Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

Welcome Home, It Doesn't Want You Back

Ash paused for a minute, his expression changing into one of confusion. "Uh... the doors locked?"

Adam raised his eyebrow. "Yes... can you let us in?"

Ash seemed to think for a minute. "Hm... give me a moment."

Ash disappeared, and the three outside exchanged confused glances with each other, but that's all they managed to be before Ash was poking his head out again.

"Just a minute," he told them. "It's so cool in here! Like a mansion!"

"A mansion?!" Wirt repeated, shocked. He didn't remember the house that well, but he was pretty sure 'mansion' was the worst way to describe it. Ash just shrugged.

"I know, I know," he said, and Wirt suddenly felt stupid. Oh, right, Ash used to live here, too, after all. Luckily, Ash didn't seem to take any offense to it. "It's like it's completely changed! Everything's different in here now, it's like it's an alien spaceship! It's cool!"

"You've said," Adam said dryly, but Wirt was still stuck on the 'it's changed!' part.

"What do you mean 'everything's different'?" he asked Ash, and Ash grinned at him, but instead of answering, he just looked up.

"You'll see," he said mysteriously, and as if on cue, a window opened up there, and Dipper leaned out. Adam frowned at him.

"Why didn't you just open this door?" he called up to Dipper, and Dipper shrugged at him.

"I couldn't find it!" he called back. "But here, you can come in with this!"

Before they could ask what the heck Dipper meant by that, he disappeared, and appeared with some kind of rope. Wirt blinked at that, about to tell them that he didn't remember that in there, before he realized that it was a bunch a fabric tied together. Fabric Wirt DID recognize.

"Isn't that the fabric from the couch?" he called up to Dipper, and Dipper titled his head at him.

"I just found this lying around," he told Wirt. "I didn't see any couches."

"...Oh," Wirt wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, but Dipper moved on before he could think too hard about that.

"Here, you can use this to climb up!" Dipper called down to them, lowering the rope down to them. Wirt called it, and then looked back up to Dipper, uncertain.

"This doesn't look safe!" Norman called up to him, and Dipper shook his head.

"Probably, but there's no other way in!" he pointed out, and Norman sighed. He and Wirt glanced at each other.

"Er, you first," Wirt told him quickly before Norman could say anything, and again, Norman sighed.

"Fine," he said. "But next time you go first."

Wirt decided not to respond to that, hopefully if he didn't bring it up, Norman would forget about it.

Grasping onto the 'rope', Norman yanked once, and Dipper nearly fell out of the window.

"Woah-hey!" Dipper cried, and Norman and Adam glared at him.

"You're just going to hang onto it?" Adam yelled up to him.

"You can't pull me up, you'll just fall down," Norman pointed out flatly, and Dipper went red.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "Hold on, I'll go tie this, somewhere. Just wait.

Once again, Dipper disappeared, but he came back quicker this time, giving them a thumbs up. Norman gave Wirt a tired look.

"There's no way this'll hold," he whispered to Wirt, quietly so Dipper couldn't hear them. "At least I won't break my neck on the way down."