Affliction and Anguish

Chapter 1: The Green Eyes of a Menace

I'm back to the angst genre only this time it's going to be a lot darker. I would rate this a high T possibly an M, I have it as T right now but if you think this is M rated material please say and I'll change it. So, if you don't like blood, gore and horror turn back now!

Shadow could feel nothing but a strong pain in his chest. This turned to a lump in his throat and heavy tears falling from his eyes. He tried to keep his emotional pain silent, even though there was no one around to hear it. He couldn't help it because as the tears fell, his breaths became ragged which caused the audible sobs. Shadow fell to his knees feeling the emotional pain physically cripple him, he'd lost all strength and hope. Shadow began to wipe away one set of tears but it was no use, as more took their place.

"L-look at how pathetic I am right now." Shadow cursed to himself, slamming his fist on the metal floor. "I promised them… I promised him I wouldn't cry… that I wouldn't let this upset me… and just move on." he said in a shaky voice. "I'm a complete failure…" he added softly.

Shadow looked up to the large window in front of him, the bright blue light of earth shining over him like it had done for many others once, over one hundred years ago. "This place fills me with dread, loneliness and horrible memories… but it's the only place I can go now… I can't stay down there, not with them." Shadow said, his voice filled with hatred on the last word. Them. Those… humans.

Shadow despised that species. He hated how they inhabited the beautiful planet below and ruined it, the rainforest was nearly depleted and the waters polluted, which was a huge achievement since the Earth consisted of mostly water. "I'm safe up here… they can't hurt me with their weapons or their careless destruction if I'm here." Shadow said to himself. "Unlike… my friends…" he said and broke to tears again.

Tails, Cream and Amy. The three youngest of the group. They had been killed by a falling building while they were so young. The three of them had decided to go on a shopping trip one early morning when the two towers they were in, were hit. Shadow remembered walking down the street, sulking, to hear a crash. A plane had hit one of the towers they were in at that time. Shadow brushed it off, enjoying the human's suffering. "They only destroy each other." he remembered saying to himself, and left the city to scream and save itself with out help.

He immediately regret his harsh actions when he heard that the three youths were in there. He never told Sonic of his un-heroic act of leaving them, he would have never forgiven him.

Nearly a decade passed, things started to become even more tense between the human countries. Shadow thought it foolish of the whole human race to fight each other when they should have been united. It took every ounce of his strength to resist destroying them all. He had been hired by GUN to help them destroy the so called freedom fighters and their leaders. The ones thought to be responsible for the crash that killed his friends.

Sadly, Rouge was taken in the process. But in the way one would think, Shadow disobeyed an order from The Commander. So The Commander himself, cold bloodedly murdered Shadow's best friend right before his eyes. Rouge, lay on the floor full of bullet wounds, unable to even give her last word or breath. Shadow could remember how he just stood there with his eyes wide and his mouth gaped open. He didn't know what to do at first but then he took his action of revenge and sent a chaos spear right through The Commander's heart.

GUN hadn't seen Shadow since. No body knew how The Commander died and why Rouge was dead. This just left Sonic. Sonic had lost his best friend to a human and Shadow had lost his the same. From then on they stuck together and survived. Sonic grew old and frail as Shadow stayed to protect him. It was Sonic's last moments as he lay on his death bed, his old body crippled from aging. "Shadow… remember this and promise me… don't let my death bother you or make you do anything silly… just live your life, regardless of what those humans are doing. I beg of you…" he rasped and finished his last breath.

It was then Shadow used Chaos Control to take him to Space Colony ARK to grieve for his losses. It had been many decades, of suffering and anguish but at least now it was over and he could live a new life alone in the ARK. Shadow didn't rely on food and water to live any more, just chaos energy and he always kept his green emerald with him at all times to keep his chaos energy levels up. That would be his food.

Shadow continued to cry, like letting out the pain through the tears his eyes made. He wailed out, no one was there to hear him scream so he didn't care. He could act like a baby, he could be un-dignifying and show his emotion now, he didn't have to be the stoic Ultimate Life Form any more.

He felt like his chest was contracting on itself and his throat, it is completely true when people say true emotional pain gives a person physical pain too. Physical pain that can only be ended by crying. All of these years Shadow had taken the pain and dealt with the agony, hiding his suffering behind the face of no emotion. No matter how bad it got he kept the tears inside, until now. He let them out and relieved himself of the fifty years of pain he had been feeling since not so long after his release from prison island.

He lay on the floor, feeling useless and feeble, which only made him cry more which caused him to feel even more pathetic. But he would fulfil the promises he had made to Sonic over their years of friendship. He would not self harm, never. No matter how bad things got. Cutting would not release the pain and even if it did he vowed not to do so. Suicide attempts were useless as he could survive pretty much everything and come out the other end in even worse pain than before.

"At least I'm alone… nothing can hurt me… I'm safe." Shadow tried to reassure himself. It was like he had two personalities, or two minds inside of his brain. One would be the reassuring side that would know exactly what was wrong, why the other mind would do such reckless things and try to put things right for it. But the insecure mind would never accept it or cheer up, it would never listen.

Shadow began to quieten down. Quiet enough to hear a soft and slow tapping sound. He tensed up and looked around to see where the sound came from. They sounded like footsteps, as if somebody was creeping up on him. Shadow's heart rate increased and shivers went down his spine. In the darkness of the doorway of the room he could see a slight glow or snake green eyes. Not a kind emerald green like Sonic's but a harsh sickening green. Shadow gave a quick gasp has stopped his breathing out of fear.

Shadow could no longer fight, he hadn't been training or using any of his power or skills for years. He would be at the mercy of whatever had come to prey on him.

There was the sound of a masculine sadistic chuckle which echoed along the corridors it was in. Then a chaos attack was sent, similar to a chaos spear, travelling to Shadow at the speed of light, impaling him in the shoulder and pushing him up against the wall, sticking him to it.

Shadow had been nailed to the wall with this attack and it showed no signs of fizzling out unlike Shadow's chaos spears which would lose physical form once used. Shadow was breathing heavily, his eyes wide in dread and terror. He gave a grunt of pain but couldn't remove himself from the wall, he was trapped. He was not high up, he was low enough to be sitting against the wall with his legs spread out on the floor.

Then his attacker came into the room, stepping into the dim blue light that Shadow had been sitting in. Shadow saw what looked like to him as his dimmed reflection, his dully coloured twin. Shadow took a few deep breaths and said. "Who are you and what do you want with me?" and he gulped hard.

"I am Mephiles the Dark… and I'm here to make your life a living hell." He said with an eerie voice. He then make another of the spears and impaled it through Shadow's other shoulder but this time slowly.

There was the sound of cracking and squelching as the bones cracked under the pressure of the sharp tip and blood seeping out through the wound. Shadow gasped in pain, his breaths becoming more and more desperate but still shallow until he let out an agonised cry of anguish. Shadow slowly came to open one of his eyes which were scrunched closed from the pain. That's when Mephiles harshly and quickly stuck a lance to his stomach causing Shadow to scream and yell out in pure agony but no one could hear his screams. He would have to experience this living hell.

Lucy Labrador