Stanley Pines, Our Hero (TEOC series #1)

The Recollection

The two kids and the old man led me through the forest. How they knew their way was a mystery to me; it all looked like the same trees over and over again. At one point, I realized someone else had joined our group - a large, beefy man with a rather childish face and a torn green T-shirt with a big question mark on it. He too wore the same expression of misery and hopelessness as the others did.

Near what seemed to be the edge of the forest, I saw a gleam of something that looked like carved stone. I craned my neck to get a better look - and felt a cold, undefinable shiver race down my spine.

The statue must've been there for years, because it was overgrown with moss and plants. But I could still make out his triangular form, his crooked top hat and great, big eye. He had one hand outstretched, like he was offering it to an unseen friend.

The others led me right past the statue of Bill Cipher without noticing it. But it stuck with me, particularly the fact that I knew who he was without anyone telling me. How come I could remember that triangular demon's name, but not my own?

Finally, we arrived at some old wooden house on the edge of the woods. Half of it was destroyed, caved in. But the door was still standing.

The young boy walked up onto the front porch, passing a wild goat and a pig. He tried the door, but it must've been locked. For a few seconds, he threw his shoulder against the door, grunting, until it finally gave way. He beckoned, and the girl led me into the house.

There was vegetation growing in here too, coming up between the wood planks. There was a living room, which was mostly intact. The TV on one side of the room had fallen over, but the chair and skull of some weird creature on the other side were in one piece.

"Hey," I said, looking around the room. "This is a real nice place you got here." As I spoke, some more wood fell through the ceiling.

"It's your place, Grunkle Stan," the boy explained as I walked forward into the room.

"Don't you remember? Even a little?" the girl begged.

I sat down in the chair and leaned back. "Nope. But this chair hugs my butt like it remembers." I sighed, closing my eyes for a moment. It was nice to relax a little. I don't know why, but my body felt really sore.

I opened my eyes again. The others were standing awkwardly in front of me, as though they were lost.

"Hey, why the long faces?" I asked. "You guys look like it's someone's funeral." I covered the side of my mouth with one hand and whispered, "Who's the big guy cryin' in the corner?"

The guy in the question mark shirt sobbed suddenly and turned his face away. I hoped I hadn't been rude. I didn't even know him.

"We saved the world, but what's the point?" the boy asked, turning away and running his fingers through his hair. "Grunkle Stan's not himself anymore."

"There's gotta be something we can do to jog his memory!" the girl cried, a note of desperation in her voice.

"There's nothing," the old man said. "I'm sorry, Stan's gone."

I caught the note of despair in his voice, and I suddenly felt extremely helpless. These strangers obviously cared about me; and there was obviously something very wrong with me, considering I couldn't even remember my own name. It felt horrible to watch these people suffer because of me, when I knew full well there was nothing I could do to help.

"I know my Grunkle is in there somewhere!" the girl sobbed, pointing at me. She began to search the room frantically. "There's gotta be something around here that can help bring him back!"

She suddenly lunged for a bright pink book at the foot of the chair. Clutching it under one arm, she scrambled up onto the chair next to me. "This'll work! This has to work!"

She opened the book to the first page, and I realized it was some sort of scrapbook. She pointed to a picture that had been taped in and surrounded with stickers. It was of her, the young boy I was assuming was her brother, and another old man who looked similar to the man standing in front of me, but had noticeable differences. I somehow knew, without any sign from the others, that the man was me. In the background was a wooden building, sort of like the one we were in now, with the sign "The Mystery Shack".

"Here's the first day we came to Gravity Falls, Grunkle Stan," the girl explained, a slight plea in her voice. "And here's a macaroni interpretation of my emotions." She was now pointing to a face made from macaroni noodles glued to the paper.

She flipped through the pages, pointing out the hundreds of photos. They almost all had her and the boy in them. I was in a good bit of them too, but I didn't recognize any of the places or events in the pictures. The big man in the question mark shirt was in a lot of them, as well as some redhead teenage girl I'd never met. A few of them had other unfamiliar people. None of them were familiar in the slightest way, though.

"That time we went fishing?" the boy asked, running over and leaning over the chair armrest. "That Summerween we spent together? Don't you remember anything?"

"I'm sorry," I confessed, feeling terrible for the desperate looks on their faces. "I don't know what this is, or who you are, or - "

Then the pig that I'd seen on the porch earlier jumped up into my lap, squealing. Startled, I seized it, intending to throw it off, when something flashed before my eyes.

It was a long, black-and-white hallway, filled with hundreds of doors. They were all padlocked with heavy, electric blue chains. I felt myself zooming down the hall, gliding above the ground at top speed. An echo of my own voice from long ago rang in my ears: "Inside the Shack is a maze of a thousand doors representing your uncle's memories."

And then, I saw a door up ahead - I was slowing down more the closer I got to it. It had a pig's face carved into the wood. As I watched, the chains fell off - the door flew open - and I was bathed in hundreds of recollections of this pig, all the way from the day the young girl had won him at some sort of fair.

This all happened in less than half a second. "Gah!" I cried, standing up abruptly as Waddles began to lick my face. I held him at arm's length. "Quit it, Waddles! I'm trying to remember my life story!"

There were twin gasps from behind me. "What did you say?" the boy asked eagerly.

"I said get Waddles off of me!" I exclaimed, holding the pig as far away from my body as humanly possible - and yet he was still managing to lick my face. How long was a pig's tongue, anyway?

The old man gasped. "It's working!" he said eagerly. "Keep reading!"

"Skip to my page!" the man in the question mark shirt cried. "He needs to remember our boss-employee relationship!" And as he spoke, I saw myself zooming down that same hallway again, and I witnessed another door lose its bindings and release its stored memories.

"Hey, just 'cause I have amnesia, don't go tryin' to give yourself a raise, Soos," I scolded, returning to the chair with Waddles under my arm.

"It's happening!" the boy cried. "Keep going!"

"Okay, okay!" the girl exclaimed, flipping rapidly through the scrapbook pages. "Day 2: Grunkle Stan smells weird but we're starting to bond. He told us a lot about being a business man in the '80s and seemed happy when we pretended to listen. He also gave me a grappling hook which everyone is impressed by. And in more important news, I met some neighborhood hotties."

That got a good laugh out of everyone. I put my arms around the boy and girl and squeezed them tightly, still chuckling.

Mabel read from her scrapbook; and the more she read, the more doors in that black-and-white hallway were unlocked. I began to remember everyone, and we had a good time looking back at old memories. I had never felt more at home than I did there, surrounded by my family, both of blood and covenant, in the half-destroyed Mystery Shack, and finally truly appreciating who I was.