Gone was the stress of a sudden responsibility. Of a gift never asked for, yet taken by her own hand. Gone was the strange mess of relationships, of a truth realized, and any sense of time. The click had been reset, wound back in time to a point critical to a relationship previously deemed unsalvageable.

In this space, June did not have a Regieleki. Nor did she have the crushing weight of debt on her shoulders, nor the hidden truth of a dead Dad to crush her spirits and sink them to hell. Here, she had little idea of what was going on.

For she roused from her slumber, much like she had in real life. Confused, dazed, and unsure of the circumstances. Howard received a second chance, much how June received a second head ache and a hand to her head.

“Ugh… what time is it?” She tried to sit up in the bed. Even with the head start of a propped up mattress, it was a struggle to get herself truly upright. Her stomach growled something fierce and called out for sustenance. “You got any food?"

---

howard slayte ameena abadi

The weight of burden did not disappear. Despite being immaterial, it wasn't destroyed. The burden of Regieleki, the burden of June's father's dream, the expectation of a good ending was placed on one person's shoulders.

It was a terrible burden to shoulder her dream. Yet this was the cost of lying to June. History was meant to be preserved. Changing it was against his ideal, but he could bend it here. This dream was a farce, but dreams were everything. Lies and fiction bled together, and speed was nothing more than a value.

He could rectify this. He could create a world where the woman in the bed didn't hate him.

There was no harm in trying, in changing the flat circle known as time.

"Food's coming. I rang it in..." Howard checked his watch, the antique mechanism ticking away. "...twenty minutes ago. Should be here in a second."

A few seconds passed. Silence followed. Blasted hospital nurses.

This felt wrong. Awkward. He swallowed the feeling.

"What do you remember?"

---

june sleigh ameena abadi

Even as her head pounded, a memory emerged. From a long time ago, yet as pertinent as always. It was a similar situation as well, with her being in the midst of a job while Howard enjoyed his life as it was. Time was a flat circle.

“Was it corndogs? I could go for some of those right now…” she groaned out. To be quite honest, anything that vaguely resembled ‘food’ would be good enough right now, but a couple of corn dogs from a fair just sounded right. Good.

But something soured as he brought up what happened. If she knew. Memories trickled back in: she’d been at Howard’s apartment, delivering a box. They’d sat down in his living room, drank tea, got into an argument…

Oh. It was bad. “Just… all of it, I think.”

“Look, Howard…” her stomach grumbled before she could get the words out. It threatened to eat itself, and she clutched at her belly while she sank back into the stiff board they called a mattress. “Probably not a good idea, or whatever. Not your fault, yada-yada– can you get me some painkillers? Morphine? Or lunch–dinner– whatever food you ordered?”

Now wasn’t the time. Her stomach demanded sustenance, and her body demanded attention. The strange needle in her arm felt numb yet odd as it followed her arm's movement. Some type of clear liquid, which made her not feel thirsty anymore.

Couldn’t have shoved some gross liquid food down her throat while she was out too?

---

howard slayte

He stopped in the doorway. The past scraped at his eye, clawing for a hint of a memory that had no reason to exist. Howard did not turn to June. He did not give himself away, but his eye widened and memories flashed past. Dewford burned. A dreamlike Galar flashed by. He had reached his hand into the chest of...

"When, then?" His voice was a whisper. He turned back to look at the girl in the bed, before turning back to Naomi Sato. "When will you realize that your dream is folly? All it's brought us is loss and pain."

"Rocket will not integrate back into the region until this war is over. So why..."

He turned back to the girl in the hospital bed. His form flickered between father and foe, golem and man. Even as he looked back at her, he realized that something was wrong. This dream was failing, or perhaps it had never been meant to succeed in the first place.

Maybe Howard was never meant to succeed in the first place.

"...why do I keep trying to make this work?"

---

june sleigh ameena abadi

“Howard, what’re you…” June’s voice trailed off as she was flashbanged by a sudden, intense yellow glow. Gone as soon as it arrived, a flicker in the facade that was this landscape. Unknown to them, but perhaps soon revealed.

After all, it wasn’t everyday that she saw her father’s boots. His oil-caked mechanics overalls. Her breath hitched in her throat and her hunger was abandoned to its physical manifestation. Her mind hyperfocused on him. Him. Dad. Some part of her wanted to jump out of bed and run to him and hug him and never let him go ever again.

But… reality had a twisted way of realization. The Power Plant had told her that. So had this dream. This meeting. Memories, enough of them, kept her in bed. The blanket pulled up higher, as if it would shield her.

Then, he was gone. Perhaps he was never there. After all, this was–

“A dream.” She looked at the man. Him. Him. The start of a scowl formed, yet it stayed its hand. Not ready to develop, but ready to at the drop of a big brown hat. “What’re you doing here?”

“Trying to make what work?” She asked darkly. “You’re the one that ruined it. So, smart guy, tell me. Dyin’ to know.”

---

howard slayte 

(GOMENASORRY MAGNETIC PLEASE DON'T HIT ME WITH HAMMERS)

Silence followed. It lasted for a long time, stretching out into eternity. What did he even say here? What words could rectify this situation?

There were thousands of languages in existence. A trillion words, holding countless unfettered emotions between them. If only he knew how to tap into them, to weave a story across them all that could make her understand. There had to be sentence that could make her understand, and yet...

...it was impossible.

How could he communicate something he himself didn't understand?

June's question fell on deaf ears. If he heard her, Howard didn't react. He simply closed the door and turned towards it. He stared at it for spell, and his reflection in the window.

"..." He saw the vestige of Naomi Sato in the hallway beyond. "FUCK!"

He hit the door as hard as he could. His hand bled. He addressed the question.

"I don't know."

---

june sleigh
U R DEAD

“You don’t know.”

Not a question, but a confirmation. Of course he didn’t know. He never did. Unfortunately, he deserved credit for the things he was good at: archeology, relics, history. But people? Howard floundered. Like a Basculin caught in a vast net, desperate for any hope to cling to.

Which made the struggle all the more depressing to watch. There wasn’t an answer. To give up, and accept the facts, was the correct play. The less he tried, the further he’d get.

But the path always led to the same destination. June was hurt, afraid, and unwilling to humor him.

It was never meant to be. Of all the things to know, he had to know that little fact. Right?

“Then what do you know?” She looked around the small space again. Whatever this was, it wasn’t real. Why would they be taken here, of all memories? “What’s going on? Why would we be taken to your fuck up?”

She had a feeling that it wasn’t his choice. But to blame him was all too enticing. It just made sense. Better to blame someone unrelated than one’s own mistake.

---

howard slayte

There was nothing to do but try. Try. Try. It was the only choice that humanity had been allowed to make since they crawled out of the primordial ooze. They had tried when lighting the first fire. They had tried when forging the first civilization. They had tried when they had slain a god threatening their world.

All of those times, they had succeeded. Yet this was not the grand struggle of a species against the dying of the light.

This was salvaging something broken.

"It's a dream. We're dreaming. This is a world built from desire, in an attempt to right past wrongs." He sat down in one of cushy hospital chairs, defeated. He looked at a shaking hand, and clenched it. A deep breath followed. Howard opened his eye, unencumbered. "I should not have made that threat."

Understatement.

"It was rash, but I thought it would keep you away from the battlefield. Away from the League. Away from Rocket. Away from this fucked up wreck of a region. Then you went and caught a god."

---

june sleigh

“It’s not a god– even I know that,” June scowled. He might hold countless facts and recollections of many other facts of history. But when it came to Regieleki, they probably knew the same thing: how little there was. But what little there was painted it as a defender.

Nothing more. A weapon, now without purpose. “Just a glorified generator. You sound just like Annalise and Nomi. What, did I miss a memo or something?”

Just as she’d told Annalise: there were enough threats in her life as was. One much more prevalent and concerning than the others. So much so, that even death wasn’t a concern. There, she’d be free. But life had pain, misery, and a missing Father.

And a shit ton of debt.

“Then...” the words sprouted from her mind. Their thorns dug into her psyche and refused to let go. Rationality, in all of its faults and flaws. How it made life harder with its truths. But how it couldn’t be ignored. “Then why do it?”

“You don’t know me– never have,” she said. “You don’t know why I do it. Keep throwing myself into shitty places for a quick buck. You think I want to be here? In Hoenn? I wanted to leave after Dad died.”

“But…” she bit her lip. Annalise knew. Should he?

Why not? Not like it mattered. “Debt collections wouldn’t think twice. They’d throw me in prison for the rest of my days. I’d become a slave, forced to do menial labor for pennies. My debt makes yours look like chump change– what was it, a hundred grand? Two hundred?”

“Try a million and then some.”

---

howard slayte

"It is more. It's a testament to our species' legacy. It is the epoch of our ability to survive in the face of annihilation." When mankind had been fumbling with the first batteries, Hoenn's people had constructed the greatest output of electrical energy in history. "And my foolishness. I should have caught it before you."

ameena abadi's dreamscape is a farce. This attempt at reaching her desires has been met with minimal success. All it has done so far is break every single aspect of dialogue with fiction and falsehood. The only value it has offered is to open a conversation, but this conversation could have been avoided.

It could have been avoided if the dream had simply functioned.

Alas.

They're in a cave. He remembers June's claustrophobia. Her fear of Excadrills. Her fear of the walls closing in. Her desire for freedom.

The cave collapses. June Sleigh dies.

No wonder she longs for the sky. No wonder she hates her broken wings.

"A million?" He blinks once, uncomprehending. The admin led a frugal life, sleeping on bus benches and under dunes during his years of wandering, back when his wealth had been paltry and his financial sense not yet curbed. "Six zeroes?"

In his version, they're on a beach now. The hospital bed remains the same. Another copy of her body hits the ground and splatters on impact. She does not see it.

Howard's eye twitched.

"You were stronger than me, shouldering that debt. I couldn't have done it. I sold out as soon as my life was in jeopardy." He had sold his soul, she had sold her body, working and scraping for pennies on the dollar. Who had it worse? It was an answer he did not want to consider. "How?"

---

june sleigh