That night, Heath had a nightmare for the first time in ages. In his dream, he had been buried alive, and breathing was so difficult that he felt a sense of despair. When he opened his eyes, he was gasping for breath.
Even so, Heath still felt a little short of breath, as though something was pressing down on his chest. It was extremely uncomfortable. He did not know what was going on, but it certainly felt awful.
When a dream was too realistic, it could leave someone briefly unable to distinguish reality from sleep upon first waking up. That was exactly how Heath felt now.
Heath had even smacked his lips earlier, thinking that if this had been some incredible dream rather than a nightmare, wouldn't that have been much better?
But as soon as he opened his eyes, Heath knew why he had been unable to breathe in his dream. Zorua was sleeping sprawled across his chest. That was where the tightness in his chest and inability to breathe had come from.
It reminded Heath of sleeping at home in his previous life. Since he had a cat, he sometimes felt discomfort in his chest, and only later discovered that it was caused by the cat sleeping on his chest at night. For a time, Heath had wondered whether the cat wanted to kill him off early to earn merit and return to Planet Cat to live in luxury.
"You little..." Heath looked at Zorua, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, then grabbed Zorua by the scruff and stood up. Zorua looked bleary-eyed and clearly still very sleepy. Heath had no idea how the little fellow had gotten out of the Poké Ball. It really was a strange thing.
Still, Heath was not the sort of Trainer