Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

Merrily, Merrily, Merrily

"Oh my god."

Wirt didn't realize he said it out loud at first, but when Norman gave him a questioning look, he realized he'd have to explain.

"I-ow, god- my fingers... are really, really starting to hurt," Wirt explained, wincing. It had started as a tingling sensation, not completely awful, but not completely great, either. Wirt could handle that, but it ramped up in pain really quickly. It like in one second, there was the tingling, and the next, it felt like he'd stuck his hands in fire. Every nerve on his hands were burning in pain, and soon, it was all Wirt could think.

Wirt cried out in pain, and fell to the ground.

"Wirt?" Norman cried, but Wirt barely heard him. He could barely hear anything other than his own crying and the panic in his mind. It hurt so much.

"-Can you hear me?" Dipper was saying, and Wirt realized for the first time that everyone had gathered around him. "Wirt?"

"I...I-," Wirt could barely form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence.

"Looks like his shock caught up to him," Adam noted, worry in his voice. "Damn it!"

"How far away is the magic?" Dipper asked him, and Adam turned to the cave entrance.

"Not far..." he said, but then he sighed. "But I have no idea what to do with it once I have it! All I remember is it trying to kill me."

"You and Ash should go try and get some," Dipper told him, before he glanced at Wirt. "That... is a thing you can take and carry around, right?"

Ash nodded, slowly. He was staring at Wirt with wide eyes.

"Go, then," Dipper told them, but as a thought seemed to occur to him, he glanced at Wirt and then back to the two of them. "I'll go with you. Norman, you can stay with Wirt, right?"

Norman frowned, but he nodded anyway. "I will, if you want me to."

Dipper stood up quickly. "Good. We'll try to be quick."

Norman gave a Wirt a worried look. "You'd better."

When they climbed out of the caves and into the sunlight, Dipper had to squint, raising his arm to the light. It was dawn, and the sun was just barely peeking out from over the treetops that surrounded the plains, lighting up the long grass that came up to Dipper's waist. All around the plains, Dipper realized as he turned around. There were trees in the far distance in every direction. These plains could almost be called a clearing in a forest.

And there were people, too. A lot of people, all kinds of different people, with only one thing in common: they were all kids. There were none near them, they were all pretty far away, at the other end of the clearing. Were they all ghosts, like Norman said? Is this what he had meant?

Suddenly, Dipper realized he'd be staring in awe for far too long. He shook himself, turning to Adam. "So... where's the magic fog supposed to be?"

Adam waved to the forest. "It was literally just in the forest. We could probably go anywhere around here."

"Really?" Dipper asked, surprised. Well, that was pretty lucky. "Alright. Well, that looks like the closet, so we should go there, then."

"It's still pretty far away," Adam noted, before he sighed. "But I guess we don't have another choice, do we?"

"We should probably get started soon, then," Ash spoke up, the first thing he'd said in a while. His voice was steely with determination. "We have to hurry!"