Yeah, going right away on de next chapter! Introducing a new hedgehog to the mix, alright! (And you will NEVER guess who it is… hint-hint, he's from the comics, which are actually a lot more amusing than the games—you should check them out via Youtube…) Hopefully there will be much more drama to accompany our 3-foot ebony hedgehog, especially when you find out where he's going next… No, not to a gay strip club. You pervs…

*BE WARNED: This story's rated M for a reason. May/will contain strong language and highly suggestive/dark themes. You'll see why in later chapters.

**Shadow the Hedgehog is owned by SEGA and Team Sonic.

II – Realizing Something

Usually, when the opposite sex suggests you go see a neurologist (notice how it's not a psychologist), you get the hint that this opposite-gendered person thinks there's something clearly wrong with you. Hell, even I know this! But obviously, this isn't the case with me and Marie. She's always been the honest type, so if she says there's something wrong with my head, then there's something wrong with my head. Simple as that.

I wasn't sure if she was serious or not about me seeing someone to fix my head. (That's what neurologists do, right—fix the head?) But I decided to take it upon myself to see if some stranger could actually tell me why I was having these visions. Never in my life have I ever expected myself in this situation—where I had to actually go to someone for help. Back then I would've clenched my teeth and told Marie, "Fuck that, bitch—I know what's happening here!" But she's proven to me again and again that I required something… domestic in my life.

Besides, these 'lapses' are allowing me to have a weakness.

Finding the neurology office was actually quite easy. When searching for one online (I asked Marie for her laptop; I told her about the unfortunate demise of mine and all she told me was, "Now don't have any weird visions when you're using it, alright?"), I found out that I oddly lived just a few blocks from an office. I didn't want to call for an appointment or do whatever you had to do to meet these neurologists, as I wanted to be as discreet as possible. Hell knows if the media is still hounding after me for 'all the things I've done'.

I still have a reputation, you know.

So, I found the address to this place and decided to take the Hybrid over my Viper (instead of zooming down there with just my shoes—discreet, remember?). Now I'm just hoping that I don't get a 'lapse' while driving.

The morning air seemed fine, just like I was only a few moments ago with Marie, but now I'm starting to question if that's what I really want. Technically, the girl's my maid. Then again, she's the only person I know in the city…

A half-hour later, and I'm right in front of the office. Yes, it did take me that long, with all the Monday traffic—even little children on bikes were passing us. But this was only a small price to pay to keep myself under the radar.

There were two things I noticed about the front of the neurology office: One, the façade was a peach color which reminded me of 10-beer vomit and infant innards; and two, there wasn't a single car other than mine parked in the lot. Some way to be obscure...

Clearing my throat and looking over the front of the building again—"Willington Neurology and Research"—I looked around and reluctantly entered the building as if I were coming into a gay strip club. (Ha!)

… Bad comparisons aside, when I entered the building, I couldn't help but see just how white the office was. If any color were to give you medical nightmares, I think these people chose just the right color to make you feel like you needed to get the hell out of there. Which, for me, I couldn't do.

In front of me was a wide, curved desk which seemed to blend into the glowing white walls. However, the fox who stood behind the desk couldn't have stuck out more, with her dark indigo top and square hat. Since I was the only one there not wearing an indigo outfit, it was pretty easy for the fox to notice me.

I bowed my head to the ground, frowning, as I walked up to the desk. All she did was give me a synthetic smile—showing all her 'pearly whites', as if they were fake teeth. "Welcome to Willington's Neurology and Research office—have you made an appointment?"

Quite clearly, I could see that she said these lines at least . . . once a month. I began to wonder how much they paid her to just stand behind a desk, anxiously waiting for someone to walk in so she could plaster on her genial personality. Or her hospitable one… that seemed more fitting since this does look like a hospital…

"Have you made an appointment?" The fox asked again, this time smiling without her teeth.

"Um… Can I make one now?" I furrowed my brow and gave a small shrug. I wasn't used to these… people things you had to do—in fact, I hated talking to anyone I didn't know, and suddenly I found myself begin to hate this artificial desk girl for making me feel so out of place.

Again, the desperate grin. Taking out a clipboard and pen she said, "Sure! Now I just need you to sign here and note the problem which you have."

"Okay," I said, quite skeptical. Taking the pen, I scribbled in my signature—which just looked like a large backward 'Z' and then a short zigzagging line which you couldn't even tell was my name—and just as I began to pause on the 'Description of Appointment' column, the fox pointed back to my name and asked, "Do you have a last name, sir?"

Shit. Sometimes I forget that in order to live in the city you need some type of surname. Going back to the 'Name' column I scribbled in the same fashion as my first name, 'VanCrimson.'

I don't remember how that got to be my last name. When I first came into this city, I didn't know that 'the Hedgehog' didn't cut it for you, since there were so many residing here already. The name just came to me, I guess, to match my first name. 'Shadow' reminded me of something black, and 'Crimson' was something red, two colors which I both was. The 'Van' part I simply added to make my name look more suitable.

"So Shadow… VanCrimson, right?" The fox looked down at my mediocre signature to try and pick out the letters, then she looked up to me and smiled as if that would cure everything. I nodded, staring at the perfect alignment of her teeth.

"And your problem?" The fox asked.

Looking back down at the sheet of paper, not really minding that her question sounded like an insult, I tried to think of ways of how to curtly address 'my problem'. When she saw that I was tapping her pen on the desk, she politely said, "If you can't describe it, that's fine."

I shot my head up to her and said, "This is kind of an emergency. Can I just meet any doctor?"

Shocked by my suddenness, she pointed towards her left (my right) into the hallway and said, "The last door to your right, Dr. Willington should be in there."

Oh. Usually, you would never see the actual 'doctor' the place was named for, but I guess that was because he was the only neurologist here.

I gave the fox one firm nod and a "Thank you" before making my way down the hallway.

Again, it was like walking down a bright, enlightened path—that's how white and immaculate the place was. Even when I stopped in front of the neurologist's door—the only part of the actual door that was clearly visible was the golden strip which read, "Dr. Willington, Neurological Disorders". I wonder how he must feel having his name and the word 'disorder' on the front of his door.

At this point, I just stood still. Looking around to see if anyone else was here, I noted that this section of the office was barren of people. If I were to talk to this doctor, it would be just him and me. Comforting to know for privacy from others, but also a bit nerve-wrecking.

Then again, my nerves felt like they were already shot, so I decided that it wouldn't hurt to knock.

No one answered.

A bit peeved, I knocked again, louder this time. Right away, the door flung open, revealing a bat wearing a long white coat.

The doctor looked a bit confused to see me there, and I was a bit perplexed myself, not really expecting what I was looking at now. In fact, I wasn't even sure I was looking at Dr. Willington now, until I saw the nametag on the coat. Before I came to a loss of words at the appearance of the neurologist, I managed to mumble out, "Um, this is an emergency?"

—

Dr. Willington was a woman.

I guess I expected to see an elderly male doctor since that was what the name suggested, so to see a young, female bat took me off guard. Maybe because of my small chat with Marie I felt a bit embarrassed to be anywhere around a female, let alone a female who easily resembled another bat I met years ago?

But since this was in a professional setting, I told her everything I told Marie, and then some. I told her when the 'lapses' started, what I was seeing when these visions came up, when I saw the visions, and how they've been affecting my day-to-day activities. Practically, I summarized two weeks of my life to this stranger. Now I really felt vulnerable, and I felt myself begin to scowl.

She noticed this and said, "These… 'lapses' are really bothering you, aren't they?"

She leaned forward and put her hand on my knee.

What was it with woman and them touching people? Was it just me, or were they all this 'touchy-feely'? Either way, I made no inclination to shake her hand off my leg. It reminded me of Marie's hand on mine and her concern, although I had the feeling that this neurologist's touch was more… synthetic. Still, that was fine with me, as I did feel myself become a little less stressed. Everything in this building looked fake, so might as well not fight it.

I nodded towards her answer. "I just want to know how I can get rid of these visions."

"Oh, I'm not so sure about that, yet," the bat patted my knee and stood up.

I stared up at her, trying to look behind her thin-rimmed glasses and wondering just what the hell was going on in that head of hers.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Before getting rid of the problem," she stated as she began searching through her enormous bookshelf, "We have to first understand the problem."

"Okay," I said, noticing that she took her coat off to reveal a sleeveless, turtle-necked top and a dark, knee-cut pencil skirt. Compared to other bats I've seen in my life, this one was a tad bit more… covered. Even though I could still see her legs despite the dark stockings she wore, Dr. Willington looked as if she had a modest wardrobe. As I scanned her body from the back of her head to the heels of her shoes, I started to wonder how she dealt with stereotype that all bats were sluts.

To my surprise, she picked out a thin, worn-out book that looked like it was patched together by two bums. She turned towards the end of the book, pointed at the middle of the page, and said: "Souvenir involontaire."

I blinked a few times, trying to read her expression. "Um… what?"

"Otherwise known as 'Involuntary Memory', but scientifically addressed as 'Prenomial Cerebrum Epilepsy'," Dr. Willington began. "'Desultory combustions of the hippocampus, affecting the disordered individual's declarative memory depending on the time of seizures. Individual feels as if they're thrown into an event which they don't believe they've ever experienced before, when in fact the visions are just buried beneath their memory bank.'" She stopped, but only for a brief moment. "'No cures have been found for this extraordinarily rare neurological disorder, though it is suggested to take Neurexis. Unmedicated individuals may start to have these 'mnemonic seizures' more frequently, eventually engulfed in the past and will need heavy sedations to be kept stable…'"

Dr. Willington shut the book, which let out a musky scent into the air between us. Placing the book down on the table in front of us, the bat gave a nervous laugh and said, "Well, we don't want that to happen now, do we?"

I gave her what must have been the deepest frown I could ever pull off.

Again, she gave a chuckle, taking off her glasses and scratching her head. "Good thing we no longer have to prescribe Neurexis. You can just buy them off-the-counter almost anywhere. I suggest taking one twice a day to keep these visions down to a minimum. Unfortunately that's all I can really do for you…"

So these visions would haunt me forever… I leaned forward and covered my face with my hands, not wanting to hear anything else come out of the bat's mouth. I didn't want to hear anything anymore. Medications wouldn't be able to do shit if they couldn't get rid of these—these—I didn't even know what to call them. Now I know that they were more than just 'lapses', just random things I saw that meant nothing to me… I thought I was done with this! Done with all these lost memories, done with what happened to Maria. What else was there? Did that little girl in the fields mean something to me?

Then I realized something. Lifting my face from my hands, I turned to the doctor and asked, "What would happen if-if I unburied all these memories? Would that mean they would go away?"

I must have looked insane, because the doctor just stared at me. "There's only been one other case of this ever happening to someone, and we don't know where they are to study this enough. If these memories were to be recovered, we wouldn't know if the visions would disappear or just cause an instability in your neurological design. These memories must have been buried deep enough for your mind to be used to them there… In a way, these visions are like a thick tumor. Try to remove it, and your mind might rip apart. Disorders like this must be carefully dealt with, as they are extremely rare."

I bit the inside of my lip. Either way, I was going to find these other lost memories—I've done it before. (Only when I uncovered those memories, I had to then prevent Earth from being destroyed by some demon thing… Long story—look it up.) Hopefully, the measures won't be so drastic this time.

But there was another person? I couldn't imagine anyone who'd been through the same shit I've been through (and I'd really like to talk to them if they did), so I was quite curious to know who else had been suffering from these 'lapses'.

"And… who would this other person be?" I didn't move, but my eyes darted towards the neurologist. She mumbled something to herself and picked up the book once again, rummaging through the crinkled pages until she found a name.

"Um… It says here that… A couple years ago, an office in Chandit found a girl who they reported as, 'having intermittent headaches which caused her to go spastic, her rampages lasting from a half-hour to two hours straight.' Not much is really told about her, but her name was…" She scrolled her finger down and tapped the bottom of the page. "Ah! Serenity MoonLight."

Damn it! Where could I be now?

Ugh, my head hurts, my body feels sore…

But I'm not in the field anymore. It looks like…

"Hey!" I heard the doctor's voice, and I attempted to pick myself up to face her, but my back felt like it was carrying a boulder I couldn't lift… Her eyes… Why were they shining like that?

... I'm floating. The clouds circle around me like a whirlwind, but they're spinning too fast for me to handle. I feel my hands dig into my quills, my fingers prying at the skin beneath my fur. The clouds were such a bright green, they weren't real. They're not real at all…

"So this is how it looks…" The neurologist encircled me like the clouds in my vision. I keep jumping from my past to the present, their timelines meshing together right in front of my eyes. She looks so sinister…

"Don't trust her," a young girl's voice whispered. "Just… don't."

I was falling through the air, the wind pushing me down and beating at my chest until I hit the dirty soil thirty-thousand feet beneath the clouds. Razors twitched into my view, thin fingers of steel waiting to cut me apart. My view of the sky meshed into a metal background, a whirring sound heard from the distance. The air smelled of iron… The air smelled of blood.

In the fields, I heard, "You're not playing this game with me."

Clutching my head, I felt myself ready to explode.

"It's going to be okay—"

"Don't trust her…"

"It's an emergency! I don't know what—"

Whirring sounds, whirring, whirring…

"Don't! You—"

Falling, gnawing…

The doctor looks scared. Why does she look so scared? Her eyes are glowing a malicious red.

"You're just seeing things."

"Now are you playing or what?"

"FUCK!" I yelled. "Fuck, fuck—NO! Get—"

I pushed away from Dr. Willington, clawing at the air in front of me—the world looked so stretched and blurry between these visions…

"Get the fuck away!" Now there seemed to be so many people I didn't notice before, yelling obscenities at me when I shoved past them, squinting past women in indigo dresses and holding my head, just trying to push these thoughts away. I had to escape this vomit-colored, this pristine white—Ugh!

The rest of the world gradually began to focus as I stumbled outside of the building, but I still felt my head reeling from side to side and the world still was a mesh of colors. All I needed was some time, and maybe this would…

Neurexis!

Across the street was a drug store, so all I had to do was run between the traffic and I was there. Not an easy task to accomplish when you're half-hallucinating and out of your wits.

I just needed some of that medication… And if the store wasn't carrying it, I'm killing some people today.

Drivers were screaming at how I was weaving between cars, probably asking why the hell some hung-over druggie was stumbling through traffic on a Monday morning.

"Piss off the road, asshole!"

"What the hell does this guy think he's doing?"

"Who gets high in the morning!"

Their honking mixing into their obnoxiously loud voices, meshing with my own fucked-up delusions… I just ran straight through. The chaos around me fought to hold me back, and it didn't even look like I was running anywhere, but I still forced my legs to run straight through the doors of the drugstore and yell, "WHERE THE HELL IS YOUR NEUREXIS?"

Some teenager behind the counter yelled back, "FUCK OFF, MISTER!"

"FICK YOU!" I yelled back. "WHERE'S YOUR NEUREXIS?"

"IN MY PANTS!"

"DON'T PISS ME OFF!"

"AISLE SEVEN, DICKHEAD!"

"FUCK YOU, TOO!"

Within two seconds, I was in the aisle, clawing through endless supplies of every medication except for Neurexis. The annoyance from outside amplified in my mind, my already searing headache growing by the second. My desperation for the medicine turned into frustration, making me punch off a pile of Tylenols from the counter. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Shit—shit!"

I was reduced to pulling my quills from the root and swinging back and forth, squatting on the ground so no one would see my humiliation. The delusions refused to wear off, and they began to pound and pound in my skull. I started shaking, panicking, that I couldn't handle this.

From my squat I fell forward on all fours, panting as the visions began to wear off. I bowed my head, relieved to be at some ease again, like someone was pressing the pressure out of my head. I took in deeper breaths, deeper pants to keep me breathing. Then I fidgeted when I felt something lightly bump into my shoulder.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite, little black hedgehog…"

I stopped panting, my nerves straightening out as I began to feel more sober. That's when I realized that the voice sounded so familiar. I looked up to the hand dangling a box of Neurexis, my eyes trailing to the scars on his stomach and the flaps of his leather jacket, all the way up to the green hedgehog's icy eyes.

A deep frown was now set on my face as I studied his smug expression, looking quite satisfied to see me in such a pathetic position. It was pretty hard to forget such a self-righteous smirk, and even though I was starting to forget about him, I found myself despising him all over again.

WHO is this character that Shadow's starting to hate? WHAT is Shadow going to do now that he knows someone else is having 'lapses'? And why was Shadow having a shout-fest with a teenage boy? And how did those minions get in here? Where did the phrase 'pingas' come from? Who is Salt?

But on a more serious note—sorry if the wording is a bit strange at some parts… Blame Shadow—he's the one narrating all this!

And if you don't know who this mysterious character is at the end smirking at Shadow, then you obviously haven't read the comics. Don't worry—I used to be one of those people too who thought the games were the only source of Sonic I could get, until I stumbled upon a rather interesting storyline which lead me to reading the comics off Youtube… (Trust me, MUCH BETTER than the endless spin-offs SEGA's releasing.) But if you have read the comics and you still don't know who this character at the end is, then… you're just strange.