Disclaimer- Owning these guys is like me owning Mars. Yeah, I don't.

Chapter 3- Voices of the Past

Shadow growled under his breath as he skated around a corner to face another unfamiliar hallway. He had been looking for the past ten minutes for the pods of the vast structure so he could return to Earth. The hedgehog could've been on the planet as soon as he figured out that he was on the ARK, but he had somehow lost the Chaos emerald he had on him at Tails' place. He didn't know how, given that he concluded that Eggman hadn't done this to him. Sure, the doctor has had some schemes in the past that were a little out there, but what was the point of sending him into space? Shadow couldn't come up with any reason.

The Ultimate Lifeform muttered an explicative when he found yet another hallway he had never seen before. It was like the whole Space Colony was rearranged structurally. Shadow remembered that when he was here, he had ventured all around the place, memorizing the maze of walkways. Now, it seemed that everything was new to him, like this was his first time ever visiting.

Shadow was growing both agitated and a little desperate. The former because it looked like he was lost in these foreign walls of the place he should know the most. The latter because he needed to leave this place so he could get the answers to why he woke up in a capsule up in space. The Ultimate Lifeform went faster, knowing that he'll eventually find them somewhere.

The ebony hedgehog searched for five more minutes around the ARK until he saw something that he almost missed from skating right under the speed of sound. Braking, Shadow backed up and looked with curious eyes at the door that was noticeably bigger than the others that had gone by in a blur. Thinking that the pods were located in this room, Shadow slid open the door, turned on the light, and glanced around.

The room was huge and open. There were cabinets lining the walls with papers nearly spilling out of them. Standing alone in the middle was a desk with a comfortable looking chair behind it. Along the back wall were windows that showed the infinite universe. Shadow immediately recognized this room. It was Professor Gerald's main office.

Keeping certain memories at bay, the hedgehog walked slowly up to the desk, placing his gloved hand on top of it. Unlike the structure of the Space Colony, this room was exactly the same as he remembered it, as many times he'd been in here. Looking up at the windows across the way, Shadow went around the desk only to find one of the six drawers open. It was empty. The ebony hedgehog shrugged, not taking interest in the empty space, and took a step forward. He paused however when he heard a crunching sound.

Looking down, Shadow just stared before backing off the blood soaked stack of papers, eyes widened at their fullest. Pulse racing, the Ultimate Lifeform squatted down to get a closer look. He could read the only paper that wasn't completely covered with the red substance. He made out a date fifty years ago and a couple of letters at the top of the sheet.

"Pr-j-t Sh-d-w"

The hedgehog's brain automatically inserted the right letters, coming up with 'Project Shadow'. He reached for the paper layered with dried blood only to stop when something glinted in the light to his left, catching his attention. Turning his head, Shadow eyed a voice recorder in better condition than the paper. Thinking that the piece of technology would tell him what happened here, he grabbed the recorder and placed it on the desk. Taking a deep breath, Shadow pressed the button, hearing only static at first. Then, something akin to panting was heard coming from it. Shadow crossed his arms and stood by the desk, perking his ears. Then, there was the sound of a door slamming.

"I knew it. I absolutely knew it!"

Shadow's heart skipped a beat. That was the Professor's voice. Why was he out of breath? What was going on? Shadow, more tense than before, listened for more information.

"This...this is going to be my last recording for a while, until things settle down."

The hedgehog glanced at the recorder with suspicion. He had never heard or seen the Professor make a recorded journal. Maybe Gerald did it when Shadow was with Maria. That's the only thing he could think of.

"The reason being that the GUN soldiers are coming." There was the sound of a drawer opening and the shuffling of papers.

Shadow gave a shifted glance over to the papers on the floor, different conclusions popping up in his head at once. All of them bad. Shaking his head, Shadow pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind, continuing to listen to the recording.

"They will be in the Space Colony in only a matter of minutes. I knew they would come; there was always that voice in the back of my mind warning me about them...and I listened to it. I always ignored the things the other scientists working with me would say, 'Stop being so paranoid,' or 'You're worrying too much,' or 'The government won't come up here. Why do you fret so much?'" Shadow heard more papers being shuffled and a long-winded sigh. "Gah...I need to get all of these worksheets for future tests...I should have enough time. It's not going to take me long at all to go to the pods. Plus, Maria's already there preparing one. Brave girl...going there by herself in such an emergency...

"What?!" Shadow yelled at the device, knowing full well that it wouldn't answer him, but he continued anyway. "Alone? Why is she alone? I should be there with her!" Exhaling deeply, he calmed his nerves and collected his thoughts. Yes, he remembered the GUN soldiers, but he also recalled being by Maria's side through all of it. The events he remembered and the events happening here just didn't add up.

"I'm going on a tangent...it's the stress caused by all this, I tell you. A way to perfectly phrase this situation is 'when it rains, it pours'. The government is here and I can't even take my project with me. It hadn't finished absorbing Chaos energy from the Chaos drives in the machine next to it, so it has to stay in the cryogenic tank a while longer. It's too bad, I thought it would make a nice little friend for Maria on the ARK...anyway, since we can't exactly wait for it to finish, we are going to have to leave it here. This is where my paranoia helped the situation. I've hidden the tank, a superfluous amount of oxygen, and the other necessary supplies in a room barricaded by seemingly harmless cardboard boxes.

The room was tensely silent except for the dialogue coming from the recorder.

"Heh...they will never look in there. Also, I left a pair of cloth gloves along my genius invention, the hover shoes. Hopefully it will find a use for them. Ah, I also left a pair of inhibitor rings to control its Chaos energy. I need it to be smart enough not only to put those on, but to also use one of the pods to escape down to Earth where I will be watching and waiting from a safe place down there, hiding from GUN. I'm just praying that its arrival won't attract unwanted attention."

Shadow's mind reeled from all this information, but couldn't process it correctly. He didn't ever meet-he never got out of the...What?

The ebony hedgehog was thrown out of his jumbled thoughts when a loud crash came from the device. "I've found him, men!" There were multiple footsteps and the sound of guns cocking. "On the order of the Commander, you will come with us Professor for your involvement in 'Project Shadow'. There was a pregnant pause. "Don't you dare think about running, Professor. You don't have anywhere to go. Your exit is blocked. Don't make us use drastic measures like we had with your granddaughter." Both Gerald and Shadow gasped, the latter revisiting his long suppressed past. "She pulled a gun out on us. She was a threat."

The listener had to lean on the desk to compensate for his muscles almost giving out on him from the shock. Maria? Sweet and innocent Maria...wielding a gun? W-When? H-How?

"You-you monsters!" Gerald's voice was strained, cracking with blatant sadness. "I will never go with you! Maria's...gone..." Shadow heard a faint sniff. "You took her away from me...You all are insane if you think I'll just go with you!" The Professor was yelling now. "Shoot me! End my life here and now! That's the only way you'll ever get me to leave this room!"

There was a low growl. "If that's what you want...Open fire, men!"

"Wait! Sir, aren't we supposed to capture him?"

"The Commander never said take him alive. Don't ignore my order! Fire!"

Shadow visibly flinched when he heard bullets as they shot out of guns going for their target. The loud noise finally stopped and a body hit the ground with a thud. There were footsteps and then the sound of a body getting dragged across the floor. The Ultimate Lifeform glanced up and, for the first time, saw a faint trail of blood leading out of the room.

"Dispose of the body! We'll report this back to the Commander after we find that project of his and destroy it."

There was nothing coming out of the recorder except static now.

Shadow put his face in his hands, doing all he could do from breaking down from being reminded slightly of his history. He paused and straightened up quickly, eyeing the device now with distaste. That was it. None of this happened fifty years ago. None of it. The Professor wasn't paranoid...Maria could have never pointed a gun at someone, no matter who they were...

...and he was alive then.

Scowling, the hedgehog picked up the device and threw it hard against the wall, smashing it to pieces. He looked down at the puddle of red paint. Because that's what it was, and nothing else. Someone was playing a trick on him. Somehow imitating the Professor's voice, getting actors to be the GUN soldiers, placing him in the tank...this all had to be some kind of trick. Somebody had wanted him to go crazy, or break down from the memories, but didn't get it right. They almost succeeded...

Done with this room, Shadow skated out into the hallway and blazed down it and other countless halls, continuing his search of the pods with more fervor. He needed to get out of here so he could get some answers from the others that were at Tails' house. They should have seen what happened. Wait, unless they were here too. Shadow shook off that idea. He would've heard the Faker's sonic booms around the place if that was the case. He looked around at the blurred walls. Now that he thought about it, this couldn't be the ARK either. There was no way. The maze he was currently in wasn't the place he had known. All he knew was that whoever did this had a messed up mind and too much time on their hands.

Twenty minutes passed and Shadow finally found the pods. Not wanting to spend anymore time in this Colony, he jumped in the closest one and set its course. When the pod separated from the 'ARK' and lowered itself towards Earth, the hedgehog only hoped that he landed safely. Having nothing else to do, he gazed out into space, soaking in the view to distract his brain from the irrefutable fact that...

...the office and pod room reeked of blood.