The ceiling was on fire. Dipper was staring up straight ahead as he laid on his bed. The room was filled with smoke and crackling flames were spreading everywhere. But Dipper couldn't move. He just laid there, terrified and alone. The flames grew too close. Then, as a flash in the smoke, a single eye flickered. It was a large eye, white with a cat-like black pupil. Eyelashes were daggered out of the tip of the eyelid. Then the fire turned blue.

Then Dipper woke up.

He stared toward the ceiling, which was made of slightly rotting logs that were an old, grey color. "Nightmare." Dipper groaned. But he still felt the heat of the fire. His head was burning and ached terribly. His stomach churned and he thought he might throw up. He cried out in pain and was whimpering. He closed his eyes, and upon opening them again, he saw the bright brown yet concerned eyes if his twin sister, Mabel.

"Dipper!" she exclaimed. "Are you okay? I heard you crying!" She had her arms pulled all the way up her light purple pajama sleeves as if it was terribly cold.

"Just...hot." Dipper said. "I don't feel good." Mabel put her hand on Dipper's forehead.

"You...you're burning up!" Her voice was loud and rather terrified. "Dipper!" Without another word, she ran out of the room and down the hall.

Dipper laid still with his eyes half open and he breathed through his mouth. His throat was becoming sore and stickingly dry. Less than a minute later, heavy footsteps of Stan clomped down the hall followed by the small pattering of the distinct socked feet of Mabel. Before Dipper knew it, Stan's bearded face was directly above his with the usual expression but much more worried. He was prodding a thermometer in Dipper's mouth. Dipper reflexively closed his mouth on it, but it became hard to breathe.

Stan cussed under his breath. "104.3". Mabel covered her mouth and screamed. Stan put the thermometer down. "Dipper, if you get to 105 degrees, I'll have to take you to the Emergency room... the hospital in this dead end town is small but they can help ya if you need it."

"I-I'm okay..." Dipper protested. He coughed and tried to hold back a whimper in pain.

Stan shook his head. Then he scooped up the twelve year old boy, blanket and all, in his arms. Then he carried him out of the room and downstairs to the living room. Stan laid Dipper on the couch and put the blanket over him as comfortably as he could. He turned on a light in the hallway so things could be seen but it wasn't eye-burningly bright. "Hang tight, kid." Stan said, walking to the kitchen. "I'm going to go get you some medicine. Dipper nodded slowly and closed his eyes.

"How ya feeling?" a sarcastic, evil, familiar voice echoed from all corners of the room. The eye flashed once more. Blue fire flickered in Dipper's vision all around.

"Go away..." Dipper blurted out deliriously.

He felt himself being shaken slowly. Then, in front of him, was Grunkle Stan holding Dipper's arm and shaking it.

"You gotta wake up, kid." Stan declared in an unfortunate tone. "Take this." The great uncle handed Dipper a tiny cup of a reddish, thick liquid. Next was a cup of lukewarm tap water. But when Dipper took the small medicine cup and tilted his head back to get it over with and swallow, his throat burned in an excruciating pain, and in a desperate attempt to remove the cause, Dipper's throat closed and he gagged. The medicine came up and went on his shirt. "Whoa, there." Stan said quickly. He handed Dipper the glass. "Try to drink this very slowly." Then he left the room.

"Why is this happening to me." Dipper thought as a sharp pain shot him in the head. His eyes widened and be dropped the glass of water on the floor. "AH!"

Immediately he could here Grunkle Stan running back into the room. In one hand he held a clean shirt for Dipper and in the other was a wet rag. "Dipper, what's wrong?"

"Head..." was all Dipper could speech out. Stan took off Dipper's dirty shirt. After using the rag to cool Dipper, Stan helped him put on the clean shirt on.

"Your sister is very worried about you, y'know." Stan said expressfully. "She is up there praying." He picked up the cracked glass off the floor.

Dipper smiled weakly. Him and his sister were admirably close. They cared about each other like siblings truly should.

Then his mind trailed off and ended up at the Bill Cipher incident. He snapped himself back to reality, but his eyes wouldn't focus. His vision doubled and span.

"Dipper?" Stan looked at the blank face of his great nephew. He put his hand up and held three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

The boy squinted. "Five...eigh-" his voice trailed off.

"Alright, kiddo. I'm taking you to the ER." The next few minutes were unmemorable to Dipper. First he heard the horrified shriek of Mabel to the news she had probably just heard, and then he heard a mumble of words as Stan talked on the phone for several minutes. Then in a blurry speed of happenings Dipper felt himself being carried and seatbelted into the car. Trees rushed past outside the window, and soon they turned to street lights. Mabel sat next to him and she was singing "Disco Girl" in a depressing way as she tried to keep herself alert and less depressed.

Dipper drifted off, and he saw all of Bill Cipher then.

"Wake up sleepyhead!" The dream creature said, laughing. Everything was grey. Dipper leaped up, but his seatbelt was stuck. "I'm after Stan and Mabel." Bill finished.

Then there were white lights, and Dipper remembered nothing. He took in his surroundings, then sighed. A tall, male, doctor, to his left, spoke. "He woke." Another one nodded then wrote something down on a wooden clipboard. The first doctor looked at Dipper caringly. "I have to put this needle in your arm, okay? It will just feel like a pinch. It will help you to feel better." As the doctor put the needle in Dipper's arm, Dipper other hand being squeezed. It was Mabel.

"It's okay." She said. Dipper looked up, and realized an IV was now in him. The doctors checked a few of Dipper's monitors then both left. That was when Dipper noticed Grunkle Stan was there too. He saw him differently, though. He looked more old than usual, and there were bags and wrinkles under his eyes. But in his eyes was fear. Dipper could see it was there. Stan...cared. At that thought, Dipper's heavy eyelids closed and he fell asleep deeply.

As quickly as it seemed, morning came and the twelve year old opened his eyes to by bathed by bright yellow rays of the summer sun that poured through the window in his hospital room. Stan and Mabel were still there, and they both slept on chairs in the corner. Dipper still felt horrible. Like he was smothering, his head burned and his airways felt torn. He closed his eyes. Upon opening, Stan and Mabel were awake and the doctor from last night spoke to Stan. "Nothing specific seems to be wrong with him." He was saying. "Tell him to take this medicine slowly as to keep it down," he handed Stan a container, "He seems to just have a fever bug and there is nothing more we can do here. Take him home, make sure he gets plenty of rest."

Dipper was too drowsy to remember well as he was taken off the IV, then signed out of the hospital and soon he was back on the living room couch back at The Mystery Shack. "What a night, kid." Grunkle Stan said, putting his hand on Dipper's forehead. "I think your fever is down. Lemme go ask Mabel where she put the thermometer." Dipper heard Stan racing up the stairs.

Blue fire.

It had come back.

It burned all around but nothing charred, it simply flamed up in all directions. Bill appeared, and spread his arms out dramatically. "Hey, sick one!" He said with a chuckle.

"Wait...I keep dreaming about you!" Dipper remembered. He gasped and tried to sit up. He felt terribly dizzy, but he did not want to appear weak in front of his nemesis. "THIS is just a dream!" Dipper cried out.

"Surprise! I'm afraid not this time!" Bill pinched Dipper on the arm. It was where his IV had gone in. It hurt Dipper and tears filled his eyes.

"Agh!" Dipper was now much more angry. "Just leave!"

"Nah-ah! Remember?"

Dipper then thought hard, trying to take his mind back to the several nightmares Bill had inflicted him with. "I'm after Stan and Mabel." Cipher had said.

"No!" Dipper cried. "Your lying!" He darted toward the triangle and lunged at him. His body flew through Bill and Dipper fell on the ground face first. He rolled over onto his back. Black spots layered over his vision. "You made me sick..."

"Give the boy a prize!" Bill Cipher put both his arms up, looking proud of himself. "You are too sick to do anything, let alone keep me from your family!"

Dipper picked up an old dish from a nearby sidetable. He hurled it at Bill, but it went through him just as Dipper's body had.

Then Bill began to float through the ceiling. "I'm off to trick your family...and you can't stop me!"

"No!" Dipper yelled. He pushed himself up off the ground, and stood as his head was spinning. He walked to the kitchen. There on the table, where he had left it the previous day, was Dipper's journal. Or rather, it was not Dipper's- but the true author was unknown. So Dipper grabbed it and headed to the stairs.

As he ran up the stairs as fast as his weak legs could carry him, he felt his body giving out. His legs began to go limp and the boy collapsed. He grabbed onto a railing, as to not fall back down. "Must...save...Stan and Mabel..." He opened the journal and flipped through the tearing frail pages. "Dreamscape portal" on read. "Opens a portal that sucks away any immortal being in a room." However, no chant or spell was on the page. "It must be written with the special kind of ink." Dipper thought aloud. Against his pounding head, he stood up and stumbled himself into the bedroom.

There, before his eyes, was Bill Cipher with both his hands glowing with a blue fire, just as delirious expressions covered the faces of both Stan and Mabel. The two had their arms extended- prepared to shake the fiery hands of the dream demon. "Stop!" Dipper tried to yell but his dry throat caused his voice to stop and he was left coughing and gasping. He jumped up with all the veins of strength he had left in his body and pushed Mabel and Grunkle Stan away. Dipper held the book. Then, with the glow of Bill Cipher's fire, the Dreamscape portal spell appeared on the page. "Bill's fire is black light!"

"What do you think you are doing?!" Bill yelled.

Dipper breathed in hard and quickly cleared his throat. "Fevari Firasbi Bluackna Portescape!"

"WHAT?!" Bill Cipher screamed, as a thick gravitational pull carried him across the room. His fire went out and he grabbed onto the floorboards as a spiraling purple and grey portal appeared from behind him. His entire being was sucked in, and he chanted a familiar phrase just as he disappeared: "I'LL BE WATCHING YOU!"

Everything went back to normal. "What just happened?" Stan asked, rubbing the back of his head in confusion.

"Dipper!" Mabel cried as she saw her brother standing before her, with his pale face carrying a shocked expression. Then black specks formed over Dipper's vision again. They grew and dizziness took over. Dipper's body fell limp as everything went black.

Then he woke up.

He stared toward the ceiling. "Nightmare." Dipper sighed.