The first thing Wirt thought when he woke up was: '...I am not at home.'

There were a couple things that made Wirt come to this conclusion: one, it was really cold, and either Wirt's blanket had suddenly become the worst one in existence, or it wasn't there. The second tip of was that it was pouring rain, and Wirt could feel each painfully icy splash on his skin. It wasn't quite as painful as needle pricks, but that was what it reminded Wirt off. The last part that told Wirt that he was not at home was the fact that it felt he was hallway submerged in water, or at least something slightly watery.

It did not feel pleasant. Wirt winced, feeling slightly disgusted, and finally opened up his eyes.

"Huh? Oh, you're awake now. Uh, good morning?"

Wirt got up, shifting to the side and yawning. Despite just waking up, he didn't feel even remotely refreshed.

"Hey, wait, slow down!" someone was saying next to him, and Wirt looked to the side to see Dipper kneeling next to him. Dipper didn't catch his gaze, instead focusing on Wirt's hands, which Wirt drew in almost self-consciously. Dipper blinked, suddenly looking surprised.

"Oh," he said, titling his head. "You're fine. Are you fine? How are your hands?"

Wirt blinked, his mind going blank for a second, before everything suddenly came rushing in at once. He quickly brought at his hands, flipping them over a bunch of times to try anything wrong with them. But there was nothing, his hands were completely whole and fine, other than a slightly pink sheen to them that could just be a trick of the light. It was as if everything that happened in the cave was just a far away dream.

"I'm... fine," Wirt realized. "My hands are fine. I don't feel anything from them."

Dipper glanced quickly at him. "Nothing?"

Wirt suddenly remembered what he had been saying before. "Well, no, not nothing, I still feel them, but no pain or anything."

Finally, Dipper's face split into one of relief. "Really?" he asked, and Wirt nodded. Dipper laughed, sounding slightly hysterical. He held up a long pink cloth, looking bewildered. "I can't believe it. This thing actually worked."

"What is that?" Wirt asked him, and Dipper shrugged.

"Magic, or something, I guess," Dipper told him. He held it up to Wirt so he could get a good look at it. "We got it at the edge of the forest."

Wirt furrowed his eyebrows. "You mean it was lying around?"

"Nope," Dipper said. "I literally had to reach into the forest and grab some of the fog."

Wirt was taken aback. "You what?"

"I don't get it either," Dipper sighed, shrugging. "But it worked, so that's good."

Wirt nodded, and Dipper peered at the cloth curiously. "This thing seems pretty useful, even though it feels like my hands about to explode."

"Does the cloth hurt your hand?" Wirt asked, concerned, but Dipper shook his head.

"No, it's just that if I let go of it, it disappears," he explained. "Or something like that."

"Oh," Wirt realized. "Well, you can probably let it go now. It served it's purpose."

Dipper frowned, and for a minute, it looked like he was debating with himself before he shrugged, letting the cloth go. To Wirt's surprise, it seemed to dissolve into mist before his very eyes before completely disappearing.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Dipper agreed. He watched it disappear along with Wirt. "But the 'healing magic fog' is something we should keep in mind."

Wirt thought back to the time when it nearly killed him. "Uh... yeah, I guess," he said anyway.

Suddenly, Adam stood up, drawing Dipper and Wirt's attention over to him. He stretched, and then looked over to Wirt.

"Are you alright now, Wirt?" he asked, and Wirt blanked, and then quickly nodded.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I-I'm good."

Adam blinked, before shaking his head. "Alright, then. We should probably get moving then. How far away is the house, Wirt?"

"...I don't know..." Wirt told him after a couple seconds of confused silence. "I have no idea where we are..."

"Oh," Adam said, and Wirt winced. Adam sounded disappointed. "Well, I guess we're going to have to look around then."

The five of them looked around the plains, and Wirt once again felt guilty. The clearing somehow seemed even bigger than before, maybe because he couldn't see the end because of the fog. It almost reminded him of the bone dragons, AND Wirt found himself nervously checking the sky. If he got kidnapped this time, they wouldn't have a bone dragon baby to trade for them.

Wirt hadn't thought about the bone dragons for a while, he realized. In fact, he hadn't even thought about this little clearing for a long time. It was like he was remembering some long-forgotten memory, buried in the depths in his mind, but he hadn't left this clearing that long ago.

The feeling was an odd one, and Wirt pushed it to the back of his mind. No, he probably needed to focus here, actually focus.

"It feels like this will take forever," Norman suddenly said, glaring at the ground. Wirt glanced at him, and then looked down, too. Norman was right, the mud was above his ankles now, and when Wirt tried to move, it not only felt like the mud was trying to suck his physical body back down, but also his entire soul as well. It was impossible to move.

"It's fine," Adam told him. He didn't seem to be held down by the mud, and Dipper looked like he was about to tell him that, but Adam continued first. "We'll use the Burrow-Swimmer."

"The Burrow-Swimmer?" Wirt repeated, and something about that seemed familiar. "You mean like... the Burrowing Tiger?"

Dipper and Adam looked surprised, and they glanced at each other.

"Well, I guess that works, too," Adam said.

"They're both pretty accurate," Dipper agreed. "Anyway, Norman, Wirt, just, uh... it's hard to explain. Just follow my lead."

Norman and Wirt exchanged a look, and Ash gave them a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry!" he told them. "It's really fun, trust me!"

It wasn't fun. Dipper, Adam and Ash somehow didn't think to explained anything, so Norman and Wirt were left chasing Dipper as he ran around, and trying to avoid the giant creature chasing after all of them. Norman and Wirt had no clue what was going on, and so they completely missed when Dipper told them to grab onto the creature. So, only Dipper reached out and grasped the creature's (the Burrow-Swimmer? The Burrowing Tiger? It didn't matter) matted fur, he was the only one ripped away from the ground, now riding on top of the Burrowing Tiger as it swam through the ground. Norman and Wirt stared at him while Ash and Adam laughed at them.

"You're supposed to be on there," Adam told them, and Norman sighed.

"An explanation would have been nice," he said, but Adam only shrugged, looking mischievous.

"We already did that," Adam said. "Don't worry, just grab onto it, when Dipper comes around again. You'll be fine."

Wirt had never doubted anything more, but he got ready for it, and just as Adam said, Dipper somehow controlled the Burrowing Tiger into turning around, practically swimming on its side as Dipper... 'drove it', or something like that.

"He's coming, he's coming!" Ash cried excitedly, reaching towards Norman as if to shake him. "Get ready!"

Wirt gulped, but he did as Ash said, raising his arms in a 'ready' position. Really, it looked more like he was trying to protect himself, and yeah, he kind of was. He couldn't help it, not when something like that was hurtling towards him.

"He's almost here," Adam told him, which wasn't helping matters. Was that Wirt shaking, or was that the ground? Beside him, Norman seemed to be shaking just as much,

"Get ready... get set..." Ash said, and he seemed to be enjoying this immensely. "And... GO, GO!!"

Wirt almost didn't, startled out of it by Ash shouting in his ears, but luckily he moved just in time, burying his fingers in the long, kind of dirty hair and feeling like they got ripped out as he got yanked along.

"Oh my god!" Norman cried as he, too, was pulled along. Wirt had a yell stuck in his throat too, but it stayed stuck in there as he was pulled along like a doll, his feet dragging along the muddy ground until Dipper fixed it, forcing the Burrowing Tiger upright. That felt a lot better, Wirt suddenly didn't feel like his arms were being ripped out now, and he felt like he could suddenly take a breath.

"Oh... wow," he breathed, and Dipper grinned at him.

"It feels cool now, doesn't it?" Dipper asked him, and Wirt smiled. With the wind in his hair, and the warmth emanating from the creature below him, Wirt had to agree. It certainly was more comfortable, to say the least.

Norman laughed besides him. "This is great!" he cried. "Like we're in a movie! Or a video game!"

Dipper snorted. "Well, don't tell Adam that. He'll take it as evidence."

Wirt laughed, remembering how adamant Adam was about this world being a video game.

"I heard that!" Wirt heard someone yell, and he looked down to find Adam and Ash running along side of the creature, keeping up easily. Adam yelled at them again: "And for your information, I WILL be taking that as evidence for my theory!"

Dipper rolled his eyes, and seeing Wirt's looked of amazement, leaned over to explain.

"It's because he's a ghost, remember?" Dipper told him. "He doesn't have our... limitations."

"It's the best glitch ever!" Adam called to them, and Dipper sighed, but he looked more amused than anything.

"Now look at what you did," he said, nudging Norman, and Norman laughed again.

"Hey!" Ash suddenly cried, and everyone turned to him. "Hey, look! There's a house!"

Ash pointed at something ahead of them, and they all looked over. Wirt's eyes widened. It was like he never left: an old house, not homely looking in the slightest, with a big, weird looking, fleshy pile next to it. The front door was even left open (did they close that? He couldn't remember, it really wasn't the most important thing that happened, after all).

"It's the house!" he exclaimed, surprised. It felt like not even five minutes had passed since they first hitched a ride on the Burrowing Tiger. Wirt was almost impressed, but after a bit more though, he was more so scared of it than anything else.

Dipper glanced at him. "Really? That was quick," he noted, echoing Wirt's own thoughts. He shrugged. "Well, we're going there, then. Be warned that this thing doesn't have any brakes or anything like that."

Wirt stared at him, eyes growing wide when Dipper didn't elaborate. He opened his mouth to complain, but Norman beat him to it.

"Then... how are we supposed to get off?" Norman asked him, and Dipper gave them both a look.

"Well, how do you think?"

Norman and Wirt only had time to exchange a quick glance before Dipper suddenly disappeared from between them. When they looked back, they saw him rolling along the ground. Wirt winced, it looked painful, and he wasn't too excited to do it himself, but they had already paced the house, and it was getting further away by the second.

"Just do it!" Adam yelled to them, and Norman and Wirt gave him an incredulous look.

"Are you serious?!" Wirt bellowed back.

"We can't do that!" Norman cried.

"It'll be fine!" Ash assured them. He waved behind them. "Look, Dipper's fine!"

Norman and Wirt glanced back there, and at first, it looked like he wasn't moving. Norman turned back to Adam and Ash.

"I-!"

"Hurry up!" Adam interrupted him, and there was a sense of urgency to his voice now. "You're going to far now! You won't be able to come back!"

"We'll be fine," Wirt, who continued looking back, said, and Norman looked over to him like he was crazy. Wirt turned back to the front, nervous.

"Wha-?!"

"We'll be fine," Wirt said, more firmly this time, because he needed to convince himself, too. And with that, he let go of the creature.

For a second, he was flying through the air, head over heels and turning his stomach into a washing machine. And then he was going down, the blue sky above him, and a sea of long green grass underneath him. And under that, the brown depths that Wirt's back hit painfully. It was almost funny; he landed with a loud 'plop!' noise, like a cartoon.

Wirt blinked at the sky. Well, that was lucky. It didn't even hurt at all, like he'd landed on feathers. Well, he probably would have preferred that. Like before, the mud was seeping into every nook and cranny, and it seemed like it was getting ready to suck his entire being out. Wirt got up quickly.

The first thing he saw when he stuck his head out of the grass was Adam, laughing his head off with Ash, who had the decency to hide his amusement behind his hands.

"Are-pfft- Are you alright, Wirt?!" Ash called out to him before he, too, couldn't resist, and dissolved into laughter, too.

Norman's head poked up from the grass and his expression was just as disgruntled as Wirt felt.

"Sorry, sorry," Adam laughed, but he didn't sound very sorry. "But that was hilarious! I wish I recorded that!"

"Yeah, yeah," Norman huffed. "Are you done yet?"

"Not yet," Adam told him, and Norman and Wirt exchanged a tired look as Ash and Adam got it out of their system.

"How far away is the house?" Norman asked Wirt, as the two clowns showed no sign of slowing down. Or so they thought.

"You both are lucky," Adam told them, still giggling. He theatrically wiped a tear from his eye. "The Burrow-Swimmer curved a little but, so you're not as far away as you could have been."

"Come on, Dipper's waiting for us!" Ash told them, motioning towards the house because he couldn't physically shove them.

Norman forced his foot out of the wet earth, moved it forward an inch, and then was forced to put it down again. He sighed.

"We made a mistake, he grumbled. "At this rate, we'll never get there."

Adam rolled his eyes. "Better hurry up then. Only two miles to go."

Wirt and Norman nearly collapsed on the spot.