I stand alone now,
Staring at my past.
The only thing in my head that seems to last...
...
Her face,
Her blue eyes,
They all make me smile.
The blood splattering and her cries
Still stays with me throughout all the dreaded while,
...
Nonetheless, I keep myself together.
The feelings feel normal to me now,
Like a bird's wing and its feather,
...
One day, I'll meet up with this strange Maria,
Wherever that shall be,
And I'll see if it was true,
For of all the things I think about,
It's mostly all of you,
...
It makes me wonder, really,
Of how I truly thought.
For past the pain of that memory,
I can tell of all the happiness you've brought,
...
I would have loved to remember you,
To get to know you,
For that gruesome image is the only thing I really knew,
...
Until that time I shall keep myself together,
But there is one thing you, wherever you are, should always remember:
That no matter what, I love you, and that'll be the same forever.
{Shadow's POV}
All I remember was being frozen.
I was deathly still as I stood. As I stare at my best friend. She was leaning over a switch that could cause her life or death, and it was all up to her. Pulling that switch would save me... but wouldn't save her. If she didn't pull the switch... she might have a chance to survive.
At this I clench my fists and pound furiously at the glass, my eyes never leaving hers.
"Maria!" I yell over and over, and all I get in return is a weak smile.
"Shadow," I could hear her whisper, barely audible, but I could still hear...
I could tell she was about to say more, but before she could, I hear a small explosion as the door that had kept us safe for now blow up, leaving smoke and flying debris. The remains of the door opens quickly, and in came a GUN soldier.
His face was strict and firm as he held a gun close against his body.
"Get away from that switch," he commands in what was expected to be of a high authority voice.
My eyes widen as I now scream her name, kicking with now twice the power I had used before.
Maria shook her head firmly, but she couldn't hide the fear she felt as her face exposes her pain and fright.
"I'm warning you," he now threatens. I could then hear his gun cock. "Get. Away. From. That. Switch." he now tries a 'one-at-a-time' word attempt, but it doesn't work on Maria, as she was determined to save me.
I cry at her to let go of the switch, so they could turn me in and she could be safe again with her grandfather, and so that she could prefill her wish and visit the planet she loves so much. She still doesn't budge to even my cries.
"I'm going to count down to the count of three, and by then, you better have had let go of that switch." he orders, and I could hear his tone becoming somewhat fearsome and weary. "One..." he began to threaten, his gaze switching from Maria to my own ragged form.
Maria still doesn't move, her eyes now traveling to where the soldier stood, to where I was...
She mouths something that I just couldn't catch. I now stop slamming against the pod.
For one, I know it wouldn't break, as my own creator had made it for that reason - so that a person in use of it wouldn't drown in space from the lack of oxygen if it were to be damaged.
Secondly, I know it was of no use, and I just was wasting my energy.
Just because I knew of all this, doesn't mean I wasn't scared of what she might be doing.
At this time of judgment, I admit, I, Shadow, the so-called 'ultimate life-form', was scared. Was scared of what I had done. Was scared of what my role had ended up laying out for Maria's fate. Was scared for her...
"Two..." the soldier broke my trail of thoughts. Now I could tell he had his suspicions, too. He was ordered to get rid of anyone who would get in the way of my capture, it seems. Of this I know. I know that if forced, he would kill my dear Maria.
Even so, he was still worried of doing such an act. He was frightened at the thought. I could tell by the way he was shaking - slightly, but still visibly. I could tell by the way his eyes was flickering around the room, and I could tell by the beads of sweat forming across his forehead, just behind that the glass of his helmet. Then I saw his hand grip tighter around the gun.
"Ugh," I hear something - or, rather, someone - grunt quietly as I snap my head to see Maria... she had pulled the switch.
I was not the only one who noticed, as, at the exact moment she has done so, a bullet noise echoed through the room and especially through the escape pod.
I saw her fall helplessly to the ground. Blood splattering from her wound that should have never taken form. Her hand slams against the cold hard floor followed by the rest of her limp body. Her blue eyes were closing, for what I had feared would have been for the last time... I knew that it was not so... at least, not yet, as I could barely, but still could, make out the rise and fall of her chest.
Her eyelids rose to reveal her ocean-blue eyes. This time, they were not filled her with usual joy, or playfulness, but with pain. Pure, utter pain. And that horrified me.
I could see, out of the corner of my eye, the man drop his gun from his grip out of shock and horror.
"What have I done?" he whispers to himself, and, shaking his head, he fled the way he entered, swift and quickly... like a coward.
I stood deathly still, my eyes switching from that horrible human invention called a 'gun' to Maria's still and quiet body.
"Shadow," she coughs. She looks up weakly to face me. My eyes never left her's as I heard some electronic words form from above.
"Escape pod activated. Retracting from colony in t-minus one minute."
"No!" I cry, my vision getting blurry and moist.
"Shadow..." I hear her voice repeat ever so softly.
I shake my head as she talks, urging her to stop talking, so that her body could rest better and start to heal, as if I had believed then that she could be saved.
Deep, down inside though, I knew otherwise.
"Please... promise me... you'll help the people of this planet..." she whispers weakly.
She then raises her head an inch off the ground.
"They need you, Shadow," she whispers once again, and with that, her head slowly slumps towards the ground.
"No!" I continue to cry, "Maria, wait!"
She shakes her head and smiles sadly at me, knowing as well as I did that she couldn't wait. Nothing would or even could save her now. Her time was over now... because of me... because I existed in a world I was never born naturally into.
"Sayonara, Shadow...the Hedgehog," she whispers, the smile still planted ever so softly on her face as she slowly crouches to the ground, her eyes fluttering, soon to be closed forever...
My eyes chang from fear to complete panic as I slam my fist once again against the unbreakable glass. I even try kicking it down, but to no prevail, I had failed. I had failed my true purpose in life.
I was to help Maria by finding a cure for her. As a bonus, I was to help the world become a better place, as it was both my creator's and even now her wish, but my true purpose was to help Maria.
I had failed, and I know it... as I watch her die before my eyes.
I know that now there was nothing nobody could do now. She would die. I saw her take another ragged but quiet breath as she finally fell still, her eyes finally closing and her heart beginning to stop beating...
"No!" I yell just as I saw the one minute I have had left of being attached to the colony drop to a zero. The pod then began to detach itself. As it did, from the corner of my eyes, I saw the Commander of GUN back then, who had started the whole attack on me, yell in outrage as he knew I was now fully out of his reach.
I didn't care, though, as I hurtle towards the planet I had dreamed of Maria and I both visiting together, for I was only thinking about her. Of all the pain I had ended up causing her and everybody else I had loved. The professor would truly be the only other person to feel at least a bit of fury, horror, and disgust I had now developed toward humans everywhere, too.
I continue to fall towards the planet I now curse from then on. Cursing the planet, cursing GUN, cursing that GUN soldier... cursing my own existence...
I felt my hands slide down on the glass as some wet substance drops from my face. After that one fluid had dropped, many others followed. It made my vision blurry as I came in contact with the planet Earth's atmosphere.
I could feel the pressure against the pod and flung instinctively to both sides of the interior to keep me balanced.
'Not the safest way to travel to Earth if Maria was here with me.' I think to myself in anger and depression. It did surprise me, though, that the soldiers were amazed and awed at the professor's work. As if it seems those on Earth are more primitive than those aboard the ARK, which wouldn't surprise me if it were true.
I look down below my feet to see that not only were the continents gone from view suddenly, but also that I could see individual objects from below slowly, but what I knew was really in fast speed.
I close my eyes at this, waiting for a the large, deadly impact. And there was a large one. It was deadly, too.
Glass splatters around me, glittering in the moonlight. Steam arises from what the pod had become as I fall over and roll violently to the ground.
Weak and helpless as pain fills me, and my lungs gasps for air through the fog, but none of the pain compares to the one in my heart that I feel as I remember Maria had suffered a far worse pain then mine.
I close my eyes as I gather myself painfully together to sit in the alien grass, looking up at the stars that felt now unfamiliar to me. Feeling something what I believe the professor stated as 'cold' brush against my fur and blow at my eyes, I shiver.
The plants and animals around me feel as alien as I had never thought they would be. Maria taught me of some of these, but now all my knowledge is of waste. Maria would not come with me now. She was gone, gone forever...
How was I truly to know what was to become of me after that? To be narrowed down to my exact location once on Earth, captured and put in a sleep-like state for over fifty years and when reawakened, become thirsty for revenge against the people of the Earth.
How was I to know that afterwards, I'd end up saving them and risking my life for them at the very end, having me risk all the memories I have had aboard the ARK to be lost, except for that gruesome image I had encountered on the day of Maria's death.
How was I suppose to know that I'd be reawakened by the same bat I would have met when awakened the first time, to team up with her and a robot and fight against the team I had been with not long ago?
How was I to know that, when unconscious from the fight with my own prototype, I'd be cloned and copied off of so I wouldn't even know who I truly was. Even having me question if I was even real Shadow or not when I had my memory loss to deal with.
How was I to know that I would meet my own biological father, Black Doom, as he would use me to fight against the humans? Making me decide the fate of the world.
How as I to know that I would have to come to the most bizarre things in life, like going through cyber-space itself, or even going back in time to meet with Maria, only to finally find all about my past and put it behind myself to fight my own father to the death. To save the world that Maria once again coaxed me to save, from a video the professor recorded if such of an event was to occur.
'How?' The words echo through my head as I now look up to see the stars shining above me, the colony not too far from it. All the time of calling that blue hedgehog a faker, I now notice maybe I was the faker the entire time. After all, at least he was naturally born, with a mother and a father, maybe even siblings. Having friends and having a good time. At least he has a life.
Even as I breathe and live, I truly don't have a life, now that I think of it. I was never born, I was just created off some lab in space. Sounds like something fictional and scary. Why wasn't Maria scared of me though? She knew I was different. Why be my friend? And now since she is gone, unlike the faker, I don't have any friends that I can truly talk to.
I care for Rouge and Omega as a best friend would. I would call Rouge my best friend and Omega a close one, but I can never truly talk to them, as I fear they would not understand, not relate, or begin to fear me too...
-And lastly, how would I be able to even think about having a good time when my world and life is full of war, blood, cold murder, tears, and death. When I know that I can't become too close to a person without fearing of them to become at least remotely similar to what had become of Maria.
I clench my fists tightly as I walk down the path that was to lead to the entrance of the city of Westopolis.
I close my eyes and feel the wind blow against my ears, flowing them forwards while doing so. Strangely in the exact way as it had done when I had first entered this world. I reopen my eyes and look back towards the sky, into space of what was my home and 'birth' place.
"How was I to know... such things would happen in life, Maria?" I whisper, looking down to my hand, which was now open to a cupping-like position. Surprisingly, Maria was of like a lot of my friends and/or allies I had encountered, but one person she resembled stood in my head that moment.
'That faker...' I think suddenly. 'He sadly reminds me of her... his attitude towards others in a cheerful manner, trying his best to have everyone smile. Making friends with the impossible. Living life to his fullest...'
I shake my head clear of those thoughts. But that last one stood in my mind. 'If Maria was alive, would she be disappointed at me? For grieving for her and not living a true life with another start? I am immortal. I can make mistakes, and I can change my ways and learn from them once made. I can take my time. I can take all the time. I need. Others cannot. They only live for a certain period of time. Their story must all end at one point, unlike my interminable one. I have a gift... and I truly misuse it, don't I?'
I straighten my posture. Maria would have wanted that all along wouldn't she? Yes, no doubt about it that.. If that's what she also wanted, then I shall also prefill that promise for her. I will live life to the fullest I can.
I blink slowly and wipe away the image of Maria's death and replace it with my newfound goal that she would want me to complete.
'How was I to know, not long ago, about the wish you wished upon me? How was I to use my own blinded vision to see what you had to see? I shall keep my promise to you, Maria, there is no doubt to bestow upon you. No matter how hard that wish is to accomplish, your wish shall live on through me and though my actions and lastly through the world as I make them come true. I promise that I'll make them come true... for you.'
A/N: Hope you enjoyed reading this one-shot like story I was working on. Hope you enjoyed it and please review. Criticism is taken, but I mostly only care and actually listen to the constructive ones.