Shadow woke up, he was lying on the floor in the middle of the grass. Even though he didn't know where he was, he still remembered everything that has happened to him so far.
"What...where am I? Last thing I remember, I was running down the stairs to the Grandmaster Clock in order to...."
Shadow paused for a moment, then he realized that he had to do.
"I gotta get back!"
"Back to where?" said someone.
Shadow shook his head, and realized that he was staring at a young cream-colored rabbit. Shadow knew that it was Cream the Rabbit. At this, Shadow smiled and thought he was back in his own time."
"Cream!" yelled Shadow, out of happiness. Shadow quickly got up and hugged the young rabbit, showing that he really missed her.
"Cream? Who's Cream?" said the rabbit. Then Shadow's happiness faded. And he took his arms off of the rabbit.
"You are." said Shadow, trying to make it clear.
"No. I'm not. My name is Vanilla." said the rabbit.
"No it's not. It's...."
Then, Shadow took a closer look at her. She wasn't wearing an orange dress. She was wearing a purple dress. And she was wearing red shoes instead of orange shoes.
Shadow stepped back with his eyes wide with horror.
"What's going on here? Did I get sent back in time again?"
"What are you talking about?"
Vanilla, the younger rabbit that she was in the time Shadow was just sent back to, had a confused face as she asked Shadow.
"Oh my god I just of been thrown back in time again! If this keeps up, I'll be nothing!" said Shadow, worried that time would turn back far enough for him to have not been born.
But then the dark hedgehog remembered that he was created by Gerald Robotnik, Dr. Eggman's grandfather. Which made him less shocked and alarmed that he was going to disappear forever.
"I've got to get back to that Grandmaster Clock! Quickly!"
"Where are you going?" said young Vanilla.
"No time to explain! I gotta go. Bye!"
Shadow took off, and as he ran, he turned his head around and waved goodbye. The young rabbit that's destined to be Cream's mother in the future waved goodbye back to him as he ran off.
"Oh man. If Vanilla is just a kid in this time, then that means.....all my friends are gone!"
At tat moment, Shadow was alstruck by grief. But that grief suddenly wore off knowing that Shadow could fix it easily.
"I've got to get to that Grandmaster Clock! And fast!"
Shadow ran as fast as he could and before long, the forest which contained the secret passage to the underground clock room came into view. Shadow had to get to the Grandmaster Clock and fix time so that it would go forward again. And Shadow would get sent back.
He ran into the forest, and after a while, he found the place where the handle on the trapdoor is. He's found it a bunch of times already, so he knew exactly where it was. And which way he had to go.
"All right. Here goes."
Shadow grabbed the handle, opened the trapdoor, and went down the stairs. The stone that the stairs were made out of were in better condition, since Shadow was in a previous time.
"All right. I just need to go up to the clock, and fix everything before it's too late!"
After a few minutes, Shadow made it to the bottom of the stairway and found the passage that led to the Grandmaster Clock.
As soon as Shadow stepped into the room, there stood Clockwork. As he always was.
"Hello there. I'm impressed that you found this place. Who are you?"
"I'm Shadow." said Shadow, not acting like he already knew him.
"Ok. My name's Clockwork. I'm the one who runs this here Grandmaster Clock. Nice to meet you."
Clockwork stuck out his hand, and Shadow shook his hand.
"What can I do for you, Shadow?"
"I need you to take me up to the top of the Grandmaster Clock. Fast!"
Shadow looked up to the Grandmaster Clock, he saw that it was almost time for the cuckoo to come out and speak like it usually always does.
"I'm sorry. I cannot allow that. No one is allowed to touch the Grandmaster Clock. Mess with one thing in it, and it could change life as we know it." said Clockwork, his expression turning serious.
"Life is already changed as we know it." mumbled Shadow quietly.
"What?" said Clockwork, overhearing him.
"I said, I'm going to tour this place and you know it!"
"Nice save." whispered Clockwork to Shadow quietly.
"Follow me."
And so, Clockwork started showing Shadow everything he already knew about the place, and Shadow just followed him, even though he was determined to get to the top of the Grandmaster Clock and fix it so that time would stop turning back for him.
"All right. Those hourglasses...."
Clockwork points to a row of hourglasses across the hall behind a glass wall.
"....represent the moments of time for people that live in the above world right now."
Suddenly, the big hand on the grandmaster clock finally got to the 12 at the top and struck noon. The cuckoo bird started popping back and forth. Except that it wasn't facing forward. It was facing the opposite direction. Which is what Shadow had to fix.
"The cuckoo!" interrupted Shadow, running towards the clock, and climbing it.
"Hey! Don't touch the clock!" yelled Clockwork, running after him.
Shadow was halfway up, but the frustrated time wizard was determined to stop Shadow to protect his clock.
"Get down from there this instant!" said an angry Clockwork trying to keep things from going wrong, not realizing that he was really trying to stop Shadow from fixing time.
"Almost there. Come on!"
Shadow was almost at the top, but by the time he finally got to the small hole, the cuckoo finally cuckooed 12 times and stopped popping out of the clock.
"Hey! Wait!"
Shadow was at the top, but then something else unforeseen happened. One of the wooden ledges on the clock snapped apart under Shadow's weight, and Shadow fell off the clock. He came crashing down, and fell right on Clockwork. Which made him wroth.
"Ow! What happened?" moaned Shadow.
Then, a wroth Clockwork suddenly got up from the floor and knocked Shadow out of the way as fast as Sonic would.
"You hooligan! You damaged the Grandmaster Clock! My job is to protect that clock! And now, you damaged it!"
"Yes, I know but I..."
"SILENCE! Damaging the clock doesn't mess with anything, but this clock is more valuable than life itself! Now get out of here!"
Then, the angry time wizard took out his scepter, the analog clock at the tip of his sceptor started turning it's hour and minute hands. Then, it started glowing, then he pointed it at Shadow.
"Mess with the clock, go back to the rock!" chanted Clockwork, and then in the blink of an eye,
Shadow was sent back to his house.
"What? What am I doing back at my house?"
Shadow remembered the words that Clockwork chanted right before he was thrown back in time.
"Didn't he say 'go back to the rock!'?"
Shadow was surprised and confused about what Clockwork said. But it all made sense when Shadow saw the rock that was on the desk next to Shadow that he kept. Shadow knew that Clockwork was just looking for a rhyme to his spell.
"Oh. So that's what he meant."
Then, Shadow heard the door bell. He ran to the door to answer it. And to his surprise, it was someone he met earlier. It was Vanilla, the young rabbit kid that she was in the time."
"Oh. It's you. What are you doing here?"
The young rabbit that was to be Cream's future mother has a confused expression on her face.
"I came to ask you where this house came from. At first it wasn't here, and then poof. It just came out of nowhere."
"Oh, that's because...."
Shadow knew that the reason his house existed back in Vanilla's kid days is because he's being thrown back in time from tampering with the Grandmaster Clock. The hedgehog wanted to tell her that, but he knew that she wouldn't believe him. So he had to make something up.
"All right, I used to live somewhere else far away from where you live. But then I used the power of Chaos Control to bring my house here." lied Shadow.
Shadow put it to her in a way that he wasn't lying even though he really was. He reached into his pocket and took out a red Chaos Emerald to prove it.
"Wow! Is that a real Chaos Emerald? You can do that with just one Emerald?"
Young Vanilla's eyes opened in shock as she spoke.
"Uhhh...yeah. I can."
But then, Shadow just realized something that would've solved his problem earlier. At finding out that he had a red Chaos Emerald with him all along, he realized that he could've stopped time with it, and then go up to the clock and set the cuckoo straight.
The dark hedgehog did a facepalm to himself realizing that he was practically screwed.
"Uhh...are you all right?" said the young rabbit, still amazed and confused.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Good Night."
"Good Night."
Young Vanilla turned around and walked away, and Shadow closed the door.
"Maybe there's still time to fix this. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I just know that I'm not going to see that future mother of Cream again. At least not young like right now." said Shadow, with a little confidence that he would fix all this.
Shadow went straight to bed after that. He didn't brush his teeth because the hedgehog knew that he was going to be thrown back in time the next time he woke up. He went to lie down in bed and closed his eyes immediately.
Ok. Right now, things are even weirder than they already were in the last Chapter. But they are about to get much more abnormal. But if Shadow keeps failing to reverse the backwards ticking of the Grandmaster Clock, he will be no more. Read the next chapter and see if he can fix time, or if he disappears forever.