Chapter Text
The stars shone down on your home the night you were to be reborn. They cast a blue glow on the houses all around, and their pure light crept through the lace curtains into your nursery. The night you were meant to die, the stars kissed your face and told you stories.
Your nursery was cozy - bookshelves lined the walls and the closet was full of baby clothes of all different sizes, hopefully to fit you as you grew. Pink butterflies adorned the walls, and toys were strewn about on the floor. Windows were on almost every wall, and the starlight poured through the white lace curtains.
The serene dark of the room mixed with blue starlight was interrupted when mother opened the door and chased them away with the warm shine from the hall lamp. You didn’t stir when she scooped you out of your bassinet. She planted a kiss on your small brow before carrying you down the stairs into the family room, where your father was waiting.
The future was waiting.
The stars could only watch between the cracks of the blinds as your father took you into his strong arms, marked from years of working in the factory. They saw how your mother wavered in the corner of the room, behind the walls covered in sigils and looking down on the altar they had made in their home.
It was the dining table, draped in a black cloth and lined with tea candles. At the head of the table sat a prism, and in the middle was a red cloth with a yellow eye embroidered in the center. No other lights were on besides those candles that cast sinister shadows throughout the living room. Your mother was shaking. The stars kissed her too, offering some comfort before all was lost. She wanted to go back to the way things were before. Your father didn’t show it, but he felt terrified. All around he could swear he saw thousands of eyes looking down at him from the shadows, unblinking. Watching what he would do.
Your father had placed you on the altar, stripping your swaddle and gently waking you. Cooing at him, your tiny hands reached out to touch him. He held your hands, smiling down at you. You heard him say that you were chosen by God, that you were special, and that you would guide the people to a new heaven. Your mother ran her hands across your fuzzy head, savoring how you smiled at her.
They admired your hands in the starlight. They spoke to you in prophecy, and said your six fingers were proof that you were the one who would lead the way. You would ascend to godhood, and you would be the right hand at the side of the God of Madness. The shadows grew longer and darker.
The shadows whispered that you were born to die.
You looked at your parents with your big, bright eyes and smiled. Your father looked at your mother and nodded. He didn't notice the glint in her eyes. Together, they stood beside you - your mother on the left, and your father on your right. Your father held your mouth open as mother fed you a handful of blood thinners, careful not to choke you. When it was done, Father pulled a plastic bag from under the table and wrapped it around your head, fastening it in a knot at your neck.
They went back to their places at your side, and eventually you went still. The silence laid thickly over the dark living room until your father pulled a kitchen knife from his pocket, and raised it up like he was praying to the blade. All was quiet until he moved, plunging it into his stomach with a guttural scream. Blood spewed, landing on the face of his child and wife and splattering throughout the room.
It went on for what seemed like hours. He refused to die, and his screams were torturous. It was only over when mother ran over to him and slit his throat, releasing a torrent of blood over your tiny body. A puddle of blood formed beneath him, forever leaving a mark of death in what was supposed to be where he raised your family.
Mother was shaking, sobbing as she crawled back over to you and cut the bag off. She was holding you, checking you for life, but your limp body caused her to let out a scream of dismay. She set you down gently, and with unsteady hands brought the dagger to her own neck. The stars wept, and they held you with comfort you would never know.
When the police arrived, they were met with the maimed bodies of two cultists and their only child drenched in their lifeblood on an altar. As paramedics rushed you to urgent care, the police searched the house for clues as to why this double suicide occurred. They were given information that an anonymous tip had been made from a woman about an infant murder happening at the address, and it seemed they had made it just in time to try and save you.
The police found books of code, shrines, and multiple sacrifices that seemed to be made of animals with the functions of their bodies shuffled around. Eyes where the tongue should be, ears where the tail would be, legs where the eyes would be. It was enough to make one of the officers vomit. It was definitive evidence of cult activity. And in every room, some kind of triangle could be found painted on the walls. Sometimes it had no eyes, sometimes it had one, and other times it was surrounded by eyes throughout the entire room. The only question left was where you would go now.
Because there was no one who knew the couple in town, and the only other living relatives were either elders in New Jersey or dead, Child Services decided to contact your only remaining relative. A man living in Oregon, who was known as Stanford Pines, ran his own business and seemed to meet all requirements for childcare.
When he had gotten the call from Child Services, he had thought it was a wrong number. He nearly fainted when he found out that his niece and her husband had not only killed themselves in ritual suicide, but had also attempted to take the life of their 9-day-old daughter.
The first time he held you, he nearly cried. When he saw your six-fingered hands, he did. Stan had never wanted children, but you caused his life to have more meaning than money ever did.
He adopted you, and when you had thankfully made a full and swift recovery, he named you Juno. And even though Stanford hit some bumps in the road along the way, you grew into a healthy, kind teenager who loved him and was happy in your tourist trap together in Gravity Falls, Oregon.
You caused trouble together, played together, and scammed tourists like it was going out of style. You and Stan had once gone to Vegas just to go, and you came back significantly poorer but happy you had gone. You stayed out late to see the stars and slept in until the sun woke you. And life was good.
But you never recovered from that night 16 years ago, when you had been baptized in the blood of your parents. You had nightmares of walking through a half-forgotten nursery, soaked in crimson and a gaping hole in your guts. Thousands of eyes were outside the windows instead of the stars, and they never blinked. When you opened your mouth to scream, it was the bleating of sheep that came out.
Far, far away, in the space between dreams and reality, something laughed every time you awoke in tears.