"Urgh, my head..."

Sonic woke up slowly. His body was knackered, and he ached all over. Even his eyelids felt heavy and achy. He looked around, seeing generic plain white bedding, white walls, and a machine to his left, beeping slowly. Sonic realised he had a tube up his nose, and realised for himself he was in hospital.

"He's coming too," a nurse said, as she began paging a doctor.

"Where am I?" the hedgehog asked, knowing already that he was in a hospital, but wanting a more precise location.

"Station Square infirmary," a green duck in a lab coat said, "You've been in a coma for the last few weeks. We've been looking after you, my name's Dr Pin."

"Pin?" Sonic asked, something stirring in his memory.

"That's right," The doctor responded, "Is there anyone we can contact for you?"

"N-no," Sonic stuttered, "No, I don't think I need anyone to be, err, contacted," he said erratically as memories of a deranged doctor trying to heal his leg sprung to his mind, "In fact," he continued, "I need to get out of here right now."

"But you can't leave Sonic," Dr. Pin replied, "Not yet Sonic, you're nowhere near ready to go.

"How do you know who I am?" the hedgehog asked nervously. He was trying to muster enough energy to get out of his bed, but was failing.

"Don't be foolish," the duck grinned, "Everyone knows who you are Mr Hedgehog. You're the world famous hero."

"Then you understand why I need to get out of here," Sonic continued, pulling the pipe out of his nose.

"You can't do that!" Pin shouted, "We need to keep you under surveillance.

"I'd like to see you try," Sonic replied, as he leapt out of his bed. Sonic leapt into the air, over the duck as it tried to restrain him. The hedgehog dashed out of the ward, and made his way through the corridors. Sonic didn't realise it was the sedatives causing it, but he was running a lot slower than normal, allowing the doctor to keep up with him.

"Come back here," The doctor screamed, "You need your rest, and I won't rest until you're rested, now stop and rest you hedgehog"

Sonic kept running. He was beginning to become convinced that this wasn't an ordinary doctor, or a normal hospital. Looking around all the nurses seemed eerily familiar, all of them with the same 'Joy' name-tag, each of them carrying weird little red and white balls.

The entire place had a very confusing layout, with stairs that only led to stairs going straight back to the same floor, doors that opened up only one way, and entire corridors that served to connect to nothing. Numerous times Sonic found himself cornered, and it was only his relatively quick reflexes that had stopped him from getting caught.

"It's in your own best interests Sonic," Pin said, as he tried once again to encourage the hedgehog to stop, "You need to rest and recuperate, so your body can get back to tip top fighting shape."

"It's already in fighting shape," Sonic replied, "I'm running rings around you."

Pin didn't reply. Instead he calmly walked over to a nurses station, and pulled a a very large tranquilliser rifle, "Don't say I didn't warn you," he said, before picking up the tannoy and declaring to all "Hedgehog hunting season is now open in D Wing."

Sonic took this cue to run. He pushed he body as hard as he could, mustering speeds he dismissed as pitifully slow, he ran for the nearest exit he could find, a fifth story window. Taking a split second to decide which was likely to be worse, he curled himself up, and leapt out of the window. As smashed glass fell with him, he landed hard on the green grass bellow him. The blue hedgehog got up, his body suffering a lot for his decision to jump.

From above Pin looked out of the window to see where Sonic had landed. He spotted the small amount of debris the hedgehog had taken with him, but couldn't see the hedgehog for looking. Pin cursed himself for letting Sonic give him the slip, but relented.

Sonic pulled himself out from behind a parked ambulance. His body ached badly, but he had more pressing matters. Yet again everything was different, and Sonic had to track down Dawn, and find out just what was going on. Aside from the doctor whom Sonic recognised, but couldn't figure out where from, Sonic didn't know anyone.

The world looked slightly more normal than before, but the green sky gave away that it was far from correct. Sonic tried to pull his mind back together, after everything with Eggman, Dawn, and the Sol Emeralds, it was fairly obvious that things were a mess. It would take a mind smarter than his to make sense of what was going on. The hedgehog sighed, and clutching his left arm, he began to walk painfully slowly away, hoping he wasn't too far from someone who could give him an answer.

This time luck was not on Sonic's side, as he wandered for hours, without any clue where he was, or even if he was going the right way. None of the street signs made any sense, all of them reading in gibberish characters that made Sonic's head hurt. He had asked random passers by where he was, but they had simply told him he was in Station Square, before recommending a visit to Twinkle Park. This information wasn't to useful to Sonic, and he ultimately gave up asking.

It was getting dark, Sonic was starving, and tired. His body still ached, and he was no closer to anything he'd want to call home. Though he didn't want to, the hedgehog simply couldn't take any more and fell forwards. He pulled himself off the wet floor, and lurched slowly forwards, into a dark alley before his body completely gave up on him and he lapsed out of consciousness.