Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic The Hedgehog or any of the characters, they are owned by Sega and Sonic Team.


Sonic put on his jacket and walked down to the local park, still jittery from what had happened.

At the moment, he needed a sense of something real, something far away from his alternate life as Shadow.

Taking deep breaths to relax, he threw a stone onto the lake, watching it skim across all the way to the other side.

He smiled, remembering when he used to hang out with his friends down by the lake in his hometown.

"Those were the days." He thought.

No stress, no worries and no complications, life was just life to them.

Stepping towards the lake, he looked down at his reflection, a sense of solace washing over him.

However, just a few seconds after, the reflection started to lose shape, distorting right in front of him as ripples in the water formed from out of nowhere.

He kept looking down, curiously awaiting the waters to take their shape once more.

Sure enough, the water calmed down, his reflection no longer distorted.

Taking a good look, he fell back in shock at what he saw.

Catching his breath, he slowly crawled towards the lake, to see if his eyes had been playing tricks on him.

Looking once more, he covered his mouth, trying to hold back his screams of anguish.

He no longer saw his own reflection, the one who's reflection was staring right at him, was none other, than Shadow the Hedgehog.

Growing frustrated, he slammed his fist into water, running off to get away.

"It's all in your head, it's just stress, you're still shaken up from being out cold too long, you just gotta relax, man." He tried to convince himself.

He ran all the way to the café across the street from his apartment, taking refuge in a booth.

He sat down, still shaking violently, his feelings of illness growing.

He tried to keep himself still, as a waitress came by and took his order.

When she came back with the drink, she looked at him with a disgusted expression on her face which she did a poor job of trying to hide out of courtesy.

Sonic wondered why she looked at him that way since he had just cleaned himself up.

Looking down at his coffee he noticed something beside the cup, strands of fur.

Sonic reached up to his quills in a panic.

When he lowered his hand, he gasped a little in pure shock as he held what looked to be fur.

But what struck him as stranger were the blue stains on his fingers.

Examining it closely, he recognized what it was.

A blue variant of the dye he used to create Shadow.

Not being able to take it anymore, he rushed to the bathroom, locked the door behind him, kicked open the stall door and proceeded to let out his sickness.

It seemed endless as even people outside could hear the sounds and wailing from pain coming from him.

After what seemed like hours to him when in reality it was just a few minutes, he finally stopped and collapsed onto the bathroom floor.

He reached his hand up and slammed it down into a tile, dragging himself across the bathroom floor to the sink.

Using whatever strength he had left, he lifted himself up, letting the water run for a second before rinsing his face and hands off, seeing the quills and blue dye go down the drain as he did.

Fearing the worst, he once again slowly looked to his reflection.

Sonic looked at himself, only it wasn't him.

His fur had been replaced by darker black fur.

His eyes, once shining green, were now glaring red.

Shadow looked at him, smirking at him, freaking Sonic out as he knew he wasn't smirking.

After a few moments of silence, Shadow leaned towards the mirror, causing Sonic to lean towards it too.

They were eye to eye, Shadow baring his fangs as he drew him closer.

"Hi Sonic." The reflection said.

Sonic flew back, hitting the wall.

Sonic trembled in terror, backing away into a corner, cowering in horror, covering is face with his jacket.

A knock on the door surprised him, causing Sonic to look up.

"Hey, buddy, you alright in there?" Someone outside asked.

Sonic's breathing had not stalled.

Sonic took his time to stand back up, seeing his reflection out of the corner of his eye, he saw himself.

He approached the mirror, to see he was his old self again, fully intact.

Sonic exited the bathroom to see a crowd staring at him.

Sonic kept his face low and his line of sight down to the ground to avoid the awkward eye contact.

He grabbed his coffee and returned home, none the wiser as to what was happening.