"Be back in a week!"
"I know!"
Sonic couldn't wait to run. The air was cold, so he headed south where winter was warmer.
It took him a few hours to get from Station Square to Seaside Hill. There, he sat on the beach and reminisced the events that had not long passed. He'd met a hedgehog a lot like him, fast, brave, powerful. He was a great enemy, and then an ally. Sonic grieved the loss. He and his friends acted different ever since their adventure on Space Colony ARK. It gave everyone a larger sense of mortality. The Perfect Chaos destruction, although it shocked the world, didn't have as big an effect as a Space Colony crashing into the Earth. There was escape for no one.
Sonic closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, remembering the first breath he took when he first touched ground again. Feeling the ground after a trip to space felt surreal, and the air especially clear. At the beach, in the cool air, away from the pollution, it felt the same as that time. Sonic wished Shadow was there to feel it with him. How that hedgehog had missed out on a life. Created, fed false memories, frozen, sent on a mission of destruction, then dead. Did that hedgehog even have the time to appreciate the world around him? Did his mind have the capacity to appreciate the world he was sent to destroy?
Sonic stood up and ran more. He wanted to run further south to reach warmer territories.
A few hours later, he reached long, dry, sandy stretches of land. The heat was bearable. There was dust to throw up into dramatic plumes behind him. Empty space. Fresh air. Silence. Sonic found it perfect. He took in a deep breath, snapped into a starting position, then rushed off. The world around him was a blur of orange and brown. Orange sky. Brown sand. Brown bare tree trunk. Black.
Sonic skidded to a stop. Something black? That wasn't always there. He looked back. The dust trails behind him faded. It revealed a dark figure, standing up and stepping out of the shade of the bare tree. Sonic walked towards it, hurrying more with each step. He couldn't help but run when he recognised the person.
They looked at Sonic with an expression of increasing worry. Sonic stopped and grabbed them by the shoulders.
"Shadow!" Sonic cried out. "You're alive." Shadow looked at the floor.
"What are you doing out here?" Sonic asked. Shadow heaved a sigh.
"They took my home."
"Where?"
"The ARK," Shadow said through gritted teeth. "GUN is there."
"Oh," Sonic said. He wanted to make a suggestion, give a solution. There was nothing. "GUN's everywhere these days."
"Looking for me I expect," Shadow said in a low voice. "I don't blame them. After everything I did."
Sonic let go of Shadow's shoulders. As happy as he was to see Shadow, it was true that the hedgehog had committed atrocities.
"They're looking for me as well, and I didn't do anything," Sonic said, looking at Shadow warily. Then he grinned. "So maybe you're off the hook and they just wanna talk."
"No way," Shadow said. "I am their creation."
"What about Gerald?"
"Gone. I belong to them now," Shadow said and folded his arms. "I'm their most wanted."
"So's Egghead. They haven't caught him."
Shadow frowned.
"A Robotnik capable of escaping GUN's control," Shadow said. "Gerald would envy him." He looked to the side, a guilty expression on his face.
"Shadow…" Sonic said. "You seem… sad."
"I wonder why," Shadow remarked. "Could it be because I realised that I am no one!"
"No one?"
"Yes, Sonic. No one. I was born, fed with a life of lies, and then frozen to be used as a weapon. I am no one."
"You are someone," Sonic said and held out his arms, looking Shadow up and down. "You are whoever you become now. This is your chance at life."
"I don't deserve a chance at life," Shadow growled. Sonic ducked his head back, astonished. "What right do I have to use this planet when I tried to destroy it a mere few weeks ago!"
"It was longer than that. It's been a few months," Sonic said.
"And?"
"People are over it now," Sonic said, brushing it off. Shadow grit his teeth and glared at Sonic. "How long have you been out here?" Sonic asked, looking around. Shadow frowned.
"I don't know. I just… woke up in a crater," Shadow said.
"All bruised and burned from the reentry?" Sonic asked, perking up.
"No. I must have healed," Shadow said. "I didn't know who I was for a while. But sitting out here, my memories returned."
"Even the false ones?"
"Yes," Shadow said, closing his eyes in frustration. "But I know which ones are fake."
"How?"
"Anything before the Doctor awoke me on Prison Island is fake," Shadow said. "I don't know my life before then. Did I have a life? Were my real memories overridden, or was I just a blank slate?"
"If you're a blank slate, then how do you know so much. Like… uh, how to fight and stuff?" Sonic asked. "You must have been trained."
Shadow shrugged.
"I don't think I was," Shadow said; he had the helpless look on his face again, eyes softened in worry. "I'm no body."
"Not anymore," Sonic said. "Come back with us. You can be whoever you want to be."
Shadow looked at Sonic skeptically.
"Within certain limits," Shadow said.
"What limits?" Sonic remarked.
"GUN," Shadow said. "I should stay. They won't find me here." He folded his arms, stepped back to his tree, and sat down.
Sonic sadly looked down at Shadow. The dark hedgehog looked devastated, clueless, hopeless. What did he have to live for? Sonic could tell that Shadow had nothing, not even an identity. The small identity he did have, was defined by destruction and hatred for lies. The hedgehog must have felt nothing but betrayal and mistrust. Sonic needed to change that.
Sonic stepped out in front of Shadow held his hand out to him.
"Shadow," Sonic encouraged. "I have an offer."
Shadow looked up.
"The humans have these… midwinter celebrations," Sonic explained. "Amy insists I join in, because it's a time of… togetherness or somethin'." Sonic rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "And… I'd really like it if you came."
"No," Shadow said and looked down again.
"Please, Shadow," Sonic begged, clasping his hands together. "I can't just leave you out here on your own whilst we're inside eating and giving each other presents."
"Sounds like fun…" Shadow said sarcastically. Then, he flinched and put his hand out his stomach. "Eating," he pondered. "I've heard of it."
Sonic looked down at Shadow, baffled.
"Don't tell me you've never eaten," Sonic said, a pained expression on his face. He couldn't imagine a life without food.
"No," Shadow said. Sonic suddenly bent down, grabbed Shadow's hand and yanked him up from the floor.
"You're comin' with me, pal! I've got a lot to show you!" Sonic yanked Shadow away from the tree. Shadow looked at Sonic in shock. "You're coming with me, and I'm gonna show you the festivities. The lights. The music. The food. Especially the food." Shadow tugged back as Sonic walked him away from the tree. "No wonder you haven't lived. You haven't tried Chilidogs."
"Stop!" Shadow yelled and broke free from Sonic's grasp. Sonic spun around to see Shadow walking back to his tree.
"Shadow," Sonic encouraged. "I can tell you're hungry."
"I don't need to eat," Shadow stated.
"Doesn't mean you can't," Sonic said.
"I don't want to."
"You have to, Shadow! You have to come back with us!" Sonic said.
Shadow grit his teeth, hardening his facial expression and posture. Then folded his arms and looked to the side.
"Shadow?" Sonic asked, feeling something was wrong. There was one thing Sonic could not stand, and that was to see people cry. Sonic could feel it. Shadow was crying. Sonic walked over to him, leaned over to peer at Shadow's face. The dark hedgehog closed his eyes to hide. It didn't do much good.
"Shadow, come back with me. You may feel like you don't deserve it, or that you need to hide away..."
Shadow trembled silently.
"Shadow, it wouldn't be the holidays without all of my friends," Sonic said and held out his hand. Shadow hesitated, then held out his own hand. Sonic closed his hand around Shadow's. Shadow held on tight as Sonic pulled him up. Shadow looked to the floor when he stood.
"C'mon buddy," Sonic said and put his hand on Shadow's shoulder. They walked.