"Awaken Dreamer"
-Gravity Falls-
Dipper should have known better.
No, really, he should have. He got up in the dead of night to get a glass of water, and that was perfectly normal. Sometimes Mabel did the same thing, but she typically woke him up with her incoherent crooning to her princeling pig.
Or he thought she typically woke him up. If it was atypical he wouldn't know, seeing as he'd sleep through it.
Not the point, he was getting off track. Though to be fair, he never did get that glass of water.
He got up in the dead of night, went downstairs and got distracted from getting himself a glass of water. He'd heard footsteps. And not his own, either. Except for that third floorboard coming down the stairs, he was pretty quiet.
His first thought was gnomes. No, really. It absolutely was not Gideon trying to sneak up on him.
Gnomes. Got it?
Quietly, he looked through the doorway into the gift shop.
The flyers were fine. Hats racked. Snow globes glowing. Turkey Jerky sticks standing in the ja- Wait, what was that last one?
The snow globes glowing. They were reflecting a dim light off of them. Dipper carefully stepped into the room. The source of the light was obscured, but he could easily make out the outline of the vending machine. It seemed closer than it should have been.
Dipper should have known better. An extra set of eyes would have been important.
Behind the vending machine was another door, one he'd never before seen. Through that door was, far less surprising than it should have been, his Great Uncle Stan.
Boxer shorts, stained wife beater, fez. If it looks like a Grunkle, it's probably a Grunkle.
Probably.
"I can't sell these eggs for a dollar!" He mumbled to himself, a trail of drool dropping away from his toothless maw to be absorbed by the increasingly stained shirt he wore.
Glassy eyed, he pressed several buttons on the keypad next to another door, opening up an elevator.
"Grunkle Stan?" The preteen asked as he followed the old man into the booth. "Are you alright?"
"The chickens would have my hide." Dipper had heard once on a television show that it was dangerous to interfere with people in this state.
He should have known better. Nothing is what it seems.
Dipper followed his Grunkle through another door, another passcode, and saw something. A glowing light, a triangle, filled with stars.
So many stars.
"Grunkle Stan, what is this?" There was something familiar, something wrong.
"And the pigs will eat all the silverware."
He should have known better. He should have recognized it.
"So buy gold." Dipper's head swiveled so quickly, he could swear he felt something crack. His Grunkle was there, right behind him. An uncharacteristic focus in his glassy gaze. He pushed. "Hello".
Dipper passed through the point of the triangle.
Dipper entered the triangle.
Dipper became the triangle.
Dipper was the triangle.
Dipper had always been the triangle.
The circle is created.
The circle is completed.
Dipper is.