Thunder clashed and lightning streaked the sky. Rain was pouring heavily and the wind brought suspicisons that the storm would not let up for a while. The rain could not penetrate the great metallic fortress so it did not bother the creator of the fortress, Dr. Eggman.
These days, in fact, were perfect for planning a scheme to be rid of the blue hedgehog that always seemed to outwit him. How his intellect could lose to such a creature, he was not sure. It made no sense to him but life was full of mysteries and not even the most bright of minds could comprehend every mystery.
"One day, just wait and see Sonic, I will finally triumph over you. This battle between us will be at an end!" proclaimed Eggman as he became rummaging through an old closet of failed experiments, a closet full of memories. Memories of failure.
Failure was something that Eggman did not like. He could not tolerate it. His creations must be perfect or at least close. These dusty robots and various old chemicals seemed to mock him. If we are failures, what does that make you? He swore he could just hear the old junks saying that. He shivered a bit even though his fortress was warm. He made sure of that. The greatest mind to ever exist should be comfortable at all times, after all.
He let out a long, sad sigh. What he had been looking for among all this rubbish, he was not quite sure. Hope had filled him. He had been in this room a dozen of times before with the same feeling. He had always hoped that he would find something, hoped that he had overlooked something important, something that could be of use.
"I think the hedgehog's foolishness is catching on to me," he muttered as he turned away from the failures. "Best to actually work on a real plan."
He shut the lights out and was about to close the door but he did not as he looked back into the darkness. There was a red light, gleaming in the shadows. He turned the lights back on and the red glow was gone. He shut the lights off again, and there it was! The light!
"What is that?" he asked himself. He had a moment to himself where he flipped the light switch off and then on and then off, watching the red light blink out and then come back. It got to a point where the red light no longer disappeared in the light, as if annoyed or impatient.
Acting a little cautious, although not knowing why since there could not possibly be anything dangerous in there, he entered back into the closet and advanced to the dusty corner in the very back. The light was bright among a dust pile. Eggman saw that the light was a small jewel that was still glowing bright blood red.
He glanced down at the pile in disgust. "Must be a malfunction," he said as he kneeled down and picked up the dust pile and grunted. "One of these days I need to work out again." He brushed the dust off and stared at what was in his hand.
It was a doll that was just a little bigger than his hand. But, that was not what he was concerned with. This doll resembled Miles Prower, Sonic's best friend. It was not a good replication however. For one thing it had no real fingers and the uneven stitches were shown plain. It did not have a mouth either, it was just blank. What disturbed Eggman more than anything, though, were the eyes of the doll. The eyes were pitch black and appeared cold…soulless…
Eggman laughed at how uncomfortable he was holding the thing. It had seemed forever ago that he had made this doll.
It had been a rainy day and he needed to do something with his time, something to keep him busy as he thought of another plan. And, because of his deep thinking, the doll had come out irregular. It had helped him relax and he had came up with a brilliant idea when making it. The plan had almost worked. Almost. Thinking about it now, almost all his plans almost worked out the way he planned.
Eggman tore his thoughts from his failures, feeling the eyes of the dusted failed robots on him. He rubbed over the doll's dusty cloth fur, it was no longer soft. No surprise. What did surprise him was that the doll felt…cold, freezing. And those eyes…they still looked at him with those black pits. He turned the doll over onto its stomach in his hand.
Why was he spending his time in an old dusty closet looking at a doll? He could be doing something productive with his time like planning to rule the world. He was a genius, not a child!
Thunder rumbled loudly, making him jump. The doll fell out of his hand and tumbled onto the floor. The lights flickered and soon Eggman was plunged into total darkness.
"What is going on? Are those blasted generators overheated of what?!" he yelled as he rubbed his hand that had held the doll. It had gone numb it was so cold.
The red glow from the doll was still there. Eggman stared at it.
Come to think of it, he thought, I never remembered putting that thing on its head. It looks like a puff ball of cloth and yet it has the same texture as a gem, as a chaos emerald. Where did it come from? What exactly was it?
Like any great mind, this made him curious. He no longer worried about the generator or the dusty robots. He stared at that glow of crimson like it was all that existed in the world. He reached out for it slowly but eagerly.
"I must find out," he said softly, sounding almost hypnotized but he thought nothing of it. All that was engraved in his mind at that moment was the glow.
"It is so lonely…oh so lonely here," he thought he heard a childish voice come from the glow, "Let's play! Let's play!"
Impossible, dolls do not talk. I must be hearing things. It is only a harmless doll, a harmless toy, Eggman thought as his hand hovered over the glow now.
"Just a little further! Let's play! Let's play!" said the childish voice he swore he heard but surely dolls cannot talk.
Eggman grasped the glow finally. He laughed insanely at his victory. That laughter turned to screaming. His screams could not be heard for his voice no longer worked. The glow consumed him, it was all around him.
Thunder rumbled and lightning lit the world outside the fortress. A new laughter came from the fortress and echoed throughout it.
"Yay, yay, let's play! Let's play!"