The Madman, the Hero and the Metal Girl sit together. Observe them. Who are they? Names aren't important. Not in this place of dreams that they're in, anyway. A place of blank and empty. A place of sighs.

They sit in silence, interrupted every so often by the Madman taking a drag from the cigar which hangs between his lips and then exhaling smoke into the emptiness. The Metal Girl stares down at her hands, woven together in her lap. The Hero looks anywhere but the Metal Girl, her eyes clouding over with guilt whenever they rest upon the young face. Observe them.

Seconds tick by. Perhaps minutes. Perhaps hours. It doesn't matter, not in this place of dreams, of sighs, of waking and sleeping yet never sleeping at all, not really. Eons could pass and the unlikely trio would still be sitting in the same place, trying to forget but never quite succeeding. The silence continues. The Madman inhales a lungful of smoke which is no longer really that dangerous anymore. The Metal Girl inspects her fingers, like they hold the key to something that she can't quite remember. The Hero's eyes dart around, flitting from face to face like dust.

"What would you do differently?"

The silence is broken, the Metal Girl looks up and the Hero sits forward slowly, bracing herself against the arms of her chair.

"Excuse me?"

The Madman laughs dryly, letting ash fall from the butt of his cigar onto the ground. It doesn't matter. In this place of light and darkness.
"What would you do differently?" he repeats, leaning backwards slowly. "What would you do differently, if you could start it all over again?"
His one visible eye, sweeps slowly from the Hero to the Metal Girl, the other covered by a swatch of hair. The Hero leans backwards again and the Metal Girl straightens up.
"I don't know," she replies, folding her hands together again. "What would you do differently?"

The eye of the Madman wells with pain and sorrow. "Oh, you know," he replies, taking another breath of smoke. "Everything."

It's the Hero's turn to question him now.
"Everything?" she asks, caressing the spear that hangs at her side. "What do you mean by everything?"

The Madman hunches over suddenly, and for a moment the Hero thinks that he is crying. But then he straightens up again, dropping the burnt out cigar at his feet.
"Everything. I'd tell a woman I loved her, for a start."

This hits home with the Hero. She reaches out a hand and slowly clasps the Madman's, pulling herself forward to look him right in the eye.
"Before it's too late?" she asks, tentatively.

The Madman nods, his swagger gone.
"I'd ask her to marry me. I'd give up everything else. If I could start all over again, then that's what I'd do differently."

The Hero nods, a single tear welling in her eye. She lets go of the hand of the Madman. "Before it's too late…" she whispers to herself, wrapping her arms around her waist. "I would tell him at the very beginning. Before it's too late. I wouldn't let pride cloud my judgement. And I'd be careful. Very careful."
For the first time since they had arrived in the place of dust and broken, the Hero looks to the Metal Girl.

"It's alright," says the Metal Girl, tilting her head to one side. "You weren't to know. It wasn't your fault."
The Hero slumps like a puppet with its strings cut.
"But it still happened…" she mutters.

"If I could start again…" continues the Metal Girl, kicking her legs against the chair thoughtfully. "I would climb trees. And run and jump and do all the things I didn't have time to do before it was…"

"Too late," finish the Madman and the Hero together, each lost in their own personal sorrow.

"Yes." The Metal Girl pauses. "I would… I would go to school and to the 'shops' and I would 'bond' with my father. If there was a time or a place where I could start all over again ."

This brief insight into each other's souls concluded, the Madman, the Hero and the Metal Girl revert back to their previous state. The Madman smokes. The Hero watches restlessly. The Metal Girl weaves her fingers together in her lap.

The Madman exhales, the smoke clouding the flat air like blood in water. Then he sighs and opens his eyes.

"Could such a place exist, perhaps?"