Https://archiveofourown.org/works/65018713/chapters/167174509

a writing competition i was going to participate in again this year has announced that they now allow AI generated content to be submitted

their reasoning being that "we couldn't ban it even if we wanted to, every writer already uses it anyway"

"Every writer"?

come on

One day I wore a pair of brown (textured) sweatpants that are really comfy with a cozy sweater that has a rabbit on it and I took it off to reveal a fnaf security breach sun and moon shirt from hot topic and some person said “you are literally my autism personified” and I think that is the greatest compliment I have ever received

PLEASE DOES SNYONE KNOW THE NAME OF A GRAVITY FALLS FANFIC

IT HAD STAN AND FORD AND STANLEY WAS IN THE MENTAL HOSPITAL AND LIKE REALLY NUMB OR SOMETHING AND WOULD FIGHT THE OTHER PATIENTS AND FORD TOOK STAN HOME IDC IF ITS REALLY OUT OF CHARACTER I LOVED IT AND I CANT REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS CALLED

AUGGH THERES SOMETHING ABOUT THE PARALLELS BETWEEN THE OKDER TWINS AND THE YOUNGER TWINS

Like how the younger twins have parallels between each of the older twins, but are still not them and super different just as much as they are similar!!

Like,

Stanford & Dipper (Dippers birthmark parallels Fords six fingers, they’re both nerdy and were bullied, etc.)

This one’s obvious, along with Stanley & Mabel (being the twin that feels ‘lesser’ or ‘dumber’ than the other, fear of being abandoned, etc.)

But people don’t notice and/or talk about the parallels between Stanley & Dipper and Ford & Mabel!!

Stanley & Dipper (Being weak and kinda wimpy as children, Stan related to him with that, both of them being stubborn and reckless, etc.)

Stanford & Mabel (They both can get way too absorbed in their own things that they forget about other peoples feelings, etc. I love Ford and Mabel so much and this isn’t meant to be mean.)

But then we see that the younger twins are still very much themselves, and not direct copies of the older twins, and I love that so much!!

You are back

No pronouns, no y/n, no dialogue (only monologues), reader is a baker, reader is sometimes an asshole, reader is an outside observer, platonic love/hate, hints of mental illnesses, hints of FiddleMay (I guess), nightmares.

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You're back. Back after almost thirty years to a once beloved town that has become completely unfamiliar. No one knows you. No one needs you. No one remembers you.

But you remember everything. And you remember the one who once ruined your life. And you want to end it.

Part 1

Someone once said that fate is a funny thing. You could say for sure that this person was completely biased in his assessment of Fatum's mental state. Fate is a sick, completely crazy thing. Otherwise, how can you explain that you were now riding in a completely empty bus, except for the driver, along a deserted road among the pine trees, to a town whose name you had not heard, not seen, not remembered for almost thirty years?

Of course, someone will say that you are already an adult, you made the decision to come back here yourself, and you yourself must accept the consequences. However, you didn't want to. You couldn’t admit that you WANTED to come back. Every time the voice in your head began to whisper this to you, you felt disgust. You rejected it. It couldn't be true. Your intestines twisted, tied themselves into a metaphorical knot, and your heart crawled into your throat, preventing you from breathing normally.

It wasn't your decision. No.

The bus pulled up to a stop in the middle of nowhere, and you tried to put on your favorite jacket. The nervous trembling was clearly bothering you, your hands just wouldn't fit into the sleeves, after a few minutes of pointless struggle that only made you angry, you gave up and simply tied the jacket around your waist. You ran your palm over your cold, sweaty face.

Disgusting.

When you finally tumbled out of the bus, the pungent resinous smell took hold of you. The smell of pine needles made your head spin, and for a moment you forgot where you were. The deep sounds of the forest, the quiet creaking of the trees, the rustle of needles rubbing against each other and the rustle of the wind lost high in the treetops lulled and calmed you. As if they were trying to tell you that everything would be fine.

The idyll was broken by a bus driving away with a loud exhaust, and the mood immediately fell to the same place from which nature had so diligently pulled it out. You sullenly watched as the "Speedy Beaver" ran away from you. Too many emotions and thoughts in your head, and unfortunately, you could only express them all with swear words, so you decided to remain silent.

The road to the town ran through the forest. The smell of resin, pine needles, damp earth, moss, grass and mushrooms enveloped you again, and the swarm of thoughts in your head stopped buzzing. Your heart reluctantly slid from your throat to its place, continuing to nervously knock against your ribs, but not as hard as before. You watched your breathing: deep inhale, long exhale, deep inhale, long exhale...

Everything will be fine, really... You have not been in the city for almost thirty years. You ran away from here as a teenager, and now you are a fully formed adult. You have changed. Gravity Falls has changed. No one will recognize you...

Because no one remembers you.

You stopped and pinched your cheek. The pain dulled the small feeling of fear that had rushed through your body. How many years have passed, it's time for you to stop thinking about it! Your heart decided to remind you of itself again with a nervous beat. Okay, that's it, that's it, calm down, breathe...

You glanced around, trying to distract yourself. A stump, a pine tree, a mossy hummock, a pine tree, a root, a pine tree, a sign with a question mark, a pine tree... Stop. You frowned, staring at the sign nailed askew to the tree right under the glowing mushrooms. Just a question mark. Strange. You didn't remember that.

Although, so many years have passed... a lot could have changed. You have changed, haven't you? The town has probably changed too. And the forest. It happens.

You noticed a lazy pink fairy dozing on a glowing mushroom cap, right above the question mark. Against your will, your lips curved into a smile, and your heart skipped a happy beat for the first time all day.

A lot has changed, yes. But apparently not everything.

***

As a child, you can always find something to do. It is known that many children are fond of, for example, catching butterflies, beetles, frogs... You caught beard cubs, plaidypus, gnomes, who periodically ran into your house, trying to steal your mother's homemade sweets. You were a curious and active child, you gathered a company of the same kids around you.

You had an unspoken agreement with the gnomes. They did not bother your company in the forest, and you did not always chase them with a broom when you saw that they were stealing sweets. Of course, if the gnomes caught the eye of your beloved mother, they could not escape punishment.

Now you think that all this was stupidly strange. Now you understand your mother very well, whom in childhood you considered too timid and even stupid. Stupid adults, huh? What a stupid child you were...

You tried to prove to your mother that all these funny creatures from the forest are absolutely normal, safe and real. You tried to catch the plaidypus - it seemed especially cute and harmless to you, and it also came to you very easily, smelling bread. However, the little animal was nimble and really didn't want you to touch it. With the help of your friends, you managed to catch it, and brought the plaidypus wrapped in a blanket to your mother. She looked shocked, and then forced you to let it go, and even scolded you for allegedly painting it.

You were offended then.

Another funny, as it seemed then, incident happened when you returned from the forest with a beard. You thought that your mother would be surprised and laugh, but for some reason she was upset.

Again, now you understood her completely.

Everything seemed strange to you then. In Gravity Falls, people often encountered what books called "magical" or "anomalous". Why then did many adults like to deny it so much? After all, such encounters were always amazing and fun! Every little encounter was a little adventure!

Why were adults so much more interested in an ordinary person who came to town? He was just a person. There were many like him.

However, you soon became interested in him yourself. Firstly, he settled in the forest, which was strange and mysterious. You and your friends often ran up to his shack, looked into the windows and looked at the strange antennas with interest. This man was clearly up to something, you really wanted to know what.

Secondly, and this was most important, - one day you saw him carrying... a gnome! He was not afraid of the gnome, did not ignore him, did not drive him away, he smiled at him! Then you thought, maybe this adult would be happy if you brought him something interesting?

So you decided to bring him a fairy. Fairies appeared in the city from time to time, but it was difficult to catch them – small, fast, flying. Just like mosquitoes, only they glitter and don’t squeak. And fairies were fragile – you saw them being accidentally killed with fly swatters several times. Catching a live fairy was difficult, and you took this little mission of yours very seriously. The hunt took several weeks, several times you caught fireflies, butterflies, flowers… You spent the rest of the summer like that, and finally you had a fairy sitting in a jar! Small, lilac, feisty – she was beating her fists on the glass and screaming something. You admired the beautiful tiny creature and proudly carried the jar to the mysterious adult in the forest. You felt so happy, so light, and at the same time something tickled your soul – you had a premonition of a future shared secret with someone who was also interested in all these amazing creatures.

Remembering it now, you wince. You were a very naive child. It’s good that you changed your mind then…

Almost at the shack, you noticed that the fairy had calmed down. You looked at her: she was sitting miserably at the bottom of the jar, hugging her knees with her tiny hands, her wings had grown dull and hung limply. She was crying and seemed so fragile, so lost… You looked at the shack, and then back at the fairy. And you opened the jar.

Then school started, you didn’t have time to catch other forest creatures. Maybe it’s for the best that the meeting with that mysterious weirdo didn’t take place? Who knows.

But you couldn’t leave that fairy in the jar.

***

The old house, surprisingly, turned out to be in good condition, only a thick layer of dust reminded that it had been abandoned for a long time. The silence here seemed sad to the point of pain in the chest. Once this house was your world, your quiet and safe place, it smelled of comfort and warmth, delicious home-cooked food and mom. That very familiar smell that gives you peace.

Now the house smelled of cold, dust, dirt, peeling plaster, old paper and even mold. There was no comfort, and this place had stopped seeming safe long ago.

You threw your things downstairs, not caring much about them. Walking through the silent house, you every now and then caught fragments of memories, carefully scattered by time. Mom loved to cook in the kitchen, and you loved to help her (although more to interfere). It was on this windowsill that you first saw a gnome. In this living room you loved to spend time with friends when the weather was too nasty. Here is the couch you loved to jump on, even though your mother didn't allow it. Here are the stairs, creaky, just like in the past. As a child, you often slid along these railings... The second floor hasn't changed either. You can still see the faded drawing on the door to your mother's room. And here...

You froze, fear crawling up your back, clinging to it with icy claws. Your heart froze in fear, afraid to move, and then began to pound furiously against your ribs. You clenched your teeth and tried to bring yourself back to normal.

Well, so what if the door to your room is ajar. Why does that scare you? No, no, it doesn't scare you, it just makes you nervous. You never know. The house is old, maybe something happened to the doorway...

You somehow lifted your feet off the floor, headed towards your former room and pushed the door sharply and... laughed nervously. You hadn't noticed how tense you had been all this time, but now your body had relaxed, it seemed like you were about to slide down to the floor because your legs wouldn't hold you up.

There was nothing scary in the room. Just unpleasant old memories and dust hanging in the air like a thick wall. There was the bed - it used to stand right by the window, but then you quickly pushed it into the corner. True, you hadn't slept on it for the last couple of years in Gravity Falls anyway. There was the closet - for a while you hid there from your nightmares, but you quickly realized that it was an unreliable place. The table, the chair with the crooked leg, the small nightstand, everything was still in its place. It seemed that after you ran away, your mother hadn't come here. Well, that's good.

Having decided that you could wander in your memories for an eternity, you gave up on it and spent the rest of the evening trying to tidy up the first floor. In the end, you even thought that maybe you could stop there, but your stubbornness kicked in. No, you would clean the entire house and rid it of the taint of memories!

You stumbled out into the street late at night, cursing the dust, cobwebs, and spiders. You felt exhausted, but you had no energy left for long, sad thoughts. All you wanted was to eat. And you clearly remembered one place where you could always get delicious food. On your way to Greasy's Diner, you glanced at the city. You tried to avoid people's eyes, not because it was unpleasant, but because now was not the time, you were tired... there were many excuses.

Gravity Falls... had hardly changed. And you weren't sure how to take it. On the one hand, returning you partly hoped that everything would be like in childhood, on the other hand, now you felt as if you had ended up in the past. As if you were stuck, never having escaped from here. The feeling was strange, and you could not describe it. Sadness? Longing? Disappointment? Everything was so familiar, and your mind understood that in principle, there were few changes, but the soul... the soul still contracted unpleasantly.

Familiar streets with unfamiliar flyers and graffiti. Familiar people with unfamiliar faces. Somehow it feels uneasy. Like you don't fit in. Like you don't belong here.

The latter was confirmed by the surprised looks of those you were lucky enough to run into. How glad you were to get to Greasy's Diner!

Susan Wentworth was still working here as a waitress. It was easy to recognize her, and you even felt a pleasant, homely feeling in your chest. As if at least something in this life was predictable and stable. Although even here there were changes - why is one of her eyes closed? Your memory may not be perfect, but she didn't look like that before... Oh, never mind. But the atmosphere in the diner was still pleasant, and Susan herself - you heard another customer call her Lazy Susan - was still as sweet and good-natured as ever. She even "winked" at you, as far as you could tell. Even if you were just a stranger to her.

The food reminded you of your childhood - nothing had changed, just as delicious. You tried to pretend to be part of the seat and ate calmly, hoping not to attract attention. Nasty thoughts began to break through the veil of fatigue again. It seemed that despite your unwillingness to analyze anything, your brain refused to idle.

In Gravity Falls, people have always been quite friendly and a little strange. The latter is understandable, after all, such creatures live here in the forest... Returning, you were afraid that the town would completely plunge into the darkness of madness. But this didn't happen. People looked like people, and not like crazy dolls. This calmed you down a little.

However, it was also weighing on you. It weighed on your conscience, on your sense of guilt. You ran away, abandoned absolutely everything you had, cut off all ties - even with your dear mother - and now you are sad because your fears did not come true? That everything was fine and you were just being paranoid? You chuckled nervously and rubbed the bridge of your nose. It was disgusting. Really. You were disgusting.

After paying, you practically ran away from the diner. You wanted to hide at home as quickly as possible, away from people, their interested glances and your dark thoughts. Indeed, you came here in vain. If you ran away, then you should have run away forever! Everything was fine in the town. Everything was fine. Everything…

A sudden symbol on the wall in the alley made you flinch, as if from a blow, press your back against some pillar. You hoped that you imagined it. You begged that you only imagined it. But no. No, the sign was there, so clear. You wanted to run, but your body didn't move at all. Ice sweat rolled down your body, you could not even blink, as if you lost sight of the sign for even a second, it would jump on you. Your heart was beating the alarm, it's beating against your ribs so hard that it hurts. There's not enough air, you felt like you're suffocating, like your lungs are tearing from the pain.

You wanted, you desperately wanted to calm down. Get away from here as far as possible. Run away again. You tried to take control of at least your mind, forced yourself to move, but nothing helped. Your brain refused to help you; your heart refused to obey.

Your hands were shaking.

A damn sign...

Your head was spinning.

A damn sign!

There was a huge lump in my throat, it was becoming even more difficult to breathe, and you wanted to rip my insides out.

The damn sign was painted recently! The red paint was so fresh! The crossed-out eye was looking inside you!

***

Children have a wonderful ability to quickly switch from one interesting thing to another. So you forgot about the strange scientist pretty quickly (especially since he almost never showed up in town) and switched to something more interesting. To the fairies who started flying to your home. At first, you didn't notice them. Then it became very difficult not to notice them. And then they started getting under your arms, laughing and periodically stealing all sorts of little things from you: coins, pencils, chewing gum... You were having fun, but your mother, who occasionally found fairies, was not so much.

You were completely focused on the fairies, friends, gnome thieves and your studies. At first, the fairies only played dirty tricks on you, then they began to accompany you around town, then they began to sometimes rest on your head, and then they loved to hide in your pockets. These little ones turned out to be quite cute, frivolous, but with character. Sometimes they were very kind, dragging you around the forest, showing you beautiful places, bringing you berries, and sometimes the fairies led you into clay ravines, from which you had difficulty getting out.

From time to time, you saw that scientist in the forest - he wandered in search of creatures familiar to you from the cradle and constantly wrote something down in some books. Of course, you were interested, but the fairies took all your attention. That lilac one, by the way, made fun of you more than anyone else. You even had a few scars from adventures with her.

Her name was Lullaby. You found out this only a couple of years after you met.

In general, your life was quite calm and colorful. Mom worried about you more and more every year, but you learned to calm her down, or at least better hide the consequences of your adventures. Over the years, there were fewer friends - but the closest ones remained.

It was with them that one year you went to the fair. It was ridiculous, but at least some entertainment in a quiet and sleepy town, right? You can't say that you were very disappointed then...

And it's impossible to say that you didn't regret it later.

You still think that it all started with that damn fair.

Having separated from your friends at some point, you, completely unexpectedly, ran into a scientist. The same one that interested you many years ago. You wouldn't have paid attention to him if there wasn't another person nearby. A new face, you thought then. Quite pleasant, albeit nervous. That person's eyes were big and kind. For you, this was a sign: a safe and friendly person had arrived in town.

How fucking wrong you were then...

You watched the men watching the pig races. Then your friends called you, and thoughts started to form in your head about how wonderful it would be if your good relationship, like those men, continued with you into adulthood. Too bad it never happened.

Aside from learning about the new man, you only noticed one odder thing at the fair (not counting the fortune teller who tried her best to lure you to her place). Ivan Wexler, the guy you, well, knew, was acting suspiciously. When you saw him for the first time, he looked really bad - paler than usual, shaking, with dark circles under his eyes, scared. You wanted to ask him what was wrong, but you were distracted. When you saw him for the second time, Ivan looked much more inspired. As if... he had found a solution to his problem.

You really wanted to know what happened (especially since you seemed to see Ivan talking to that new man), but you weren't close to him. You didn't want to impose yourself.

You did regret later that you didn't ask Ivan then. After all, he practically disappeared for a couple of days. And came back absolutely... calm and happy? And judging by the stories of those who talked to him more than you, he wasn't going to explain what happened. You thought it was strange, suspicious and exciting. Your friends thought you just needed an adventure. The fairies thought it was boring.

What both the fairies and your friends agreed with you on was that the red crossed-out eye signs that started appearing everywhere were not normal. No, at first it seemed like someone had just decided to draw strange graffiti, but the signs appeared more and more often. Some kind of danger emanated from those eyes.

You (who had obviously gone crazy for a while) convinced your friends to investigate this case. What an adventure! They agreed reluctantly, after all, the older they got, the less interested they were in the inexplicable. This upset you, but they were your dear friends! You couldn't be angry with them.

Soon you began to notice something was wrong - some people, mostly of the older generation, suddenly began to... forget all those interesting things they had lived side by side with all this time? Precisely forget, it no longer resembled pretense, as before. Again, your friends did not pay attention to this, but you could not get rid of the disgusting feeling somewhere in your soul.

The fairies were still uninterested. Only Lullaby agreed to help you with the investigation. True, she, you remember, said that she was doing it only to laugh at your futile attempts to find out at least something. But you were grateful.

Thinking about it now, you could only curse yourself. Why did you get into this shit? Why couldn't you live peacefully? Maybe you wouldn't have noticed all those horrors. Maybe you wouldn't have become a victim of a nightmare. Maybe you wouldn't have had to run, abandoning everything dear... But no, you were an idiot. A teenager, a maximalist and an idealist with an awl in his ass, dreaming of adventures.

You didn't even think about what the price of these adventures was...

***

You only managed to fall asleep that day with the help of a massive dose of sleeping pills. Then you spent the whole day in a devastated state.

Okay, you spent the next few days like that. You were ashamed of yourself. An adult, and you were so scared of one fucking sign! Although, who were you kidding. You weren't scared of the sign. You were scared of the understanding that this nightmarish cult still exists.

Well, of course this crap exists! Where would this hellish cult go? And even if they proudly call themselves a "secret society", it's nothing more than a damn sect. A sect that uses people's fears, their guilt, grievances, disappointments, everything they would like to forget, to manipulate and rule the town. Okay, the last one is mostly your speculation, but what else could these cultists need?

With the help of sedatives and your anger, a week later you finally crawled out onto the streets of the town, wanting to gather information (and this had nothing to do with the fact that you had run out of food two days ago). You had to remember your twenties, when you learned not to shy away from people and pull a mask of a normal person over your face. It helped. Maybe inside you were a curled-up whining something, but if you looked only at the outside, everything looked normal.

For several days you wandered around the town, periodically distracted by encounters with people. Your appearance caused a certain stir, so sometimes there were people who were just burning with desire to meet you. You felt a little awkward, but, in fact, each meeting was quite... pleasant. People behaved nicely, albeit a little intrusive, in your opinion.

However, after one of these acquaintances you almost ran back to the house, you felt so bad from the mixture of pain, disappointment and anger that poured into your soul. This was your friend. Well, now a former friend. A person who not only did not recognize you (it's understandable, so many years have passed), but did not even remember you after you introduced yourself.

He was one of your best friends. With him, you tried to unravel the mystery of the mysterious crossed-out eye. And now you are gone from his memory.

Damn. It's time for you to come to terms with reality: You really was a stranger to Gravity Falls. Your history with this place was only in your head.

And maybe on some official documents, yes.

Anyway, after that incident, you tried to focus exclusively on exploring the town. You decided to perceive this place as completely new. As if you had never lived in Gravity Falls.

It was a little easier that way. And a lot more painful.

You spent the next two weeks in Gravity Falls quite successfully: you found a job here (the salary is less than where you lived before, but quite decent); you found out where the strange signs with meaningless questions or just question marks came from in the forest and elsewhere - it turns out that for the last thirty years there has been a very famous tourist trap in the town - the "Mystery Shack", or something like that; you are convinced that the people here have changed. And they have not changed for the better!

No, of course, you may be paranoid, who knows. But the people of Gravity Falls have become strange. That is, much stranger than before. People were now more infantile, they paid less attention to some really important things... And they also did not remember a lot. For example, they really did not remember the creatures inhabiting the local forest. How's this possible? You didn't understand, because the forest didn't disappear anywhere, anomalous things continued to happen, and anomalous creatures continued to periodically visit the city, but for some reason people, not only adults, but also children, perceived them as urban legends, nothing more.

To be honest, this outraged you even a little more than the fact that you were forgotten too. You are an ordinary person, after all. It's not surprising.

But now you could make a disappointing conclusion: "Blind Eye" in Gravity Falls has taken root perfectly.

You hated this very thought. You were afraid of it. But you continued to persistently climb into the same loop from which you escaped with such difficulty in the past.

The next step you were going to take was another infiltration into the headquarters of the secret society. You knew, oh, you knew where it was, and if these damned sectarians did not change the mechanism on the door, then getting in there would be easy as pie.

As a teenager, you experienced a pleasant and wonderful excitement before such an adventure. Now you experienced a headache, nausea, and tried to drown out the panicked beating of your heart with medication.

You were driven there by anger; this was the only thing you understood for sure. Blind rage, boiling in your soul. It was this that drowned out both common sense and panic. You could not even formulate exactly what you were going to do. Burn everything to hell? Not a bad idea. You smiled sadly.

However, your plans were not destined to come true.

At first, you blamed your absent-mindedness. Then you began to panic. Things in your house suddenly started disappearing. You could not find your socks, money, wallet, pills, candy... Then suddenly there was salt in your tea, and sugar in your scrambled eggs. Sometimes you woke up with your face covered in dirt or toothpaste. The laces on your shoes were tied. Pebbles and clumps of moss appeared in your pockets.

You would have continued to think that you were going crazy, if one night you hadn’t managed to catch a fairy circling around your face… The pink prankster dropped a tube of your own toothpaste on you and screamed indignantly, waving her arms.

You held her tightly, but carefully, remembering the fragility of fairies. You didn’t know what to feel. On the one hand, your soul became lighter, because you finally understood who was behind the mess in your house, and in general, you were glad to see fairies again. On the other hand, you felt some kind of light, thoughtful sadness. The sadness that does not crush you with its weight, does not make you fall into the swamp of pain and sorrow, but the one that falls on your shoulders like a light, cool shawl, awakening pleasant, but slightly bitter thoughts.

The fairy took advantage of your thoughtfulness, bit your finger, slipped out to freedom, called you names, stuck her tongue out at you and retreated.

You laughed. It seems that you offended the fairies somehow. But it is so nice that at least they remembered you.

At first, you decided to ignore the capricious fairies and focus entirely on your investigation. But you quickly realized that you couldn’t do that: you didn’t want to be like the rest of the town’s residents. So you spent time looking for various sweet recipes and briefly turning into a pastry chef.

You found a thick old notebook in which your mother wrote down her recipes. To be honest, you sat with it for a couple of hours hugging it, looking at the yellow pages, absorbing every letter, every squiggle. Damn. Heavy thoughts filled your head again. Holding back tears seemed impossible – and, to be honest, you didn’t even try. Mom… You hadn’t seen her since the escape. You hadn’t even called her. And now what? All that was left of her were a few photos and a notebook with recipes. You shook your head. So much lost time…

Baking sweets according to mom’s recipes gave an intangible feeling that mom was nearby. It seemed to you every now and then that she would appear from behind you to smile tenderly and correct some mistake, to help, to guide. But she did not appear, and all you could do was swallow the tears that would not subside.

It seemed that the fairies noticed your condition, so they didn't interfere. And when you were finally able to make candies (crooked, ugly, just right to throw at enemies), the little creatures completely changed their anger to mercy. They happily carried off the sweets, fewer things began to disappear in your house, and you woke up with a clean face. The fairies still did not strive to spend much time with you as before, but at least they did not harm you now.

One fairy was especially angry. The little lilac fairy did not touch the sweets. Even when you made jam, this fairy did not come near you.

One evening, when you allowed yourself, for the first time in your entire time in Gravity Falls, to relax and have a drink in the yard, Lullaby flew closer and threw a ball of moss at your forehead. You offered her some ugly homemade candy, and she didn't refuse. You sat in silence with her. You did not know what Lullaby was thinking about, but you yourself were thinking about how wonderful these creatures are - so many years have passed, and fairies hadn't changed at all.

"How did you recognize me? People change over time."

This question had been spinning in your head since the moment you met that pink fairy who tried to paint your face.

Lullaby's light blinked. It was as if someone had turned a flashlight on and off. She sighed, threw away the ugly candy, flew up to your face and looked closely into your eyes. Then she slapped you on the nose.

You haven't changed, that's what she said. You're still the same, and you look at everything the same. Lullaby smiled weakly. She said she was glad about that.

You laughed. For a while, you felt so light and calm. As if a giant stone had been lifted from your shoulders, as if the vice that was squeezing your head had been released. Even your heart didn't fit in with its nervous beating - it was calm.

"Sorry that I ran away."

You brushed a tear from your cheek. Lullaby snorted and turned up her nose. Of course, it didn't upset her much. Who are you that she should be upset about it? You heard the other fairies peeping at you laugh. Lullaby flared up. She was just disappointed that you didn't even warn her.

"I know. I was an ass. But I was scared."

You are scared now too. You wander around the city like a sad ghost, you shy away from any rustle, you avoid people. Lullaby looked into your eyes. But now you're back, she said.

Your heart treacherously twitched in your chest.

Lullaby nodded. You're back, she said. You're back where you belong.

And the lump in your throat this time wasn't painful, but it was still bitter. You thought you were glad she said that. But you also thought she was very wrong. You were an outsider in this town.

After that evening, your relationship with the fairies more or less improved. They began to be even less mischievous (although you occasionally grabbed your head from their antics), and again brought you some berries and leaves. Lullaby sat on your head more and more often. Sometimes she mixed up the buttons on your clothes, tied the laces of your shoes and unscrewed the lids of the pepper shakers, but otherwise she behaved almost the same as before.

You were afraid to destroy the fragile world, the illusion of a pleasant life. But you were still haunted by the creepy cult. The past was knocking at your door.

You plucked up your courage and approached Lullaby with a question. When she realized that you were asking about the "Blind Eye", she frowned and refused to talk to you. You understood her and did not press her. A few days later, she finally decided to talk, and then you asked her to find one person. The same one you saw many years ago in a maroon cape, holding a scary memory-erasing gun in his hands. The one who became your nightmare.

Lullaby thought for a long time, but in the end she agreed. And demanded sweets from you in exchange for a favor. And a promise that this time you would not run away.

You decided to relax a little until Lullaby returned with news. You concentrated on work, and in your free time you again walked through the forest after fairies. After a couple of their pranks, you had to throw out two pairs of pants - clay ravines were still the favorite prank of little winged mischief-makers.

You were a little worried about your little friend, after all, even you were able to catch Lullaby, and still a child. But you could not just calm down until you sorted out all your past problems. All these nightmares did not let you go.

Lullaby found the right person quickly. It took you much longer to gather your courage. It seemed that this was it, you found the one you wanted, go and finish it. But no, your knees weakened treacherously, it was worth even thinking about it. You found a thousand and one excuses why today of all days you just couldn’t go and sort everything out.

But, in the end, you gathered your courage.

Lullaby was hiding in the pocket of your shirt, showing you the way. It seemed that she could hear the feverish hysteria of your heart. You didn’t know what you were going to do. Each step seemed heavy, as if your feet were getting stuck in clay. Your breathing was too loud and deep, and at the same time there was a catastrophic lack of air. You clenched your jaws so hard that your gums hurt. What did you want to do? This man had ruined your life. Maybe you wanted to kill him?

At that moment - perhaps.

Lullaby led you to the city junkyard. You even managed a small smile – ironic that this was where you planned to throw out all your fears.

You took a deep breath and clenched your fists. Okay, that was it. You were ready, there was no turning back. You would cope, no matter what happened. You stepped forward resolutely…

“…who is it?”

The fairy in your pocket growled. She claimed that it was him. The one you were looking for. The cold-blooded cult leader, the man who tore out people’s memories and hid them. The man who had haunted your nightmares for so many years.

“Who is it?”

A pathetic, skinny old man in rags sat on a pile of scrap metal, rocking and laughing madly.

***

You and your friends hunted for a mysterious sign for quite a long time. Of course, you couldn't watch the streets all the time, you still had to go to school, help your mother, sleep... but you tried. In addition, you watched the adults. The mystery captivated you, you felt so excited and joyful. You remember how your chest was bursting with inspiration. You were solving the mystery!

So, here's what you discovered over time: the signs are left mainly at night, several times you saw a man in a maroon cape drawing a crossed-out eye. You had to sacrifice sleep to see him, but it was worth it!

Another observation: most adults almost immediately forgot about encounters with creatures from the forest and the surrounding area. That is, for example, your neighbor: on Thursday he met that strange bald abomination that once tried to crawl into your house with the gnomes, smelling the candy. Naturally, he did not like this meeting. On Saturday, the neighbor completely forgot about this bald nastiness.

And so it was with all the adults! Unfortunately for you, you were a smart child. You quickly connected the sign in the form of a crossed-out eye with the fact that adults did not want to remember encounters with forest creatures. Something like "I did not see it, therefore it did not happen." The only thing you could not understand was - why? Why would anyone erase the memories of these creatures?

You also began to worry about your mother. After all, she was always nervous when meeting the same gnomes, for example. You really did not want your mother to get involved in this, so you had to go and make a new agreement with the gnomes: from now on they were forbidden to climb into your house, but you had to take them sweets once a week. You also had to talk to the fairies: you asked them not to run into your mother's eyes for some time. Lullaby was very upset about this.

Thinking about it now, you can admit: even then you were scared. But the desire to get involved in adventures pushed you forward. You tried to be brave. You imagined how you would figure out these strange followers of the crossed-out eye, how you would become a hero. But deep down, you were scared. You wanted to pretend that you didn’t know anything and didn’t notice.

You can’t blame only your desire for adventure. What else was there? The desire to prove to everyone that you were something more? Or just teenage stupidity? After so many years, you honestly didn’t even want to deal with it.

At some point, your obsession went beyond all bounds. Even your friends, who had previously supported you, began to fear your unhealthy interest in all this. You were angry. Then it seemed that they simply did not understand how important it was. That they were afraid, that they wanted to just leave you.

Lullaby was also unhappy, but you behaved more gently with her. It's embarrassing to admit, but you had a lot of fights with your friends back then. Shouting, swearing - everything, you almost even got into a real fight once... you didn't do that with the fairy, of course. You just waved her away in irritation.

Time was running out, and you never made any progress! You were so immersed in the investigation that you didn't notice what was going on around you. Now you remember that at that time, your mother seemed to have mentioned that a scientist from the forest had started letting people into his house... But back then, you didn't care. The mystery of the crossed-out eye! It overwhelmed you; you were drowning without even noticing it.

One day, you found the right person - a man at Greasy's Diner complained that he had met a monster on the lake, and it had scared away all the fish. You were overjoyed - all that was left was to follow the man and see those who were stealing memories!

And you saw them. People in maroon robes came to the man at night. You almost fell asleep waiting, but it was worth it. Your heart was pounding wildly, excitedly - then it was not yet spoiled by fear. You felt a nervous excitement, causing you to tremble slightly. Unfortunately, you could not get closer, so you could not hear exactly what they were saying. But then suddenly a bag was thrown over the man's head and he was dragged somewhere!

The man resisted. Well, they clearly did not agree. You chased them through the alleys of Gravity Falls, but at some point, one of the mysterious people seemed to notice you. He separated from the group, which did not go unnoticed by you. Then you felt it for the first time. Sticky, icy, lung-tearing and throat-squeezing horror. Horror that made you stuck in place.

You could have run away, but you simply didn't have time because of the terror. There was only one option left - to press yourself against the wall behind the dumpsters and try not to breathe.

He was walking there.

Your heart was pounding against your ribs so hard that your chest hurt.

He was muttering something under his breath.

Your breathing was so loud that you couldn't hear anything else.

He was very close.

You tried to hold your breath, but you were so short of oxygen that your brain hurt. Your limbs were frozen. You wanted to press yourself even harder against the wall, but your body wouldn't listen. Any movement could give you away.

He started to walk around the container...

You closed your eyes, as if that could somehow help...

A rat.

The man in the robe recoiled from the container when a fat rat jumped out of it with a nasty squeak and rustling. You jerked, hitting the wall, and almost gave yourself away. What a blessing that the man himself was scared. Didn't notice you. Didn't notice. Didn't notice...

You almost fainted then. He left, and you couldn't crawl out of your hiding place for a long time.

That night, your misadventures didn't end there - your mother was waiting for you at home. She was upset. She was angry. At first, you tried to somehow defend yourself in response to her reprimand, but what could you even say? Returning in the night, dirty, smelling of garbage, pale and clearly scared - what could you say? Obviously not that everything was fine and your mother shouldn't worry.

You are ready to admit it. That night, you had a fight. Maybe all the nervous tension just overwhelmed you, maybe it was the notorious teenage aggression, or maybe you were just a bad child, but that night you screamed. You accused your mother of not listening to you, of not believing you, of trying to pretend that there were no amazing creatures around. You screamed that your mother saw you as a little child and was bothering you.

Your mother then started crying, and you ran off to your room.

To be honest, today's you would gladly give your past self a slap in the face.

Hiding in your room, you were just angry for several hours. You were angry at everything, even for no reason. But then you were able to fall asleep. Before going to bed, you were angry at yourself.

The next day after school (part of which you shamelessly slept through) you decided to write down everything you found out about the crossed-out eye. Firstly, the sign and the people were definitely connected, the mysterious strangers had the same eye on their hoods, now you proved it. Secondly, they are among us. These - who, cultists? Yes, these cultists live in Gravity Falls and eavesdrop on people's conversations. They react to people's complaints about encounters with the abnormal. The cultists come to the victims, first try to negotiate (at least something good), and if that doesn't work, they just take the people with them. Since none of the residents disappeared, you can assume that they take away the memory, but generally do not touch the people themselves.

And you also roughly understood in which direction the base of the people in robes is.

You thought for a long time how to find this place. Keeping an eye on them yourself is not an option, it takes too much time, and the cultists have already noticed you, they will be even more attentive. All this confused you so much that you ignored your mother, who came to you several times and knocked on the door. Only when something rustled downstairs and your mother screamed, you flew out of the room.

It turned out that with all your plans, you completely forgot about the new agreement with the gnomes, and they climbed into your kitchen. Mom noticed them, and now she was clearly scared. You grabbed a broom and, throwing a piece of pie to the gnomes, drove them out into the forest. After making sure that no gnomes was home, you looked at your mother. She was pale, her hands were shaking, and her eyes were red. You wanted to hug her...

"...now you will also pretend that this does not exist?"

You said instead, threw the broom and went into the room. You felt disgusted, but you tried to hold on, you little idiot. You thought you were defending your rightness, which in reality was only your mistake.

Even the fairies scolded you then. Fairies! Little mischievous nasty things, constantly capricious and making ridiculous jokes! You were offended by them too. After all, they didn’t understand anything either.

You didn’t talk to your mother for several days. You felt bad. It got worse with each passing day. You wanted to hear her gentle voice, see her quiet smile, feel the soft warmth of her hands. At some point, you couldn’t take it anymore. Burning with shame and remorse, you came to your mother and apologized. At first, everything was even fine - of course, the words stuck in your throat like huge pieces of dried bread, but she forgave you. For your nighttime adventures, for the quarrel, for what you said. You hugged, for the first time in several days, and you felt so cozy and calm. So warm.

"And about the gnomes, sorry."

What do you mean, she asked. Your heart skipped a beat, but you brushed it off. She had always preferred not to think about things like that. You looked at your mother and said you were sorry about the gnomes in the kitchen. You said it wouldn't happen again.

She shook her head briefly, her brows furrowing in thought. What do you mean, she repeated. And you froze, as if you'd been doused with ice water.

Her eyes were empty.

She wasn't pretending.

She didn't remember.

***

How the hell did this all happen? No, you already knew that fate was absolutely crazy, but, damn, this crazy?

You were sitting on a three-legged stool, holding a chipped cup of boiling water with pine needles in it. The crazy old man was telling you about how he recently fell asleep on a miniature golf course and woke up because little people were trying to tie him up and drag him away. It wasn't weird, you'd heard about Lilliputtians from the fairies, but you'd never seen them yourself.

The weird thing was that you were visiting this crazy old man. At the junkyard. The man who once created and led the cult of the "Blind Eye".

Old Man McGucket. That's right.

How did this happen? Well, it's simple: the first time you met him, you got angry and went home. Yes, it was very childish, but you couldn't help it. Lullaby had a good laugh at your expense, but when she saw the state you were in, she just left you to ponder.

You couldn't accept it. How, how the hell did this happen?! How did the man you'd been terrified of for so many years turn into this? He couldn't... No, that's ridiculous! He couldn't turn into this! This was a mistake. This was definitely a mistake. You were so afraid of him that you ran away from this city, from this state, and he just turned into such a pathetic piece of shit?!

You barely calmed down. You still hoped that this was either a mistake or some kind of trick. You were so angry, so... disappointed? Fucking emotions, they were so loud, and there were so many of them, that your blood pressure eventually rose, and you still couldn't figure yourself out.

You were pathetic.

You decided that you needed more information. You couldn't act recklessly. You had to figure it all out.

You asked the fairies to keep a careful eye on the man. At first, they refused, they were bored and had other things to do, but you managed to persuade them to help you. Maybe the sweets you made were ugly, but at least they were tasty. You weren't sure, but it seemed like the fairies were bragging about the free sweets to the gnomes.

You hoped the gnomes don't bother you after this...

You also decided to try to find out about the old man from the junkyard from the people. You felt like a stupid teenager again, sticking your nose into things that weren't your business and collecting absolutely useless information, but what can you do?

And so, what you soon found out: the old man is the local madman. Harmless, according to humans and fairies, but occasionally makes some weird stuff out of junk, and sometimes you can hear explosions coming from the junkyard. Lazy Susan grumbled that McGucket occasionally tries to hide somewhere in Greasy's Diner before closing, and she has to throw him out. He has a son, Tate, who works as a lake ranger. According to fairies, McGucket is currently married to a raccoon (you surprised, but you decided that your interactions with fairies are much stranger) and dislikes a certain "old man in a basin".

You hated all this.

You yourself had observed McGucket. The old man was, of course, absolutely crazy, skinny and neglected, but you could only envy his athleticism. In your best years, you couldn't run as fast as he now ran on all fours! To your disappointment, you had to admit: for all his oddities, McGucket really was quite harmless.

No, maybe he could create some kind of doomsday robots, you heard about it from some people, but, other than that, he didn't pose a danger. McGucket could be scared with a broom, he would cower if you yelled at him, teenagers weren't afraid to draw offensive graffiti on his "house" (you couldn't help but think maliciously to yourself that this was revenge for his omnipresent crossed-out eye). McGucket could scare you only by suddenly appearing. And his voice could scare a child.

All of this made you feel miserable. You wanted to either lock yourself in the house and beat the wall up, or go to the old man, grab him, and shake the truth out of him. Shake out who he was. You were goddamn terrified! What now? This isn't terrifying, this is a laughing stock!

This is why you hung around the junkyard so often. It was because of these suffocating, migraine-inducing thoughts that you were caught one day. And because you were completely unprepared to meet McGucket, you got confused and said that you came to visit him.

And for some reason the old man was happy.

He didn't even ask your name!

You didn't want to drink the boiled pine needles, although McGucket himself did it with pleasure. It seemed that the old man was delighted that he had someone to talk to. He was very active in talking about everything that came into his head, waving his arms, periodically hitting his knees, dancing a jig and using clearly made-up words in his speech.

You had been watching him for some time. You wanted to gloat... You wanted to laugh at your enemy's misfortune. You wanted to feel relieved.

Instead, a single question stuck in your head: "What the hell happened to you?"

You felt awkward and strange. A mixture of pity, disgust, dull resentment and impotent anger. Holy shit, there was no reason to take revenge on such a person, because it was simply impossible to make him feel worse.

The raccoon tried to steal your candy. You automatically offered the candy to McGucket. He ate it along with the paper.

Good God...

You wouldn't wish that on anyone.

You felt awkward looking at this pathetic old man, he evoked too many emotions in you, each of which hit you in one way or another. It was painful and hard. You tried to switch to looking at his home.

It was hard to even call it a hut, but apparently McGucket knew something about construction even in such a state, because surprisingly, this place was in no hurry to fall apart, did not creak. You noticed a few blueprints here and there. Hmm, maybe you did not understand this, but to an unprofessional eye, the blueprints looked... well, good. It did not seem like a chaotic mixture of numbers, lines and other things. It seemed that the rumors about robots were true. Was "Blind Eye" trying to cover it up? The government would probably want to grab such an engineer for themselves...

You again stared at McGucket, who switched to arguing with his own reflection. Your fingers tightened on the cup. What happened to you? You wanted to ask the question, but you couldn't. Something was blocking your mouth, like it was taping it shut. What happened to you? How did it happen?

Is this all the cult? Did he bring you to this state, huh, McGucket? You wanted to gloat, but the thought of it filled you with self-loathing. Damn.

The old man turned his attention to you. He looked at you with those almost empty eyes, he had that absolutely good-natured expression on his face... You shuddered.

What brought you to such a miserable life, McGucket?

...and what brought you to such a miserable life?

The question hit you in the gut, and you were filled with anger again. Jumping to your feet, you loudly put the cup on the stool and, ignoring the old man, got out of this place.

What stupid questions. What stupid thoughts! Your life is not miserable. A normal life, like everyone else's. Normal, quiet, unnoticeable, lonely, cold, in eternal fear...

You stopped only at your house. The gnomes tried to climb into your window, and the fairies threw your own small things at them.

Damn it, your life...

Just like in the good old days, the broom helped you deal with the gnomes perfectly. You shouted after them that you were not against concluding a new agreement, the main thing is that they should not bother you without asking. After that, you entered the house, opened the jam for the fairies, and went into the living room to sleep on the old uncomfortable sofa. Sleep didn't come, but the thoughts, depressing, heavy, continued to swirl in your head. Holy shit...

You spent the next few weeks renovating the house - not everything, just changing the sofa in the living room, all the furniture in your room, and updating the kitchen a bit. The rest worked just fine or you just didn't need it. These household items helped to distract you a little, but you still continued to keep an eye on McGucket.

He was run over by a car three times in one week. You had no idea what this old man's bones were made of, but each time he just got up and ran away somewhere in fear. And then he came back and acted like nothing had happened. The first time he was run over, you wanted to rush to his aid, but you didn't have time. And then you realized that the people around you didn't react to it at all, as if it was the most ordinary thing. Maybe you're the only weird one here?

The small problem was that after you went to visit McGucket, he started noticing you around town. Well, he didn't approach you, thanks for that, but he kept waving at you (the hand that had the cast on it). You felt a little awkward, but over time you got used to it, and even occasionally caught yourself waving back.

Several times in town you saw a man you didn't expect to see. On the other hand, maybe you didn't expect to see him because in your past he almost never showed up in town? Stanford Pines, a strange scientist, and now, more like a fraudulent businessman. You looked at him, aged, with a pleasant dose of nostalgia. However, even here it seemed to you that something was wrong. As if he behaved somehow... differently?

Although, damn, so many years have passed, it's natural.

But why didn't he communicate with his friend? You thought they were close in the past...

Although, his friend went crazy and started a strange cult, or vice versa, or both. You probably wouldn't communicate with such a friend either.

So much time passed, summer was ending, the fairies went into the forest to find a place to hibernate. Only Lullaby stayed with you - she decided that there was no better place to hibernate than the top shelf in your closet. The gnomes tried to behave politely, came once a week for baked goods (and you were already tired of hearing from them that Lazy Susan's pies were better than yours).

Everything was great. Only now you were again visiting McGucket. For the third time. And listening to his very strange stories.

You brought him a meat pie.

Why on earth are you doing this?

You looked around his house again. Besides the blueprints, there were a couple of tattered photographs of McGucket's family. You were tired of feeling sorry for the poor guy, but damn, this made your heart clench again. His wife and son looked happy in the pictures. You noticed McGucket touching the picture with his finger a few times, and his expression was so sad at those moments that you wanted to go over and pat him on the back encouragingly.

Tate, his son, was a rare visitor to the city. It seemed he preferred to live by the lake, at his workplace. You hardly saw him interact with his father. And damn, as much as you hated the old man, you couldn't stand to watch it.

So you preferred to turn away.

There were also many newspaper clippings related to McGucket on the walls of his house. This confirmed your guess - apparently, the old man had destroyed his own brain. Probably used that gun on himself? But why? You didn't know that yet. But you knew that, collecting newspaper clippings, McGucket was desperately trying not to forget at least something about himself. As if he was trying to build himself as a person from scratch, to cling to at least some insignificant detail.

You no longer felt sorry for him. You already regretted him.

While you were sitting at McGucket's place, some teenagers ran to the junkyard and started writing on the walls of his house. McGucket ran out to chase them away, waving a twig, and you followed him. It seemed that your appearance shocked and frightened the teenagers more than the appearance of the owner of the house, although you only looked outside. You didn't even shout anything after them, just looked at the writing on the wall.

"Mc-suck-it"

Yeah, even you had a better imagination at their age.

For some reason you stayed behind to help McGucket wash that graffiti off. You were walking home with a strange feeling, but mostly pleasant. Like... You just did something right.

You were working, autumn was changing the landscape at its own discretion. The fairies weren't around, which was a little sad, but sleepy Lullaby was still keeping you company. You came to the junkyard a couple more times - you saw Tate from afar with some bags. Well, at least he still cares about his father?

You felt stupid and empty. Revenge on McGucket was gone from your to-do list - again, where is there any revenge here, he punished himself for everything. Anger was replaced by a crushing emptiness. It was as if a huge part of you had disappeared, and in fact, that was true – all these years, anger and hatred had been elusive in your life, along with fear, they had made a nest in you, and now they had just… evaporated.

What should you do now?

You hadn’t noticed winter coming while you were working. You just went outside one day and realized it was a bit chilly. And then you looked around and noticed snow.

Lullaby had fallen asleep in one of your sweaters. You had left a lid of water and a few sugar cubes next to it.

Winter in Oregon covered everything with snow, froze the squirrels, drove away the gnomes. It was freezing cold. And yet, you liked winter. Quiet, deep, mysterious. The creaking and glitter of the snow, the touch of prickly snowflakes on your face, even the harmful icy wind – you liked everything. You even felt a little better.

Until the moment you decided to visit the junkyard again.

This is some kind of masochism, right?

McGucket was still living here. It was cool in his house, and the wind kept blowing snowflakes in. Damn, didn't his son at least take him in for the winter? No, of course, it's none of your business, obviously, but still... It's cold here!

You hypnotized the cup of boiled pine needles for a long time. You felt disgusting. You felt like you wanted to spit out your feelings and trample them.

"McGucket? Do you want to come visit me for the winter?"

Your mouth was dry and you had a hard time tearing your eyes away from the cup.

"You can take your raccoon wife too."

***

After the cultists dared to take your mother's memory, the whole business of finding and exposing them became personal. You tried to get to the truth like a madman. You probably even spat saliva like a mad dog when explaining everything to your friends. No wonder your friends were dwindling.

Many left, considering it all nonsense. Others accused you of being crazy. And there were those who succumbed to the unpleasant aspect of growing up - they began to fear what they could not understand. They began to be suspicious of the creatures from the forest and the lake, they did not want to believe that there was some kind of cult in the city.

Should you tell that it was this part of your friends who eventually lost their memories first? You were angry then. Now you think that you should have helped them. That you should have been more attentive. But time has already passed.

Your investigation turned into a mad hunt, and you did not notice. You were so immersed in your obsession that you pushed everyone away. Only the fairies stayed by your side, and even then, it was more out of a desire to see how far you would go. For fairies, everything always looks different, their logic is not like human logic.

You practically abandoned your studies. With maniacal persistence, you tried to expose the cult. Your friends? Of course, they are just cowards! Adults? They never understood you! Your mother? It doesn't count; the cult has already brainwashed her!

Nothing matters, you need to expose the damn cult and that's it! And that's it! And everything... will go back to how it used to be? Sometimes this question crawled into your head. Will everything go back to how it used to be, calm and comfortable? Or will everything change? Could everything get worse?

You pushed these thoughts away. You thought: if you have such ideas in your head, does it mean that you doubt yourself? Does it mean that you are doing something wrong?

Such thoughts were frightening. Your idiotic maximalism drove you forward, you were like a mad dog that was let off the leash. Like a stone that someone pushed off a mountain.

However, your fears about the cult were to some extent justified. Even with all your paranoia, you tried to watch very carefully the people who were losing their memories. And if at first only adults became such people, then later teenagers also began to lose their memories. The worst thing was that now not only the memories of the lake monster, gnomes, fairies, ghosts disappeared. Many people began to forget some unpleasant events that happened to them. Quarrels, car accidents, reprimands at work.

Even worse was that now the cultists did not even try to negotiate with people. You witnessed this - people in burgundy robes now simply kidnapped people. They decided that they can dominate the minds of others? That they can decide for others? To be honest, this is what made you angry in the past, and it made you incredibly angry now.

Something doesn't change.

There was something else that scared you incredibly. People... became strange. Stranger than before. They became more and more careless, they forgot some obvious things, they talked strangely... Some people who used to communicate well with each other began to quarrel. Some got fixated on some ideas, thoughts, deeds. Some just started to do unimaginable strange things.

You were scared. It became even more scary when your mother started complaining about a very hard day at work. She looked so depressed. You tried to distract her, cheer her up, do anything, just so that nothing would happen. It helped only for a while.

At some point, your mother came home with a blissful smile. She didn't remember anything about her problems. And she tried to set fire to that lonely cactus that stood in your kitchen, because she wanted to cook dinner. You managed to stop her, and it seemed that she came to her senses a little, because she herself wondered why she wanted to burn the cactus.

You tried to talk to her. Of course, you couldn't talk calmly for long, you quickly broke into a scream, tears began to flow from your eyes. But it was all useless. It was like you were talking to a wall. Mom just smiled. She didn't have any problems.

Her head was empty.

You were angry. You were filled with rage. Mom was no longer like herself. Those bastards, those cultists took your city, your friends, and now your mother too! You couldn't leave it like that. Screw the plans, investigations, and hidden surveillance, screw it!

You called the fairies. You begged them to help you find the cultists' base.

Lullaby tried to talk you out of it, but you wouldn't listen. If the fairies don't help, you'll just run out to the main square and scream that you know about the cult, and wait until they grab you and drag you away!

It seems that you really were crazy then, and Lullaby, scared, finally agreed to help...

***

"That...what is that?"

Old Man McGucket happily explained that the thing striding toward you was your toaster. The one that broke this morning. You almost walked back outside.

Yeah, you were living with a crazy guy now. And his raccoon wife. You weren't sure which was worse.

You didn't have a plan when you first brought McGucket into your house. You actually almost kicked him out the first day, but you held back. Grown-ups are supposed to be responsible for their words, right?

You gave him the living room. He was supposed to sleep there (but you were sure you heard him sneaking around the door to your room to sleep), he was supposed to keep his raccoon there (you were sure he said her name a few times, but it was a different name each time), and basically...that's it. You didn't restrict McGucket in any way. Almost.

You forbade McGucket from doing just two things: cooking and coming into your room. You thought that was enough.

The experience was… very strange.

It was like living with two hyperactive children who were constantly climbing somewhere, doing something, unscrewing something, breaking something, fixing something, littering, making noise... McGucket was also constantly trying to invent something. Your living room soon turned into a junkyard, splattered with machine oil.

You didn't even know who was worse or better - McGucket or the raccoon.

The raccoon was just outrageous. She tore up bags and boxes, tore up furniture, tore up wallpaper, ate everything she could get her hands on, dragged small things into her house, littered and stole your food.

You were angry. Why the hell didn't the raccoon hibernate? Well, apparently, she caught the madness from her "husband".

Or the answer was simply that she had been living at home all this time. You don't need to hibernate at home. But even then, raccoons need to be lethargic, and this hyperactive animal didn't look lethargic at all!

However, despite all the problems, the raccoon was useful! She chased away the gnomes, McGucket taught her to wash clothes (you still preferred to wash your own clothes by yourself), and in the evenings, she, after all, was a little tired, allowed you to hold her on your lap and pet her. No worse than a cat, warm, soft and soothing.

You yourself didn't notice how you got used to sitting with her in the evenings.

McGucket... well, he was crazy. It seemed that this man could not sit idle at all. He was constantly assembling and reassembling something, drawing some plans on pieces of paper, sometimes cooking something (results were always horrific), dancing, shouting, talking loudly to himself, doing chemicals in your kitchen, making a mess no worse than a raccoon, playing the banjo loudly and just generally getting on your nerves!

And he smelled like a dead possum.

But with all that… You couldn’t be too mad at him. Yes, when you were home, he followed you around like a tethered dog and wouldn’t shut up, telling more and more surreal stories. Yes, he rebuilt your microwave so that when you started grumbling at it for not heating your dinner enough, it suddenly answered you. Yes, he made you a toaster that walks and spits out fried bread. Yes, he cluttered up your living room.

But most of the time, his actions were… harmless and kind of cute? He was trying to help. It didn't always work out, like he almost burned down your kitchen a couple of times, but he tried. You didn't want to admit it, but it was a fact.

McGucket made you coffee. He was much better at it than pine needle tea. And in the evenings, his banjo playing didn't seem so annoying. And even his stories sometimes made you laugh.

What the hell are you doing?

At some point, you made McGucket at least slightly organize the nightmare he created in your living room. And wash himself. And wash the raccoon. It all lasted for a whole week, but in the end, you were happy with the result. You even helped the old man comb his beard and peeled off an old bandage from it. With a relatively clean living room and a relatively clean McGucket and raccoon, life became a little easier.

You stopped McGucket from eating paper. You tried to wean him from nervous jigs. You at least tried to understand the made-up words and phrases he littered his speech with. McGucket tried to convince you that building weird robots was easy. He sometimes tried to teach you how to play the banjo.

And somehow that emptiness in your soul that had appeared with the disappearance of hatred began to feel less and less.

Sometimes, locked in your room, you tried to analyze the situation. What was happening, what you were doing... none of it seemed normal to you. You couldn't even answer yourself why you invited McGucket to live with you. Why would you bother with this old man, who was useless even to his own son?

Okay, okay, you admit that this McGucket and the one who lived in your memories are different. But even so... he's nobody to you! Why did you take him in? You couldn't find a homeless cat? You already have a fairy sleeping in your closet!

There were no answers. Not at all...

One day, you suddenly found yourself making snowmen with McGucket in your yard. Everything was fine until the old man suddenly said that it reminded him of something. You felt the cold not only on your skin, but also in your guts. Your hands shook, and you accidentally broke the snow globe you had just made.

What the fuck is he remembering?

McGucket's expression was strange. More clarity flashed across it than during your entire second acquaintance with him. And you were terrified. What should you do? What should you do?

The old man grabbed his head and suddenly began to babble some kind of broken nonsense. Something about fear, about snow, about friends, about memory. Something about "I don't want to remember this." You probably wanted to leave him huddled in the snow, but you still grabbed McGucket and dragged him into the house. He quickly came to his senses and said that he didn't remember anything else.

You didn't make snowmen anymore.

But from that very day, fear settled in you again. What if McGucket one day began to remember? What if his memory returned to him? What if the McGucket from your memories comes back?

What would you have to do?

You didn't know. You felt bad. McGucket's existence in your house suddenly became suffocating. The nightmares returned. The worst thing was that the old man somehow noticed your condition and tried to help. This only made everything worse.

You tried to distract yourself with work, but it didn't help much.

At one point, you even thought about trying to push McGucket onto his son - and it was logical, actually. You even thought that Tate would somehow come for his father himself, after all, the way you suddenly took McGucket to your place, as if he were a stray animal, seemed strange.

You met Tate by chance, in a store where McGucket for some reason wanted to go with you. At first you tried to make the old man stay home, but you quickly realized that he would most likely just run away and follow you anyway. Probably barefoot. Probably in the same overalls that you somehow made him wash with the help of a raccoon.

And, probably, following you in secret, he would get hit by a car again...

With a heavy heart and head, you allowed McGucket to go with you, but before that you made him at least change his clothes a little. As you understood, the old man did not change his clothes much, so the townspeople did not even recognize him, wrapped in your things and the blanket you gave him.

You thought that it was worth buying him some clothes...

So, in the store you ran into Tate, and he was the only person who immediately recognized McGucket. The latter, by the way, was very happy about this.

You thought that Tate might want to talk to his father, or start yelling at you, but the man surprised you: he practically ignored his father, only told him not to interfere, and wanted to talk to you. It's strange, but all the people here are strange. Even you are strange. You felt sorry for old man McGucket, he wilted and even somehow cringed after his son brushed him off so coldly, but what could you do?

Just talk to Tate.

You met later that evening at Greasy's Diner. You were sure that McGucket had followed you, but there was no proof.

Tate turned out to be a reserved, confident, and reasonable man. He clearly cared about his father, although for some reason he did not show it in his communication with that same father. But when he was alone with you, he asked only about him. How he eats, how he lives, how he sleeps, what he says, what he does... You tried to answer briefly and to the point, but inside you wanted to scream for Tate to take his father. Then everything would calm down!

But you could not scream. Only when Tate hinted that he could give you money to support the old man, you asked:

"Why don't you just take McGucket to live with you?"

Tate turned away (though why? You couldn't see his face anyway because of his cap) and said something unintelligible and as if he had memorized it. Like, he lives by the lake, it's inconvenient, there's not enough space, etc. Tate was good at maintaining the appearance of calm, but you weren't a fool either. You left the money for the pancakes and got up.

"It's none of my business, of course, but you're a strange son..."

Memories flashed through your head, and you smiled sadly. And it turns out you're hypocritical.

"Although I failed too, like a child."

You almost left when Tate, surprisingly not angry, asked why you took McGucket to your place. You answered without even thinking:

"Could I have left him in the cold?"

Well, it seems you accidentally found the answer to at least one of your questions.

After that, it seemed to you that the meetings with Tate had stopped. McGucket, of course, looked very depressed for a few days, and built a small robot that caught balls and threw them back to him, but he quickly came to his senses. Relatively. You decided that as a decent adult, you would endure until late spring. And then you could say goodbye to McGucket.

Tate began to appear in the town more often.

You thought that maybe he would take his father from your house, but no.

Tate himself came to your house.

It's good that he didn't come to live with you. He brought some food, clothes, tried to give you money (you still took it, as compensation for the raccoon), did not talk to his father and asked to use your kitchen. That day, you all ate the food he cooked, quite tasty, old McGucket said that the taste was very familiar to him.

The father tried to talk to his son. The son barely spoke to his father, looked at him like he was an unpredictable beast and spoke only to you. You prayed that it wouldn't happen again.

It did.

Tate, thank God, didn't come very often. McGucket was getting happier. The raccoon was getting fatter. Your headache was getting worse, as were the nightmares.

What's wrong with you, what are you doing?! Now you have two McGuckets around your neck! Why should you be the mediator in their strange family squabbles?

You were getting worse. You were increasingly afraid that McGucket would remember everything. That your nightmare would come true. And the worst thing was that you wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Even the pills weren't helping much.

You remember walking home from work. It was evening, dark, and there was a snowstorm. You just wanted to get home as quickly as possible, warm up and fall asleep. You thought about what you needed to buy for tomorrow. You were thinking...

Your thoughts were interrupted by a scene that was familiar to the point of chilling your bones, although blurred by the snow. A man with a bag over his head. Maroon capes that stood out so brightly against the snow in the light of a street lamp. With a familiar, but seemingly long-forgotten movement, you hid behind the corner of the house. You felt how your clothes were soaked with icy sweat. Your heart pounded against your ribs again, screaming in agony.

Damn cultists... damn, damn, fucking cultists!

You froze, pressed against the wall. You were able to move only after some time - you couldn't tell how much time had passed; everything was so mixed up in your head. You almost ran home.

At home, you abruptly flew up the stairs and locked yourself in your room. Not seeing McGucket, not thinking about him, not thinking about the cult, not thinking about anything, not thinking, not thinking… You felt sick. Your head was splitting. Your heart was about to explode.

You wanted to scream. You wanted to cry. You wanted to punch the wall. You wanted to disappear. You wanted to get lost. You wanted it all to go away!

You barely managed to fall asleep until several hours later…

***

You were tied to a chair in a pitch-black room. The belts cut into your skin, pulling and squeezing painfully. You twitched like a frightened rat cornered. You tried to free yourself. Scary, scary, scary! There was nothing around, only darkness, ever closer, more pressing, cold. But from the darkness, it seemed, thousands of cold, emotionless eyes were watching you. Absolute defenselessness. You jerked your head, but only caused yourself more pain. Horror pierced every muscle, every bone, it settled in your head, in your heart, it scratched and tore you from the inside.

Light began to appear in the darkness. You saw fragments of memories floating by: the first meeting with the gnomes, a walk with your mother, games with friends, your first excellent grade at school, swimming in the lake, fishing, cooking with your mother, hunting for plaidypus with friends…

The horror did not leave. On the contrary, it pressed harder and harder, squeezing your head, crushing your heart and poking around in your stomach. Suddenly, an electric crackle came from the darkness, and a bright blue beam, like lightning, shot into the nearest memory. You saw how it burst. How precious moments of the past burned in blue fire.

You wanted to scream, but your mouth was closed, you couldn’t even breathe, the scream was a desperate prickly ball stuck in your chest, breaking your ribs. You cried, cried and shook your head furiously, feeling how your brain is being burned through. The tears were salty, they reached those places where the belts dug into the flesh, mixed with the blood and burn, burn. You were on fire, you could do nothing, you dug your fingers into the armrests, you scratched with your nails, and the nails broke. You left bloody marks, continuing to scratch the armrests with pieces of nails.

A hand appeared from the darkness, holding a strange gun. The gun is pointed at you. And then a face appeared. The same, thin, even haggard, discolored, with a cold, cruel expression, with empty, indifferent eyes. McGucket looked at you, saying that you will forget everything. That you will be free. You shaked your head. The belts are were tearing you apart, you closed your eyes in the foolish hope of salvation.

A bright blue flash hit you, you felt pain and your eyes rolled back, you didn't want to, you didn't want to, you didn't want to, oh shit, oh shit, shit, please, please, begging no!!! Your brain was being torn apart, pieces were being ripped out of it, you were forgetting, painfully, quickly. You desperately tried to grab onto at least one memory, but they wouldn't let you.

Please, beg you, God, no, no, damn, fuck, please, no!!!

You felt something grab you with icy fingers, ripping you out of your own body. You flew along an electric beam, you waved your arms and screamed, you wanted to go back, but you were being pulled, pulled, pulled. You were thrown somewhere, you hited a hard, cold surface. You were in a glass flask. No, it was not a flask. You were in a gun. In a memory gun.

You turned around and pressed yourself against the glass. You saw your body and something inside you died. Your legs gave way and you fell to your knees. Your body was untied and sat there, completely blank-eyed, with this dumb, happy, blissful smile. Just a body, empty, without anything. You pounded on the glass, your fists broke, you kept punching, you screamed, you cried, but you are not heard. McGucket grabbed you and took out of the gun. You were thrown from side to side, you couldn't get a grip on anything.

McGucket handed you over to your body. It accepted you with a smile. McGucket told you to throw you. To smash you. To get rid of the memories and live free and happy. You screamed, you begged, you asked...

Your body threw you to the floor. You felt a second of free, icy fall, you screamed, you felt the flask fall and break, and you were cut into pieces. Your body was stepping on you, it was crushing you, and the last thing you heard is:

“You will forget everything"

You screamed and cried, your heart was bursting out of you, you were in pain and fear, and before your eyes was McGucket's face. You forcefully pushed the monster away from you, and only at the moment when he fell to the floor with a muffled scream, you realized that you were not sleeping. Your face was all wet. The door to your room was wide open, McGucket was looking at you.

He tried to come up to you and said something.

"Get out..."

It came out muffled. Your throat was dry. You did not look at the old man, but he said something.

"GET OUT!!!"

You screamed and swung. McGucket ran away, and you clutched your chest. Something rustled in your house, fear crawled up your spine, you pulled your knees to your chest and cried. Cried. Cried…

***

Once you found (well, the fairies found) the cultist base, there was no turning back. Well, that's what it seemed like to you then. In reality, there were many ways back, you just didn't want to see them. You convinced yourself that this was the only way available to you. An idiotic belief.

You decided to immediately go to the cultists' secret hideout. You... could hardly explain even then what you were going to do there. You didn't have a plan, not even a glimmer of an idea, you were driven by anger. A poor ally, but you couldn't help but admit: such strong negative feelings carry you away too easily.

You had no one left. You had no friends, your mother... was becoming less and less like herself, and, frankly, you were beginning to fear her. With her memories, even of what she considered "bad", "heavy", "disturbing" and "dangerous", it was as if she was losing part of her personality. You couldn't help but wonder what would be left of your mother if they continued to erase her memory.

Your only assistant was Lullaby, who, however, clearly didn't like this whole idea. However, the little fairy was still with you.

The cult's secret hideout turned out to be in the museum. It was quite easy to get there - you just had to hide among the exhibits and wait for night. You specially put on a hoodie to hide your face if something happened. When the museum plunged into darkness, you carefully got out of your hideout. You still managed to scrape together the remains of common sense, and therefore the first thing you did with the help of the fairy was find a window and open it, leaving yourself an opportunity to escape. Opening the window, you saw a group in robes approaching the museum. All your organs inside turned over in horror, and Lullaby pulled at your clothes, begging you to go home.

But you stayed. You hid behind the cart and waited for the cultists to enter the museum. You crept behind them, trying not to make any noise, hiding in the shadows, holding your breath. It seemed to you that even if a drop of sweat fell from your face to the floor, you would be noticed. Every movement you made seemed too abrupt, too loud, too noticeable.

You snuck into the secret room behind the cultists, wondering when they had time to create it? Or had it always been there and they were just starting to use it? In any case, a secret lever in the form of an ancient tablet with an eye? You just snorted then. It all irritated you.

Then... to be honest, you would not like to remember what happened next. However, you swore to yourself that you would never throw away even a part of your memories, so...

You saw a large dark hall. A chair with a man tied to it. You knew him - one of the avid fishermen, lived on the next street. People in maroon hoods with a crossed-out eye were around him. And one person with a strange gun in his hands. He was talking to a fisherman, asking what he saw on the lake. The fisherman, clearly nervous and scared, answered confusedly that he saw a gray-green long-necked monster.

The head cultist spoke with an accent. His voice was high and trembling. However, he held the gun firmly.

You saw how he turned the wheel on the gun.

Lullaby tried to pull you by your clothes.

Your heart sank.

The head cultist said that he would rid the "unfortunate" of terrifying memories.

You clenched your fists so that your nails dug into your palm.

The fisherman protested.

You swallowed hard.

The gun was pointed at the man's face.

It seemed to you that everything was happening too fast and too slowly at the same time.

The chief cultist said that the fisherman had nothing to fear. That he would forget everything and be free of fear. That he would be protected.

You bit your lip until it bled.

He certainly said it with a smile, you heard. But his voice still trembled…

A blue electric beam hit a man's forehead. He twitched, screamed, kicked. The hand holding the gun was firm and calm. And you twitched as if the beam hit you. As if you were tied up there.

Damn, it looked even worse in real life than in your imagination... The fisherman acted as if his brain was being ripped out with bare hands, as if his skull was being dug out and his memories were being torn out. You felt nausea rising in your throat, as your body stopped listening to you and became cottony.

Maybe you wouldn't be so scared if you didn't imagine your mother in the fisherman's place. Your fragile, quiet mother, who had to go through this nightmare at least twice.

When it was all over, the fisherman went limp, a quiet, blissful smile crawling across his face. It seems that this was the worst thing for you - in a few minutes the man turned into a doll. The appearance of a man, while the man himself had disappeared forever.

Lullaby again desperately pulled you along. You could not tear your eyes away from the terrible action unfolding before you. It seemed that your brain did not have time to react to your own actions. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. You carefully got up and backed away to the exit of the dungeon. The fisherman was untied. Your heart rushed against your ribs with despair. The fisherman was taken by the arms. You suddenly touched the step with your foot, you couldn't restrain yourself and quietly screamed, falling to the floor.

The cultists turned around sharply and noticed you. Everything stopped being excruciatingly slow, and further events changed terrifyingly quickly.

They screamed, broke away from their place, ran at you, their hands outstretched, they grabed the air. You ran upstairs, at first even forgetting to stand up. The steps were in the way, you stumbled. Someone's fingers almost grabbed your hood, you flew out of the dungeon.

Paintings, statues, exhibits, corridors, corridors, corridors, cultists. You almost crashed into them, slipping on the floor. You managed to dodge, run, run, run! Everyone was screaming, you didn't understand the words. Everything before your eyes was mixed into a dull mess, only occasionally appearing bright red crossed-out eyes.

They were looking. From everywhere.

You almost got lost in the corridors of such a familiar museum, but a bright lilac light looming before your eyes brought you to your senses. You rushed after the light, reached the window. A hand firmly grabbed your legs, pulling you to the floor. You hit and blindly kicked a cultist. He didn't let go. He was shouting something, through the haze you saw more and more crossed-out eyes appearing nearby. You couldn't squeeze a sound out of yourself, you just desperately twitched and fought like crazy, like a caught rat. A lilac light flew into the crossed-out eye, a man's scream rang out, in a couple of seconds you got up from the floor and flew out the window.

You fell, hit yourself, something crunched unpleasantly, everything didn't matter. You rushed away from the museum, but you knew that the cultists were also running after you. They were running, they were chasing you. They were breathing down your neck. Very close.

You ran into the forest and spent the rest of the night there, jumping back from every rustle, running among the trees. You returned home only in the morning, looking around like a robber, climbed into your room.

Lullaby flew in to check on you. But you didn't react. You hid the hoodie deep in the closet. You went to school to avoid suspicion, and every red robe, every hood, made your guts churn.

They know about you. They're looking for you.

You moved your bed away from the window - you thought the cultists' hands might grab you in the night. You tried sleeping in the closet, but realized it was an unsafe place.

You couldn't forget. The memory drain, the fisherman's blank face, the maroon robes, the electric beam, the chase. You couldn't forget.

When you fell, the lead cultist flinched. He turned around sharply, his head hunched into his shoulders. You remembered. You remembered the pale, thin face. You remembered the sunken cheeks and the uneven stubble.

You remembered the eyes, wide open, twitching, scared.

You remembered the primal, suffocating terror you shared with McGucket.

***

You took a sip of coffee and immediately grimaced, putting the cup away. What a shitty taste.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. It turns out that silence irritates you even more than noise. Who knew.

The little toaster seemed to be hiding from you. The microwave remained contemptuously silent.

You hadn't been to work for three days. It was lucky that everyone in this town was a little crazy, so when you called in the morning and said you were sick, they just took your word for it. Convenient.

McGucket left. And he took his raccoon. And it's not your fault. Yeah. You said he wasn't allowed in your room, right? You did. And he came. It's his own fault.

And you didn't tell him to leave your house. The fact that he took your scream that way is his problem. Not yours. Maybe you just wanted him to get out of your room.

Well, that's it, good, let's close the topic.

And anyway, it's better for you this way. It's quiet without McGucket. Nothing reminds you of the past. No one breaks dishes. No one builds weird robots. No one eats your food.

You ran your hand over your face. What's wrong, why do you still feel bad?

Lousy days. Lousy mood. You changed the lid of the water in the cupboard and felt a slight pang of irritation. Lullaby was sleeping, she's fine. You stared at the sweater, which was moving slightly, for a few minutes and smiled.

Let her sleep, you've driven her too hard already.

You dressed slowly, getting ready to go out. All these nightmares, this whole situation... you had to end it somehow. Of course, you had no illusions that you could destroy an entire cult on your own, you had completely given up on the idea. You could only hope that the cultists would erase their own memories so zealously that they would forget everything.

The weather was amazingly wonderful: the snow was crunching cheerfully, there was no piercing icy wind, the sky was blue, the sun... you wanted to slip at least once, but no, you reached the museum without incident. It seemed to you that the cultists could not be so crazy as to do their deeds in daylight. Besides, they had to, well, work? Or learn about new cases that could be erased from people's memories?

It's strange, but you felt practically nothing, no fear, no excitement, no anger. You just walked the familiar path, just pressed the plate with the eye, just went down the old stairs. No one even stopped you - on a weekday, there was practically no one in the museum, which people did not often visit anyway.

And yet, what an irony. The secret refuge of the cult that takes away people's memories is located in a place that memory preserves, so that people do not forget... Yes, you have never encountered greater irony in your entire life.

The hall from your nightmares was exactly the same as in your memory. Dark, unpleasant. A nasty chair with belts, you touched it without knowing why. And a small pedestal. You dug around in your memory a little and remembered that there should have been a chest here. Apparently, the memory gun was kept in the chest? But you were unlucky, the chest was not here now.

And why did you come here? You have nothing better to do. You wandered around the hall and came across several pipes sucking in air. Quickly running through the options in your mind as to what they were here for, you settled on the fact that, judging by their shape and location, these things must be here for moving memories. You chuckled. You shook your head.

Of course you went for that damn pipe, you're an idiot!

Alright though. Right now, you could easily explain to yourself what you were doing and why. Firstly, you came here to finally put an end to your nightmare and this whole story. Finding the taken memories - you thought that was the very step you needed. The last step. Secondly... if the memories are stored somewhere here, maybe you'll find your mother's memories? It was a momentary idea, full of hope and regret, but you couldn't throw it away.

You also found the Hall of Memories in the dungeon. The cultists had smeared the good door with the eye with their paint, and you were really sorry that you hadn't brought a rag, soap, and a bucket of water. Maybe it was stupid, but your hands were itching to wash that red cross off the door.

You touched the door with your hand. Well, here it is. Here is the last part of this painfully long, fear-filled, idiotic story. All that was left was to open the doors and go inside. But you did not dare. You stood there, sorting through the memories associated with all this in your head.

This damn story will end now, right? Finally, you will be able to let it go. And maybe after that, you will be able to leave Gravity Falls forever. Nothing will hold you in this town, you will finish all your business, put a big, fat period.

Once you swore to yourself that you will not forget anything. That you will cherish every bit of memory. Over the years, you sometimes thought that maybe it would be nice to forget at least something. Maybe if you forgot at least a little bit, you could live peacefully. Without fear, without nightmares, without eternal suspicions, without the inability to build a close relationship with anyone, without eternal mistrust. But you stubbornly kept remembering.

Now there is a chance to end it all. Here it is, right in front of you. And yet you hesitate. And yet you quietly ask for the door to be locked. You are afraid.

With a heavy sigh, you decide. You pushed the door sharply, just to end it all. How long can you stand in fear of closed doors, afraid of what you don’t even know? You were not like that once. And you did not want to remain like that in the future.

The first thing that caught your eye was a statue of a cultist with his arms outstretched. You were not religious, but this offended you greatly.

The second thing that offended you was the memories. They were everywhere! And, in general, you were not surprised by their number. But the memories were simply lying in huge piles here and there. Some, of course, were lying on the shelves, but still! So these creatures stole entire moments of people's lives to dump them like trash?! Even if they destroyed memories, it would be less painful!

You sighed. Okay, you won't be able to find your mother's memories today. To dig up anything here, you'll have to spend a week, and you didn't have a week. You walked through the hall, carefully trying not to crush someone's precious pieces of memory. Yeah... you expected some kind of sense of completion, but there was none. Resentment. Very much.

You found a strange device that resembled a TV. Having turned one of the memories in your hands (Manly Dan's memories. Of course, you have nothing against him, but seriously, why would they erase his memory?) You quickly realized that the device was apparently designed specifically for reading them. Interesting. Having carefully returned the memory to its place (namely, to the pile of others), you continued on. You stopped at the statue itself. You really wanted to break her nose off. Of course, you didn't, but the urge was strong.

There were memories behind the statue, too. They weren't scattered around, but rather stood beautifully, each in its own niche. You chuckled, wondering how anyone could deserve such a great honor to have their memories neatly arranged, but the grin quickly faded.

McGucket's memories.

You blinked. Of course, his memories would be here. And of course they would be in a separate place, the first head of the cult, after all. But still... you rubbed your neck. Yeah.

Yeah, you thought, reaching for the memories. Yeah, you thought, as the cold glass burned your hand. Yeah, you thought, as the giant eye above the statue opened and lit up, and you deftly threw the hood over your head. Yeah, you thought, connecting memories to the device for reading them.

How much time do you have to look through everything? Obviously, the alarm went off. However... the cultists need to process everything, ask for time off from work, run to the museum, buy a ticket, run here... and change clothes somewhere along the way. There is time.

Fiddleford Hadron McGucket. After all these years, you learned his full name. And not only his name.

You didn't feel bad looking through his memories. You probably should have felt like you were invading someone's privacy, but... you didn't care. You wanted to know. And you knew enough.

You managed to escape from the museum before you were caught. Of course, it was a shame that now you would have to hide your favorite jacket somewhere far away, well, just in case that eye was recording a video. But you didn't care. A sense of completion - at least partially, but you got it.

Even if the cultists caught you later - you were no longer afraid. You sat in your room, looking at the still cluttered living room. You felt calm and bitter at the same time.

Funny. Your whole life is one continuous funny cruelty. McGucket had originally created the Memory Gun just for himself, because he had been so scared that he thought the only way out was to forget.

And you believed it. You believed the scared, shaking, slightly pathetic man in the memories.

But the more you watched the memories, the less you believed him. He was lying. Damn it, that fear-driven man was lying to himself. He was lying that he only wanted to help himself, but then he started using the Memory Gun on others. He was lying that he wanted to help the people of Gravity Falls, but you remembered that he stopped asking if they needed his help pretty quickly. He had surrounded himself with such a cocoon of lies that he believed them, turning the lie into a twisted truth for himself. And the Memory Gun, so conveniently erasing everything from his mind that contradicted his vision of the world, helped a lot.

Damn it… you laughed. Fiddleford McGucket, you are terrible. You are a nightmare that created for yourself and only for yourself a semblance of a calm, completely controlled world. But even so, the truth broke through the lies. And you tore your brains apart more and more. And as a result, you turned into a simple old man McGucket, who had no truth left, no pain left, no nothing left.

"McGucket, congratulations. You erased your most terrible memory, the one that ruined your life. You erased yourself."

You said this to the empty living room, knowing that you could not say it to McGucket's face.

Your life was ruined because of one scared liar. Your entire beloved town was changed because of him.

Your nightmare turned out to be just a pathetic, shaking, truth-denying little man.

You covered your face with your hands and laughed louder. Here, here it is - a feeling of completion! Here, you have reached the end of this shitty story!

And you still felt bad. It was so bad that tears mixed with laughter.

McGucket was to blame for his own troubles. He was an adult; these were his decisions and his alone. Even if they were dictated by fear, it didn't matter. He brought himself to this. And let him be sorry, this is his punishment. He is not the best person.

You took your hands away from your face and looked at the ceiling. You are not a good person either. You are a coward too, and your actions are also dictated by fear.

You ran away. You abandoned your mother. And you did not take McGucket's memories from the cult's storage.

You will not show them to the old man. You were not going to bring that man back with your own hands. However, you did not destroy the memories either. If one day the stars align in such a way that McGucket finds them - so, be it. But you will have nothing to do with it.

You could say for sure, admit it, as not the best, but the most ordinary person: you despised that McGucket. Weak, shaking, trying to hide problems and throw them away, not solve them, controlling - he caused only contempt and irritation. Maybe you could understand why he started acting like this, but you could not accept it. And you could not forgive.

However, you were ready to admit: the current McGucket was not guilty of anything. Not before the town, not before you. But you were guilty before him.

You came to the junkyard only a week later. This time, not because you couldn't bring yourself to go, but because you were trying to make up for the days you missed at work. You weren't a good person, but you were trying not to lose what fed you. Besides, this week helped you calm down and pull yourself together. You also realized that the cultists weren't specifically hunting you. Lucky.

You also realized that the old man came to you, but he didn't try to get into the house, didn't knock on the door, but simply wandered around the yard like an abandoned garbage cat. Did you have to put up a sign saying: "McGucket, don't freeze outside, come inside"?

Incidentally, it's surprising that McGucket actually ended up at the junkyard. Why didn't Tate take him? Or is he only able to interact with his father under the same roof when you're around?

McGucket noticed you quickly. He invited you over, was very quiet and clearly out of place. He apologized for the raccoon not greeting you, because since it was cold at the dump, she had become very lethargic. You felt a pang of guilt.

You handed McGucket the pie you had decided to bake as a peace gift - the fairies had taught you that it was easier to apologize with food.

The old man was glad for the treat. And when you were about to apologize, he suddenly apologized first, slightly offending you. Hey, you were going to say that! McGucket apologized for barging into your room, although you had forbidden him to, for littering your house (you suspected that Tate might have hinted to him about it), for behaving badly, although you were so kind as to let him live with you. Your teeth almost wore down, you were clenching them so hard. Hell, he didn't need to apologize, you knew what you were getting into.

You interrupted the stream of apologies with one of your own. It was rather dry, but you spoke from the heart. And your heart wasn't used to wasting kind words, it had been trained exclusively in the art of fear for the last few years. But it seemed that this was enough for McGucket. He was so happy that he jumped on you with a hug. You didn't hug him back, more because it was too sudden than because of hostility or anything else.

As a result, McGucket agreed to come back to live with you. You didn't want to admit it, but it was like a weight had been lifted from your soul.

Your house became noisy, strange, and incredibly full again. McGucket was collecting some futuristic crap from the trash again, the raccoon had thawed out and was breaking dishes. Tate started visiting again. You tried to explain yourself to him, to apologize, but he stopped you, and, nodding towards his father, said that he understood. You weren't sure that he really understood, but decided to leave everything as it was.

Except for one thing: you felt power. And, using this very power, you began to force Tate to get closer to his father. You periodically drove them together to the store, somehow changed the topics of conversation so that this family finally began to talk... your efforts were not in vain: at some point, you noticed how Tate reluctantly and somewhat uncertainly helped his father with some robot. And once you accidentally caught him calling, apparently, his mother. Tate told her that his father had gotten better, and that it seemed that he could even talk to him normally.

You considered this your small victory. And with slight sadness and hope, you waited for spring. In the spring, you will let McGucket go (this isn't a hotel, after all), Tate will stop coming to you, the raccoon will stop breaking dishes, and Lullaby will wake up and be happy to know about everything that happened over the winter. And maybe the McGucket family will sort out their problems...

You tried not to think about the cult, hoping to leave it all in the past. However, two years later, you had to remember "Blind Eye" when they began hunting for the twins who came to Gravity Falls for the summer.

***

The hardest and most chaotic time in your life began with your last year of school. All you could think about was running away. You were afraid to go outside, so you basically stopped doing it unless you had to go to school. Mostly, you sat at home, shaking with fear.

The cultists were looking for you. You knew it for sure. A couple of times you noticed maroon hoods very close - although, perhaps, your brain, consumed by fear, only drew them. Scary. Scary. Scary.

Escape.

The only thought you clung to. You tried to fill your head with studying, to somehow straighten it out, but fear prevented you from concentrating. However, you were persistent, and since there was nothing left in your life except school and home, your grades were able to improve a little.

You hardly talked to your mother then. But you were sure that the memory gun was used on her again. She became more absent-minded, she forgot recipes that she used to remember exactly. She became a different person.

You graduated from school, not terribly, but badly. Although it was enough to get into a mediocre university in the middle of the country. You left the town as soon as you had the chance. And still, it seemed to you that the cultists would not let you go. You suspected the bus driver. You suspected random passengers. You suspected everyone.

You were afraid of people. Probably, everyone at the university decided that you were a little crazy. You could not sleep normally in the dorm, every sound, every creak, every voice - all this scared you. You were sick. You had nightmares. You shuddered as soon as you noticed a person. It got to the point that you could not even eat.

Finding a job was also difficult - you could hardly interact with people. You fell into a panic stupor at the sight of hoodies, you were ready to run away at the sight of red clothes.

Luck or something else was on your side once, so you found a job. In your second year, you were even able to move out of the dorm, although there was a catastrophic lack of money, you held on to your small, cold, cheap place and saved on almost everything.

Over time, you learned to take control of your fears. You tried to shove all the negative emotions deeper inside yourself, and this bore fruit - they began to dull. True, positive emotions also began to do this, but it was a small price to pay. You tried to rationalize everything that was happening to you. Why shouldn't you be afraid of the cultists now? Because they clearly settled in Gravity Falls and have power only there. They will not go further.

You were able to change your job to a higher-paying one. Of course, you still had to save, but much less. Things got better at the university. True, you could not name a single student, you did not even remember their faces. They didn't communicate with you, you didn't communicate with them. And even though loneliness began to weigh on you, you brushed it off, thinking that it was better this way anyway.

The only thing that really bothered you for a long time were letters. Your mother wrote you letters. And every letter brought back that scared, snotty kid. Brought back the nightmares.

You didn't read a single letter, and soon the flow of them dried up. You felt relief, grief, and anger all at once, and you couldn't quite say which emotion was dominant.

After college, you deliberately chose a job even further away from Oregon - you ended up on the other side of the country. You maintained the appearance of a normal person at work, but that was it. Your life was just work and home, and the occasional trip to the store, which, frankly, still terrified you. Sometimes, lying in bed, you thought about breaking away from this, trying something new... but in the morning you brushed those ideas aside every time. You were comfortable. You were convenient.

You were drawn to people. You might have wanted to communicate with them, have fun, you wanted to build relationships with them, but... you couldn't. You didn't trust them. You imagined how they would betray you. You mourned the loss in advance.

And then your mother died. You didn't even go to the funeral, some relative of hers organized everything. In fact, you remember that you had already bought a ticket to Oregon, got dressed, packed your things... but on the day of departure, you couldn't move. You sat by the front door and looked at her. Your arms and legs were so weak...

And later, you suddenly returned to Gravity Falls. And this whole amazingly fucked-up story began.

In your first spring in town, after you walked McGucket to the dump (Tate never decided to take his father with him), you started cleaning and opened the door to your mother’s room for the first time.

You found letters. Lots and lots of letters, folded into neat piles. She wrote to you until she died. She wrote, but she didn't send them. She asked how you were, worried, happy, told you about her life, about how Gravity Falls was changing. She sometimes went into memories, and you discovered with sadness that most of them, connected with you, were missing. Well, it’s not surprising, you were too active and interested in creatures as a child. Her memories with anxiety, fear, excitement and encounters with creatures from the forest were often directly connected with memories of you. You were simply erased from her mind.

But not completely. For some reason, she still cherished you, still loved you, her child, even if she barely remembered you.

In her last letter, she expressed hope that one day you would still return to Gravity Falls, that you would visit her at least once.

In the spring, you sat by your mother’s grave, and cried, smiling. You cried, trying to tell her something, but you couldn't. All you could say was:

"Here I am, Mom"

This miiiiight be a stretch, but. Hear me out.

In the Gravity Falls episode, Headhunters, when Grunkle Stan hosts a funeral for his wax figure, he’s mourning his brother, whom he didn’t think he would get back from the portal, but he’ll be damned if he stops trying. But he’s also mourning himself, and who he used to be. Think about it, he had to fake his own death and pretend to be Ford, only his mother, ‘Ford’(himself), and an FBI agent came to his funeral. No one else cared enough to come. So now, he has people who actually care about him. Hell, Mabel and Dipper went to avenge his wax figure, and he was so happy that they cared enough to do that. He actually has people who care about him, so he wants to see if they’d come to his funeral. He’s mourning his brother, but also who he used to be, and he has people to mourn with him now. He has a family.

Idk if any of that came out correctly, but y’all know what I’m getting at.

Fiddleford :) (the last one’s staying as a sketch cause I don’t like it very much.)

well 🧍‍♀️ as a reminder this blog is NOT a safe space for trump supporters but it IS a safe place for women, queers, trans ppl, people of color, undocumented people, and any marginalized group.

Stanley Pines gets his body turned back to his younger self except it just so happens to be the same exact time frame as when he:

- got a kidney stolen

- was chewing his way out of a trunk

- other form of injury and trauma that will shock the others when they see it