Chapter Text
Stanford Pines stood before the cryptic words and ancient depictions of a strange beast with only one eye inscribed on the wall, illuminated by the gas lantern he held in his hand.
Warnings of chaos and death surrounded the epitaph and nearly swayed his temptation, but something about the painted creature gnawed at him. He could leave now, never return. Pretend he didn’t see anything, and live on blissfully unaware of what could be.
But would it really have been blissful ignorance? Ford was a smart man. He’d seen and experienced things nobody else could possibly understand, aside from his partner, Fiddleford. He already lived his life plagued with a cursed knowledge of the unusual and unnatural. What more could there possibly be? Why not continue?
Why not?
He’d recently hit a road block in his research after 6 years, and come out this way in a last effort search for the source of his new home’s unusual activity. Leaving now would be wrong. Leaving now would be stupid. And Ford was a lot of things, but stupid?
No.
He took a deep breath and began to read.
“Triangulum….entangulum. meteforis dominus ventium, uh …meteforis venetisarium?”
He braced himself for the worst, eyes squeezed shut and body trembling with a mixture of excitement and fear.
…and nothing happened.
He finally opened his eyes and stared at the wall. Maybe he’d said it wrong, or missed a step? Or, maybe it was just the crazed writings of a lunatic.
He sighed and opened his second journal, and began to copy down everything he saw. He’d try again later, but for now, his body ached and his mind grew weary. After some rest, perhaps he’d be much more prepared to tackle this correctly.
Ford exited the cave and began wandering back the way he’d come. His exhaustion soon caught up with him, however, and he decided instead to take a quick nap against a tree before making the rest of the trek back home.
He settled against one of the many trees, his eyelids growing heavier by the moment. His eyes finally closed, and he drifted off into a deep slumber, but not before thinking the scars of fallen branches on the surrounding birch trees looked an awful lot like eyes.
His dream started off underwhelming. Or, rather, underwhelming for him. He dreamt of a old room filled with books and papers, oddities scattered across shelves and various other surfaces, and all that could be heard was the faint hum of a lightbulb. He was lucid, a common experience for a man with a mind as self aware as himself.
A chalkboard appeared before him, and he felt compelled to begin working on a complex math problem he’d been struggling with back at his shack. He worked tirelessly, adding, dividing, drawing connecting lines and shapes. After some time, he stepped back to look at his progress.
The answer stared back with a singular eye.
“Well well well! Look what the freakshow dragged in!” A mysterious voice suddenly spoke from nowhere and everywhere at once, startling him and quickly dissipating the chalkboard he’d summoned now that he wasn’t focused on it.
“What? Who-“ Ford spun around searching for the source of the voice.
“Maaaaan oh man. I’ve been around for millennia and I’ve never seen a human with twelve functional fingers before!” The disembodied voice commented on Ford’s unique genetic mutation. He grit his teeth and subconsciously shielded one of his hands with the other.
“Show yourself!” Ford shouted into his own head. He was beginning to grow exceptionally uncomfortable.
On cue, a sliver, a tear, a portal between somewhere and his very mindscape began to open. Ford backed up and stood with feet planted firmly and fists clenched as the sounds of infinite tortured souls screaming helplessly and inhuman laughter filled his mind. Freezing cold air rushed from the split, immediately followed by a blast of hellish heat that confused his body and made him dizzy. He fell to one knee and coughed, blood splattering on the floor before him. He heard the sound of fingers snapping and the blood vanished.
“Yeesh, Sixer, that was gross!” The voice spoke again, but this time it came from directly in front of him. The screaming was gone, and instead replaced by the gentle humming of a TV turned on with nothing on it.
Everything inside him warned him not to look up. The presence felt larger than life, impossibly big. His body protested as he began to lift his gaze. It felt like weights were strapped to his neck and shoulders, like his bones would snap under the pressure if he met the eyes of whatever being was standing there staring down at him.
Or, rather…eye.
“What…”
The weight lifted from him and he rubbed his own two eyes.
“Where did it go?” Ford looked around, past the little one eyed yellow triangle floating in front of him. “Where did that monster go?”
The triangle’s single eye furrowed in offense. “Oh, so what, am I not good enough for ol’ six fingers in this form?”
“No. You can’t be…you’re so…small.” Ford held up his thumb and first index finger to the flat yellow being.
“Well excuse me, four eyes!” The creature rolled its body while its eye stayed in place. “Let me slip into something more abstruse , just for you.”
Ford's eyes widened in terror as the creature before him began to shapeshift. Its form contorted and twisted, growing larger and darker. Its body split, two enormous, sharp-toothed jaws appearing accompanied by flicking purple tongues that seemed to taste the air. Its skin faded to a black so dark it seemed to absorb all light, making it difficult for Ford to focus on its form for too long without getting dizzy. As if that wasn't enough, the creature sprouted four additional arms and three sets of massive, jet-black wings.
With a smug smile, Ford could only assume, it began to approach him. It created illusions that shifted and changed, confusing and disorienting him. The dream around them began to twist and darken, becoming more sinister with each passing second. It’s power reached out like tendrils, subtly influencing and manipulating his dream to be more disturbed and threatening. Stanford felt a thickening sense of unease replace the air in his lungs, unsure of what was real and what was an illusion conjured by this powerful and unpredictable creature. He felt his dream begin to crumble beneath him.
Large, writhing tentacles grabbed at his legs, and a large black clawed hand took one of his wrists, holding up his hand.
“GET A LOAD OF THIS CIRCUS ATTRACTION!” The monster bellowed to an invisible audience, followed by mocking canned laughter that echoed through his very core.
“Let go of me this instant, you-“ Ford demanded, only to be interrupted by the beast, who used another hand to hold his jaw, pulling him closer to its large eye. His heart faltered as he looked into its massive slit pupil and saw himself die over and over again in various ways.
“HUMANS ARE SO FUNNY! LOOK AT YOUR FACE RIGHT NOW!” The monsters eye turned into a mirror, reflecting Ford’s entranced expression back to himself.
“You- you’re the demon-“
“AWWH, HOW CUTE! THE SMART GUY FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT.” The beast cackled and blinked, turning its eye back to its normal state. “TOOK YOU LONGER THAN I EXPECTED, I ALMOST GOT BORED!”
“But how? The incantation didn’t work!” Ford snapped out of his stunned state with a shake of his head.
“OH, BUT DIDN’T IT?” The demon began to lower Ford back down, eventually placing him gently on his feet and releasing him, much to his confusion.
“LISTEN, PAL. YOU WOKE ME UP FROM A REAL LONG NAP.” The monster rolled its hand as it spoke. “YOU TRY GETTING UP RIGHT AWAY AFTER NINE HUNDRED YEARS, GIVE OR TAKE.”
Ford just stared.
The demon returned his gaze with a blank stare and a blink that caused a small rush of air to rustle Ford’s hair.
“HUMANS…” the beast pinched his eye with one of its hands. “YOUR AWE IS FLATTERING, REALLY, BUT REALLY?” it gestured down to Ford’s lower half with a swirling finger.
Ford immediately looked down and gasped, then fell backward, his face flushed red. “I- you- I can explain-“ he stammered, “humans are complex creatures, we- I mean, sometimes, when we’re excited or stressed, our bodies-“
“CAN IT, NERD FACE. I KNOW WHAT A BONER IS.” The beast huffed and began to shrink back down to its original size. “ HUMANS ARe so gross. But, also, oh- so entertaining.”
Stanford closed his legs where he sat and cleared his throat. “What…are you…”
“I’m glad you asked!” The demon said excitedly. It snapped its fingers and Ford’s mind filled with dark and unusual, yet strangely catchy music. It tipped off its top hat and pulled a cane out, then began to sing.
“In the shadows, I weave my plans, dancing through minds with my devilish hands.” It wiggled its fingers and grew impossibly large, and Ford found himself at the end of a marionette’s strings, dancing out of his own control. “Puppet master, pulling the strings, chaos awaits while madness sings!” It laughed. “I'm the king of wickedness, nightmares and pain!”
It released him, his body crumpling to the ground with a dull thud and a groan.
“Welcome to Bill's big ball of bizarre, bask in my gaze! Dance with the danger, get lost in my maze!” It snapped its fingers once again and Ford found himself surrounded by hedges, that soon morphed into a wall of circus tents.
“Frenzied festivities, you’ll be forever enthralled! Cooking with chaos, come one, come all!” Ford entered one of the tents and found the little yellow creature stood in the center, a spotlight on it and surrounded by horrible, tortured versions of circus animals as it danced. “God of the game, let the mayhem unfold. In my cosmic carnival, this chaos is gold!”
Suddenly, everything went black.
“I'm the laughter in darkness, the light in the night!” another spotlight illuminated the beast. “Bill Cipher's the name, and sin brings me delight!”
And just as soon as it had began, it stopped.
Ford sat on the ground inside his home, hands propping him up from behind, breathing heavy and heart beating threateningly fast. He looked at his watch.
Fuzzy numbers. He was still dreaming.