Chương 38: Scars

June woke up feeling ragged and groggy for once. Mortimer dropped June off at a small studio before taking off with Lillia. Luckily, the studio had spare clothing that actually fit June, not to mention a wide selection of sunglasses. June, of course, chose a pair that was nearly identical to his cheap old ones.

He felt a little awkward being left alone in someone else's building, so he didn't explore it much; in fact, he really just changed clothing, put on sunglasses, and then lay down on a couch in the waiting room. Maybe there was a bed inside, maybe there wasn't. June really just slept in the lobby after putting a couple of chairs together as a makeshift bed. Now he woke up in the nightrealm practically naked, feeling incredibly ill; there were a couple of immediately glaring ideas of why.

'Guess walking for two months without a break and only eating wild animals that attacked me isn't exactly considered a balanced lifestyle.' His body was starving, only kept alive by his supernatural healing. June stood up and looked around the dark dojo in the APC. No one bothered him during his sleep. The little corner where Julian slept was empty of Julian himself, and Shade was nowhere to be seen.

'Hopefully, they got the medical attention they needed.' He had nothing to do but wait for the escort, Mortimer said he would send'It feels like that trek was years ago.' June was wearing a tattered casual wear, they were much easier to practice in than the crew uniform he usually wore during the time. He hadn't been able to change his clothes or shower since the day the beast attacked. The APC had its own tank full of water, but Julian and he ended up deciding to save it as drinking water.

June's mood soured; the nightrealm and the waking one used to feel like two distinct places, but places that were connected to say the least, but after June's trek, the realization dawned on him. The nightrealm used to feel like a hot spring trip; everything was novel, it had its bumps, but the place itself felt like a respite. June truly had the full experience. The novel place that was a respite had its own dark places, the types of places tourists never see. The place was a true deathtrap.

Even in the form of burden he took to pull the APC across the nightrealm, it was full of patches of violent terrain change. Sometimes, you could be walking in a forest, and your next step may drop you into a lake the size of an ocean; it was an incomprehensibly larger place than the waking world. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. June walked around the wreckage of the APC.

Most rooms and places that he once toiled in and socialized with the cohort in were inaccessible; some parts were collapsed in, other parts were breached, the closer to the front he went, the more the roof violently sloped down until it and the floor kissed. In the real world, to see a scene like this, he would have to go to a warzone. June had a hard time finding out which was more vile: a single beast that could kill thousands, or a single person killing hundreds of other people.

June went back to the dojo, where the damage was nearly unnoticeable; it had its own changing room installed in a side room. He walked down the hall of the changing room, where there were privacy stalls, showers, toilets, a large mirror, but June was particularly interested in checking all the lockers.

'Erica' June opened the locker, a picture of her husband and tinkerer was posted on the locker door, below it was another picture of the whole group together taking a picture in front of a giant boar-like monster they presumably killed, there was an unnecessary amount of lingerie in the locker for some reason, a couple of pairs of clothing, her gi was carelessly thrown into the locker, and a small ornate locket. June opened the locket, and it was another smaller picture of Tinkerer and her husband.

June looked at it for a bit and then closed it and put it back. He moved on to the next locker.

'Björn, sounds like a strong name.' June opened the door expecting to see the boss's things, but it was actually the tinkerer's lockers. Funny enough, he also had identical pictures of the ones Eric had on her locker door. His gi was held in a clear bag; it still had a couple of creases and stains. His locker, unlike Eric's, was very modular.

There were a couple of eccentric inventions, like a hair brush that applied gel at the same time, and there was a balisong knife that moved in screeching creaks; the blade was swapped out for a spork. There was a nice shiny rock in the locker, despite everything else involving or being an invention.

'Nice rock' June knew it wasn't a gadget or a tool; it was just a nice rock. He closed the locker and moved past Shade, then Julian's lockers to the second last one.

'Harry' June opened up the locker, it was nice and orderly, all the clothing was folded and ordered in colors, his massive gi had no creases on it and was folded nicely, a smell of freshness came from the locker, since there were a couple of smaller plants growing in pots around it, pictures littered the walls of the large locker, pictures of himself and his family, pictures of old friends, several pictures of his cohort some barely different from the last.

The locker would have been nice and uniform if not for how many pictures were littered around the locker. He followed the pictures pasted around the locker until his eyes landed on a pair of tinted gold-trimmed aviators. The boss had an exact pair he wore when gardening; he even wore the exact pair when he died.

'Bad things happen so suddenly.' The boss was actually the reason June started wearing sunglasses in the waking realm; it was his suggestion when June confided in him after he scared Fin when they last met. He was a large and intimidating person; his arms were almost identical in size to a gorilla's, and his height was inhumanly tall, but despite all of that, he was a pretty soft-spoken person, not to mention quiet.

'He wouldn't mind.' The boss was a good person, so was Eric, and so was Björn. June grabbed the boss's spare aviators and wore them. And moved onto the next locker. His locker.