Chapter 1
Cream skipped playfully into the living room. Sonic sat on the sofa lazily with a soda. He was watching TV. Silver jumped down on to it next to him.
"You can watch 'Two And A Half Men' later, I want to catch the news," He grabbed the remote, and Sonic was too lazy to stop him. The newsreader had a grave look on her face.
"Top story this morning, an accident at the Robotnik laboratories downtown in the small hours of the morning has left traces of an experimental virus all around the city centre. All citizens are urged not to go downtown for any reason until further notice. As this is an experimental virus, its effects are not known for sure, but the main symptoms are erratic behaviour, pale complexion and the need to feed on… eh… ahem, sorry. The need to feed on blood."
"God! What kind of virus was the screwball working on?"
"That's not the only thing." Silver added worriedly.
"What?"
"The girls went downtown shopping, they wouldn't have heard."
"Oh, shit…ake mushrooms." As if on cue, the door opened, and Amy, Rouge and Blaze wandered into the house.
"Hi guys," Amy was definitely the most cheerful.
"Ahem… are you going to tell them?" Silver nudged Sonic.
"No, you tell them."
"Heh hem, tell us what?" Rouge asked irritably.
"Fine… eh, we just heard on the news, that…" As Silver explained, the general expressions went from casually interested to shocked and appalled.
"What the… so, any one us of could be infected?"
"Depends on how contagious it is, we could all be infected, or none of us could,"
"Well, Shadow already has erratic behaviour, so he's got it…" Sonic quipped.
"I heard that!" He called from the kitchen.
"So what do we do?" Silver had taken charge.
"I can start work on an antigen now," Tails suggested.
"Good idea, don't waste any time with that, get started now," Tails left the table and headed to the garage/lab.
"Well, we can be fairly sure that me, Sonic, Shadow, Tails and Cream aren't infected. Me and Sonic were the first to hear. Cream was in the room at the time. Shadow never gets sick, so he should be fine. Tails was eating breakfast, I could hear him in the kitchen."
"What's to say that you guys haven't caught it off us?" Blaze replied.
"We don't know, we just have to wait and see."
They went about their morning business with heavy minds for the rest of the morning. Tails worked away in the lab, Shadow sat in his room listening to music, Sonic watched TV while Amy tried to flirt, Cream played outside with Cheese, the usual business. Lunch came and went almost silently, Tails only emerged from the lab to get a sandwich and a chocolate bar before heading back to work. Knuckles arrived midway through the afternoon, only just getting back from college now.
That night was a dark one, especially so because of a power cut. Candles were lit all around the house. Blaze was taking a late night trip to the bathroom. When she reached for the door handle on her way out, it twisted before she touched it.
"Okay…" She said, loudly and nervously. She opened the door. She wandered out onto the landing. The candle was blown out because the window was open. Now the only light was the dim light of the stars shining in the window. She looked around nervously.
"Who's there? Anyone?" She threw the candle in a random direction, spilling the melted wax on the floor. She felt around for the banister. She found it. She felt along it, trying to find herself in the near-blackness of the landing. She put her hand on another hand.
"Oh, crap… um… I hope that's you, Silver…" she looked around. She saw the twinkle of an eye. "Oh… my god…" Before she could scream, something was shoved into her mouth, something like a fist, which she could barely breathe around, let alone scream for help. She felt two sharp, piercing pains on her neck, and she tried to struggle. It was to no avail. Still, she flailed in a vain attempt to get free, although she could feel herself becoming fainter by the second. Suddenly, the fist was removed from her mouth, although by now, she couldn't say anything, or even breathe. Her shoulder felt like it had been ripped open, and her knees went weak. She collapsed without a word, and quickly fell unconscious.