Authors Note: Despite Sonic's nature in this he still had his typical "You're too slow" annoying voice. If reading with two people please have the person with the best sonic impression read for sonic and the other person read everyone else, if read in a group do the same thing and the third person can just fuck off. Thanks
It was December 24th, Christmas Eve when it all began. Decorations were still hung up around the offices, a christmas tree there, a bit of holly here, and over there Jim had lit a menorah. One office though had no ornaments or decor to be seen, that of Dr. Sonic's. Sonic had never been a very religious man and so he never celebrated the more personal parts of the season and so while everyone else had gone home to their families, and to participate in candlelight services Sonic sat at his office working. He tended to the offices bills and paperwork slowly seeming to work in clockwork without any thought or care. It had been this way for hours and people who knew him better claimed it had been this way for years. Sonic was, clear to see a very broken man, and a shell of his former self. Sonic had recently turned 48 years old, alongside the 27th anniversary of his first adventure and most people at that age have a good 30 years left in them, but Sonic was lucky to have 10 left. Sonic had developed a form of Achilles Tendinitis causing him to give up the fast life. Sonic's life was running and now moving slow for so long was starting to wear on him. He didn't take care of himself anymore, some days he didn't eat and most days he didn't sleep. He worked managing a number of hospitals he had built all over Central City. Sonic didn't think he'd ever save the world again like he had so many times before but he knew he was still able to help it in some way. Throughout the darkness of the office a red light began to balre and shortly following it the telephone rang. Sonic slowly got up and hobbes over to the phone.
"Hello, This is Sonic of Sonic Meds speaking, We are currently closed for-"
Before he could finish speaking the phone goes mechanical producing a very loud annoying beeping sound. Whoever called had hung up.
"Fucking worthless workers" Sonic muttered to himself "couldn't even bother to disable this branch on the main line before they left"
Sonic flopped back down in his chair, he was sad in a way no one had really called, it was a brief moment of excitement. He used to have days he would be called by the president himself to go off and save the world from the evil Doctor Robotnik. Robotnik was either currently held up in an institution or dead, Sonic hadn't bothered to check for a long time. Maybe he should, there's a lot of things Sonic thought he should do. See a doctor, though they couldn't really do anything but tell him things he already knew. He should get out more, perhaps down to a club. There was a time when Sonic The Hedgehog walking in would've turned quite a few heads, now anyone would just think a homeless man had wondered in for a few drinks and to stare at the women. Sonic was a pretty big alcoholic so they probably wouldn't have been far off. Sonic really thought he should check on Tails though, he'd left Tails in charge of keeping the world safe when he "retired". Tails shortly after suffered a pretty severe injury. He didn't die but he hasn't been able to walk let alone fly ever since.
In the middle of all of Sonic's moping and reflecting another red light pierced its way through the darkness of Sonic's working space and once again the phone began to ring. This time though it was his. No one had called his personal phone in years, not without calling the receptionist phone first-
Sonic realized what had happened immediately when he saw the caller I.D. Doctor Grooms. He picked up the phone to hear what his old friend and colleague had to say.
"Sonic, I thought you'd be out-", The man said before sonic cut him off.
"Cut to the chase, Grooms you know I don't have anything better to do than work", Sonic replied back.
"Yes, of course. Well, we had this kid brought in, off the street. He was coughing something crazy and a young woman found him, called the ambulance and they brought him here, we figured upon first inspection it was just a case of the flu or tuberculosis. it had all the same symptoms"
Sonic was well aware of tuberculosis and the flu and knew it wasn't anything worth calling the top of the company about.
"So you're calling me, why exactly. If It's just the flu you should easily-"
Sonic was cut off by the doctor, "because it's not, Sonic. I-I don't know what it is, We have never seen anything like it before and I have no idea what to do. It carries all the traits of the flu but based on our studies, which I have rechecked a thousand times, Is killing this boy at ten times the rate of Stage 4 cancer, It's eating away at the cells faster than we can take scans."
Sonic dropped the phone. A disease with traits of the flu but the deadliness of a fifth unheard of stage of cancer was disastrous. He picked the phone up again with his normal super sonic speed, anything he was thinking about before inconsequential at this point.
"I assume you have guaranteed the entire place, right." Sonic yelled.
"Yes, of course, everyone working the boy has top of the line protective equipment." The doctor replied.
"Okay, then get me my old hazard suit ready, It should be somewhere in a closet on floor 2B, I'll be there right away."
Sonic slammed the phone down and stood up preparing to run once again at his top speed when his heel began to ache sending a shooting pain up through his leg causing him to fall to one knee. He got up slowly and decided he would take a cab instead, The Hospital was in Emerald Town and he knew he couldn't run all the way there without completely fucking up his leg for life. He walked over limping on one leg to the door and turned off the final light in his office before slinking down the stairs moving as fast as he could in his current state, which ironically was pretty slow.
"He got out to the sidewalk where he sat and waited with hand out for a cab, One would get to him eventually, but it was Christmas Eve so he knew he'd probably wait there longer than he'd like. Sonic thought about the many workers alongside the boy with a certainly terminal illness that no one had any idea what to do about or even what "it" was. He worried about the possibility of the quarantine suits being useless against a new powerful disease, he shivered at the thought. Sonic continued to wait with his hand in the air for a cab, as the pain in his leg began to subside. For a moment he put his hand down and considered braving through it and running to Emerald Town at the speed of light to put an end to the problem before you could even say-.
Sonic almost said "that's no good" in his head but stopped himself. Such a corny ad for children wasn't the right thing for a moment as serious as this and he put his hand back up to wait for the cab.
