The Purpose
Written by WayneSteed
He was awake.
One minute, Shadow the Hedgehog was reliving a horrible piece of his past; the next, he was lying awake on his sweat-drenched bed, breathing quickly, almost hyperventilating.
His mind, though anxious to focus its neural energy on something a little less potent, could not tear its focus away from the terrible event that had agonized him all his life thereafter.
It constantly replayed in his head: the bullet, erupting from a gun aimed right at Maria's head... his tormented screams... the white-hot pain that consumed his entire being...
"No," he mumbled, first almost silently, then louder, as if he were just having a disagreement with another person. He sucked in air, and then screamed "NOOOOO!!" at the top of his lungs.
Shadow's breathing slowed to a heavy crawl, though his pulse pounded and his heart hammered in his chest, urging for more air. He obliged, lying there and staring at the ceiling of his bedroom.
Slowly, as if in a dream, Shadow rolled out of bed, put on his sneakers, and walked down the stairs. He slipped into his chair at the head of his breakfast table. He would be dining alone, as he always did. Sluggishly, he prepared some French roast coffee, as was his morning custom, but his mind was elsewhere: on the memory, which now did not feel painful, but monotonous.
He slowly lulled through the rest of his morning routine: toasting some stale bread from the back of his fridge, reading about the latest political disputes and violence outbreaks in the daily paper, and flipping on the TV and blankly staring at comedies that didn't make him laugh. This was how it went for him, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after God-forsaken year. Shadow normally felt like living in this vegetative state to escape his cursed past. Eternally staring at this blank screen of light, 24/7, was just fine with him.
There was something different that he needed, though; he just wanted, no, he needed to escape his wasted life that he eternally ruined and squandered. It was like being addicted to a particularly potent drug: it was a waste of life that he just wanted to quit and get off of, but he just couldn't, and while he couldn't, he was slowly being eaten away from his own insides.
Suddenly, he thought of an escape from his pain, a simple and smooth escape. A smile spread across his face, then quickly and utterly vanished as he considered the repercussions of this action. He had considered it long, since many months before, and had seen many reasons not to do the deed that he so desperately wanted to.
And he had decided that he didn't care.
"Ah, to hell with it," Shadow thought to himself. "Is there anything else left for me?"
Slowly and numbly, as he felt when waking up from his painful slumber, he slowly trudged up the stairs and across the hall to his bedroom. He collapsed on his bed, and wondered if this way out of his life was truly the right thing to do. He then conceded that he didn't know right from wrong anymore, so it was pointless to think about it. He considered saying a prayer, but doubted that the heavens could hear or care about what he had to say--that is, if there were any, or if he truly did have anything to say at all.
Shadow's eyes, closed during his troubled mind's thoughts, sharply whipped open. His gloved hand had found its way over to the handle of his bedside table's drawer, almost inadvertently. He slowly and hesitantly opened it as he steeled himself for what he was about to do.
His fingers closed around the cool metal of the nine-millimeter handgun that he knew was there, and had bought three months ago in a dark, seedy pawnshop. He sat up on the side of his bed and stared at it. Ever so slowly, he pulled out the fresh, unused clip and loaded it into the gun, a sudden numb calmness coming over him. Checking the chamber to make sure the gun would work, his already throbbing pulse quickened. He did not immediately put it to the side of his head, but, instead, toyed with the gun's safety catch.
On and off, on and off.
On meant the bullet would not drive into his cranium, shutting down his entire organ system and killing him instantaneously. Off meant it would.
On and off, on and off, on and off.
The inky-black hedgehog with slashes of red on his quills left the safety off as he cocked the gun, a quiet cha-chunk emanating from its barrel.
He pressed the gun to his forehead, his forefinger curling around the trigger. Just as his finger slightly depressed on it, his thumb slipped and clicked the safety latch on. He clicked it off, but a voice in the back of his head seemed to beg him to click it on. Slowly at first, he toyed with the safety again, clicking it on and off. His thumb increased speed as he pressed the gun harder into the side of his skull, grimacing at the pain. He left the safety the way it was without looking at it. With a few quivering deep breaths, he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. The safety, when he had stopped switching it on and off, had been left in the on position.
Shadow lowered the gun. His mind raced with a hundred black thoughts a minute; sweat drenched his forehead and arms. His heart hammered in his chest, thudding endlessly. It seemed to envelop him, the sound of his own heartbeat, and almost comfort his uncertainty a little.
Badum, badum, badum, badum, badum...
He clicked the safety off.
Badum badum badum badum badum...
He held it to his forehead once again.
Badumbadumbadumbadumbadum...
Shadow couldn't bring himself to do it. He just couldn't. He clicked the safety on, threw the gun to the floor and himself onto his bed, and wept. He didn't know why he had to weep, and why he didn't have the courage to go through with his actions. Wiping his bloodshot red eyes clean of his tears, he sat up and began to ponder every mystery of his past.
"Maybe there is a purpose," he thought, staring out his window that overlooked the world outside. "A purpose for my life, a reason that I was brought into this world. A reason, just like Maria said."
He remembered her words, and they sounded in his mind, then spread out and echoed across his entire being.
"Shadow... I beg of you... please, do it for me... for a better future... for all the people who live on that planet... give them a chance to be happy. Let them live for their dreams. Shadow, I know you can do it. That's the reason that you were brought into this world.
"Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog."
"If this purpose is mine," he said aloud to himself, "then I'm going to find it. I know it's out there... somewhere..."
He picked up the gun again, but left the safety on. He unloaded the clip and weakly hurled it at his bedroom wall. Slowly, he wiped his face with the back of his hand again, and walked from the room.