Chapter Text
I’ve decided to begin a “Journal Four”, not as a study of the anomalies of Gravity Falls, but rather as a personal diary. Maybe this way I’ll stop writing so many personal thoughts within the margins of my research. No one will ever know that this fourth journal exists, and I will carry it on my person at all times.
Third Time’s a Pattern
I’m writing this shortly after my Muse has made his third contact. I guess by now, I can be certain that he isn’t some kind of solitude-induced hallucination.
It didn’t start out as a dream this time. I was just playing chess by myself, trying to force a stalemate, when I must have nodded off. Suddenly, I was floating in space (the Dreamscape, he called it?) and my three-sided inspiration appeared before me, resetting the board.
“Hiya, Sixer! Been a while, hasn’t it?”
I felt myself grinning in his presence. “So you are real.”
“Of course I am! How many more visits will it take to convince you? I’m real, you’re not crazy, and you really are that special, blah blah blah. I can skip the whole spiel by this point, right?”
“I’m simply following the rule of pattern. If it happens once, it’s an anomaly. Twice is a coincidence. Third time makes a pattern.”
“Yeah, yeah. How do we know YOU’RE not the hallucination?”
He had a fair point.
He made the first move on the astral chessboard. I regarded the board carefully before moving a pawn. I remembered our first match had taken forever since I kept pausing to think about his strategy. After winning, I had noticed the matches grew shorter as I moved my pieces with more confidence. I was getting the hang of his style of playing.
“Tell me you at least remember my offer, right?”
I nodded. “Yes, you would assist me in my research and daily life, and all you want in return is my company.”
“And the beta-tester for my enigmatic riddles!”
“Ha ha, yes of course. I could even come up with my own.” We proceeded with the match. It took me this meeting to realize how much I’d been looking forward to seeing him again, how often I’d find myself idly waiting for his advice and predictions.
The match lasted shorter than others, and with my third victory in a row. That’s when it hit me.
“Bill, are you throwing these matches for my sake?”
“Fordsy, do you really think I’d intentionally make myself look dumber than a human just to build his self-esteem?”
When he put it that way, it definitely didn’t seem likely. Still, though… “For a being that claims to be all-knowing, and one who can see into all possible outcomes, I’d expect chess to be as simple as tic-tac-toe to you.”
He rolled his eye. I mean literally, he pulled it out and started bowling it around the board, knocking chesspieces down like bowling pins with it. His slitted pupil focused on me the entire time, and his eyelid stayed shut.
“Looks like I’ve been found out. Fine then! One more match, no holds barred, and I won’t use my All-Seeing Eye Powers. So how’s about you hang onto that one for a bit?”
I stared at the slitted orb on the board. Bill had a very peculiar sense of humor, and I couldn’t tell if this was one of his jokes. His eyelid opened, revealing nothing more than an empty void. I hesitantly picked up the eye on the board, and it began to flatten and grow firm. It became a gold pocketwatch engraved with Bill’s image. Startled, I dropped the beautiful timepiece, and it floated next to me in our personal void.
Curious, I opened it up. At first, it looked like a normal clock, with Roman numeral engravings only at every third hour. Then I realized the clockface flipped open and there was a magnetic compass inside. Instead of having directional letters NESW, the compass rose had WATH. The needle was spinning in lazy circles.. “What is this for?” I asked him.
As he made his first move. “Come now, Sixer. I thought you were a smart guy! Wouldn’t it be more fun to figure that out on your own?”
The gleeful grin that grew across my face seemed to answer his question, and I slipped the compass in my pocket and moved my own piece.
This match was very different from the others. Bill’s moves became unpredictable and erratic, and he constantly left me guessing as to what his gambit could be. Every time I managed to capture a piece, he’d quickly trap one of the others by some unseen strategy. His defense was mostly composed of offensing and taking my pieces. Every time I thought he seemed vulnerable, he’s parry my advances. It ended when I placed him into a solid check, only for his to Rook to blindside my Bishop and lock me into a bitter checkmate.
He adjusted his bowtie victoriously as I sat back in awe.
“I sure hope that didn’t destroy your confidence or anything there. You said no holds barred, so I stopped holding them.” He snapped his fingers and a series of musical bars fell from the sky, splashing to the ground in a cacophony of notes. My muse brushed some nonexistent dust from his top hat and straightened it out on his head. “Speechless, huh? You must be pretty devastated right now.”
I shook my head. “No, that was FUN! It was the most stimulating game of chess I’d ever witnessed, much less lost!”
I turned to him, and he was just staring at me. It’s hard to ever get a grasp on his expression, he doesn’t exactly have facial features to adjust aside from his eye. He seemed to be staring blankly, as if lost in thought.
“Bill?”
He snapped out of it. “Honestly it’s nice to have someone who’s one step behind me instead of a whole dimension! You’re the best opponent out of all the mortals I’ve influenced!”
I pressed a hand to my face. It felt warm from his praise.
“I think it’s about time to wake up, so here’s a prophecy for you:
“93.3 to 91.8
Ended only by forced break.
The man of clay should take some rest
For no longer will he stay a pugilist.”
Ghfhpehu 11, 1981. Rqob wrrn wkluwb
bhduv iru Vwdqohb wr iloo ph lq rq eralqj.
When I awoke, I immediately reached into my pocket. I pulled out a flat, golden disk attached to a golden chain, and knew that it was empirical, indisputable evidence that my Muse, Bill Cipher, was real.