"Bleed."
Crack. Crack. CRACK.
"Bleed, you fuck."
Another sickening blow, as Antoine finally begins to stand, limply tossing the bloody rock to the side and looking at his handiwork.
What was once Sonic's head is now a flattened mess of cracked skull and mashed brain.
He smiles and wipes away blood and particles of brain matter stuck to the fur on his face with the back of his blue coat sleeve.
"I'm going to enjoy killing you the most, Sonic."
-
Antoine snaps out of it.
Showtime.
He holsters the gun and stands up, throwing his arms through the blue jacket he wears every night, tightly fastening the buttons.
He stops to look at himself in the mirror. Staring intently into the face of what he has become.
"Antoine," he says, speaking to his own reflection. "I'm happy to be the one to inform you that your work here at Knothole Village has finally paid off. You're finally going to be promoted!"
He forces a twisted smile. His yellow, fucked up teeth almost shining, but not quite. It's more of a dingy glow.
"That's right, Antoine! Your journey to the top finally begins now."
He holds out his hand to shake.
"Don't blow it, now, kid."
-
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Knuckles rapping against the hard wooden door.
Lightening strikes. Thunder, seconds to follow. The conditions are perfect.
The knocking continues until a light finally clicks on inside, visible through the curtains of the window right next to the door.
Antoine, very briefly, and very discreetly smiles.
The door opens. Sonic looks annoyed. Antoine has a worried expression on his face.
"What do you want?" Sonic asks with little enthusiasm.
"You must come quickly, Sonic! We haven't much time!"
"What the hell are you blathering about, Ant?"
Let's just say that Sonic and "Ant" don't have the friendliest of relationships.
"Something is seriously wrong with the ring pool, Sonic! It's unbelievable, you have to hurry!"
Antoine turns to lead the way when Sonic zooms past him, racing all the way to the ring pool in a matter of seconds.
His silhouette stands before the ring pool, a dim glow emanating from the murky depths. He scratches his head and listens got the wet, uncoordinated footsteps of Antoine to come plopping through the mud behind him.
Finally, they do, accompanied by his rapid, shallow breathing, indicating that the poor fucker is out of shape.
"So, what's up with this thing, Ant?"
"You don't see it?" He manages to ask between breaths.
"Everything looks A-OK to me here," he says, starting to turn.
Antoine closes the distance between them, stopping just behind his shadowy figure.
"Look closer," he says, stopping him.
Sonic leans over, just slightly.
Antoine reaches into his jacket, and firmly grasps the handle of his gun.
Wait for it.
"I don't see anything."
Stupid fuck.
"Give it a second, Sonic. This defies all logic."
"Hrm."
Antoine inhales deeply...
Wait for it..
Wait for it....
...and there it is...
Lightning strikes.
For a split second, the bright flash of light illuminates Antoine drawing his pistol from the holster hidden inside of his coat, and quickly raising the barrel op the gun up to the back of Sonic's head. The click of the hammer being thumbed back immediately sets something off in his brain. He wants to violently react, but he cannot. He is frozen.
His eyes widen as the gunshot goes off under the cover of thunder.
-
The light rapping of knuckles can be heard coming from the other side of Sally's door.
She rolls over in bed, not immediately recognizing the sound. The knocking continues.
"Hello?" She calls out to the darkness, half asleep.
No response.
Just light knocking.
She gets up, sleepily stumbling through the darkness of her hut, blindly groping the walls for a light switch.
Finally, the light comes on, and Sally begins rubbing her eyes.
More knocking.
She looks at the door, a pit forming in her stomach.
Bad feeling.
Suddenly, she is scared. Her trembling hand reaches over to the cold door knob and grips tightly. The doorknob turns, and she slowly pulls the door open.
-
Sonic's corpse looks so peaceful, Antoine thinks to himself.
The empty shell of what was once a great hero, just floating there. Lifeless. Alone. Nothing but a mere shadow obscuring a backdrop of cloudy yellow, slowly darkening to a deep orange due to the blood spilling from his damaged head.
Antoine admires this for a moment before holstering his gun, dropping to his knees to lean over and grab his foot. He drags the corpse from the water out onto the land.
Antoine can barely make out what's left of his face in the pale moonlight. He smiles down at him and admires his handiwork. His left eye blown out. His other eye wide with fear. His jaw, slack. He saw it coming. He saw it coming, but this time, Sonic the hedgehog just wasn't fast enough. Kind of ironic, Antoine thinks to himself.
Kneeling down beside him, Antoine closes his eye, and pushes his jaw closed.
"You always were better than me, Maurice," he says lovingly to the corpse in a hushed tone.
"But I think that must be why I have always hated you."
He closes his eyes, and leans down, pressing his lips hard against those of his cold, dead, lifetime competition.
His lips lightly smack as they part and he raises his head back up.
"A kiss goodbye, to the worthiest of adversaries. A hero to many, a menace to some. It goes without saying, that surely, you will be missed."
-
"Are you okay, baby?" Sally asks Tails, picking the six-year-old up and bringing him into her home and out of the rain.
She can't tell if he's been crying, or he's just soaked, but something seems to be wrong. Holding him to her torso, his head resting on her shoulder.
"I don't want to be alone, Aunt Sally," he says, sniffling. His tiny voice trembling. "I had a nightmare and I can't shake this horrible feeling that something really bad is about to happen."
"Aw, it's okay," she says, patting him on the back. "You can sleep with me tonight, if you'd like."
"I'd like that."
She sets him down and he looks up at her with his big, shiny blue eyes.
"Thank you, Aunt Sally."
-
The knife enters the stomach just below the center of the rib cage with relative ease.
With little strain, he drags the blade downwards, until it grinds against the pelvic bone.
Antoine sheathes the boot knife and goes back to what he was doing.
He removes Sonic's organs from his useless body with his hands, grunting lowly as he forcefully removes them. He tosses them nonchalantly into the water behind him until he's feeling around a relatively empty cavity.
Quickly, Antoine gathers as many large stones as he can to fill the space. One by one, he places them in Sonic's torso before quickly and lazily sewing him back up.
Getting up, he bends down to pick up the lifeless body, straining.
"Heheh, you got heavy," he breathlessly notes to himself, grabbing him under the knees and neck, and tossing the inanimate Sonic into the water.
Splash.
He smiles, watching the hero sink to the bottom of the ring pool.