_
suffer

it's not up to you anymore, sonic. at once it was but not no more ohohoho.
i know your tricks. i've seen through your lies.

foundation rumbles. rock pulsating in my hands like a living brain. thumping like a heart.
eheheheh.
feed it my grip, trying to mash it in my hands but the smothered form withholds.

teeth freeing drool down my chin but i don't care. i turn my attention back to sonic. the muffled screaming, a beautiful score. so natural, so part of everything. teeth filtering hard wet breaths like rocks at the ocean. splashing. screaming.
gagged. eyes wide. lies, more lies. nature is chaos and the rock is god.

bring it home until the music stops.

His eyes open abruptly as the gun goes off. Immediately panics, tries to fight it off. He fumbles for his pistol, Beretta M9. Soft glow, blurred shadows through the lining of the tent. Racking the slide back, he flicks the safety upward.
Pistol shaking in his hands. He's never had to use it. Hoping now won't be the first time.

The yelling had been there since before the gunshot, before he woke up. But it only now begins to register. The men yelling, the screaming. What sounds like the growling of a vicious beast.
Miles timidly unzips the tent and steps out into the outskirts of the glow cast by the dying fire. A crowd gathered around a single tent, flashlights cutting through the silhouettes inside. A gurgling sound replaces the screaming as teeth tear through windpipe. Air escaping in a rasp. Sonic's voice barely heard above the others' confused shouting "EXIT THE TENT OR I'LL SHOOT."

And that's when Nack and Sonic open fire. Sally's shrill scream echoing through the forest. Tails, dropping his gun and covering his ears as he falls to his knees near the campfire. All is quiet, save for the ringing.
Tails looks up and quickly counts the shadows in his head. One of them seems to flicker. He thinks he counts eight but two recounts confirm seven.

"Nack, go in there, make sure it's dead."

"Make sure THEY'RE dead?" He digs two empty cartridges out of the cylinder of his revolver and casts them aside casually. Digging in his ammo bag to replace them. "Whoever was getting attacked sure as shit didn't survive."

"Fucked if we did, fucked if we didn't," Sonic spits. "At least it didn't take anyone else."

"What was it?"

"Only one way to find out."

"Whose tent is this?" Nack says, gently snapping the cylinder into place and holstering the pistol.

The coyote

"I don't like it," Ari says. "I don't like it one bit. Them woods is hainted."

"Excusing me, what is to being hainted?"

Ari laughs. "What'sa matter, Ant? You only speak fancy?"

"He means haunted," Nack says. "You aren't buying this shit, are you, Sonic?"

"Whether or not it's haunted, it's going to be dangerous," Sally says diplomatically before Sonic can respond. "People don't often come back from those parts of the forest."

Sonic sighs, frustrated. "We don't really have a choice. Spouting off superstitions isn't gonna do any good."

"Fuckin' right," Nack agrees. "Get out of here with that shit."

"Please, Nack," Bunnie says, resting her face in her organic palm. "Give it a rest, would ya?"

"Don't tell me you believe that shit, too. Tell me, what compartment do you keep your soul in?"

Bunnie looks at him, annoyed. Sally steps in to break it up again. "C'mon, stop. That's uncalled for."

"Same compartment I'll keep your hide in after I tannit…" she mutters.

"All of you," Sally says to nobody in particular. "Arguing isn't going to keep our spirits up. Sonic's right, though. There's a storm coming and we can't afford to take the long way around the thick of things. And Griff here, he says he knows the area."

"Are you sure you know the area?"

"B-been through a c-couple times," Griff speaks up timidly.

"A couple times," Nack says. "Just how long has it been since you've taken this path to Lower Mobius?"

"Thuh-thirteen years."

"Sure as shit aint haunted, Sonic, but we're following a simpleton and that is real. That will get us killed."

Griff doesn't say anything. Sonic grits his teeth. "Do you have any better ideas?"

Nack toothily smirks. "Nope. Just like everyone to know how fucked we are."

"Shut the fuck up, Nack. How long does it take to get to the sewer?"

"Thruh-three or four d-days S-sonic."

"That's not bad," Sonic says. "We may just be able to beat the storm."

"We should get some shuteye," Bunnie says, yawning and stretching her arm. "Sunrise'll come early."

Tails nods, quiet as he's one to be. He's the first to get up and make way to his tent. But the last to fall asleep, however, as he can't seem to stop playing things over in his head, again and again.

"Sonic, we have a goddamn problem here," Nack says, looking back over his shoulder. Out of the tent.

"What."

"There's a hole in the back of the tent, man."

"What?!"

"There's a fucking hole in the back of the tent and there's only one body in here, man. It's Antoine's, it's his fucking tent."

Sonic seethes. "I know it's his fucking tent, I just told you that. There was something or someone in there attacking him, murdering him just now, and you're telling me it magically escaped through the back of the tent?!"

"Not magically, it cut a fucking hole, man."

"And magically nobody saw it? Did anybody see anything?!"

Nobody says shit. They all look around at each other, searching for an answer that isn't there. Not where they can see just now.

"All right," Nack laughs, holstering his pistol in his belt. He draws the other one to check the cylinder, then holsters it, too. "This is how I see it. Sonic, I saw you, you helped me shoot the fucking thing that wasn't there." He's scouting as he speaks. "Sally, I saw you up, same as Bunny. Antoine sure as shit didn't kill himself." Advancing. He grabs Griff by the side of the face. "What about you, buddy? Where were you?"

"I-i-i-i-i-" Griff tries to say things, but things he does not say. It's more sounds, really.

"Can ya'll just quit yer bickerin'?" Bunnie asks, tiredly.

"The hell you doin', boy," Ari says, grabbing Nack's shoulder, coach gun barrels leaning against his own. "I know it weren't you, else I'd be ringin' yer goddamn neck about now."

"That's funny, old man, that's real funny," he says, his hand softly caressing the butt of the revolver holstered at the front of his belt. Sneering toothily. "I didn't see you either. What about it, big guy? You hulk your lumbering frame out the back of that tent?"

"You seen't 'im. How was he killt?"

"Neck torn open," he says, grinning as wide as he can get. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would ya?"

"I aint got no blood on me, boy. And I guarantee yer head'll be off before you can draw that goddamn pistol."

"I don't think I like your attitude."

"I don't like yours," Ari says, casually shifting the weight of the barrels from his shoulder to his hand. He thumbs a hammer back. "How do you like that?"

Nack laughs. "I like that okay, big man. You're watchin'. I like that." He licks his lips as his eyes dart around his head. "What about him, big man? You see him?" He's pointing to Miles Prower.

Ari's eyebrows raise as he looks back and forth between Miles and Nack. "What. You think that little critter did it?"

"And what if he did it? Are you gonna protect him, papa bear?" he takes a step forward.

Ari stops him with a gentle hand on his chest and a stern look into his eyes. "If you harass that critter, I'll give you three assholes." He smiles warmly and taps his other shoulder with the shotgun.

Nack wants to give the ram a black eye for his troubles but he decides against it.

"I thought there were eight but there were seven," Tails says, quietly but just sternly enough to be heard over the wind and the crackling of the flame. It sounds oddly robotic. "It was like his ghost or something."

"Hey kiddo," Sonic says, sitting down next to the timid fox.

"Hey," Tails says.

"You okay?"

"I guess." He's lying and Sonic knows it. The full sized handgun in his eight year old hands plays off like a visual joke. He turns it over to the other hand absentmindedly. He almost jumps when Sonic's comforting hand is placed on his shoulder.

"I-I know it's hard, little guy. None of us wanted any of this."

"I know," Tails says quietly. "I'm okay, I promise."

"Why don't you give your Aunt Bunnie and Amy some company, eh? I think she's a little scared."

A half smile. "Sure."
Tails hops up and wanders across the campsite. Sonic draws his own pistol and checks it - pulling back the slide just enough to see the butt of the cartridge in the barrel.

"Heya 'Sug. Come sit down, Ari's teachin' us whittlin'."
Tails quietly sits down on the log next to Bunnie, opposite Ari and Amy. Amy's kind of bossy, but Tails still likes her. Ari's a lot of fun, too, one of the more outgoing members of the freedom fighters. He's putting the finishing touches on his carving. He collapses his pocket knife and pockets it. He hands Amy the figure.

"And there you have it - a cute lil' ol' bunny rabbit," he says, slyly winking at Bunnie.

You can just about see the blush through her fur. "Oh my stars," she mutters to herself.

"Looks like I missed the lesson," Tails says.

"We just set up camp!" Ari says, gruffly laughing. "We got time to carve up another. What kinda animal you want? Manly kid like you... how about a wolf, eh? Or a coyote?"

He laughs nervously. "Yeah, okay."

"Was it a good idea to arm the children?"

"They've had training," Sonic says, his breath visible against the cold night air. "Hopefully they won't have to use them."

"This is getting scary, Sonic," Sally says, crossing her arms and shaking her head. "After what happened to Antoine I think maybe we should.."

"What, turn back? You know we can't. We have nothing to turn back to."

"Whoever - whatever killed him is still out there. Maybe it's one of us."

"It couldn't have been. We would have seen the blood on them. And what happened to Antoine it... it wasn't mobian. It couldn't have been."

"What if it's following us, Sonic? What if it's still out there? Waiting."

"That's why we sleep in shifts. If anyone so much as tries to steal food from the campfire we'll take care of it."

They both look over at the campfire and everyone sitting around it. If either of them would have done a head count, they would have counted seven instead of six.
In fact, nobody seems to notice the coyote there. Nobody except for Tails. Tails, who knows the coyote wasn't part of the group.

Tails, who's afraid of what might happen if he is caught looking at the coyote, or if anyone else notices its presence. He looks down at the figure in his hands. Perhaps an omen. He closes his fist around it and shuts his eyes tight. Trying to figure out what to do.
Tails looks up and the coyote is gone.