I finally slept. My dreams were dark ones.

I appeared to be inside a house - no, a tower of some sort. I wasn't sure how I knew this, as the dream took place in only one room, but I knew I was above sea level. Dreams can be strange that way.

The room was full of technology, and what I surmised to be some sort of capsule system. Two large chambers towered over my Cubone body, and a computer desk sat in front of one of them, with papers on it.

Something seemed oddly sinister about the setup. Terrifying, even. And yet, despite the dubious technology, the room around it seemed comforting. Serene, even. Dare I say homely? It was only a dream, after all, and I probably misremembered a good deal of it.

But I do remember hearing footsteps.

Somebody was stumbling through the door. And by "stumbling," I mean "that kid can't possibly be old enough to have legally ingested whatever substance is causing him to move like this."

While I hadn't seen a human since I'd woken up with my memories lost, some part of me instantly identified the child in red as one. The realization of how BIG humans were made my dream-self jump back in shock; I couldn't imagine how they even managed to move without bumping into things the way this poor kid did. My first thought was Get off my lawn, and my second thought, immediately following the first thought, was HALP.

The kid suddenly stopped and looked at me, straight into my eyes. His expression seemed empty, stoned, almost robotic. And the bags under his eyes made it clear that he hadn't slept for days.

He pointed at me, opening his mouth to speak. But no sound came.

And then I woke up in a cold sweat.

. . .

I told myself that it was just a dream, that it couldn't hurt me. I knew I was in a sorry state when even the itchy straw felt comforting.

Eventually, I went back to sleep.

And the dream came back.

. . .

It was the same room. The same machines. The same kid, and the same haunted look in his eyes.

But this time, I expected it, sort of. And I was conscious that it was a dream, sort of. But that didn't make it any less awful.

It's... difficult to put a handle on how I experienced things at that time, talking about it now after so much time has passed. But I remember that the kid pointed at me again, and opened his mouth again, and there were no words this time either, but this time, he had a red and white orb in his hand, with a button in the middle.

He pressed the button, and a flash of red light emerged, converging into a burning red figure. A reptilian figure, with bright red skin and a spiked collar.

A female, with her tail burning as brightly as a lighthouse beacon.

I opened my mouth to say something, but suddenly the human behind her vanished, her red scales became blazing white light, and her bright eyes sunk and vanished inside her head, revealing empty, soulless black sockets.

"YOUR TIME IS UP."

"ABBY!" I screamed, not knowing quite why. Was I calling out to my friend the Charmander, or to the wraithlike figure in the dream?

I woke up screaming.

. . .

When Abby came to see me in the morning, I had no memory that either dream had even transpired. Which was probably a good thing, but sadly wasn't going to last forever.

She found me nailing a wooden sign to my mailbox with a spike, a sign with the name KUBONIR scrawled on it in charcoal as neatly as I could muster under the circumstances.

"Scrawled" and "neatly" don't usually work well together, but writing and Cubone claws don't work well together either. Especially with how numb my right arm was; it felt almost as if it wasn't a natural part of my body. I found it difficult to even wield my bone club properly, so I mainly used it as a crutch to keep my balance with that horrid hot smelly skull on my head.

From the expression on her face when she saw me, I wouldn't have been surprised if Abby had been waiting outside my door all night long to make sure I was okay. I wasn't sure if that would have been taken as the actions of a concerned citizen and friend of a mentally ill Pokemon, or as a stalker. Still, I figured that I would have smelled smoke if she'd stayed outside all night, and I'd have probably seen her tail flicker as well. (Gosh, that must be awkward, having your butt constantly on fire and not being able to do anything about it as long as you're alive.)

"How did you sleep last night, Cue?" she asked, respectfully and conveniently not giving my full name. Then she saw the sign I'd made. "Oh! Kubonir... is THAT how you spell it?"

Well, the truth is that I didn't know how to spell it either, or if it could be spelled; it wasn't even a real name, just an awkward mispronunciation. But at least Kubonir sounded interesting and foreign and not like the Voices' crude joke at my expense. I wondered, with some concern, if they'd given any rude names to the other victims of their little mental field trips. I could think of a few nicknames I'd like to give them, if I could capture one somehow.

"It's how everyone else in my family spells it," I lied, "and who am I to argue with them?"

Abby smiled. "You have family? And you remember them? That's..."

She paused, trailing off. "Wait. Do you mean a Pokemon family, or a human family?"

The question startled me, and reminded me of what she'd said the previous night about the previous victims of the Voices. "Oh? No, I mean the Voices in my head," I lied blatantly. "They're all I remember, and they're the closest thing to family I have because they live in my house, metaphorically speaking, and i have no idea how to evict them."

Abby laughed. Her tailflame flickered.

I stepped back and admired my work. The sign hung under the mailbox like an overturned Kakuna that rocked when you tapped it. But it was legible, and it didn't look like a rude joke, at least not if you were particularly forgiving.

"Kubonir," Abby said, testing a slightly different pronunciation on her tongue. Strangely enough, it wasn't the forked, lizard-like tongue I'd expected, but large and smooth, like a doge's.

Wait, what was a doge?

Mighty Doge

AOOOOO

Save the Doges

Burrito x Martyr OTP

KILL THE FALSE PROPHET

Solareon will redeem us

KILL BILL

And other, far less savory things.

"Say, Abby?" I asked, suddenly. "I hope I'm not being rude, but... do you have family?"

Abby's tailflame flared, blazing. The look in her eyes seemed... haunted. And I was instantly sorry I'd asked.

"I did, once," she said softly. "A human, a Pidgeot, two Rattata..." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter anymore. They're all dead now."

I opened my mouth, realized I had nothing whatsoever edifying to say, and then closed it again. "Oh," was all I managed to get out.

What could I have said to her, when I barely even remembered what family even was?