Notes: A fic I thought wouldn't get a lot of attention, as earlier I wrote Misery Road and I had complaints that the story was too "depressing" and I should "cheer it up" when apparently people don't know about the kind of stuff I like to write about. I also had someone tell me to never write again, that although I shouldn't pay attention to such reviews, it did hurt me a little and I struggled with writing this fic. It soon just became an incomplete project as I think around this time I started to work a little on Shifting Realities or Between Church, which are fics I never got around to finishing but I'm still proud of the writing in them that I don't want to delete them off my main account even if I don't work on them.

This was a fic that was supposed to be a retelling of the Sonic Adventure storyline, except that Sonic was schizophrenic and struggled with deciphering fantasy from reality. However, the subject matter now is a bit too depressing for even me to work on (and maybe for other fans too) so I may not work on this again.

Review if you wish to do so, but once again, I will probably not work on it.

Also included is a scrapped chapter I tried to write of the same subject matter, but is not as well written as this one. I probably struggled with it when I got those reviews.

"What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough; for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams."

-Pedro Calderon de la Barca

A scream.

A blood-curling, soul-shaking, gut-wrenching scream that could only scream to him that he had to get out of here.

This man, in this white suit. He held all the secrets, didn't he? Of the evils of the government, of the lies of the health department that they don't want to tell you. He held the very key to his existence, whether he got to stay in this Hell today.

Look at all these men, he could only think. Look at all these men whose feet are melted away and they could only use wheelchairs, gutting and coughing their groans to everyone in this building, looking like withered suffering bodies of people who used to be so vibrant, so alive. It is where the damned lived and suffered, he surmised. He thought of Hell of nothing but a large building such as this, where Satan was the head nurse and everyone else here…they were nothing but his patients, naked, playing their little card games and reacting to the medicine that made them see visions of the world they used to live in. And they begin to regret and want to return to the purgatory, back to their normal lives, but they were locked in, and no matter what, they couldn't escape.

Basically, he thought Hell was nothing but a large psychiatric ward. With the screams and the blood they took from you and losing all your individuality.

They glowered at him, their eyes glinting in the light, tongue flickering like fire, as they spoke to him.

Kill this man.

Kill him.

He will lock you up here.

In your own personal Hell.

We all suffered here (suffered here!).

For far too long (far too long! the other head echoed)
Kill him.

He heard the bird's clear crisp songs and their shadows embroidered on the curtains. How he missed daylight already. How the light beckoned him to get out of here.

But here he was with the Gatekeeper, with his clipboard that he knew was they key to whether he was sent to Hell or he got to stay in the outside world. And how he already missed running just staring at this man. He was writing so many things when he only gave a simple answer of "yes" or "no". And he was completely still, sullen. But maybe the man considered this an offense too. To be as stoic as a statue in an art gallery. Maybe it was a crime here in Hell. But he didn't want to move, else he would fall to pieces, and he would be locked away.

And he could still hear the two-faced snake as it crawled around his legs, continuing to speak to him.

Kill him, kill him, kill him!

"Sonic, is something the matter? Your attention seems to be somewhere else, not to me."

And he said nothing. He just continued to look at this snake that he thought embodied the fires of Hell itself, as it now said that if he didn't kill the Gatekeeper he would swallow him whole and he would suffer a fate worse than the Gatekeeper should.

"No," he whispered, his eyes looking catatonic.

"Excuse me?"

He looked at himself in the mirror briefly before he looked back at the Gatekeeper. His quills were now dull, no longer glossy with a cobalt luster. His face and eyes…there was no longer any vitality, life, or happiness. Only tales of neglect and misery.