It's Where My Demons Hide

Chapter 44

As Douglas Adams had once said,
don't panic.

Dipper ran his fingers through his messy hair. His chest heaved rapidly with heavy panting. Yes, don't panic, especially when you're trapped in a demon's lair.

When he left the party, he had sprinted across the main corridor. After all the madness, he yearned to be in a quiet place where he could avoid the other demons.

Having reached to the near brink of exhaustion, Dipper had stopped. As he was thinking of giving up, a wooden door materialized beside him.

With no hesitation, Dipper had reached out to grab the door handle. The door gave a creak, and opened to reveal a dark room.

So now here he was, standing alone in the room. Dipper let out another breath that he didn't know he was holding. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, he scanned the place. It was completely devoid of anything.

Dipper strode across the room and began to investigate the walls and the floor. If there was one thing he learned from those detective movies, there was always something in a "plain" room.

When his search came to no avail, he sighed, putting both hands on his forehead.

He was just baffled at the situation – what was he to do? Push the walls with his bare hands and hope the room would reveal its secrets to him?

Actually ... that idea did not sound too bad.

With renewed determination, Dipper used all of his strength and pushed the wall. To his surprise, the wall glowed. His arms glowed too!

Befuddled, Dipper rolled up his sleeves. There were drawings on his skin glowing with such intensity that could well burn out someone's eyes.

The Cipher Wheels on his arms were responsible for activating the wall, he realized.

But ... what was the Cipher Wheel? Why did he have those in the first place?

KLUNK!

Startled, Dipper raised his head to see a floating wardrobe begging to be opened.

The golden wardrobe had ciphers engraved that resembled to the ones on his arms. With another klunk, it opened itself and out came a line of floating clothes.

The clothes were all fancy formal suits, the very type he disliked. He was always forced to wear them. However ... Dipper looked down at his dirty orange jail clothes ... he could make this an exception.

So he chose a navy blue suit.

Now that he have changed into something cleaner, Dipper began to think. He had to leave this place somehow, if he wanted to continue setting his plans in motion. Jumping out of the window sounded tempting -

"Greetings, Pine Tree!" a high pitched voice chirped. The triangular demon appeared next to him, his eye full of mirth.

Speak of the devil (or demon), Dipper hastily turned around and forced a huge grin. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Crossing his arms, Bill accused, "You left the party early."

"Yes, you're pretty much stating the obvious."

"And here I thought we would have a pleasant conversation - Ah, and you have finally changed into something more befitting of your status." Bill gave him a thumbs up.

Dipper glanced down at his new black suit and cursed silently. Count the demon to mock his new clothes. What even was his status anyway?

Dipper glanced up at Bill who was conjuring up two floating armchairs and a screaming head. The demon then gestured to Dipper to sit and he let himself. Holding the screaming head, Bill sat down opposite from him.