I haven't seen Tails in a while. He's been gone a very long time. I'm starting to worry about him. I want to go look for him but if he comes back and I'm not here he might get scared. So I jump up onto one of the loops and wait for him. I don't like waiting, and I don't do it a lot, but for Tails I will. For Tails, I will be patient.

When the plane finally appears through the clouds I wave at him, and hope he can see me. In a few minutes he comes over, spinning his tails around, and lands next to me. He sits down. He looks very sad. I poke him.

"Sonic… I've been flying the Tornado for a long, long time. I… I tried to fly around the wall."

I grab him in excitement. He pushes me away.

"There's nothing on the other side, Sonic."

I tilt my head and look at him. Nothing? How can there be nothing behind the wall?

Tails pulls his knees into himself. "Sonic… this is only the second time I've ever done something outside the Green Hill Zone. Why do we stay here, Sonic? Why don't we explore the zones when we're not chasing the egg-man?"

I shrug. How should I know? I like it here. Why would I leave?

"Why did the wall shock us? That means… that means there's electricity in it. And I flew everywhere, and I didn't see the egg-man, or Knuckles either."

I shrug again and dangle my feet over the side of the loop.

(Where are they? Where do they go?)

"Sonic... I don't think we're real. I think we're in… some sort of game."

I hit him. Not real? Of course I'm real.

"Think about it! How long have we been here? It always stays the same! Why do I keep having to put a rocket on the Tornado when I never take it off? Why does the egg-man always do everything the same way, when we do it different? And…" He takes a breath and buries his face in his knees, then lifts his head and says, "How come you always do everything different, but I do only sometimes? How come you come back to life after you have no rings?"

I scratch my head. I never even noticed such things.

"Why are those numbers there? Why do they change sometimes but stay the same the rest of the time?"

(Why is Tails thinking of all this and I'm not?)

I shake my head at him, and I jump off the top of the loop. I'm not listening to this anymore. He's wrong. I am real. I am. I am.

(How do I know if I'm real or not?)

Tails is right. There's nothing behind the wall. It's just blackness. There's nothing after the Doomsday Zone. The world… ends after the Doomsday Zone.

I'm scared. I wish Tails hadn't told me anything. I wish Tails had just stayed in the Green Hill Zone. The world has an end, and I'm part of a game? I don't like it. I don't like it. I want to be real. I was happy before and now I'm not. I'm scared. I don't like it. I don't like it.

I go back to the Green Hill Zone, and as I'm going there I realize that I'm going there the same way I left it, only backwards.

I go all the way to the beginning of the Green Hill Zone, and look at it. I've never tried to go before the Green Hill Zone. So I go to the beginning of the zone and try to keep going.

I can't.

The world… the world has a beginning and an end.

My chest feels really tight and I look around frantically. My world is limitless. My world is forever. I can run and run and run and run and run and

Then I realize I'm screaming inside my head but I have. No. Voice.

I press on the… the wall that's the beginning of the Green Hill Zone and slowly sink to the ground. All this time, and I never noticed that my voice was inside my head.

Is Tails's voice inside my head too? Is my whole life inside my head? Now that I know I'm not real, what is real?

Where is Tails. I need to…

Talk to him.

But he can't hear me.

I have no voice.

"Sonic?"

I open my eyes. I've been sitting against this wall for a long, long time, waiting for him to come and see it because I can't tell him about it. He usually comes to find me. I reach up and touch his hand to the wall.

His eyes widen in surprise.

"There's… there's a wall here too?"

I nod at him.

Tails looks scared now. I think he looks just as scared as I must have looked.

(I… I don't even know what I look like)

"The world has a beginning and an end…"

He slumps to the ground and starts to cry. I reach over and hug him. I don't understand what's going on, why touching the wall made us think this way, made us see those letter and numbers. I'm just as scared as he is.

After a while I let go and stand up. I need to run for a while. That will help.

(How come I'm the only animal that can run like this? How come I look so different from all the other animals?)

After a long time I go back to the Green Hill Zone. Tails is gone. I hop back up on top of my loop and wait for him. I hope he's okay. I kinda abandoned him.

I sit there and wait, and wait.

He doesn't come.

I don't see him until the next time the golden rings appear, and I can see the springs hidden in the treetops, until the numbers above my head start to change and the little robots with the little animals appear. He just follows me like usual, and sometimes I lose him and he comes back again like usual, and he does exactly what I do like usual.

(I really am in a game, aren't I?)

After the game ends I try to catch Tails, I miss him and I'm kinda lonely, but he just shakes his head sadly at me and flies away. I don't know where he's going, but I'm gonna respect his privacy.

I go back to sitting on my loop and I decide to think about this.

So I'm… I'm in a game. And when the game isn't being played, I live here. The game has a beginning and an end, and I can't get out of it.

That scares me. I don't want to be trapped. I don't want to be trapped in a game.

Wait.

When the game isn't being played, I live here.

Why don't we explore the zones when the game isn't being played? That sounds like fun. I know there are lots of places to go, and maybe even some places I've never been before.

Suddenly I realize something.

No, my world's not as big as I thought it was. And I'm not who I thought I was. And that's okay. I can sit here on this loop all day, and wait for someone to tell me what to do in my world, or… I can go decide for myself.

I can make my little world bigger.

I can believe.

I stand up. I have to go find Tails, and tell him what I've found out. Maybe I'm not real, but that doesn't matter. What matters is what I do now that I know. And maybe I've got no audible voice. But I still got lots of things to say, and lots of ways to say them.

I'll keep on running.