Chapter Text
A girl could be seen with a small book tucked neatly away under her arm, typing away on her cell phone in clear search for something. Her long raven hair was pulled into a neat ponytail as her honey colored eyes shifting viciously as they followed the words on the screen. She was bundled up in a fluffy white winter coat with faux fur around the brim of the hood, thick dark blue jeans and pink winter boots. Her mouth slowly formed soundless words as she read over the text, gears turning as her thoughts ran with every new letter she passed.
“Black light? Or heat? I don’t think a book this old would do very well in heat, though,” questioned the girl as she continued scrolling.
No, no, no, no. I should start my story somewhere in the half-assed middle. I won’t bore you of all the tiny details, but I will give you an explanation on my home’s history.
Our village is but a tiny one secluded from most of civilization in Egypt. It’s hard to say where our lives reside in reference to my home country, but we have always kept our ways separate from the rest of the lands.
The story of our people starts as thus:
“Long ago, when the people of our land first ventured from the main part of the country, we were visited by a being greater than the deities of our country.
He visited the leader of our village during the first few nights of relocation, just a small patch of land outside one of the greater towns. He gave him a promise; one of lush land and great crops. He said our people, though a small group, would outlast many of the bigger cultures who claim to be ever growing.
There was one small price to pay for this rich promise of a lasting culture--they had to worship him like a God. They must devote their life solely towards him and forget the deities from their former religion.
He said to make jewelry and pottery with his image; statues and fabrics, too. His form should be in every household within the village. There should be shrines in his honor in all homes as well.
Our leader agreed. An arrangement was made as the promise was sealed with flames that did not burn. It was then that the leader led our group to a small cave. It had a lake within it that was enough water to support the village for years to come.
On the opposite side of the massive lake rested a large clearing, yet it was shielded by massive trees. It was as though in the middle of the heated desert; our people were chosen to go to paradise. The land was rich with soil to farm in and plentiful of animals to harvest from.
Every year just at sunset on the longest day of the year; our people would hold a festival for our god. Stories would be told of his generosity and reminders of how he could take it all away from us at any given moment. We were reminded to always carry a small coin with his symbol on it wherever we went.
For generations we thrived and prospered, having new leaders come and go as each grew close to our god to pass on his message. To this day we still serve under him, despite no one in the country knowing his name.”
I know, kind of long. Who was this almighty god? The one who my ancestors spoke so highly of? He has a name, and I’m not sure you’re going to like it.
B I L L C I P H E R
It burns me up to even write his name down (at least I’m not scribbling in someone else’s journals!) in this book. It was in the journals that I was able to find what he was called. My people still exist, but he is not a god and these journals prove that. He is the devil and an evil creature bent on destroying the universe.
You already know all of that, though, don’t you?
Let me get back on track to my story.
My family has been prosperous since the days of old; bringing livestock with us to our new home and gaining a good portion of land throughout the years. Despite our status, most of us were still humble. That’s because we still believed in the true deities of our land, not a self proclaimed triangle… or “dorito” as he resembles the popular chip in America. We had to keep our ways under wraps as to not be banished with nothing to our name; for we no longer held money, we held Bill coins. This currency is useless in every corner of the globe.
A prophet of old once relayed a message to our people:
“A TIME WILL COME WHEN I AM NOT ON TRACK
DO NOT WORRY MY FOLLOWERS I WILL BE BACK”
This is where the closest point in my history begins to what you will be witnessing.
Our family has always sought after knowledge far from our fingertips and outside the grasps of village. It was on this particular day that I decided to leave the safety of our village and wander the desert. We were pretty far out from any other town, at least it would seem, so I never tried to venture far. I mostly enjoyed walking along the heat and shuffling through the sands. I’ve found a surprising amount of lost artifacts hidden by thin layers of sands, some much much further down.
My favorite discoveries are the change I find that travelers leave about half an hour away from our village. I think I have at least ten dollars in American money by this point.
I grew near one of my favorite places to be; a large rock formation that I was able to sit on top of as I watched the lights from towns in the distance flicker. The skies were so clear here that I could see the stars at night and the flying machines that brought people to and from our land. How did they work? I’ve always dreamt of flying on one and travelling alongside the clouds.
I would sit up here for hours, shoes off with some clothes that I found left behind by travelers. It was a white tank top and a pair of jean shorts, as I would later realize they were called. The winds softly blew past me, whipping my hair around as the heat from the sun would gently tinge my skin. Some of my favorite moments were sitting at this exact spot. I loved it.
The sun was in the middle of the sky as I looked off and saw a figure doing something not too far from the rock formation. Maybe it was a mirage? Had I been in the sun too long? I wiped my eyes and looked again. Nope; they was there alright. They were putting rocks down on the ground. He almost looked as if he were in a trance.
“Hey!” I shouted, crawling to one side of the rock, “what are you doing?”
I had never met anyone who wasn’t apart of our village, so I was excited to get to know this foreigner. Someone with knowledge; with stories to tell of his own people! What if he knew more of the other lands? What if he knew about the people who flew high in the skies just to reach this one? I edged closer, wondering if the figure couldn’t hear me. I kept trying to shout at them, but they didn’t even lift their head to see who was shouting. What was up?
It was soon after this that I found myself flipping from the rock, unable to grasp anything as my body plummeted to the ground. What was going to happen to me? How badly would I be hurt? It felt like time was slowed down, yet it was all a blur at the same time. My thoughts raced faster than my body, which was falling at quick speed. All the noise stopped as a terrible burning sensation crept along my back. My piercing screams were all but muffled to myself as I laid there, unable to move from the burning rocks that I had landed upon. Once my screaming had subsided, I managed to peel myself from the rocks to curl up on my side; tears in my eyes as blisters formed along my back.
When the sun finally began to settle in the sky was when I gathered up enough strength to walk home. My papa ran out to me as soon as he saw me, hugging myself with tears in my eyes.
“What is wrong, Kiya?” he would concerningly ask.
“My back, papa,” I managed to choke out to him. I stood still so he could get a look at my back when I heard him gasp.
“Kiya, my dear, we need to get into the house.” but it was too late.
Papa wanted to protect me from the maniacal worshipers of the glowing yellow demon, but by the time he had muttered my name others had already seen it. I would learn that on my back, blistered into my skin, had formed a triangle with an eye at its center. This was taken as a sign that our ‘God’ chose me to seek out his whereabouts since his disappearance of our lands.
Our leader tore me from my crying parents as I screamed, locking me away and having five men hold me down. I didn’t know why he needed so many people to keep me still, until I felt the hot knife against my skin. I will spare you the details, but it’s called scarification. I suppose I am bias about it as I had no say in mine; the devil who caused me such misery is now forever on my back in a pale outline, watching me.
My “people” even kept the leftover skin to make a shrine in honor of his return for the first time in eight years. It makes me disgusted to think that they want my loyalty yet would throw me under the bus like this by stripping my life away, mutilating my body, and forcing me on a quest I did not ask for.
The elders of our village rushed off towards the sacred building where leaders and prophets spoke to the demon. In their hands was a box full of various kinds of money. It was mostly foreign to our culture, with a few Bill coins. They sent me off and made arrangements through ‘secret’ sources to have me flown to the state of Oregon in the United States of America. I landed in Portland International Airport after several hours.
I won’t bore you about my trip on the airplane, but it was amazing. My world is so much smaller than it seems and I can only hope to travel a small portion of the rest. They weren’t bright enough to get me onto my path towards Gravity Falls, so I had to squirm around Portland for a few nights before I managed to do anything. The people were so nice, though. I had so many questions and could barely speak their language, and yet they let me sleep in their homes as if I was a dear friend. I hope to repay them for their kindness one day.
I eventually was sent to a place to trade my currency for dollars. Also, I might add that our language differs just slightly from what is currently spoken in Egypt; so when I was greeted and given the opportunity for an interpreter, he did not always understand me.
My text is the thick black one, the others are in blue, but imagine it in another language after ‘Egypt’.
“Yes, please.”
“What country are you from?”
“Egypt.”
Another man came up.
“Will you be exchanging Egyptian pounds for dollars?”
“I’m not sure what an ‘Egyptian pound’ is…?”
The man sighed, rubbing his forehead.
“Please show me the money you have with you.”
I proceeded to pull up the box, letting him sift through it to see the different currency. I could hear a soft ‘hm’ before he looked up something on his phone, giving a slight gasp.
“If you could please follow me, I’d like to have someone look at these.”
“Is my money no good here? I am terribly sorry, I can leave.”
“No, I believe it’s worth more than you’re going to expect.”
It was about an hour later when another man came in, someone who reminded me of my culture with a nice suit that smelled like old parchment paper. He had shaky hands and small glasses framing his face. He looked wise; wiser than anyone I had known.
“Where are the coins?”
“My coins? Here.”
I managed to barely return the phrase in English, mimicking his words as I held up my box.
“This is Robert. He is a historian and he wants to give a look over your coins to see if they have true value or not.” the translator said to me.
“Why would they not have value?”
“Coins like this are not been used for quite some time.”
“Hello, I am Robert, may I ask your name?” the new man asked in a more familiar language.
“My name is Kiya. I am sorry to take up so much of your time. My people have-”
“I wanted to tell you that the currency you have brought to us is Ancient.”
“I am sorry!”
“Do not be sorry! I work at a museum and study ancient civilizations. Some of these look like the first physical currency your country began using.”
“Does this mean they have no worth?”
“This means that they have more value than what you might think they do.”
So it was at this point that I thank my ancestors for keeping the currency of our lost culture. They made me “rich” according to the person whom made the exchange. There was something about taxes, but I didn’t care. Supposedly I helped preserve my culture, and gained a great tool in doing anything outside of my village. I eventually got a cellphone and started learning. What? Everything and anything. I started with language. I worked everyday for extensive hours to learn English and read it. Once I felt comfortable with that, I started learning about the world around me.
The world was so huge in comparison to everything I knew about life. No one was even aware of our village, but I’m sure that the demon wanted it that way. I am almost positive that if anyone else had come to this country, they would have cried and begged to go home. The world has grown so advanced and we have stayed lost in the past. I guess that is the only way an entire civilization can devote itself to an unworthy god. I originally landed in Oregon in the summer, but ended up leaving Portland around the winter time.
When I arrived in Gravity Falls, the snow had yet to fall. I was lucky, as my attire had consisted of shorts almost my entire time of being in the ‘states’ as the locals usually refer it as. I eventually bought myself a suitcase and some new clothes. To be completely honest, I’m sure you’re asking; “Why did she even bother to go to Gravity Falls if she didn’t want anything to do with Bill?”
I may have disdain for him, but I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to look him in his eye and spit in it while cursing his existence. Perhaps I would gain news that this damned creature had been destroyed and I was free of his tyranny.
I wandered aimlessly for a while as I thought of what I would need to do while here when I found the journals. They were next to a giant hole in the ground, untouched as if left there. I eventually realized that the pit had spit them back up and no one bothered to come look at them again.
Just before the beginning of what’s currently written is where I met Fiddleford. He’s an older gentleman with a long beard and an oddly shaped hat. He was struggling to stand up straight, as if something were wrong with his back? I am unsure. He had wandered out to the pit to throw away some plans he planned on scrapping. We talked a bit and I asked him where I could go to stay in Gravity Falls. He offered me to stay at his mansion for my stay, saying it had gotten quite lonely with almost no one there.
I was very lucky to run into Fiddleford, as the snow came heavily that night and the next day I went to explore more.