"Wake up sugar-cube! It's a new day~!"

I groaned and slowly opened my eyes to see the ecstatic pink hedgehog that managed to wake me up. I laid on my bed and stared out the already open window. The warm spring breeze played with my translucent, pale blue curtains. The sunshine flooded the room and extinguished the ominous shadows that the night brought.

"Hurry and get dressed! I'm starving!" she said as she sauntered out the bedroom and into the living room.

I sat up slowly, stretched out, and yawned. After sitting in my bed for a couple more minutes, I got up and began my morning routine: brush teeth, wash face, fix hair, put on makeup, and get dressed.

"What took you so long?"

Amy was sitting on my couch watching TV when I had come into the room.

"Sorry. I'm not much of a morning person" I walked to the coffee table and grabbed my keys.

"I know you aren't, Mizuki. That's why I woke you up at one" she sighed, got off the couch and proceeded out the door and into the hallway.

Did she just say one? I looked at the clock on my wall and confirmed what Amy had said. It was almost two o'clock in the afternoon!

"Well don't just stand there, Miz. I'm hungry" she began walking toward the elevator as I walked out my apartment and locked the door. I ran to the stairs and took my time descending.

"Looks like I win again, Miz~" Amy sat in the lobby as I reached the last flight of stairs.

"Yeah, looks like that makes us even" I walked toward the large, glass doors and pushed one of them open. "So where to today, Amy?"

She pondered as we walked downtown. Didn't she think about this while she was waiting for me to get ready? Or while she got ready? Sometimes I wonder what passes through her mind, besides Sonic.

"Hey, are you making fun of me, Mizuki? Just because I didn't think about this ahead of time doesn't mean anything," she stood in front of me with her hands on her hips and a pout on her face. I laughed and reassured her that nothing bad had passed through my mind.

"Sometimes I think you should focus on other things instead of just Sonic. That's all," Her face turned redder than her dress and she stood shocked on the street as I passed by her. "If you don't hurry up I'll leave you~" She straightened up and ran back to my side.

"Don't leave me! Wait up!"

"Mmmm! That was really good~" she held her food baby and relaxed on her chair as I sipped some iced tea and mimicked her.

"It really was" I yawned and stretched "Ahh, now I'm sleepy. I think I'll head home and sleep"

"Mizuki," she sighed "You've been sleeping a lot lately. Are you ok? Do you feel sick? Are you stressed out with work or something?" concern filled her eyes and I felt a bit guilty.

I hadn't told anyone, not a single soul, about my dreams. My dreams of him: Shadow the Hedgehog. Dream is a better term for it: it's a reoccurring dream with differences occurring rarely.

It begins with me on a playground at night with stars illuminating the dark sky and dancing around the enormous moon overhead. I sit on a lonely swing and stare at the gorgeous sky. A light breeze passes by and plays with the delicate, black dress that I am wearing. I close my eyes and my bare feet start pushing the earth as I start swinging. I swing about three times when a figure grabs my hands and stops the swing from moving. I look behind me, shocked and see the face of Shadow.

He smiles at me and all of a sudden, we are slow dancing in the night sky with the stars around us and the moon lighting the endless darkness. As I lean my head on his shoulder, he disappears. As do the stars and the moon and the earth that I had just recently been on. The darkness consumes me and I find myself alone, his voice ringing in my ear:

"Soon"

That's where the dream ends and slaps me back to reality. The dream is relatively the same. There are times I wear a different colored dress, or sometimes I swing more than three times.

I never dared to tell a soul about the dream. I feared talking about it would ruin them, or worse: cease them from occurring. I kept them locked away in my heart, along with the hope that I would see him again.

I smiled at Amy and reassured her that nothing was wrong with me. "I only sleep a lot because I'm bored. What else am I gonna do on my day off?"

A huge smile spread across her face as she said: "You could help me find a dress for my first date with Sonic!"

She squealed and I stared at her with disbelief. After the shock wore off, I found myself squealing along with her. Right before we got kicked out of the restaurant, I noticed a smile plastered on my face. This was for an entire different reason, I had hope. Maybe those dreams mean something and maybe, just maybe, I'll see Shadow again.

The sunshine warmed my face as I stood outside the restaurant. I had hope.