Zigzag Logic (Bill Cipher X Reader)

Cave

Suddenly the dirty hands recoiled back as a yellow light illuminated the room. You looked up, seeing Bill facing toward the dirt with his little arms outstretched. "BACK OFF OR I'LL SHATTER YOU!" he shrieked, earning more recoil from the dirt.

Soon enough the dirt was fully back to how it originally looked, the hole had also returned to its original size so it would have been near pitch black if it wasn't for Bill's soft glow. Bill looked at you and grabbed your hand, yanking you up so fast you thought you heard your shoulder pop. You heard something wriggling and clicking behind you, so you looked. A large patch of what looked to be moss hissed at you and slithered away into a darker nook into the cave's walls.

"Devil's moss," Bill said, snapping a finger and clearing you up of any remaining moss. "It works in a symbiotic relationship with the living dirt, sitting under the entrance to the chosen cave and holding the victim still. Once the dirt eats all of the flesh and soft stuff, the moss is left with the calcium in the bones and devours that. Both only stay in mountains where underground caves are most common, so you're the only one I've shown this to."

You nodded, still shaken up from the terrifying experience.

"Come on, it's down further," Bill began to float farther into the cave, dragging you along with him.

You kept up rather easily, and looked around the cave. The small patch of living dirt covering the entrance was soon replaced by stone, and the further down the cave you went, the more etchings you saw. Drawings of what looked like Mt. Hood erupting were a prominent feature, all drawn in ash. You shuddered at the mere thought of the mountain you lived on erupting while you were still on it. You noticed that the drawings seemed to get less elaborate and detailed the further you went on, as if there wasn't enough ash. There would be more symbols showing up as well, strange ones written in a pattern as if they were a language. Native American, possibly.

Eventually the end of the cave grew ever nearer, and there was next to no ash at this point. The cave walls became blank for a good ten meters or so, but then suddenly exploded in etchings, the wall carved out to create elaborate sentences and symbols. An exceedingly detailed eruption was carved into the wall, but something was strange. Large bodies were seen crawling out of the opened cone, unaffected by the searing heat. A triangle was floating above all of the destruction, which worried you.

Bill quickly pulled you away from the apocalyptic carving and showed you something else, his soft glow illuminating it nicely. "This is what I wanted to show you," he stated, holding out his arm as if he were in a showcase. "Hundreds of years of drawings and we come to the oldest one."

"But... why are there so many? Wouldn't that dirt eat anyone else?" you questioned.

"Well... those Native Americans you were thinking about earlier... old prophets of theirs would come here. Those nearing their death days would get terrible visions of some catastrophic future and they would set off to find this place. It was considered sacred because only those with high spiritual energy could enter. The first one was one I knew and worked with. Her name was... Altsoba, I think. (You can look up the meaning. I chose this name for a reason) She was a lot like you, actually. Reclusive, kind of boring, very invested in how the world works," Bill chuckled when he saw your scowl. "I showed up when she was around thirteen. So just before she was going to get married off. She wasn't very happy with that choice of husband, so I easily helped her convince her family she was a prophet and unable to marry. Turns out other spiritual beings had already chosen for her to be a prophet and didn't decide to show those powers until I showed up."

"Other spiritual beings?" you asked quietly.

"All of you humans are actually very influenced by creatures from other dimensions. Or... well... not my kind, at least. I'm the last," Bill gave a laugh, but, it seemed to hide sadness. "Your Norse gods, Greek gods, Native American spirits, all real. They just tend to focus on certain areas and peoples they like. The Norse gods are actually a species of humanoids with exceeding strength, and they love a good war. The Greek gods are less human and actually more resemble the Greek monsters, but they gave humans a human appearance so they would start sacrificing. They find that absolutely hilarious. Native American spirits are very animal-like and pretty peaceful, but those that directed sunlight loved sacrifices too."

You nodded.

"But, anyway, eventually she stopped relying on me as the spirits gave her more and more prophetic dreams. She never filled her end of the deal and boy was that aggravating. I watched her as the years went on, I saw the wrinkles grow on her face, her hair grow gray, all until she looked like an old, stressed woman and nothing like she was before. Then, one day, she woke up with a gasp and immediately grabbed her things and left the village in the dead of night, only leaving a note containing directions for future prophets and a very cryptic message of the end of the world. I followed her and saw her stomp on the ground and drop, driving away the dirt and Devil's moss with nothing but spiritual energy. She reached the end of this cave and for days all Altsoba did was carve into the cave. She barely ate, never slept. Just carved. And at the end all she did was drop dead to the ground as soon as her work was finished. In fact, she had started to decay before even dying. She was dead before she dropped. For a while I kept watch on her village, sometimes helping them win a war when I was bored- not because I liked her or anything. Eventually another prophet grew up and grew old. He had the same dream, I watched the whole thing play out. The spirits were so strong I couldn't affect anything. He got up in the dead of night and left, leaving his own instructions and cryptic message. Then he came here, picked up Altsoba's bones, moved them ten meters away and..." Bill paused for a moment. "Burned them. He took her bones and burned them. He created a simple drawing of the mountain with the symbols for shaking around it and left the rest of the ashes. He immediately died of a heart attack afterward. This continued for a couple centuries, each prophet's drawing getting more and more elaborate, almost as if it could be a frame by frame animation. And this is the end result. "

You looked between Bill and the carving on the wall. He didn't seem very willing to answer any questions right then, so you left to observing the wall. A carving of Bill sat in the wall, his arms outstretched and pupil staring directly ahead. In one hand a goose feather quill floated slightly above it, in the other a deer skull. A pine tree, shooting star, six-fingered hand, and symbol of the strange gathering Holy Mackerel, stood in their own respective corners. You glanced around, fixating your gaze on the opposite cave wall. A spot there seemed different from the rest. Small and nearly unnoticeable, a round button sat on the wall calling your name to press it and reveal its secrets. You walked toward it, transfixed. Lifting your finger up, you put your finger on the button.

But you were quickly interrupted by the sound of four pairs of footsteps rushing down the cave.