Chapter Text
The trees towered over Dipper, strange giants from another world. It felt like things this size shouldn’t be able to grow on earth, they must’ve come from somewhere else.
His parents were right, this place was nothing like piedmont.
They had said it like it was a bad thing, like Dipper and his sister Mabel wouldn’t be able to handle the strange and foreign state of Oregon. However Dipper had grown tired of the suburbs and was ready for life to finally whisk him away into an adventure. A part of him thought that his parents could sense his restlessness and signed him up for summer camp as a remedy.
Though he suspected the real reason they shipped them off for 8 weeks was because they were fed up with Mabel's glitter and sugar soaked antics.
Mabel disagreed. She told him that no one could ever get sick of her charm, and that the real reason they were kicked out was because Dipper refused to shower and wash his clothes as often as “regular” people did. Dipper didn’t trust regular people anyway.
Regardless of the reasoning behind their arrival to summer camp it was too late to turn back now. The twins were stuck here for the rest of the summer, and they only had each other to rely on.
That was until Dipper looked down and realized his sister had already run ahead of him. “And so it begins…” he muttered to himself.
He walked up behind Mabel, waiting for her to finish talking to her first victim, a girl slightly older than them with dyed green hair growing out of her red roots. Mabel didn’t seem to mind the discomfort plastered on the girl's face as she slowly backed away, but Dipper took it as his cue to grab her shoulder and lead her away.
“Let’s try and find a place to put our bags before we make friends Mabel.”
She continued talking as he walked her away, shouting that they’ll exchange hair stylists numbers later. The only thing the green haired girl could do was cough out a few cautiously affirming noises.
“Do you think I could pull off green hair Dipper?” Mabel asked, unphased by the rescue mission he just performed. “I could make it match my braces, wouldn’t that be adorable!”
Her brother contemplated her hair for a moment, weighing whether to encourage this new look. It was very tame compared to the others she had proposed in the past, but Dipper could never gauge how far she might take it. His imagination ran wild with possible worst case scenarios.
But before he could answer, someone new stepped in.
“Are you Mabel by any chance?” The stranger's red hair waved picturesquely in the wind as she spoke.
“Youuuuuuu betcha!” Mabel grabbed the older girl's hand and started shaking it vigorously. The girl stood firm, feet planted sturdily on the ground, happy to let Mabel's energy attack. As Mabel continued she looked down to Dipper.
“That means your Dipper right? Aren’t you guys twins?”
Mabel unlatched from her hand to pull Dipper into an embrace, responding before he got the chance.
“Oh yeah that’s him alright. He brings the stammer and I bring the glamor! And together are…” she paused to breathe in, holding a little longer for dramatic effect. “THE MYSTERY TWIIIIIIIIIIINS!!!”
Her sharp voice radiated across the gravel driveway, and Dipper swore he felt a small gust of air through his hair as she announced the title he had told her never to use again. After a moment the girl responded.
“Woah dude, that was awesome.”
“Thank you, I was practicing it on the way up here on the bus.” Mabel gleamed. Dipper had a few hours of memories he was trying to block that confirmed Mabel wasn’t lying.
“Well I’m Wendy, I’m your counselor this year… Well I’m Mabel's counselor.” She began to escort them towards the lawn behind the main lodge. “Dipper, I think your counselor is Soos, though I don’t know where he is right now.”
They walked past the main lodge, a large wooden structure built from massive tree trunks. A large porch encircled it, gaining elevation as the grass dropped into a spacious lawn. In the distance, past the grass and through the tree line you could make out some of the cabins the campers would call home for the next 2 months.
The scale of the grounds here started sinking in for Dipper, he was getting eager to become lost out here, ready for whatever mysteries lived here to make themselves known.
Wendy led them to some kids on the lawn in the middle of a get to know you game. Dipper shuttered at the sight. Memorizing rhyming schemes to pair with people's names for an hour was not an appropriate use of his brain.
He also sucked at remembering names but that had nothing to do with it.
The introductory games went relatively smoothly. Dipper appreciated every new person who joined because it made his role smaller, and Mabel appreciated every new person because they were fresh meat for a potential crush.
In the end he only remembered 3 people: Boscha, because she got an angry gasp from someone whose name was similar. Gideon, who had so much gel in his hair that every so often the sun reflected off of it straight into Dipper's eye. And Sprig, because he thought it would be the last time he ever met someone named after a plant's anatomy. It would not be the last time, far from it in fact.
Once all of the campers had arrived the camp director ushered them all into the main lodge, a little under 80 kids packed like sardines around a large stone hearth. The director climbed onto the oversized coffee table in the middle of a sea of curious faces, brushing off his suit and coughing from the effort.
“Alright kiddos…” his voice was gruff, strained from a long history of smoking. “Welcome to Camp Falls. I’m Stan Pines, I'm the camp director here which basically means it’s my job to make sure you have fun… and fix all the messes you little scamps make.”
A few of the adults in the room laughed but he clearly said that with exhaustion.
“All of us adults, as well as the camp counselors that are assigned to each cabin, are here to make life here easy and enjoyable. So if you have a problem or need help in any way… tell your counselor first because I’ve probably already heard the same complaint 5 times by then.”
There were a few distant chuckles from the crowd, accompanied by a much hardier laugh by a large man with buck teeth. The campers shifted around in their positions as they prepared for a lengthy and awkward induction speech.
Stan sheepishly scratched the back of his head before he continued.
“Now I want to get ahead of this before we dive into the details. Some of you guys have probably heard rumors and stories about this camp or Gravity Falls in general.” Suddenly the group's breath began to stifle. Despite their close proximity the heat from the room seemed to get sucked away. Dipper's head shot up, his eyes locked on the old man slouching from the utter weight of his life.
“... you might’ve heard about skinwalkers or ghosts or the Belos… well obviously these are all just folktales, there aren’t monsters or ghosts or whatever bull… uh, crap that people like to talk about.” His voice was authoritative, but Dipper noticed how he refused to look anyone in the eye while he talked.
“...That being said, you still should absolutely not wander into the woods by yourself. There are plenty of real things from this earth that would be happy to make you their next meal so adult supervision is absolutely a must.”
Stan's voice slowly muffled its way out of Dipper's mind as his imagination began to rev up again. The director's pleas to use the buddy system and always keep an adult within eyeshot fell on deaf ears that were now ringing with the possibilities of a summer worth exploring.
Not even an hour after the welcome speech ended, Dipper found himself wandering the forest, sitting with the unease it provided. He reveled in the unique feeling you can only get by exploring a domain that you don’t belong in. His suburban mind was giddy with intrigue.
Although he loved learning about the supernatural, and hunting for mysteries, he could tell that this place was the real deal. He couldn’t get over the feeling that something was watching him, listening to every crunch under his feet and breath from his lungs.
Maybe coming out here alone wasn’t a good idea after all.
The sun's light grew dimmer as it fell closer to the horizon, each minute growing exponentially darker. A few feet ahead of Dipper some stray rays of light fell onto a small clearing, a mound of ivy in the middle. Dipper walked closer to see wooden beams at the base of the mound, for a second he thought it was an abandoned garden box.
Once he walked on top of it however, he realized it must’ve been the base of a small shack, decaying from years of neglect. In fact the only thing here from this century was the rotting deer carcass stretched across the ivy.
Dipper jumped back when he saw it, everything inside of him trying to pull him back to his cabin like a magnet. It didn’t look like any deer he had seen, the antlers here oddly shaped and the entire thing was coated in a green film.
He would’ve run away at that moment if he didn’t catch a glimpse of something else buried in the brush. Something golden glittering beneath the shrubbery. Dipper only caught a glimpse of it before the sunlight slid away.
Ignoring the terror sitting in his stomach, he began tearing through the groundcover, trying to avoid the rotting skeleton as best he could. His nails filled with dirt as he dug until one finally bumped into solid wood, a dull thud echoed below. Whatever it was, it was hollow.
His mud stained fingers found the edges and pulled it from the earth attempting to reclaim it, until the wooden chest in its entirety was sitting in front of him.
This was exactly what Dipper was hoping for.
Preparing for either an army of spiders or an ancient curse to leap out at him, Dipper opened the chest. Inside he found a folded blue coat and a leather bound book.
After blowing off the dust from the book and shaking out the bugs that had made a home there, he carefully opened the first page, praying he wouldn’t rip it before he could read it.
The musty smell of a forgotten life reached Dipper's nose as he opened what he now realized was a diary. The first page had only four words on it, ornately written on the moist parchment.
‘Property of Philip Wittebane’
He didn’t recognize the name which only made his curiosity grow stronger. He flipped the next page over and read through the mold and stains.
“It is truly humbling and vexing to know that it has been less than a year since we settled here, even though it feels like a lifetime. The winter here in these ghastly woods challenged us all, and for a moment it seemed like God himself intended to wipe us from the earth. Yet I know God requires my continued strength, for he showed me the secrets to survival. If I had not been lucky enough to find the prayer hidden beneath those stones we surely would have perished. Though as I write this I know that discovery and the union that came of it were preordained."
Unease crawled into Dipper's bones as he read. His worst fears and greatest desires grow closer with each word.
“The hidden world within this forest is so horrid, and so fantastic, few minds could have dreamt it. If only those in town could see what I have, beyond their blind reaping of the fruits I have given them. Alas they refuse to see the truth, not that they could comprehend it anyway. Perhaps they shall, if only I am able to fulfill my divine destiny, and harness this land's strange powers in the Lord's name. Until that day however, I must tread lightly and limit this knowledge only to the worthy.”
The next few pages were unreadable due to damage, so Dipper began to skim the pages. The contents of this diary were diverse to say the least. Pages contained journal entries, sketches of fantastical creatures, recipes, and logs tracking variables Dipper could only imagine.
He couldn’t believe it. They must all be true. Every urban legend and folk tale about Gravity Falls had been recorded in this book. Dipper finally had proof that life was so much larger than he or anyone else thought it was.
Larger than its disappointments, and larger than the suburbs of piedmont.
Dipper's jubilation lasted for a few seconds before the revelation's double edged sword revealed itself. Something was moving in the distance, he heard the sound of wood crushing under a large weight. It was getting closer.
Dipper looked up, his eyes furrowed in fear and his fingers held tight to the book. He hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten until now, people were probably looking for him by now. As was the monster on the other side of the thick shadows.
He slowly stood up, book in hand, monitoring the darkness across from him. He refused to take his eyes away from the direction of the noise, that was until the horror of the silence became even worse.
Then he saw the claw sift through the shadows, hitting the ground with a thud.
After a moment of hesitation, he began to run.
What direction he was headed he had no idea, all he could do was retreat to wherever his brain thought safety lay waiting for him. Whether or not something was chasing him became a moot point, the forest was suffocating enough as it was. He couldn’t wait to see that lawn again, a small piece of humanity in a sea of dread.
Dipper tried to remember all the stories and rumors he had heard about Gravity Falls, desperately trying to piece together what he just saw. But he could only remember one rumor as he ran. That kids go missing at camp every year.
He had no doubt these tall tales were true now, he could feel their truth. Watching him. Waiting to make him another story.
Maybe this journal was his defense, a voice from the past that could guide his survival. Who better to help him than someone had lived through Dipper's future already, who already knew how to survive it.
At least he hoped that Philip survived it.
Dipper finally arrived at the open field, a breath of fresh air filling his lungs as he passed the tree line. He looked over to the cabins, their orange lights glowed like a constellation in between the trees, a map back to a bed where he would be safe.
He hoped.
Before coming to Camp Falls Dipper had dreamed that it might be an adventure, a break from monotony that might excite his chronically uninterested mind.
He had no idea how real that dream was going to become.