I'm Only Sleeping

Dakota was drifting on a cheap foam pool float to the sound of classical music.

The building was empty for once. Usually it would have been bustling with people, all of them splashing around and diving and making a general racket. Now the only sounds were of a lonely cello blaring from a small radio by the poolside. It was perfect that way. Dakota could lie back and relax with the whole place to herself, and anybody wanting to enter would have to get past her Zangoose first. The Pokémon stood silently by the door, looking menacing with the blood red streaks in its snowy white fur. Nobody would try getting through him any time soon... At least not anybody with half a brain.

With the gentle bobbing of the float and the tranquil music reverberating off the walls, Dakota found herself slowly slipping into sleep. She didn't try fighting it as her eyes softly closed. What harm could a little nap do? She'd found it hard to sleep lately with so many strangers around... True, she'd always slept soundly back home with twenty or so household staff living on the other side of the manse, but that was different. Here, nobody respected her, and the tiny island she'd lived on her whole live was hundreds of miles away.

Dakota drifted into slumber with thoughts of her father.

She was in a pitch black room. Dakota blindly ran her hands over her bed covers, a feeling of dread creeping up her spine. A recurring nightmare of a fuzzy, suppressed memory. Realizing where she was, Dakota immediately burst into tears. The trainer was just twelve again, with all of her fear and pain renewed. "Honchkrow..." she sobbed. Dakota just wanted her bird. Or Zangoose. Or anybody, anything, to protect her from what was coming next. "Please..."

Dakota cowered away as the door creaked open and light flooded the room. "Please don't..." she pleaded again through her sobs. "I'm sorry, I won't do it again... I'm sorry..." There was the sound of a Pokémon being released from its ball, and the girl tensed up, drawing her arms protectively around herself. "I'm sorry..."

The Pokémon rushed across her hard wood floor on silent feet before jumping on the bed beside her. She let out a sharp cry of pain as it clutched her arm tight with tiny cold hands and dug its long nails into her flesh. Dakota couldn't plead any longer, only scream.

"You will learn respect." a firm, flat voice came from her doorway. "Are you truly sorry?"

"Yes!" she cried as the Pokémon on her bed twisted her arm. "I'll be good... Please, make it stop..." Her father's shape was blurry from the tears in her eyes, but she prayed that her pleading had reached him in some way. "Please, it's hurting me... Not again..."

There was silence for a moment. "I will believe it in the morning." Dakota could only scream as the door shut and she was left in the darkness once again with her father's Weavile.