Speed. Elegance and grace at its upmost finest. It is the rawest form of power that exists. No trait could even come close to matching its absolute nature. It kills. It saves. Speed, is and was the difference between life and death. Dominance. Control. Order. In many cases, one's speed determined such necessities. It maintains a very primal set of rule, but a set of rule no less. One such great example, in fact the greatest example, of speed, is the mighty cheetah.

The large cats are completely adapted to speed and the kill, sacrificing strength and power for swiftness and finesse. The only prey they see fit to hunt is the gazelle, one of the handful of herbivores whose speeds rival that of the carnivores who called them prey. They were adapted for speed in similarity, but they differed in that the gazelle adapted for survival. No animal other than the mighty cheetah could case, catch, capture, and kill the leaping gazelle. However, the leaping gazelle was the only animal fit to notice, evade, and escape the mighty cheetah's grasp.

It was truly primal, but it was balanced. Yet the one thing that held it all up so it wouldn't fall to pieces, was speed. For if one had no speed, than what did they have? Is it worth living life in one, universal, fixed location? No, it is not. Speed determines everything, but is seldom seen that way.

Without speed, light could not travel.

Without light that could travel, the sun's rays could never shine.

Without the sun's rays, life was cold and dull.

Without warmth and liveliness, life was not...life.

Speed is te equivalent to life, and life is the equivalent of living. The studies of speed were always fragmented and incomplete, discarded and unfinished, because everyone who studied it came to the mutual conclusion that there was simply too much to study. The secrets of speed were destined to forever be guarded and locked away from humanity, as was the simple yet discouraging truth.

This being said, speed is not without finesse. In its many stages, sections and parts, it is both slow and fast. Patient, and eager. Hesitant, and quick to action. Considerate, and uncaring. Speed represented all of these qualities in every way imaginable. As much as I would absolutely love to bore you with my thoughts, and I would, we could be here all year and we wouldn't have enough time for that.

That's why I'm always alone. I find places to be to myself in so that I can be at peace with my thoughts. It's just that, I'm never at peace. Never have been, never will be. As much as I wanna be, it won't happen. Not since she died in my arms. Natalie. My best friend. My only friend. My family. My sister. The only woman I've ever loved. She had been the center of my whole world, before it all came tumbling down.

Then, she was gone. Taken from me, to be left as nothing but a bittersweet memory. My love. My friend. My fault. I own that. I'll carry that just like I carry everything else. It's the reason I do what I do. It's the reason I'm the best at what I do. To put it simply, I'm the best at what it is I do, but what I do isn't very nice. I end lives. I become part of that inevitable end everybody has to face. I have to be the only exception to that though. Me, Shades the Hedgehog.

I have to live with all my failures. My many, many failures. It hurts to see the things I do to help, turn out to be more of a threat than what they were meant to stop. I'm an outcast. A reject. Impure. Tainted. Broken. I have to be all these things, infinitely. For always, I'll be a hallow shell without a purpose other than the ones long past and forgotten by the world.

I'll never forget. Never.

The day I forget Natalie is the day that I forget my sense of purpose and direction. The day that I lose control. Forgetting is not the same as moving on, however. Moving on, is allowing someone's affections. Forgetting, is becoming something else. Becoming something...evil. That isn't what Natalie would've wanted. I have to keep my promise. I won't give up on my promise. Ever again.

However, I won't keep myself from moving on. I have to, or else I'll always be this person who everybody sees as a threat. I don't want to be that person anymore. It's time to move on. It's time to stop living in the before, and start living in the now. I have to put that aspect of her behind me, in order to become all that I can be. I need to be all that I can to protect people. So, as a wise man once said;

This is the end of you, and the end of

my accursed past!

Well, that applies to a different situation. I have to move on, but I can't move on. I must, but I cannot. It drives me crazy, but I must accept it. Well, I believe it's time for me to stop rambling and get on with it, I suppose. I thank you, whosoever you may be, for listening to my words, as no one ever does. It's about time someone did.