He pushed the gate open, slowly approaching the mansion.

'Hey Shads, hurry up! You're getting behind!' Sonic yelled over his shoulder, sticking out his tongue at him teasing. He, Amy, Knuckles, Rouge and Tails had come here for a Chaos Emerald, which was located here by Tails. The Emeralds had once again spread over the whole planet and the first one seemed to be here. Unfortunately they had dragged the black and crimson hedgehog with them. Cream had stayed home though, she didn't like old mansions very much. Shadow sighed and quickened his pace to catch up with the rest.

The mansion seemed huge, not to mention very abandoned. The garden wasn't kept in years looking at all the wild plants growing all over the place. Shadow noticed Rouge starting to walk next to him, she was talking on full speed about who-knows-what, he wasn't paying a lot of attention. He actually liked the place, a bit creepy and spooky, maybe he could scare one of them as revenge on dragging him along for a Chaos Emerald!

Sonic being impatient, was already tugging on the front door. Something said him this place was meant to be left alone and he wanted to get this over as soon as possible. The door gave in to his harsh treatment and cracked open. The hall behind was pitch-black, it smelled wet and musky.

'Hey do we have a flashlight or so?' Sonic looked back at the other, who were only halfway in the garden. He sighed, walking back reluctantly. 'Do we have flashlights? It really dark inside there.' He seemed a bit nervous.

'Faker, what's the problem? Are you afraid of the dark suddenly?' Shadow joked, he had waited all day to make a comment to the blue hedgehog, since he had called him a test-tube-baby last week.

'Oh yea, but probably not so bad as Mr. The-Ultimate-live-form!' He shot right back at him, balling his fists in frustration. Shadow swung a fist at his face, it caused Amy to smack them both with her hammer on their head. Shadow rubbed his now aching head, so did Sonic

'Cut it you two!' Amy said fiercely.

'Oww Amy, but he started it…' Sonic whined.

'I don't care, you are both acting like 5-yeard olds!' She let her hammer disappear again, which sent a wave of relief to both of the hedgehogs.

'Let's just go inside.' Shadow took the lead pushing the blue hedgehog out of the way getting to the front door, it was indeed dark inside. A flashlight was turned on by Tails behind him.

'Here take it, it's easier to see with some light.' The young fox reached him another flashlight. Taking it he walked further in the hall. The ground sounded wet and dirty, flashing on the floor he saw there was lots of mud in the hall.

'Ughh it is gross in here… Watch were you walk.' Shadow warned the group behind him. Soon to be followed by some girly squeaks from Amy. He grinned softly and focused back to where they were heading, a wooden door came in sight at the end of the hall. Pushing it open Shadow looked around in the next room. It was much lighter, but something wasn't right. Candles were lighted, which was strange for an abandoned house. It seemed some sort of living room, actually pretty cosy with all the candles. He clicked off his flashlight finally stepping into the room. Immediately shocked by seeing the rest of the room and flinching a bit backwards. Sonic who apparently had been right behind him cursed as Shadow stepped on his feet by accident.

Some weird red substance was covering parts of the wall and ground and it seemed to move… Shadow shivered, they hadn't been in here for 5 minutes and it was already a haunted house.

'Don't be such a chicken Shads!' Sonic pushed him in the room, freezing in place seeing the stuff himself.

'What the-?' Sonic raised his brow in confusion and disgust.

'We can still get out here you know, I don't like this at all, Sonikku…' A trembling voice came from his side.

'What the hell is that?' Knuckles came with a really late statement.

'I don't know and I don't want to.' Shadow replied. 'Let's find the Emerald and get out of here.' He walked hesitating past the weird substance in front of him.

'My recordings say the Chaos Emerald is somewhere in the dungeons of this place, 3 floors lower.' Tails stated to fill the silence. He found a path around the substance without stepping into it , it creeped him out seeing the it up close. The stuff really seemed to be alive, in fact it was crawling slightly. Shadow forced himself to focus on the door at the other end of the room. After a lot of silent minutes they entered a dark room again and they flashed their lights back on, it was some sort of study. The door to next room was locked though, Tails was already looking in the bookshelves looking for a key. The books all looked very old and a lot of times read before. Shadow sighed and started looking in the desk…nothing. He spotted some kind of dairy was hidden in the back of one drawer. He picked it up, no dust. It seemed to be used very recently. Opening it on the most recent page he saw a neat modern handwriting:

Dear Dairy,

I don't know how much longer I can take this craziness in this house… I want out of here…, but were to? It's so far to the nearest town, I'll never make that… I know I say this a lot but… I hope someone accidentally gets into this house and gets me out of here…

-Mishka

Shadow wanted to read more, but saw that the group had found the key and were trying to get the old door open. He quickly hid the dairy in his quills and headed towards them. Something what surprised him of the dairy was that the date of today was written in that note, meaning the person would most likely would be still here somewhere…