Dipper awoke with a jolt. Cold sweat coated his body. He panted and begged his heart to slow down and hush up. The nightmare had come again, more vivid than ever before. The dream catcher he had made and hung above his bed hadn't helped. Not in the least.

With shaking haste, he grabbed his pillow and slipped out of bed, hurrying to his twin sister's bedside. "Mabel?" He cooed, nearly on the verge of tears. The images were still seared on the back of his eyelids. When she didn't respond, Dipper put a hand on her arm and shook her. "Mabel. Mabel!" His hushed cries grew more and more frantic.

Finally, one of his whines roused Mabel from a sweet, sweet dream. She rubbed her eye and sat up a bit.
"Mmm… Dipper? What's wrong?"

Dipper looked down, the lines under his eyes darkened by his increased anxiety and nearly a week of sleepless nights. "Mabel. Can… can I sleep with you tonight?"

Mabel looked at his weak fingers, weakly gripping his pillow. "Dipper. Dipper, are you shaking?"

Dipper bit his lip and clenched onto his pillow tighter. "Please," he whimpered.

Mabel pulled the covers back without another thought, letting Dipper slip in next to her. "The nightmare again?"

Dipper curled into his sister's sheets, finally feeling his cheeks become damp as he nodded his head frantically. He silently cried and held onto his pillow, thinking of the nightmare that haunted him. In which his most prized possession, in which his most beloved sister, was killed. Over and over again, she was murdered in brutality. It shook the boy to his core. But as he felt his sister's arm wrap around him, felt his forehead touch hers, he knew that he could sleep. Even without that stupid dream catcher.

The stupid dream catcher that had been ripped to shreds.

The two woke up together, and Dipper happily hugged Mabel when the sun hit them. No nightmare! He quickly got dressed and told her of his dream as they brushed their teeth. "And then, this weird giant turtle thing came up from the ground and kissed you on the cheek."

Mabel gasped excitedly. "No way!" She shoved him playfully, "That was my dream too!"

Dipper scrunched his nose. "You dreamed I was being kissed by a turtle?"

Mabel shoved him again. "No, goofus!" The two laughed happily, going down to breakfast with their hands intertwined.

Stan noticed right away when Dipper came down with that huge, stupid grin on his face. "What's up with you? D'dja dream 'bout Wendy 'r somethin'?"

Dipper turned red, but still smiled. "What? No! Although, I have been freed of my chronic nightmare problem!"

Stan straightened his magazine and raised an eyebrow uninterestedly. "Oh? Mabel didn't get hit by my car?"

"Nope."

"Or get eaten by a giant woodpecker?"

"No."

"Or get electrocuted by the copier machine-?"

"No! Alright. I'm done with those dreams."

Stan smirked and shrugged. "Alright. Don't get your little shorts up in a bunch."

Dipper pouted a bit as Mabel went to the kitchen to get the cereal bowls. Dipper perked and turned. "Oh! Forgot something. Be down in a minute, Mabel!"

"Kay!" She called back, pouring cereal for herself.

Dipper scrambled upstairs and went to his bookshelf to get his book. But something caught his eye. He walked to his bed and picked up strands of torn string. He frowned, looked up, and nearly screamed at what he saw.

Mabel fed her pet pig, Waddles, under the table, letting milky Cheerios drop in a sloppy mess to the hardwood floor. She chuckled lightly, patting his head. "You messy boy. You should try eating the cereal." The pig began rolling in the milky muddle, causing her to laugh again and rub his belly.

Dipper bounded noisily down the stairs and burst into the dining room. "Mabel! Mabel, look!" He shoved something in her face.

"Your dream catcher!" She frowned, taking it and looking through the gaping hole in the middle. "Uh, I don't think you made this right."

"Mabel, that wasn't me! Something tore through this last night!"

"Woah!" Her eyes lit up. "You think it was a unicorn?"

Dipper almost had to stop at Mabel's, per the norm, ridiculous request. "What? No. Mabel, only bad dreams get tangled in dream catchers." Dipper took the dream catcher back, tracing the broken threads. "Whatever came through this was massively strong…" Dipper stopped and pulled out his book, flipping through the pages. He stopped. "Of course!" He turned the book to show Mabel. "Dream demons!" He turned it back and began reading aloud. "'These reclusive spirits are bountiful throughout the tall pines in Gravity Falls, but due to their nature, they only come out at night.' Says here there are two types. The first, more common form is the 'Dream Hound'. They take the form of animals, usually a dog, and corral the dreamer away from its good dreams and towards the nightmares. 'Dream Hounds will linger in its victim's mind for months… slowly driving the dreamer insane so it can devour the weakened soul.'" Dipper shivered, his heart dashing. He finally looked to Mabel and showed her the picture again; a faint black wisp that someone had captured hovering over a sleeping deer's head. "Don't you see, Mabel? I caught one of these things in my dream catcher last night!"

Mabel chuckled. "Yeah, not for very long."

Dipper swallowed. "That means… those nightmares. Those are from this Dream Hound. I've had a Dream Hound in me for nearly a week now!"

Mabel chewed her cereal and looked down to Waddles. "I wonder if you can tame it."

Dipper ignored her, looking down. "But wait a minute. Why did it stop last night?" His eyes went back to the book, reading aloud again. "'The second, more rare type of dream demon is the Dream Eater. Dream Eaters are more subtle than the Hound, but they are a great deal stronger and craftier. Eaters will devour the bad dreams of a dreamer. It will soon approach the dreamer directly and make a contract in which the dreamer will voluntarily let the Dream Eater feast for one year. During this period of time, the dreamer will lose the ability to live, as their dreams are now all-encompassing. This alteration of the dreamer's reality will drive it into depression. Once the year is up, the Dream Eater will vacate the dreamer and leave both realities dissatisfying. The victim is often driven to suicide and its soul is forfeited to the Dream Eater for consumption."

Dipper could hardly read the last few sentences without his eyes bugging out a bit and his voice withering to a coarse whisper. He could barely take it in. His eyes jumped slightly ahead down the page. "Mabel, listen to this! 'Two people who are each afflicted, provided they are close in proximity and familiarity, can, in fact, share dreams and even states of consciousness.'!" Dipper looked up to his sister. "Do you realize what this means?!"

Mabel, meanwhile, was balancing a spoon on her nose, or at least attempting. Underneath the table, Waddles easily held Dipper's spoon on his enormous snout. "No fair, Waddles! Your talent is abounding!"

Dipper glared and his cheeks turned red. "Mabel! This is serious! Both you and I have dream demons living inside our heads!"

Mabel looked to him. "Relax, Dipper. What's a reoccurring nightmare and one shared dream?"

Dipper slammed his book shut and huffed away. She's impossible! He spent the rest of his day remaking a dream catcher, a big one, and meditating. The book told him that the best defense against the Dream Hound was to save energy throughout the day so exhaustion during the night didn't weaken his spirit. Yet, fear followed him everywhere he went that day.

Dipper stood all alone, watching from afar as Mabel neared the rushing river. He knew, just as she had two nights ago, how she would slip in, strike her head on a rock, and become carried away in the current. He knew he would be unable to reach the bank in time, and then unable to come after her. He even knew how the water would taste when it tinted red and held more and more iron. But this time, he had his eyes far away from the river bank.

There, beyond the rushing water, he could see a dark, low silhouette. He ran to the river's edge and cupped his hands over his mouth. "I know you! I'm not afraid!" His shout echoed through the world, coming back to him in a hush. Everything was suddenly quiet.

Dipper heard himself breathe out, heard the gravel under his feet make a deafening ruckus when he took a step back. He looked to the river, saw the water was frozen in its tracks. Looking back up, the silhouette was gone.

"Is that so?"

The voice was low, impossibly so, yet silky smooth and impeccably clear, as if it was being spoken directly into Dipper's ear. He spun, looking up and seeing birds fixed in midair.
"Do you know so much as to know me?"
Dipper stiffened and turned slowly; it sounded as if the voice was constantly over his shoulder.
"You don't have the gall to say you know the feel of the ocean floor by heart."
Dipper felt wind circle him, though couldn't hear it; couldn't hear a thing.
"Or that you can name each and every star with naught a stutter."
Dipper turned frantically, as if he knew the voice was coming closer and closer despite its continuity.
"Or that you can recall the nooks and crannies of a stranger's face from when you were an infant."
The wind suddenly stopped and Dipper ripped himself around.
Face to face with a headless face. Or was it a faceless head? All Dipper knew was the eyes that bore into his. And those teeth; those grinning, gaudy teeth. They were like deep gashes in the darkness, huge rips of snow in this enormous, pulsating shadow.
"And yet, you seem to have the audacity to tell me, in my domain, that you know me?"
The demon's eyes lit up and Dipper's whole body vibrated as the beast let out a haughty, sadistic chuckle.

"Just because you read it in a silly little book."

Dipper felt the world around him disappear. And just like that, he was falling. Plummeting down into nothingness and only a light yelp managed to escape him. Even this, the demon found funny. It found it amusing to spin Dipper around, to swing him around to its own pleasure like a play thing as it spoke to him.

"What else did the little book tell you? Did it tell you how often I reveal myself to my victim? How often I enjoy ripping them apart myself instead of letting their imagination devour itself alive? Did it tell you of the gruesome, bloody, beautiful details I show my victims? Did it tell you that I remember every single tortured face that has ever been made in my presence? Even yours—especially your little face—will be burnt into my memory for all eternity."

Dipper felt himself be turned upright and was faced with those daring, gut wrenching eyes. Meeting them with his made him realize his own being. His eyes had been widened in pure terror, his breath loud and irregular. He was shaking.

"What else do you know?"

Dipper trembled, truly petrified, but managed to swallow dryly and look the beast in the eye. "I know that dreams aren't real. You can't... hurt me." As he spoke, his voice grew from an exhausted whimper into a slightly less exhausted whine. His voice cracked a bit. He heard the monster laugh deeply again.

"Maybe not. But I can inflict pain."

Dipper felt a shock ripple up his body. All he knew to do was to scream. Something had happened; he had heard something snap. It sounded like a branch cracking in two. Looking down, he saw a claw, the huge talons of the demon gripping his leg. He saw the bottom of his femur shooting out to the side in a strange, unnatural direction. Hot blood began pouring down, as well as a fountain of tears to accompany his blind screams. In terror, he gripped his pant leg, as if he could stop the nerves from giving him this agony. He thrashed in the demon's grip, feeling another taloned claw grip his chest to keep him in place. His pained wails became frantic and fraught with fear as he saw the demon grinning at him. He felt he could see his own death in the beast's eyes.

"Your weak little mind doesn't know the difference."

Mabel was brought out of her sleep by a strange and frantic murmur. She sat up, rubbing her eyes as she looked around the room. Her brother, Dipper, was fidgeting about in his bed, whining about something. She swung her legs off the side of the bed, ready to get up and wake him up.

Gut wrenching screams cut through the darkness of the room. Mabel almost thought the room became darker as her brother suddenly recoiled in his sheets and howled like an injured animal.

Mabel shot out of her bed, her hands on her brother's shoulders in seconds. "Dipper! Dipper, wake up!" She shook him as hard as she could, desperate to wake him. But he wouldn't open his eyes. He thrashed and wailed, his left leg going to his chest as his arms wrapped around it and his hands squeezed it. "Dipper!" He began to cry.

Mabel became panicked. She saw string fall on Dipper's face and looked up. The huge dream catcher Dipper had spent all day making had a gaping hole. The strings and hides had been ripped to shreds. Mabel turned, almost coming to tears herself as their bedroom door was opened.

"Alright, what's going on up here? It's nearly three in the morning!"

Mabel kept shaking Dipper, her heart racing. "Grunkle Stan! Dipper won't stop screaming and he won't wake up! I can't wake him up!"

Stan frowned, quietly rushing to their nightstand and picking up Dipper's glass of water. He threw it in the boy's panicked face.

Dipper's eyes shot open, shocked from the cold water that suddenly doused him. His throat closed and he pushed away from Mabel. The grip she had on his shoulders terrified him.

"Dipper! Dipper, look, it's me!"

It took a while for his eyes to focus on anything, but when they locked with his sister's emerald gaze he burst into a mania and grabbed at her. His embrace was tighter than anything; Mabel nearly thought she was turning colors. All she could do, though, was hold him.

"Mabel!" Her name was all he could manage at first, the short name encompassing him and being his only comfort. He babbled it out over and over like a mad man. "Mabel. Mabel. Mabel. Mabel."