An aching pain ran through Amy's elbows as she continued to scrub her kitchen floor. Having the morning off from work, the pink hedgehog had decided that the time would be best spent tidying up her apartment up a bit. Thanks to Amy's fulltime commitment to her job she had very little time for anything else anymore. Her busy schedule even kept her from regularly cleaning her apartment which led to it becoming less than presentable.
A scoff rose above the sound of the bristles of the brush scraping across the linoleum of the soon to be clean kitchen floor. Presentable, why should she care about that anymore? The only reason Amy toiled over making her place pretty was old urges. She had always been a bit of a neat freak. There was no logical explanation for making her apartment nice looking. Amy never had any guests anymore. Cream was currently at a camp all summer and Vanilla happened to be chaperoning this particular camp. Tails was far too busy with his own enterprises and inventions to drop by for a planned visit. Though she would gladly invite Rouge over, the last email she had received from her stated that Rouge would be busy for the upcoming months with numerous jobs and missions with that G.U.N. organization. As for Big, Amy would never invite the lovable goof into a home she had just painstakingly cleaned. Those big feet of his managed to track in pounds of dirt and mud while his huge body inadvertently knocked over everything in his path. Only Shadow, Knuckles, and Sonic remained.
The sudden thought of Sonic forced Amy to shudder. His name brought back the constant dream she had been having for the last five months. At first the dream seemed normal to the pink hedgehog. She had always dreamt of Sonic. Once the dream reached its third month of reoccurrence Amy began to get scared. She'd never had such a persistence dream before. In an attempt to discover the roots of the dream, Amy had asked Tails what his thoughts were. With his help they determined that the dream was caused by the odd set of circumstances surrounding the last time Sonic and Amy had met.
It was just like any other day in every way; Amy spent the morning having tea with Rouge and Vanilla while she filled her noon to afternoon time with Sonic. Amy had always felt strange about this particular day. Only five months ago but almost everything had changed since that day. At the time Sonic was easy to find and Amy made it her objective to see him almost every day. Now nobody knew where her hero had gone, not even Tails. The only clues were periodic texts Sonic would send the two tailed fox every other month. According to these texts Sonic was in a different town every month. Unfortunately, Amy knew why he was avoiding everybody. That day had ended peculiarly; for whatever reason Sonic apologized to her before running off. The apology was seared into Amy's memory, "Amy…I'm sorry…for everything…I'm so sorry…" It had come out of nowhere. Amy had actually been minding her own business when the blue hedgehog approached her, the first time he had ever taken the initiative.
Tails had said that perhaps the apology was so traumatically weird for Amy that it would haunt her forever. Though she immediately rejected the idea Amy had to give the boy his credit; those are awkward last words to have with someone.
With Sonic avoiding everybody, Amy was only left with two options for guests: Shadow and Knuckles. Shadow was terrifying for Amy. Yes, they had bonded in a way on the ARK. That didn't mean the black hedgehog still didn't scare her to near death. If Shadow were to drop by for a visit, a highly unlikely outcome due to Shadow's self-imposed isolation, Amy would be too busy trying not to be killed by him to have actual conversations
Knuckles was a definite no. Nothing was more important to that echidna that his precious Master Emerald. Personally, Amy wouldn't mind having the stubborn echidna as a guest. Whenever they talked, Amy found that Knuckles surprisingly good conversation. His strong opinion about matters coupled with his short temper made some very interesting moments. The funniest was when Knuckles and Cream joined Amy for company, something that hadn't happened in almost a year. Though you'd never guess it, Cream looked up to Knuckles. She saw him as the strongest person she knew. He stood alone on his island protecting a gem that if stolen could destroy the world. Amy had to agree with her best friend. It must've been hard for him to be alone up there all the time. So Cream just idolized the red echidna and it was clear to Amy that Knuckles had no clue why this little rabbit cared about him so much.
Amy's only other option for company was the people from her job at a local diner. She hadn't really connected with her co-workers as she was usually too busy with customers.
With a huff, Amy plopped the brush into a bucket filled with soapy water. It had taken almost two hours and Amy was sure her arms would forever be sore, but she had finally finished up the kitchen floor. "That takes care of the kitchen…" Amy's eyes turned to the small living room that lead to her bedroom; both just as dirty as the kitchen had been. Sighing, the pink hedgehog walked into the living room and got to work on a coffee table that had a layer of dust on it that was thick enough to hide buried treasure.
"Cream, I swear to God that I'll kill you if you don't come back soon." For the first time in her life Amy was serious about hurting her innocent best friend. She wanted this cleaning to mean something. Plus, summer had just ended and Amy had assured herself that the rabbit would be back by now but, as with most things involving high hopes, Amy was wrong.
