Trigger Warnings: Major character death. Implied character suicide. Read at your own risk.

"Let's head back to the planet as blue and cool as me."

Waves crashed over me, I was drowning in the sound of my own mind screaming at me. My heart beat so heavily against my chest it hurt. I only smiled cheekily with my lips pulled up into a painful grin, ignoring the way my fingers twitched as I forced myself not to reach out. To grasp at the air, the nothingness where I lost a part of me.

His fingers were interlaced with mine, to give us both the courage we needed to save everyone. I can still feel his touch, the light brushes of a kiss against my lips before he said goodbye. He slipped through my grasp and descended down to the planet we saved like a falling star from the skies above and beyond.

I can still hear my screams...

I can still hear my cries...

They echoed within my mind, yet they were muffled under the waves of the raw emotions crashing into the bays of my heart. Swallowing me whole underneath the bitterly cold waters of this growing anguish while I sputtered and choked, gasping for air to fill my burning lungs. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, I couldn't hear.

But with a facade, a mask to conceal my face. I spoke with a voice full of false confidence. Pretending nothing was wrong, that everything was fine. Like there was nothing between the lines. As if he didn't matter. As if he was only my rival who grew a heart. When indeed he is more than that, he's the rival who stole mine.

I can feel the shake in my voice, the tears threatening to spill, the way my lips trembled as I lied. I wish I can say that I wasn't breaking, that the cracks upon my glass mask weren't seeping the despair I felt. But they were. Water flooded mercilessly in, currents trapping me and dragging me down farther.

"I'm fine," I said exasperatedly, lips pressing thinly together, to my friends Ames, Knux, and Tails. After being asked one too many times I stopped answering them. The mood is so somberly tense and dead, they knew I was grieving but as to the degree...they didn't know that. We walked through the Ark, navigating our way through the metallic halls ready to leave for home after another adventure had been done. Even if I said it I knew.

I wasn't fine.

I was far from it.

They saw through it. I know they did. But they didn't comment on it. Nobody uttered a single word but I can see their concerned and questioning glances at each other. They didn't dare whisper his name. I can tell it was on the tip of their tongues, burning in their mouths, etched into their thoughts.

I was a million miles away, farther away from the distance between the Ark and the Earth.

My chest hurt. My eyes stung but I refused to give in. I refused to cry. I only wanted nothing more than to scream at the world for its blatant cruelty. Why? Why was he ripped away from me faster than he came? I never thought I'd find someone like him. Not in a million years. I never thought I'd lose someone like him. Everything about him enchanted me. Never did I feel such warmth and fluttering feelings for someone so special. It was a game that delved farther into that, he intrigued me. Understood me. I could go on and on about him. Who he is-

-Or...was.

Walking as a group with me tailing behind numbly, we turned a corner on our way to the ship we took here and I stopped dead in my tracks. My breath caught in my throat as it felt like I was punched in the gut. My friends didn't notice, didn't hear or didn't pay attention I don't know, they kept up with each other while I was left standing behind in shock. This isn't real. This didn't happen. All of this is a nightmare, one of which he isn't breathing and I'm not holding it together. I could swear, a flicker of his outline passed me by just as it had countless times in the past few days.

This is a wicked dream, a nightmare that reveals itself as my reality, it just has to be. One in which I desperately wished to wake up from. To be free of the cold waters choking me is all that I wish for. Where I can swim above my liquid prison.

I didn't hesitate to chase him. I ran the opposite direction of my friends, my heart skipped several beats when he turned around to face me for a fleeting second at the end of another hallway in this maze. I can see his eyes with the projection of molten magma briefly cast me a glance, 'Follow me, Faker...'

There was no hesitation in my decision in chasing after.

He walked around another corner with me hot on his tail, running as fast as I could to catch up to him. I'd turn and run down different hallways that would wind and twist with him disappearing faster than I could catch him. Frustration pricked at my senses as I desperately pushed myself faster.

I began to breathe harshly, my legs wobbly and weak making as I staggered after him. There were screams and echoes of a thunderstorm crackling in my ears with tremendous force, I was trapped in the storm with an ocean readying to descend upon me and he was the lightning that lit my world.

My shoes clanked on the steel floor rapidly, but I continued to chase after his apparition in hopes that he isn't an illusion. Shads is still holding my hand as we work together against the Final Hazard. His fingers interlaced with mine while we fought for our lives.

I stumbled over my shoes, collapsing hard onto the cold metal that sent shivers up my body. I panted and gasped for air, while one by one thick tears dropped from my eyes. My voice cracked as I begged, "Sha-Shads...please! Don't leave me!"

Pulling my knees close to my chest, I buried my head into my knees and wept quietly. "Faker." In the midst of my crying my head snapped up to instantly meet his gaze. Shadow bent down on one knee and held out a hand, with aching arms I reached out but when my hand seemed to phase through his did my heart suddenly hurt with angst and distress overcame me.

"Why are you crying?" His baritone voice said in a whisper, but it is as clear as day. "It's oka-"

"It's not okay!" I snapped. I couldn't let him utter those stupid words, words sugarcoated in lies. "This- this isn't okay!" I wiped at my eyes angrily with my hands, trying to wipe away my tears that cascaded down. "I'm not okay..."

Shadow...he means more than the world to me.

And now he's gone.

I pressed my lips together, to keep them from quivering as I felt myself beginning to weep once again. Only this time it is for the loss I can't bear in my heart, the loss that I'll never be able to overcome even if I tried.

I fell for him.

But what is there to love but a memory in which I can't touch?!

As if to prove it, I reached out to grasp his arm only for the action to be in vain when I felt nothing, only empty air. Pangs stabbed at my heart again and it is expected. The ocean pulls away, silence fills the...room? How did I get here? Where am I? With a fuzzy vision full of tears, more than enough to fill the oceans I barely could see my surroundings, even through the blurred sight I saw him clearly.

"You aren't here...you aren't here!"

I've lived never knowing of love, the admiration and feelings I felt never made sense to me until Shadow came. It was only a game at first, in which I was the cat and he was the mouse. An intoxicating game whenever I would catch him. He isn't evil. Shadow isn't cold or mean or anything like that! He may have been on the other team with revenge in his heart and mind in the wrong place, but Shadow had lost his life fixing his misdeeds. The good in him won out.

"Sayonara, Sonic the Hedgehog."

"No! No! No!"

"The planet has been saved...my promise to Maria has been fulfilled now-"

"But what about me Shadow!" I yelled, "What about your promise to me!" On wobbly legs, I pushed myself up out of spite and hurt. My throat felt dry, my mind dizzy and my eyes wet with tears. 'Shadow isn't gone! He can't be!'

Shadow faltered, his gaze softened when he looked at me. "I'm sorry Faker..."

"Please..."

"I love you. Don't go clinging to any ghosts. This is the only best outcome for the two of us and you know it."

"It isn't fair..."

"...Life...rarely is."

His presence didn't linger.

My mind had played it's tricks.

Is he really gone?

Is he really gone?

The ocean rose higher than the clouds, then came roaring down with no other intentions but crashing over me. I am numb.

Water surrounds me. I can't breathe, I am brought up for a second to breathe before the waves drag me under again.

My vision is turning to black, red seeps into the blue water.

Is this my final goodbye?

With a final breath, the raging ocean stilled, and there was only silence that followed after.

With a final gaze, the sun's rays peaked through the clouds to light up his ocean after the storm.