My Name is Bill Cipher

I've Felt So Alone

     I'm finally alone, and for the first time in my thousands of years of living, I begin to cry. I was a demonic being, evil in every way, maniacal and chaotic, yet now, tears are streaming down my cheeks. I'm weak and vulnerable and the weight of it all has finally crashed upon me.
     Why?! Why did this all have to happen to me?! I- I don't even know what I want anymore... I think I just want to disappear. It would all be better that way.
     My back shakes with sobs. Though I've been around so many people, I've never felt more alone. I wish this all would end, one way or another. Maybe if I just don't think, everything will just disappear. Maybe if I just never move, nothing else will. Maybe if I just scream, everything bottled up inside me will leave. I take a shaky sigh. None of these things are true.
I jump as a hand rests on my shoulder. That can't be... I locked myself in this room. No one should see me like this. A pin falls to the floor beside me as the human sits down on my other side.
Shooting Star. I stutter a few words, but even I don't know what I'm trying to say. "It's okay," she responds, her voice holding no emotion. "We don't have to talk." So we don't. We sit in complete silence. No words. No feelings. No tears. Nothing.
I'm overwhelmed by a peace that I have never felt before. She asks no questions, she never leaves my side. How does she know just what to do? Does she feel as empty inside as I do? Mabel, the girl who never stops smiling? But perhaps this is so. How else can I feel such a deep connection with one such as her without even speaking?
Maybe she's known someone who's felt as I do. She doesn't deserve to go through this despair. Perhaps she knew someone who did. So now she knows how to handle my situation.
Perhaps she has a wisdom that surpasses my knowledge. Then...
No. Only experience could have given her this. Why would she feel this way? Does she feel it every time she sees her brother and his girlfriend together while she looks on alone? Does she feel if every time she remembers her all of her friends who have moved far, far away? Does she feel it when she looks at me, someone too far gone to ever succeed at making a friend with?
A wave of empathy washes over me as I put my hand over hers. I can feel hers stiffen beneath my own. Have I done the wrong thing? Her hand suddenly relaxes, color and warmth giving it life. Together, we stare at nothing. "I've felt so alone," I say, my whisper hardly audible.
"I know," she replies.
"You understand."
"I do."
"I'm sorry," I state.
"So am I." Our short exchange of words ends there. We have nothing more to say. Nothing more needs to be said.
But there is something I want to know. "Why do you hide loneliness? Or why did you? Are humans not allowed to express themselves freely?" Perhaps I am just unfamiliar with an unjust practice of humans. They have many strange rituals I've learned over the past week. There's been 'board games', 'coloring', 'carnivals', and many other strange things, but nobody ever mentioned that hiding emotions was a polite practice. Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe that's not what it is.
"No," she sighs. "It's not that. There's enough emptiness in this world. Why add to it when you can fill it with something happier? Why add to the melancholiness when you can make the people around you happy?" She pauses. "I'm not sad. Just kind of lonely. I think those are two different feelings, but you can always connect them. I choose not to. I really, truly am a happy and energetic person. I don't really want to grow up, but that's only because I'm afraid of Dipper leaving me, too."
"And your friends?" I ask, though I already know what became of them.
"Candy moved back to Korea, and Grenda had to move to the East Coast, to Delaware, because her dad switched jobs. And I never really had any good friends back in California. I mean, there're some, but none I'm actually close to, you know? They're just... there. So Dipstick's kind of the only best friend I've got. The only best friend I've ever had. I'm scared of losing him. Every time I see him with Pacifica, don't get me wrong, I'm so happy for them, I just feel a bit lonely. You see, I don't have anyone like that in my life, and the more time Dipper spends with her, the less he spends with me, and one day-" she cuts off, turning to look at me. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to vent."
"I don't mind," I tell her. So she continues to speak to me, not necessarily about loneliness, but even about her past year, how her school has been, what she's enjoyed, what she's disliked. Though I'm not following her every word, just the sound of her voice has such a peaceful, calming tone.
     I don't know how long we've been here. This moment seems timeless. I never want it to end. Not until the ends of the earth, when everything stops, when gravity falls.