A little, concrete room. No mercy. Just dirty, windowless walls and scuffed floors. I remember being thrown onto the ground in there, face-first. I laid on my side for while, trying to recover from all the pain this day has inflicted on me. My hand was so hurt that I didn't even dare try to close it into a fist. I had used it to punch a soldier in the gut after being burned badly with Victor's lighter. My stomach was sore from being tased, and my neck was still throbbing from the afternoon's most recent round of voltage.

I tried not to cry, though. I was the Ultimate Life Form, and it was high time I started acting like it. My whole life was just complain, complain, complain. Now I needed to start taking action. I forced myself to my feet and looked for the video camera. It wasn't in a corner; it was the type that was on the ceiling with a black covering so you couldn't tell where it was pointing. I hoped it had sound, so they could hear me.

"I hate you! All of you! Look what you've done to me!" I held my hands out on either side of me and bared my teeth in a snarl. "You pathetic, cowardly humans! You don't know who you're messing with!"

"Shadow, please calm down." It was her, begging me to stop. "It's not going to help you."

But I didn't stop, because now I had gotten myself winded up. "YOU KILLED HER! GO AHEAD! KILL ME TOO! I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!"

"Shadow, please!" I could imagine the tears welling up in her eyes. I could imagine her grabbing me by the hand and looking at me desperately. I wanted to stroke her face and kiss her, but she was dead.

"They took you away from me..." I said under my breath, "You're just a voice in my head now. I don't even know if you really exist!" I walked over to the wall and slammed my good hand against it. My knuckles smacked the hard material, but I couldn't feel it through my rage.

"Get a grip! I'd slap you right now if I had a body!" She screamed at me. "C'mon, Love! Keep your temper down! This could get you killed!"

"Weren't you listening?" I growled, "I don't even care anymore!"

"Dammit Shadow, fulfill my promise! I beg of you!"

I remembered the promise, and took in a shaky breath. It wasn't until then that I realized I was glowing a slight red aura, which began to fade. "Sorry..."

"Just... relax."

I drew in another breath. "...Alright."

A group of guards then bursted into the room and one shot me with a tranquilizer gun, which I was not at all expecting. It hit me immediately in the neck (right where the taser was, yay), and everything began to spin.

"Shadow? Shadow? Stay with me!" Maria called out, "Stay awake!"

"I'm... trying..." I whispered, but my legs gave out and I fell to the floor, my eyes closing soon after.

-XXX-

When I woke, I was on a table with my arms and legs strapped down. People around me were screaming. I lifted my groggy head and saw tubes filled with chemicals that were attached to cords that went into my wrists, but nothing was flowing through the cords. Humans were wearing white lab coats, but they weren't paying me any attention. They continued to yell and argue. It was really strange. I saw the two GUN soldiers from before, standing in the doorway. The ones that couldn't stop me from leaving that other room, when I was tied to that chair.

"He let us go!" They were yelling as they motioned to me, "He said, 'I'm not a monster'. He has a conscience. He could've killed us if he wanted to, but he didn't!"

"Don't let him fool you!" Another was yelling, "He's just a smart monster! That's all!"

I sighed loudly and they all fell silent to look down at me. "Drew!" One shouted, "You idiot! How much anesthesia was in that gun?"

"Enough for a human! I made sure he wouldn't wake up!"

"He's Project: Shadow!" The other yelled, "You're comparing him to an average adult male?"

"Uhh..." He stood there for a moment before picking his tranquilizer gun back up. "Oh, should I shoot him again?"

The other nodded at him and "Drew" began to aim at me, when someone raised their hand in protest. Victor.

"I think we should reconsider this."

"But Sir, it was your call in the-"

"That's why I have the power to reconsider."

The room fell silent as we all waited for him to continue. "Maybe, we shouldn't terminate the project. Yet."

The one who was yelling at Drew earlier spoke up. "Wait, you're going to listen to them? They're just recruits that don't know anything! He was obviously lying to-"

"Stop." He shut up as Victor gave him a quick glare.

"Look at him. He's intelligent and strong. And if it's true that he has a conscience..." He looked down at me with those horrible eyes that I hated, but I didn't give him a mean look. Just an innocent blink of appreciation. "...then we could use him in our elite forces. Someday. I think we'll have to work on those anger issues though, and, maybe... hm, well, we can make the final tweaks later."

I wasn't sure what he meant by "final tweaks", but all I could think about was that he wasn't going to kill me afterall. I didn't want to be grateful, because he was going to kill me in the first place, but I couldn't help it. He saved my life.

-XXX-

As I was dragged through the halls once again, I continued the search for my traitor of a creator. "What are you looking for?" Maria asked.

The professor. I thought.

"Hm..."

She didn't say anything after that, just kept silent until we approached a closed door with a sign to the right of it that said, "CRYOGENICS"

"Shadow..." It startled me when she spoke up again, and I jumped a little, making the guards raise their weapons.

Yeah?

"Do you know what cryogenics is?"

No.

"Hold on, I'll go get a dictionary. I don't know either."

I couldn't help but laugh out loud. The guards were beginning to get disturbed looks on their faces.

There's a dictionary in my head?

"No, there's a dictionary in the afterlife." I could hear the flipping of pages, but the sound sort of echoed through my head. It was strange. As I was brought through the doorway, I heard, "Aha! It says, 'The branch of physics dealing with the production and effects of very low temperatures.'"

"Are you going to freeze me to death?" I asked the guard to my right. Not with anger or skepticism, just with curiosity.

"No, we're not going to kill you, remember?" But that's all he said. He probably wasn't supposed to be talking to me in the first place, so I left it at that.

We entered a dark area and had to pass multiple security doors, but when we finally got through, I saw a large machine about as tall as me. It was rectangular and covered in flashing lights and buttons. I waited for the GUN officials around me to do something, but they just stood there, waiting.

The security door opened again, and who walked out? None other than Professor Gerald Robotnik. I gasped. "Professor...?"

"Yes, Shadow." He wouldn't look directly at me, and I wasn't sure if it was because he felt guilty for turning on me, or if he was ashamed of me. He held a giant white jewel in his hand and I was amazed by it. I could feel the energy it gave off, and it felt like my own Chaos Energy.

Just as an experiment, I summoned some Chaos Energy to my good hand, and the soldier that was on my right flinched before aiming his gun, but a few seconds was all I needed. The jewel began to glow with the same power, only it glowed white, not green. I stopped as soon as I felt the shaft of a gun being pressed against my skull. "Okay, okay..." I muttered. "What is that thing?"

"It's a jewel containing the ultimate power." Gerald Robotnik responded. He entered "MARIA" into the machine and set the diamond-like thing into a console. A giant wall gave way and we saw what looked like a giant trench, infested with endless cords and wires. It was very cold, the freezing temperature could be felt from here. A platform began to raise, and once it was level with the ground we were currently standing on, I was pushed onto it.

"What's going on?!" I yelled, growing very cold.

The living didn't respond so I waited for Maria, but she didn't say anything either. I couldn't hear her at all in my head, like she'd left me here.

Maria? Maria!

"See you in fifty years." Victor shouted as the platform began to descend.

"No! You can't do this to me! It's not fair!"

"Shadow, you'll be okay."

Maria! What happened? I couldn't hear you for a moment!

"My connection with you is growing faint. I think I'm going to have to-"

And then she was gone.

I screamed for someone, anyone, to get me out of there, but nothing happened. I waited for hours, curled up in the corner of that little rectangular chamber, and listened to the chattering of my teeth. After a while, I just gave up, laid on the ground, and waited to die.

But I didn't die.