I see the liquid love burn and bubble and scald the insides of the needle as I cook up another hit.

The drug boils as I watch it glow within the syringe. Painkillers in paradise.

I grin dumbly at the concoction of whatever the hell this stuff is and tap my forearm gently until an indigo vein emerges beneath the surface of the skin. My blood is beginning to run cold. And that simply won't do.

I stab the shot into myself and thumb down the pump. Warmth washes over me like hot bathwater; clean and soft and pleasant. The stupid smile on my face breaks open, and hot-pink butterflies come rushing out like pus from a cut. I laugh and they sing until I can no longer hear anything but the ringing. Beautiful, endless ringing like a child's bell amidst the choir.

Then it turns thick and hot, but not uncomfortably so. Like syrup. It envelopes my tongue with a sticky-sweet sensation, then cascades graciously down my throat until it reaches my heart. The warm hand of Satan squeezes softly around it until the beats sound like a drum in my ears. Everything echoes.

I stand up, I think. The world around me spins spastically for a moment before turning slow and mushy. The carpet beneath me looks hella' comfy to lay on, but I'm not tired. I am. No. I'm not.

I stumble to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror.

…

"Do any of you know where Shadow is?"

The question seems to stun them. Everyone looks at me oddly, expectantly. Sonic puts down his drink and glances at each of us for a solid second before taking another sip. Then he says, "We thought he was with you."

"Why the hell would you think that?" I ask with a hint of indignation in my voice. My wings flicker with the same tone; a reflexive thing that makes a small leathery noise. "We're not together or something."

"It's your wings." Somebody chuckles from the other end of the table. It's Knuckles. He's holding a soda in one of his big hands, but he's watching me intently with violet eyes. "Whenever you talk about something you like, your wings do this cute little twitch-thing. That's why we think that."

I huff and pout, not letting him see the amber glow of my cheeks. Because I know that he's totally right. "Whatever," I tell him. "So, does anybody else know where Shadow is?"

Knuckles stops watching me and shrugs.

"I'm sure Shadow's fine, Rouge," Amy says to me from the opposite side of the table. She's got a coffee frappe-something-or-other clutched in one hand, and the other is laying gently on top of mine. She's smoothing out my fingers with hers, and until then I didn't even notice that my knuckles had turned white. "He can take care of himself."

For some reason, the pink girl's touch doesn't comfort me. It sends a chill down my spine; her fingertips suddenly cold and alien. I carefully pull away and rub my hands together for warmth.

"I guess," I admit. I sip on my water, but even that tastes strange to me. "It's just that… nobody's heard from him in almost a month."

…

I stagger into the darkness of the restroom, and the pink butterflies warp into jet-black spider-things for a split-second. Terrified, I slap blindly at the light-switch until the fluorescents above me flicker to life. White-hot light sears my vision until I swear my eyes are melting, but I blink a few times until I can say for sure that that's not happening.

The corners of my eyes begin to crawl with creatures and shadows, but I squint through them and stare at the glass until I can see myself.

Shadow the hedgehog stares back, his pupils large and shimmering and dilated. He has been frowning up until this point, and now he's smiling wildly at me, his fangs sharp and liable to lunge forth and tear my throat out. Blood would spatter the sparkling mirror like scarlet blossoms of nightmare-flowers, but I would still be there in the reflection, grinning madly with my neck ripped apart and spewing a neverending stream of blood. The black and red hedgehog would remain. A shell without his soul.

I needed another hit. Soon.

…

Somebody's phone rings. I watch numbly to see who will answer, but then I remember that it's my ringtone. My painted nails claw through the junk in my purse and eventually come up with my purple cell.

I answer. "This is Rouge."

"R-… Rouge?"

I pause at the voice. It's tainted and unreal, like a voice separate from a person. "Yes… yes, this is Rouge."

"Rouge! How the bloody hell are you?"

I flinch at the suddenness of the speaker's outburst. I quickly turn the flip-phone around and glance at the ID. The gasp that escapes me is uncontrollable. "S-Shadow?"

Knuckles, Sonic, and Amy all look my way with surprise on their faces.

"Listen, I've got a… I've gotta'…"

A million thoughts rush through my head as I do my damnedest to understand what he's saying. I haven't seen or heard him in almost a month. What's he trying to tell me? Why is his voice so muddled?

"I've gotta' huge fucking headache. And I need some more of that… whatever the hell it's called…"

Shadow's usually quiet voice sizzles with static as his volume explodes through the receiver, drawing a few stares from people around me. My expression must be a dead giveaway, because the others are looking scared.

"Rouge, what's going on?" Sonic questions carefully, pushing his drink aside. "Is that Shadow?"

I quickly hold up two fingers to let them know to be quiet.

"Rouge, Rouge, are you still there? I'm super tired…"

I act without thinking, picking up my bag and knocking over my glass of water. It spills and begins to trickle down the edge of the table. "Shadow, honey, I'm at the café with Sonic and the others. Where are you?"

"Sonic? How is that blue bastard? Lemme' talk to him."

"N-no," I say. My skin is going cold, and there's sweat collecting on my brow. Something was wrong. Very wrong. "Shadow, you need to tell me where you are. Now."

"Everything's really fuzzy…"

"Shadow?"

"Rouge, I really like you, ya'know. You're so pretty…"

The waitress comes over to see what the matter is, but I'm already marching out the door. As soon as I'm outside, the cold air assaults my skin and chills me to the bone. I slip one arm into my jacket and keep the other on the phone. "Shadow the hedgehog," I snap, my tense voice sharp in the icy air, "just what the hell are you high on?"

"I told you, I don't know what it's called. I just want more of it. If I knew what it was called, I… wait, why did I call you again?"

My heart sinks into my stomach and my stomach into my feet. "Shadow…? Are you telling me you're…" I swallow hard and pinch the space between my eyebrows, "… you're high on something?"

There's a long pause. Shifting on the other end of the line. Crackling static. A muffled sob breaks the silence after a solid minute.

"R-Rouge. Rouge, I fucked up. I fucked up."

I can hear the tears streaming down his face, the snot mixing into hellish sadness as he sniffles uncontrollably. I can feel water starting to accumulate in my own eyes as I struggle to listen as the ultimate life form breaks down over the phone.

"I shot up. I shot up and now I'm dizzy and happy except I'm not happy anymore. Now I'm hot and uncomfortable and sad and it hurts."

"Honey," I plead helplessly, the tears coming without my consent. "Honey, you're going to be just fine. Tell me where you are. I need to know so I can help you."

"I don't know, I don't know. I don't know where I am, Rouge."

I hear the door to the café open with a crash. Sonic approaches me from behind and puts his hand on my shoulder. "Rouge, what's going on?"

I turn to the Blue Blur with tears in my eyes. I don't bother trying to stop them. "It's Shadow."

"Rouge, am I going to hell? Bad people go to hell, right? Am I bad people?"

I shake my head furiously even though I know he can't see me. "No, baby, no. You are not going to hell. Just tell me where you are. I need to know where you are."

"No, no, no, no. I'm going to hell. I'm going to hell, and I'm not going to see Maria because Maria's in heaven, and people who go to hell can't go to heaven even if it's just for a minute."

He's crying, sobbing violently and hiccuping like he's about to vomit.

"Shadow," Sonic says to me, snapping his fingers in quick succession, his brow furrowed like he's trying hard to remember, "Shadow... Shadow lives on two-twenty three Mustela Boulevard."

...

I'm biting my knuckles, sticking my fist in my mouth like I'm a baby. It's all gone. The stuff that takes away my memories and numbs the pain and makes me feel good is gone.

"Rouge, I'm never going to see Maria again," the voice I don't recognize as my own speaks into the phone. "She hates me now, God hates me, and I'm going to go to hell and it's all my fault."

"No, no, Shadow! Stop that, stop that right now! I'm on my way over, okay? Just try to stay calm. Try to stay calm."

But I throw away the phone and so I don't hear her anymore. I clench my fists over my head and unfurl them so I can claw down my face and brush away the blackness. The spider-things are back, skittering around in the shadowy corners of my eyes.

The dark bleeds into my vision and makes my face hot and prickly. Sweat falls like bullets down my skin. My palms grow wet with perspiration. Thick, crimson tears fall down my cheeks like blood. Too hot and too thick.

The spiders crawl up my skin. I swipe madly at them and scream for them to get the hell away. But they keep coming, swallowing my legs until I can't move. I'm stuck on the floor, the spiders biting and stinging my feet and ankles. The poison seeps into my veins and courses through, burning and setting fire to every nerve in my body.

"For the love of God, make it stop!" I howl in agony, tearing at my feet and yanking off my socks and shoes until my feet are exposed and only slightly cooler than before. But the fire spreads. Smoke curls and roils up my throat as the spiders go higher.

"Maria, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Please, don't let me die! Don't let the devil take me, Maria, please!"

The dark lord's talons clasp around my neck and dig deep into my throat. Blood oozes down the jet-blackness of his claws as the life begins to choke out of me.

"He's got me! Please, someone help me! Don't let me die! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

I think I hear the door break open with a wooden crash as Satan pulls my skull hard enough to rip it from my spine with a horrible gnashing noise.

...

"Hey, Rouge."

I turn to Shadow with a natural smile on my face. The ocean is lapping at the dock quietly in the background, splashing gently beneath our feet. Being with him makes the happiness come easy.

"Yeah?"

He looks at me for a while. His scarlet eyes flicker in the orange ball of setting-sunlight. Then he shakes his head and smirks. "Nevermind."

"Oh, no," I laugh, leaning playfully on his shoulder. My ear feels cool and wet as it touches the sea-stained sleeve of his jacket, but I don't care. "Not 'nevermind.' You have to tell me now."

He glances at me warmly. But he's holding back. I just don't know what for. "I said nevermind. It's nothing."

"It's never nothing with you," I chuckle. "Always something dramatic."

Shadow turns to me, his full attention on my eyes now. I love it when he does that. Looks at me with heart. "What is that supposed to mean?" he asks with a grin on his normally-stoic face.

I sit up and put on my best mock-emo face and lower my voice in order to sound like him. "Nobody understands me. I hate everything. Life sucks," I tease. Then I elbow him and offer a friendly wink. "That's how you sound."

"Do I, now?" he chuckles. Dryly.

I can immediately sense that I screwed up. "Sorry. What is it, then?"

Shadow the hedgehog looks at the sunset one last time before getting back on his feet, towering over me at his full height. I look up at him expectantly. I see tiny, crimson dots on his arm beneath his sleeve for a split-second before he offers his hand to me.

I take it and shrug off the dots as something I just imagined.

We're walking away from the pier and back to my house when he finally says it.

"Rouge."

"Yeah?"

Another pause.

"Nevermind."

"Not this again."

"... Rouge."

"Yes, Shadow?"

"We're... friends, right?"

I stop walking and stare at him seriously. "Absolutely."

He stops as well but refuses to return my gaze. His tired, off eyes are magenta in the auburn sunset. "So."

The sound of the distant sea laps at the shore far behind us. Seagull noise echoes in the backdrop. "So what?"

His hands are in his pockets, but I can tell he's fidgeting. I can read him like a book. "So if I ever... if I ever screw up...?"

I catch him by surprise when I yank his hands out of those jacket-pockets and wrap them in mine. My fingers intertwine with his, and he's staring at the web of flesh in wonder. "I'll be right there," I promise him, "to pick you up and tell you how stupid you were being."

I take one of my hands out of the embrace and cup his face in my palm. He blushes and turns the cutest shade of amber I've ever seen. "You got it?" I ask.

Shadow seems stunned, at a loss for words. He glances down at his hands, stares at the hand he's holding in them, then glances back up at me. Then it's his turn to surprise me as he suddenly wraps me up in his arms and holds me close.

My wings flicker reflexively and my will sort of evaporates as his warmth envelopes me.

"That's exactly what I needed to hear," he tells me, half-whispering, half-almost-crying. A tear rolls down from his eye and dribbles onto my shoulder.

I hug back carefully. Shadow the hedgehog cries softly into my shoulder.

Then I bust open his door just as I hear him start screaming.

My eyes are wide with shock when I see the discarded needles and syringes lying around his fetal body, his shivering form loud and unnatural. I've never seen him this way before, and my heart isn't sure of how to register the sight.

But my brain tells me exactly what needs to be done as I rush over to him. I'm already dialing nine-one-one when I reach him.

"Shadow! Shadow, honey, it's Rouge. Shadow? Shadow, wake up!"

...

My eyelids peel open, but the world won't stand still. The earth is a spinning vortex of darkness, slowly turning cold and evermore black. I look up and see the demon clutching my head in its hands.

"Shadow. Shadow, wake up."

The beast growls, snarls. It's spitting acidic, neon-green venom through its fangs as it talks, its tone deep, unearthly, ungodly.

"Shadow. It's Rouge."

The image of the black, distorted monster flickers for only a second before turning back, its blazing jade eyes set on kill-mode.

"No, no, no!" I shriek as I pull away, scurrying backwards until my spine connects with something solid and wooden. A bookshelf or something. My palms stab into the corpses of needles and dead drugs. "Stay the hell away from me!"

The thing's jagged, tattered maw seems to grin, and its inky, formless face lights aflame with dark fire. The flames lick at my skin and boil the blood beneath.

"Shadow..."

...

"Shadow, snap out of it!" I yell at him, tossing the phone away from us. After calling the authorities, the paramedics or ambulance or something should arrive soon enough. "It's Rouge!"

"N-no..." he cries without tears, his eyes dry and tightly closed. His trembling hands cover his face. "No! Stay away! I don't know who you are!"

"Yes," I beg, crawling towards his huddled body, on all fours now. "Yes, you do know who I am."

"N-..." he whimpers almost soundlessly, his shivering shell drenched in coldsweat, his eyes slowly prying open. Bright scarlet engulfed in dilated, black pupils stare up at me in terror. "No... I don't know..."

I wrap my arms around him, and he resists at first, his hands clenching back into balled-up fists. But then the tears start to flow. Hot and wet and terrified.

"It's Rouge, honey," I whisper, kissing his forehead and hushing his sobs. "It's Rouge."

Shadow lets out a hoarse cry that racks his wounded body. "R-... Rouge?"

"Yes," I tell him. "Yes, Shadow. Rouge is right here. I'm right here."

Then he shatters in my grasp as he grabs blindly at my shirt and buries his face into my chest. He breaks down into unstoppable waves of sobbing. "Maria, Rouge. Maria hates me. A-and now I'm g-going to hell..."

I gently stroke his quills and shush him. "Shadow the hedgehog, you are not going to hell. That girl does not hate you."

The siren is approaching somewhere far away from here.

"That girl loved you with all of her heart," I tell him softly, hugging him tighter. "All of this was just a dumb mistake, okay? You just made one bad decision."

Shadow's drug-muddled eyes look up at me, sparkling with tears. He sniffles. "I was..." he chokes and sputters, "I was being stupid, right?"

His gaze touches my heart, and I can't help but laugh quietly as I hold back my own onslaught of sadness. "Yes, hon. You were just being stupid."

He holds me close to him and I do the same as the paramedics come rushing in. "Just being stupid."

...

I blink awake with a slow start, but my heart pounds when I see the tubes in my arm and the dumb, polka-dot, paper gown on my body. The blankets chain me to the hospital bed, and I go to rise and escape.

Then I see Rouge standing at my side, her hand on my chest to stop me.

Her beautiful, shadowy eyes are bleeding mascara or eyeliner or whatever it's called as she smiles at me. The shirt she's wearing is stained with tears, and her ivory ears are flush with her skull; her worry-look.

Seafoam irises gleam with warmth when she locks gazes with me. "You're awake," she almost says, but she stumbles, says it without sound. So she says it again.

I nod to let her know I heard her. "So..." I speak as I struggle to prop myself up onto my pillow, "... what the hell happened?"

She sits down beside me quietly, and the sadness in her eyes returns. "I should be asking you that."

I stare at her blankly, unsure of what exactly I'm supposed to tell her. I was depressed. Suicidal. Thinking about Maria. Looking for a way out.

"I..." I start, stop, start again, then sigh instead.

Rouge the bat squeezed my hand in hers and regained my attention. Her eyes burrowed into mine. Cool and teal against lukewarm and bloodshot. "And don't you dare say nevermind."

We look at each other for a long time, and I realize that I can tell her anything.

So I tell her everything.