Click, click, click.

Dipper tapped the buttons on the remote, eyes glazed. He hardly saw what he was watching anymore; the colors kept changing and the sound kept switching. He was bored.

"I'm so bored," he yawned, solidifying the sleepy thought.

Click, click, click.

Mabel looked up from her knitting needles, laying her bright green creation in her lap. Waddles lay sleeping beside her, and she absentmindedly placed her hand on his peach-fuzz back. Her eyelids drooped down and she yawned in return.

"Gross, you infected me with tired. Now we have to be quarantined."

She pushed Dipper's leg in mock anger, and he pushed back. They laughed.

Mabel stood up, groaning and rubbing her tiny hands together. She observed her newest sweater that lay spread-eagle on the floor. "I guess I can finish the collar tomorrow."

Dipper nodded, his head dipping down into his chest for the briefest of seconds. His own snore startled him awake.

"To bed!" she announced with muted enthusiasm.

"To bed," Dipper agreed. He picked up the remote and placed a finger on the "off" button.

Click.

Mabel was already ascending the stairs to their makeshift bedroom. Dipper followed his twin.

Ratty bedsheets and a stone-stiff pillow never felt so good. Dipper's aching legs rejoiced as he drifted off into a deep, exercise-induced slumber. It was too bad they didn't make any money, but he still had fun.

The events of the day unfolded into a blissful, dreamless sleep.

Click, click, click.

Dipper groaned and rolled over. After a minute of silence, he felt his conscious mind growing numb again. He slipped into oblivion with a sigh.

Click, click, click.

"Mabel, quit knitting. The collar can wait."

Mabel's soft snores stopped.

"Huh?" she mumbled through her braces. Dipper heard her bedsprings protest as she rolled.

Click, click, click.

"Are you chewing gum or something? Quit it."

"You quit it. I know you're doing it, Mabel. Quit being annoying."

"You're annoying."

"No you are."

"Well now I'm up and have to pee. Good job Dipper."

Her bed squealed once more as she hopped down. Once her heavy stomping retreated, Dipper closed his eyes once again. Wendy drifted in and out of his mind, and he relived conversations he had with her last week. Succesful ones, with no mention of Robbie or guitars or skinny jeans. He could almost smell her pine-scented hair...

Click.

A shout of anger burbled up in his chest and Dipper threw his pillow at Mabel's empty bed.

Dipper paled and glanced out the window, visions of pale white women with long fingernails staining his thoughts. He had just read about banshees, and hoped to never see one, or hear their mournful screams.

Fortunately, all he could see was the paper-thin sliver of the moon and the pine forest beyond the shack. A few clouds hung in the sky, and from the way some trees were bending, it was probably a bit windy out tonight. But there were no banshees. And there was no clicking.

Still feeling a bit on edge, Dipper reached for the book hidden beneath his pillow. He flipped through the pages, looking for nothing. Gravity Falls was a strange town. He knew that by heart, and he knew that odd clicking could either be suicide-bomber bugs hitting a window, or a zombie trying to scratch their way inside. So he flipped through the pages, skimming for the word "clicking" or "noises."

He was knee-deep in information about some very interesting fae when he heard Mabel return. She was humming softly to herself, and though Dipper didn't recognize the tune, he guessed that it was probably a new single from Rustin Hieber. The pop star was Mabel's celebrity obsession, and his face was the newest addition to her sparkly poster collection.

The girl pounced on her bed and her notes fluctuated wildly, then stopped. Dipper hardly looked up from his book, too into his research to feel tired anymore. He flipped the page, thinking up plans to go on a fairy hunt with Mabel tomorrow. Or today, he chuckled to himself.

"Uh...Dipper?" Mabel's voice pulled him out of his reading, and he glanced across the room at her. She was pale, and staring pointedly at their window. Her knuckles were white around her blanket, and she was visibly shaking.

"What is that thing?"

Click, click, click.

Dipper looked out the window and was almost instantly blinded. He shouted, covering his eyes with the palms of his hands. He heard Mabel leap off her bed and race to the window, shouting "Shoo, shoo!" at whatever thing she had seen. There was a loud screech outside and then rapid clicking. It headed up above their heads, onto the roof, and then nowhere.

Dipper felt an arm around him and a hand by his eye. "Dip, are you ok? What was that thing? What'd it do to you?"

Dipper shook away the sunspots in his vision and blinked. He could see, though his eyes still pained him. "I don't know," he replied. "I couldn't see it. It was like looking into the sun."

"Then how come I could see it?" she asked.

"I dunno," he replied. "What did it look like?"

She got a weird look in her eyes, then looked out the window.

"Well..."she started. Dipper held his breath, his paranoid side expecting an accurate description of Medusa, or a flame spirit, or even a bunch of will-o-wisps.

"It looked like a cat."