Chapter 2

Doctor Robotnik's cure didn't work for most others like it did for Abby. People started to die from 'Infinitus Nox' at an even faster rate than the virus originally had. He was accused for the death of many children and young adults from angry family members. Solaris Inc. stocks crashed, and the company was destroyed.

A year after the 'cure' had been completely taken off the shelves, and people were dead in the ground, from the effects of both viruses, the Doctor was still determined to help people. Unfortunately, he had gone nuts from the complete destruction of his company. He secretly set the virus out into the air of Station Square, where his headquarters had been, but it was a different strand- a stronger one.

XXX

Shadow stood at the grave of his sister once again, another year since her death passed again. The black hedgehog was visiting for the weekend from college, so Silver and Sonic were with him.

The trio had stood in front of the grave for what Sonic thought was forever. He didn't really mind, but he'd rather spend his small amount of time with his older brother playing instead of standing in a graveyard. As he stood there, he subconsciously noticed small tremors under his feet, but didn't really register them.

After a while, however, the tremors started to get worse, so much that Silver started to get worried and asked, "Big brother, what's that shaking?"

"I don't know," Shadow replied, "but I don't plan to find out."

The black hedgehog started to walk quickly away, his younger brothers following him as fast as they could. The trio walked swiftly, not noticing that people were starting to fall in the streets, unable to breathe: They were too frightened from the tremors in the graveyard to realize.

When the three of them got home, Shadow called out, "Yo, mom, dad! We're back."

"Shadow, come here, quick! I think your father's having a heart attack," Melissa cried from the kitchen. The black hedgehog dashed in to see his father unconscious on the floor. He dropped down to his father's side and held his hand up for the phone. Silver realized what his older brother wanted and quickly handed Shadow his cell.

Shadow dialed 911 on the phone, but when he placed it to his head, he was met with a busy tone. "Dammit," he growled, clicking his brother's phone shut. He put two of his fingers on his father's throat to check for a pulse. After a second of waiting, there was a faint beat, and Shadow sighed a little.

"Try nine-one-one again," Sonic suggested, worry on his face.

"Yeah," Silver agreed as Shadow opened the phone again. Unfortunately, the black hedgehog was unsuccessful again.

"What the hell's going on over there?" Shadow growled as he tried several more times to contact emergency services.

"Shadow, he's gone," Melissa said, checking her husband for a pulse. Tears fell freely from her eyes as she hovered over her husband's body.

"Mom?" Sonic and Silver asked in unison, coming over to comfort their mother. Shadow looked gravely at the body of his father, but clung to the promise that he had made to his younger brothers and did not cry.

"Another one gone," Melissa sobbed as she cried on her sons' shoulders. After a few minutes, Silver and Sonic had convinced their mother to go and sit in the living room while Shadow took his father's body up to his parent's room.

As he laid the body on the bed, Shadow thought he saw his father twitch. The black hedgehog leaned over to check for a pulse, but didn't find any.

"Hopeful thoughts," he growled to himself as he turned to leave. A creak from the bed sounded behind him, and he whipped around to see his father starting to get up. However, as the black hedgehog looked at his father, he noticed that something was wrong. Where there should have been a pupil, there was only iris. Also, his father's walk was slumped and irregular: Normally, the older hedgehog was tall and bold when he walked.

"Dad?" Shadow asked as he started to back away. Thomas the hedgehog whipped around at the noise and started to walk in the direction of Shadow. The black hedgehog whipped around and dashed down the stairs into the living room.

"Mom, I think we should leave," Shadow said.

"Why?" Melissa asked, still crying.

"You don't want to find out," Shadow replied, trying to help his mother up.

"Hey!" Silver cried, pointing behind Shadow. The black hedgehog whipped around to see his father walking up.

"Thomas?" Melissa asked, getting up and walking towards her husband's reanimated corpse.

"No, mom!" Shadow barked, trying to pull his entranced mother away. Melissa ripped her arm away from her oldest son and continued walking towards the walking corpse.

"What's wrong with mom?" Sonic asked, looking up to Shadow. The twins had realized that something was wrong with their father.

"I think she's in shock," Shadow said as their mother made it to their father.

As Melissa made to hug Thomas, the male hedgehog bit deep into her shoulder and she screamed in pain.

"Mom!" Silver yelled as the reanimated corpse bit once more into their mother. He tried to run forward, but Shadow grabbed him and pulled him back.

"We need to leave," Shadow growled to his little brothers, hurrying out of the house with Sonic and Silver in tow.

XXX

Blaze stood silently in shock as she saw a man drop in the street in front of her. She went over to his side and checked for a pulse. Finding none, she whipped out her cell and tried to dial for help, but to no avail.

"That's weird," the cat said gently, her brow furrowed as she looked at the cell in puzzlement. She tried again and again, but was unable to reach help.

After a moment, the man's eyes flicked open, and Blaze sighed in relief.

"Whoo, you had me scared for a moment there, buddy," Blaze said as she went to help the man up. As soon as she saw him, however, she ripped her hand away. The man had no pupils- only irises. The cat got up and started to back away, and the man got up and sniffed the air.

"Are you okay?" Blaze asked, and the man turned slowly around to face her. He advanced with an awkward gait, scaring Blaze all the more. "You're getting too close, bud," the cat said as the man got closer.

When he was within striking range, Blaze lashed out with a fist, striking the man right between the eyes, then ran off towards her home.

As the lavender cat started to dash up the steps to her home, both Tails and Cream came dashing out the door. The little rabbit girl was sobbing uncontrollably as she squeezed Cheese in her arms, and the young fox had a shocked look on his face.

"What happened?" Blaze asked, dropping to her knees by her younger siblings.

"Mom and dad just dropped to the floor," Tails said, "Then, when they got up a few minutes later, they looked weird. And they tried to bite Cream and I."

"What?" Blaze asked, standing up to go see what was going on.

"Don't go in there," Cream said quickly, grabbing her sister by the hand.

"But-" Blaze said.

"No," Tails said forcefully, grabbing his sister's other hand, "If something happened to you, we wouldn't have anyone to take care of us."

"But mom and dad," the cat said feebly, looking towards the door.

"What about us?" Cream asked, looking innocently at her older sister. Blaze grimaced. When her younger sister gave her that look, she couldn't resist the little rabbit.

Blaze sighed, then turned around and said, "Fine. We'll go crash with Marine for a while. How's that sound?"

"Okay," Tails and Cream said in unison.

XXX

Wave leaned down to check for a pulse as Jet ran downstairs to get Storm's mom. Her albatross friend had had suddenly stopped breathing and dropped, unconscious, to the floor. Her friend's pulse was faint, and Wave sighed a sigh of relief.

"Wave?" Jet called up the stairs.

"What?" Wave asked, picking up the worry in Jet's voice.

"The same thing happened to her, too."

"Can you call nine-one-one? I've got a pulse up here, but not really."

"I've tried that," Jet replied, "but I've only got the busy tone."

"Try again: I think he's not going to make it!" Wave yelled, sinking to her knees and starting to do CPR. After a few minutes of this, she checked Storm's pulse, but didn't feel anything.

"Wave," Jet said, standing in the door, a worried expression on his face, "She'd dead."

"So is he," Wave said, looking down at her friend and crying. Jet came over and sat down beside her, hugging her tightly and letting her cry into his chest. Jet looked down on his friend's body and shed a single tear for his friend. He ignored it and breathed deeply, willing himself not to cry, for Wave's sake.

"Wave," Jet said, getting up quickly and backing away from Storm, "we need to go."

"Why?" the swallow asked, looking up to Jet, then ripping her head around to see what he stared at behind her. "Oh my God," she gasped gently, stumbling to her feet and walking over to Jet while she stared at Storm. The albatross had risen and started to stumble toward them with more clumsiness than he usually did. That added with the fact that Storm no longer had pupils terrified the hawk and the sparrow.

Jet recovered from his shock first and charged down the stairs, pulling Wave along with him. As the pair came into the living room of their friend's house, a large, light-blue albatross stumbled towards them, pupil-less just like her son.

"Jet, I'm scared," Wave said, grabbing Jet close.

"We'll get through this, just don't let go of me," Jet whispered gently to her, waiting for the risen version of his friend's mom to get close, then he darted around her, Wave grabbing him tightly.

When the lucky couple made it safely outside, Wave brought her beak out of her boyfriend's emerald colored feathers.

"Oh God," she mumbled, looking around as more creatures like the ones inside her friend's house started to approach them.

"We should go, shouldn't we?" Wave asked with a terrorized tremor in her voice.

"Yeah," Jet replied, taking off away from the undead, Wave right beside him.

XXX

"Get back!" demanded Amy strongly, her gun aimed at the knee of a black wolf. Rouge and she had been dealing with these people for most of the day. Amy didn't trust the look of the peoples eyes and clumsy gaits.

Rouge was a little calmer than her partner, but still a little scared. Even when they had shot the people in the legs, arms, and even stomachs, but they would not drop. Rouge decided to take a different approach, even if it might get her fired.

"Go for the heads," Rouge commanded, aiming for a the head of a female armadillo. She shot straight, and right when the bullet made contact with the armadillo's head, it collapsed.

"Rouge," Amy cried out in alarm, looking to her partner.

"They obviously mean us harm, so I plan on keeping myself alive, Amy," the bat snapped, her icy eyes piercing through her partner.

"Okay," Amy said, bound to listen to her superior as she shot the wolf she had been aiming at right between the eyes.

The two cops fought hard, wasting as little bullets as possible while taking down the endless group of people.

They then ran out of bullets.

"Shit," Rouge growled, patting herself down in a desperate search for more ammunition, Amy following suit.

"I got none," Amy replied, looking up to face the people that were closing in. "We're fucked."

"No you're not, if you're willing to make a deal," a male voice said from the ground behind the two ladies. Rouge and Amy whipped around to see the familiar face of the thief Knuckles as his head poked out of a manhole like a mole looking out of his hole.

"Come to kill us?" Amy snarled.

"No. I've come to help," the echidna replied.

"Here's our answer, n-" Amy started.

"Shut it," Rouge said sharply, her eyes still forward on the approaching people, "What'dya want, Knuckles."

"Firepower and more people to keep lookout. You help keep us alive, and we'll do the same."

"We?" asked Rouge.

"Me'n'Espio."

"We've got no ammo," Amy said.

"We have some," a voice called up from below Knuckles.

"'Kay then," Rouge said, backing towards the hole.

"No way in hell," Amy said, her feet planted firmly.

"Hmph. Amy, you ever hear the line, 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend, until my enemy is dead'?" Rouge asked halfway in the manhole.

"No."

"It means swallow your pride unti-"

Rouge's comment was cut off by Amy's high pitched shriek as one of the people in the crowd bit deeply into her leg. The pink hedgehog dropped the gun, and Rouge lunged for it. More of the mob started to come closer to the manhole, and Rouge quickly shut it, leaving Amy up with the masses.

"You left your friend?" Espio asked out of the darkness. Though the bat couldn't see very well yet, she could easily use her echo-location to swap her ears for her eyes.

"She'd already been downed. We'd probably be in the same state if I hadn't closed it when I did."

"We should head away from here," Knuckles said, grabbing Rouge's hand and leading her through the semi-dark that her eyes were quickly adjusting to.

"Your partner is very stubborn," Espio commented from beside the bat.

"And her ass-like qualities were her downfall," Rouge said. The bat had never really liked the young, pink hedgehog. Amy had never really wanted to listen to good, informed advice, and she sure as hell didn't listen to orders. Rouge had filed several times for a different partner for the past year and a half, but to no avail: It was like her superiors were bound and determined to kill the bat via crappy partner after crappy partner.

But the likeliness of all of her bosses surviving whatever plague had descended upon Station Square were very slim.

Good thing I'm not one for religion, Rouge thought grimly to herself as she ran through the dim sewers with the two thieves, Because then I'd be on a one-way trip straight to Hell.