had since his childhood, and he wondered why his subconscious mind would be fixated on such a symbol.

He didn't tell Ford about it. After all, why should he waste precious time expounding his dreams to the debonair Stanford Pines, busy as he was? They had creatures to find, theories to develop!

. . . Ford would probably laugh at Fidds for keeping a dream journal, too.

For days — possibly weeks; Fidds could not remember all his dreams in perfect detail — the triangle appeared, sometimes as nothing but a fuzzy shape, other times in full clarity. The dreams were about all sorts of things: interactions with Ford in the forest, interactions with pesky locals in the town of Gravity Rises, interactions with Lilith back in Tennessee. But it didn't matter what the dream was about — the triangle was consistently there.

Then an eye appeared, right in the center of the triangle.

Fidds puzzled over this image in his mind's eye for some time. It looked familiar. . . and a bit disturbing. . . but where had he seen it before? Ford probably knew, but he didn't dare ask him; he was afraid of getting further questions. Instead, he spent a day in the library, and eventually came up with the Eye of Providence, which he recognized from the back of the dollar bill — the symbol of the Illuminati, apparently, and frequently tied to conspiracies. Why would he pull that image into his dreams, though?

Eventually, he decided it must be an abstract representation of his interactions with such things. After all, he was coming up against conspiracies every other week. Like the locals' staunch refusal to believe in the supernatural, even though it was right at their doorstep.

But then. . . then the dream triangle spoke.

That evening, Fidds crawled into bed after a long day of researching — and consequently evading — the naiads. One could only take so much of Ford's insistence on getting close to the water, only to nearly get drowned by the playful-but-deadly creatures. Fidds could hardly focus on what they were learning about the naiads when he spent so much time fretting over Ford's safety.

He'd spent some time meditating before bed, using the methods Lilith taught him and trying to calm himself down, but it didn't last long. He just needed sleep. So, finally, he gave up and got into bed.

Needless to say, he fell asleep quickly. And hours later, he had a dream that would permanently alter the course of his life.

He was back in college, getting bullied by some faceless jock. Ford — his usual protector in these situations — was nowhere to be found. But Lilith was there. She swooped in and shoved the jock away from Fidds, yelling something nonsensical. Fidds tried to ask her what she was doing at his college, why she left her lair, but the soothsayer didn't answer. Instead, she turned to him, regarding him with hooded eyes. The bracelets on her wrists jangled as she raised her arms and intoned, "Prepare, for he comes."

Then she disappeared in a burst of blue smoke.

Fidds stood alone in the hall. The bully had long since disappeared, and Fidds gave him no thought as he wondered about what had just happened. He had much more pressing things to worry about. What was Lilith doing here, and why had she disappeared? What had her mysterious message meant? Who was 'he'? Stanford, perhaps?