The night wind rattled the small attic window and made the wooden boards around the Pine Twins moan with complaint. The first few drops of rain slashed across the glass the night sky starry and beautiful, but beginning to twist with clouds. Mabel was somewhere between sleep and awake, able to hear the distant rumbling thunder as it rolled closer, but unaware of the noise coming from her twin's bed.

"...abel..."

Mabel stirred, but only to twist her feet around the warm lump of Waddles curled at the end of the bed.

"Mab...el..."

"Mrefrgeeernnn," Mabel groaned, shaking her hand dismissively towards the direction of the sound.

"Mabel!"

Something about the panicked cry caused Mabel to jolt awake from her dozy slumber. She sat bolt upright, and turned towards Dipper's side of the room. A flash of lightning illuminated the room with purple and white for a moment, but a moment was all it took to see Dipper was thrashing around on his bed. Mabel was at his side in an instant, with Dipper screaming over the crashing thunder overhead.

"Mabel! MABEL!"

"Dipper, what is it?!" Mabel attempted to extract her brother from his blankets which ensnared him. Dipper was still screaming and calling her name, each cry chilling Mabel to the bone. She quickly turned up the lamp and managed to pull the blanket from Dipper's flailing arms. His eyes were squeezed shut with a few tears streaking his flushed cheeks. He was asleep

"MAAABEL!" he cried again.

"Dipper! It's me! Wake up!" Mabel yelled, shaking her brother by the shoulders. She could feel he had sweated through his shirt. Dipper continued to shake and swat at the air with he hands, but after Mabel called his name a few more times, his eyes fluttered open and he glaced around, panicked.

"Mabel! Mabel!" he gasped. His chest was heaving and his eyes were rimmed with white.

"Dip? What is it, what's going on?" Mabel said urgently, clutching Dipper's shirt. His terrified eyes darted around the room, before some recognition sparked in them.

"Mabel? Wha-?" Dipper babbled. His tense arms slumped and he looked exhausted. He looked up into Mabel's worried face. "What's wrong, are you okay?"

"Are you kidding me?" Mabel almost shrieked. "You're the one who was screaming! You were crying and junk and all sorts of crazy!"

"I...I was?" Dipper asked, genuinely confused. Mabel still hadn't let go of his sweat dampened shirt, and he reached between her arms to rub his eyes. He looked surprised when he pulled his hand back and it was wet with his tears. He thought for a minute and shook his head.

"S-sorry, Mabes," he said, trying and failing a completely nonchalant smile, "it was just a bad dream." He shrugged Mabel's hands from his shoulders.

"You were screaming for me!" Mabel insisted. "Must have been more like a nightmare!"

"Okay, so, it was a nightmare. I can't even remember it. It's nothing. Sorry I woke you."

"Woke me? You scared me half to death!"

"Sorry! But I swear, it was just a bad dream..." Dipper's voice trailed off as he rubbed his eyes again.

Mabel raised an eyebrow. She glanced past Dipper to the journal, poking out from under his lumpy-looking pillow.

"Maaaaybe you shouldn't sleep with that under your pillow," she said, folding her arms. Dipper grinned sheepishly and pulled the tattered old book out from his bedding. He laid it on the bedside table and made an apologetic face at an increasingly grumpy-looking Mabel.

"I'm fine. Sorry again," he said, yawning. Mabel stared at him until he shrunk down under his blanket. She wasn't sure what had happened, but Dipper looked like he was already dozing off. She went back to bed, skeptical, keeping an eye on her brother, but eventually conceding that he was indeed fine and had just had a bad dream. Mabel folded herself back down under her blanket and slipped into an even sleep. If she hadn't completely drifted off, she would have heard the shuffle of dusty pages coming from Dipper's bed, just audible under the summer storm that raged outside.