Into the mindscape

The rotting corpse

(A/N: my computer is dead for now so I'll be using my old and crappy one until further notice. This might set back my writing a bit :'D

Anyways, onwards with the chapter, and thanks again for the comments and votes!

These chapters keep getting longer...)

Eventually, and after sleeping for a while (and was it a strange experience, to sleep while in the Mindscape), they continued on with their trek. Both men quickly noticed that the sky hadn't changed colors after several hours, and agreed that it either meant it hadn't been nearly as much time as they thought or that maybe it was just the way the forest was in that part of the Mindscape. Either way, they had enough energy to continue walking dim light and the forest didn't seem to be getting any darker, no matter the sky's coloring.

As Dipper's feet beat against the forest floor, he begins to notice the odd crunch it makes against his shoes. Frowning, he looks down to see what he's stepping on with every step, but finds only dirt and the odd pine needles and fallen branches that, while noisy when stepped on, don't make anything close to the sound of crunching leaves Dipper is hearing. Just to make sure, he looks back the path they just walked, to find no lying leaves there either.

"That's weird..."

"What's weird, kid?" William asks, a few steps further ahead from him.

"The ground sounds like stepping on leaves on the fall, but this isn't the right kind of forest for that. There aren't leaves anywhere close," Dipper explains, frowning as he looks around himself again, and William hums.

"Let's go, forest kid, I think I saw the end of the forest," the man says, and Dipper blinks before trotting to William's side. Odd crunching sounds aside, getting out of the forest sounds like a brilliant idea. And indeed, there seems to be a tree-free patch of light coming from afar, which Dipper assumes to be the moonlight's shine. Stomach twisting as a smile escapes his lips, Dipper quickens the pace as he makes a beeline for the opening.

Dipper breaks through the treeline, breathing slightly labored as his feet broke into a run at the last thirty feet, and his smile disappears as he takes in his surroundings. Huffing, he massages his face with a groan, hiding from view the circular fifty or so feet wide clearing. That is surrounded by trees.

Not so out of the forest as he's hoped, then.

The ground crunches behind him, and William comes out of the treeline. Dipper turns around to look at the man, joking words on the tip of his tongue, and the breath leaves his lungs. Under the pale moonshine William's figure looks almost as monochrome as the rest of the Mindscape, but the way the light reflects off his skin and hair still makes him stand out against the scenery, eye shining with a thoughtful glint as the gold in his iris seems to sharpen against the light. Bill looks ethereal, like something out of this world, and it makes Dipper's heart beat faster as half-conscious thoughts of fae and other magical alluring creatures come to mind one after the other, being dismissed as soon as they appear.

For a moment, Dipper thinks he can see William's pupil slit as a cat's, but then he blinks and a round pupil greets him. They stay like that, looking at each other in silence, and Dipper only feels the blush warming his cheeks once he manages to snap himself enough from his daze. Then he looks away, and feels his face catching even more on fire. Coughing lightly, he walks to the trees around the clearing's edge, and fixes his attention on the shrubs and fallen branches lying around. Fascinating, truly--

huh?

He stops at the middle of the clearing's edge, and looks both ways. From the direction where Bill and him came out the trees and shrubs are normal, healthy looking if you ignore the whole grayscale thing; on the side Dipper's walking towards though, the trees are blackened, looking like they're rotting from the inside out, and the shrubs look weak and half-dead. There's not a clear line separating both different views, but instead some stubborn trees stay strong around a myriad of dying plants, growing fewer as he walks deeper into the rotting zone.