This is still the same Sonic / vampire fanfic. I just changed the name. I think the original title sounds kind of stupid. But enough of that. I just have a few things to say to any new readers.

First of all, I'm not going to bother with any descriptions except for my characters and changes in outfits. Also the story is narrated by two characters, so you can see things from their points of view.

And one more thing – If you're going to review, please no flaming. I respect your honesty and am willing to listen to your opinions, but try not to be rude.

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Rouge, and Tikal are © SEGA / Sonicteam.

All the other characters are mine and can not be used in anything without my permission.

Blood and Darkness

It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining brightly and there were hardly any clouds in the sky. I could feel the wind softly blowing on my face and through my dreadlock spines as I sat on the steps of the altar where I guarded the Master Emerald on Angel Island. It's hard to believe that something really freaky could happen on such a perfect day. I was just lying around on one of the stone steps of the emerald altar thinking that nothing could be better than that.

Then, I started to think about that girl called Tikal. I couldn't understand why I would be thinking about her. It's true that we were the only echidnas left in the world and we came from the same people, but we were from different time periods. I was the sole descendant of the tribe while she was the daughter of the tribe's leader, that was sealed in the Master Emerald for many centuries. She was somehow freed from the emerald and brought into this
time period.

I kept asking myself why I thought about her. We were complete opposites. I was a born fighter and she was a pacifist. Not only that. I was also very shy around girls. I wasn't that way around Rouge, but that's because she was always trying to steal the Master Emerald.

As I sat on the steps of the altar with thoughts of Tikal in my head, I decided to go down to the hidden palace under the surface of the island. The palace was more like a large tunnel decorated with tapestries and murals from centuries ago. Once it was where the Master Emerald was kept. But after the first time that it was stolen, I moved it to the ancient altar on the island's surface.

Wandering around the hidden palace didn't really take my mind off of Tikal. Looking at the decorations and the other altar where the Master Emerald used to be made getting rid of the thoughts impossible. I heaved a heavy sigh as the images of the echidna girl started to fill me with discouragement.

Just as I was about to head back up to the surface, I saw something in the old emerald room that I never noticed before. It was a boulder that looked kind of loose. I used my strength to push it aside so I could see what was behind it. There was another tunnel that seemed to go farther under the surface. I certainly hoped that it wasn't so much farther under the surface that it went to the very bottom of the island.

Out of curiosity, I decided to check it out. I had lived on Angel Island all of my life. I knew all the shortcuts and passages, but this was very new to me. Maybe it was another place where sacred things were kept. I started to walk cautiously down the cold, dark tunnel. My people were very secretive, so they could've sent booby traps there.

When I reached the end of the tunnel, I found myself in a strange room. It looked much more advanced than the other ones did. I saw computers and odd walls with what looked like veins that for some reason lit up the room.

How strange, I thought.

As I turned to the right side of the room, I saw another wall that seemed to hold some kind of stasis tubes inside it. Only two of them that were next to each other looked occupied. I went to the one on the left and tried to pull it out. It wouldn't even budge. When I looked at it, I saw that there was a similarly shaped type of steel door in front of it. The door had a keyhole in it. Someone had locked up the stasis tube, so I couldn't get to it without the key. There were no drawers, hooks, or even any openings in the walls or floor of the room. Wherever the key was, it would probably take me forever to find it.

I went to the stasis tube on the right and pulled it out. I was shocked when I saw what was in it. It was another echidna! He had charcoal gray fur and his muzzle was the same dark beige color as mine. He wore a dark blue sleeveless jacket that went just a little bit past the black belt around his waist. On his feet were boots that were the same color as his belt and had rims around them like Rouge's did. They were secured to his feet with blue belts that matched his jacket. One belt went around his foot like Sonic's, but had the buckle inbetween. And the other went around an inch from his ankle. He had mittens just like mine, but both of them each had a belt that was just like the ones around his boots, which was wrapped around the rims like Tails's were.

Excitement had welled up inside of me. There was another echidna on the island! I finally had somebody that I could relate to and share the island's secrets with. I opened up the tube and waited for the dark gray echidna to awaken. After a few seconds, he opened his cobalt blue eyes, stood up in the stasis tube, and looked
at me.

"Hi, I'm Knuckles," I said to him. "I'm the guardian of this island. What's your name?"

When I looked at his eyes, I thought there was something creepy about them. They seemed dark and lifeless. He couldn't have been a robot. No robot had eyes like that.

Suddenly, the other echidna lunged at me, grabbed me, and bit into my neck. I screamed in pain as his unusually sharp teeth punctured my skin, causing me to bleed. Then, it felt like he was sucking the red fluid flowing from me. I used my strength to wrench his mouth away from me and ran full speed through the tunnel and back to the emerald room.

Just as I was going to push the boulder back into place, I started to feel this terrible pain all over my body. I had to sit down because I was so nauseous that I was very weak. I breathed heavily for a minute, thinking that I would probably hurl. Then, I felt a hand on my right shoulder. I knew that it was the other echidna.

"Stay away from me!" I shouted before I started to run back to the surface of the island.

"No! Wait!" he called out to me.

I didn't stop. I just kept running until I saw the sunlight from the opening that led to the surface. When I finally made it outside, it felt like my body was on fire. I went back into the shade inside the tunnel, clutching myself and hissing from the pain.

How did that happen? I thought.

I put my arm out into the sunlight and felt the burning return. When I pulled my arm back into the shade, the pain stopped again. I couldn't go out into the sunlight! Why? What had that echidna done to me? I tried to feel the place on my neck where he had bit me, but I couldn't find it. It's like it
never happened!

"Knuckles," I heard him say as he walked up to me.

"What have you done to me?" I asked him.

He looked at me with a sad expression on his face that made him look like he was almost on the verge of crying.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to."

"Didn't mean to? You bit me so hard on the neck, I started bleeding!"

"I was so thirsty. I...I didn't know this would happen. It never happened before."

"If you were thirsty, you should've waited for me to bring you some water. Instead you bit my neck and drank my blood!"

"You don't understand. I needed blood."

Now I was confused. "What do you mean?"

"I can't drink water. I can only drink blood. Without it, I can't survive."

The other echidna wasn't making any sense. "Who are you?"

"My name is Typhoon. I've been on this island for many decades, but I've really been around for almost a millennium."

I couldn't believe it! "But, that's not possible. They didn't have stasis tubes back then."

"I didn't survive all this time by living in a stasis tube, Knuckles," he told me. "I never needed one. I was only in that stasis tube because I had put myself in there."

"Why would you put yourself in a stasis tube and how exactly could you do that all by yourself?" I asked.

Typhoon wouldn't tell me the reason, whatever it was. I wasn't going to get anything else from him about where he came from or why he had himself put into hibernation. There was nothing I could do until the sun went down. I went back down the tunnel to the hidden palace and into the emerald room where I had felt that strange pain after Typhoon had bit me.

While looking at the stone altar in the middle of the room, I tried to think of a way to get me back to normal. I was certain that Typhoon wasn't going to help me. Sonic might though. He always was the kind of guy who would help anybody who needed it. Maybe he could help me get back to my original self. I decided that I would go and talk to him after sunset.

As I stood in the room, I started to feel weak again. Some of my blood had been drained and I couldn't go outside to eat anything until nightfall. I had to lie down on the stone floor and rest for a while. I was so tired that I began to close my eyes.

"Knuckles?"

When I heard my name, I opened my eyes again to see Typhoon standing above me. But, I was exhausted from everything that happened, that I only had them open for a few seconds. The image of the dark gray echidna was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

I actually wanted to start the story with Sonic, but his first narration happens a little afterwards. And there is something else that I want to clear up.
None of the characters are gay.