Manipulation

Chapter 6 - Weakness

Children cower before me. There's a knife in my hand, gleaming in the dim light coming from the barred windows above. Their little ears are pushed back against their skulls in fear, holding each other, their skimpy garments already tattered and stained with dirt and their own blood. They stare up at me with wide, innocent eyes, terrified for their lives. My teeth are bared, and my fingers open and close one by one on the handle of the knife.

Kill them, a voice keeps repeating in my head. Kill them.

My thoughts are the only thing keeping me from lunging at them at this moment and slashing their throats. I have to keep telling myself that this is not who I am. I can't harm innocents, I have to protect them. That's my life's motto, to protect those who can't help themselves…right?

But the voice tells me otherwise.

Kill them. My brain is fuzzy, and the image of the scared children keeps coming in and out of focus. I can't. I can't do it. Kill them. They're so little, so terrified, so weak. They wouldn't stand a chance against my steel knife. Kill them. Why are we here, in the same cell? Just to get blood on my hands? Kill them. I can't stop seeing flashes of red, flashes of visions of what they're telling me to do. Kill them. I've always liked the color red. Kill them. Maybe it won't hurt. I'll be quick. It would put them out of their misery. Kill them. I can imagine the blade sinking into their soft flesh, cringing as they scream… Kill them. Screams are like music. Kill them.

I will.

My feet move forward. A thought tugs at the back of my mind, telling them to stop, but I ignore it. The children recoil away, their whimpering getting more frantic, but I'm deaf. All I hear is kill them, kill them, kill them, kill them. I get down on my knees, my face suddenly void of expression. My hand raises, and the knife catches a glint from the moon. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. The voice is speaking faster, in tune to the pounding of my heart. My hand is placed on the chest of one small child. His breathing is quick and shallow, but not as fast as his tiny heart. Tears stream down his face. He squeezes his eyes shut as the knife comes down, sinking into his chest, a crimson rose of blood blooming at the center, and his screams fill the room, and I'm startled by just how deep and mature they are for his age...

I wake up with a start, but the screams continue. I'm groggy and disoriented, and my throat is dry. There is a sudden sharp prick in my neck, and I can feel fluid being injected into my system. I'm back in the labs, I know it, and more tests are being done on me. I can hear a soft voice, but I can't make it out. I'm restrained, I can't move, I can't fight back, I can't-

My body relaxes from the drugs, and I no longer have the strength to struggle against the metal bands around my ankles and wrists. The screams stop, and the soreness in my throat tells me that they were mine. I'm hyperventilating, and my eyes dart around as my vision swims back into focus. Then, they land on a person in a white coat standing over me, holding a syringe with remnants of a greenish liquid. Seeing such a tool makes me tense up even further.

"What the hell did you do to me?" I hiss through clenched teeth. My vendetta of silence is broken, if these are the human labs, but there is something far too different, yet far too familiar, about it.

"A mild sedative," the familiar voice says softly. "Just to keep you from hurting yourself."

Her face swims into focus. She isn't a human, but a close friend, with her red bangs swept across her forehead, her glossy chestnut fur, and large blue eyes. She's wearing a white labcoat, and she looks concerned.

"Sally…" I choke out. My panic subsides, but my urgency doesn't. I look around to see that I'm in some sort of hospital ward. Shelves of medicine and a sink are to the right of me, and a computer and some chairs to the left. I am strapped down, but they aren't the chafing metal cuffs I thought they were, but a strong, thick fabric. I strain to remember how I got here, but I can't recall anything after going to the cafeteria to eat. "What...what am I doing here?"

"You're being held here," Sally says regretfully, "in the hospital. As you probably already know, something is very wrong with you."

I give her a confused look. "What do you mean…? There's nothing wrong with me."

"Sonic, you attacked your friends. Our friends," she says urgently. "Maybe you weren't aware of it, but there's no doubt about it. Everyone in the cafeteria saw you do it."

"I...attacked them?" I exclaim softly in disbelief. Then I shake my head. "No way. No way I could've." But I have little doubt. I blacked out when I escaped the prison of human research labs without a hitch, and according to newspapers, I'd been extremely aggressive, like a wild animal. And faintly I can recall times I had blacked out and gone awol inside the prison, or at least in my cell. I'd figured stress had been the only cause, but...now here? Around my friends? In the first safe place I've known in months?

"I wish I could say otherwise," Sally says, setting down the syringe and sitting in a chair next to my bed. "And I'm sorry we have to keep you here after what you've been through, but until we figure out what's going on, we need to keep an eye on you-"

"No!" I blurt out suddenly, firmly. "I can't be tied down while you do Chaos knows what to me to figure out what's wrong!" I pause and take a long, deep breath to try and relax myself enough to say evenly, "I can't handle that. Not again."

"What do you suggest we do, then, Sonic?" Sally asks. "You're clearly unstable from your experience."

"I'm fine," I snap. "It won't happen again, I promise. If something is going on with me, I'm going to find out what. Not you, or anyone else. It's my problem."

"It becomes our problem if you go attacking the refugees," Sally replies sternly, standing up. "Don't you see that? You're hurting people, so you have to understand why I can't let you go."

I squeeze my eyes shut, my teeth grit and my fists clenched. I want to scream, or cry, or at least do something to release the pressure building up in my chest. "I can't," I say, and cringe when I hear my voice crack. "I'll go insane if I'm locked up again." I look at her, my tough act disregarded, and I plead with her. "You have to understand what I'm going through! I'm not going to let anyone control me or keep me tied down again! It hurts! It physically...mentally...hurts…" I let my head hang, refusing to look at her face. I am already showing more weakness to her, to anyone, than I ever have in my entire life. It's just shameful proof of how broken I really am. I don't even have the confidence or willpower to try and convince her to let me go. I just beg. I can feel heat behind my eyes, and a knot in my throat. Tell-tale signs that I want to cry, a feeling that took all of my strength to force down.

Sally is too silent. It scares me, but I dare not look up. How ashamed of me she must be, seeing me this way; scrawny, weak, vulnerable, more dead than alive. I certainly can't accept it myself. She doesn't say a word. I just watch her out of the corner of my eye as she turns around, opens the door, and walks out.

It's at that point that I break down. I know that I'm far too weak to even tear through the fabric tying me down. I'm being held prisoner by my friends, the people I love. And it's ripping me apart from the inside out. Tears stream down my cheeks, and I can't stop them as they drip onto the headrest beneath me. Where had I ever gotten the strength to break out of the human research facility? And why can't I call it back now? I must have been deceived about this place, the Underground. It isn't the safe haven everyone thinks it is. It's just another prison to hold me, a hell house for research and observation. I can see it already, behind my closed eyelids. Me, trapped in a cell, my friends all looking at me with those reprimanding, pitying stares that seem to haunt me everywhere I go. And no matter how much I plead, they'll never open the door. They'll never let me out. They'll test me to see how I've changed, to see whether or not it really is just insanity creating my unexplained aggression, or perhaps something else. And I'll tell them, scream at them, that it's not, that they should just let me go, that I'll hurt them if they don't-

These thoughts seem to have been running through my head for hours. My eyes closed, my tears dried on my face, my ears flat against my skull, I barely notice it when the door opens again. I don't look to see who it is. I brace myself for a lecture, a puncture, for any sort of pain I know will be coming. Instead, I'm surprised to feel the thick cloth being untied from my ankles and wrists. My fingers twitch as I feel slender fingers working on the tight knots, and I don't have to look to know whose they are. Once my hands are free, I open my eyes and rub my wrists, and sure enough, I see Sally working silently to free me.

"What made you change your mind…?" I ask softly, my voice a bit hoarse.

She shakes her head. "Nothing," she says. "I wanted to release you. But I was able to get the proof I needed to convince the Council to let you go."

"Proof…?" I say, my head lifting, ears suddenly alert in alarm.

"There are cameras monitoring you," Sally says ruefully. "I'm sorry, but we have to keep an eye on you. We're going to have to put them in your hut, too. I had to use them to show how being locked up would affect you."

My heart sinks, and I turn my head away. That's it then. My privacy has been taken away. And now anyone can see just how weak I really am.

"What council?" I ask bitterly, letting the betrayal show in my voice. "Who did you show footage of me to?"

"We're the people who help run the Underground," she explains. "I'm on it with Alex, Amy, Tails, and a couple others, seven in all. We just make decisions about certain things. You're lucky some of your friends are there, they helped vote you out of being kept here. But...there are conditions." She pauses, expecting me to react to this news, but I keep the escalating horror inside, staying silent and still. So she continues. "We let you go, but we have to track your whereabouts, and we have to monitor you in whatever way we can. You have to understand what we have to do. If the humans let you escape, and they can locate you, maybe using you as a spy-"

My body goes rigid. Before I know what I'm doing, my hands slam into her shoulders, forcing her back against the wall, making the little bottles of medicine rattle on the shelves. She looks at me with wide, fearful eyes, and I can see her hand moving to something in her pocket. But my grip isn't aggressive. It's fearful. And I mouth to her two words I'd never even considered speaking six months ago. Words voicing a thought, a possibility, a release, that had repeatedly run through my mind while I was captured, something I clearly did not have the strength to do myself. Startled by my whispered words and panicked expression, Sally jerks herself away from me, her hand moving away from her pocket.

"How dare you ask me to do such a thing," she snaps, holding my wrist. Her body, along with her voice, is trembling. As she continues, her voice cracks. "I could never do that. I could never kill you."

She releases my arm, and I sit down on the edge of the chair I'd been strapped to, my head hung. "But what if I am…?" I say, my voice barely above a whisper. "I'd rather die than be a spy for those leeches…"

"I know," Sally says softly. "That's why I think it's against your will."

I don't know what to say. The last thing I want is to be locked up again, but I also don't want to hurt my friends, or lead the humans to this hidden town. It looks like those are my only options. Unless…

"Then I'll leave," I say. "I'll lead them away from here."

"No," Sally says immediately. "You're in no state to be out on your own, and they'll recapture you. You need the stability of a safe home and company. It'll bring you back to your senses."

"But if they're tracking me-"

"We're underground," she interrupts. "It'll be nearly impossible for them to track you down here, if you stay in the town. If they don't see where your signal cuts off, they won't find the entrances. When you took the tour with Alex, she had a cloaking device to cover you, and when you first came, the false Chaos Emerald you were nearby was also cloaked so they couldn't trace the energy back here. Those were the only times you were outside, correct?"

I froze. It wasn't. This morning I had gone out to the abandoned garden town alone. But I'd only been out a few minutes, surely they wouldn't have had time to track me in that short time, could they? Panicking and thinking quickly, I nod and say quickly, "But it's still possible that my escape was unpredicted and we're worrying about nothing, right? They're just humans, they can't be that resourceful…"

She smiles a little. "Right, but we still should keep you monitored just as a precaution. At least for a week or two. Here, give me your wrist."

Hesitantly, I do so, avoiding her eyes. She snaps a thin, gold bracelet around my wrist. I lift my arm and observe it skeptically. It had multiple lines running across the surface, carrying the code of whatever technology was built into it.

"There is a tracker in that bracelet, plus a built-in cloaking device, in case you ever do have to leave, though I must require someone to accompany you in that situation," Sally explains. "It also will monitor your vitals and mental state. If your aggression spikes like it did in the Cafeteria, a sedative will be injected to calm you or, if needed, knock you out. I wish that feature didn't have to be added, and hopefully it never has to be used."

I swallow hard, a knot forming in my throat, but I nod stiffly. I have to remind myself harshly that it's for the best. "Can I just go home…?" I ask softly.

"Yeah," Sally says, and I look up briefly to see her looking at me sympathetically. "I'm sorry about all of this, really. It's just something we have to do. I wish it wasn't necessary, considering what you've already been through-"

"I don't need your sympathy," I say bitterly, my voice surprisingly steady. "And stop giving me that look. I'm not an injured animal." With that, I get to my feet, pull the unlocked door open, and walk out, not pausing to see the surprised and hurt expression on her face.

Keeping my head up, I make my way down the cobblestone street. As I pass, people give me various looks; confusion, pity, sadness, even disgust. My sensitive ears pick up their whispers to each other.

"Did you hear?"

"He attacked one of the Council members…"

"I heard he attacked several of them…"

"They let someone that unstable go?"

"He escaped the humans. He's bound to be a little bit nuts…"

I narrow my eyes and pick up the pace, speed walking, then running past them. I can't stand it. Their words echo in my head. They're right. I must be crazy to want to attack them. That feeling, the urge to silence their whispers, tugs at the back of my mind, but I shake it off. I am not going to do anything else to get myself in trouble, I vow silently. I'm not going to be locked up again.

It's not soon enough that I arrive at my hut. As quick as I can, I scan my key to unlock the door and, once inside, I slam my finger on the button to close it. Pressure is building up inside me, with many emotions all mixed together fighting for control inside me. Hurt. Anger. Panic. Betrayal. Fear. Paranoia. Guilt. I sink to the ground at the foot of my bed, lowering my head into my shaking hands. The life I had before this seems like nothing more than a dream now. The person I once was is nothing more than a memory. I, Sonic the Hedgehog, once known for being a cocky, optimistic, stubborn hero is now a whimpering, crying mess on the floor, praying for death to take me away from the cage of insanity inside my own head. My life had been stolen from me the day I was captured. And I fear it might just always be out of reach for the rest of my days.

((Hello! I just want to give Sonic the biggest hug, he's so tortured! I've been so busy lately, with play practices that are finally over, finals last week, etc. I didn't get that much free time, and it was driving me crazy. Talk about serious stress. So I decided to let go of some of it, I'd stress out Sonic with his new greatest fear! It seems like they might be putting together pieces of the puzzle as to what's wrong with Sonic. Or maybe they're not. This story can go so many places! I love it! This is definitely one of my most creative storylines, I think, and it'll only get better, as I'm adding new, unique elements to the plot as I go. Please, leave a review, tell me what you think of the story so far and what you'd like to see later on! Also, be sure to check out my other current stories, Sonic '06 Bloopers and the bonus chapters of In the Dark for more exciting stories! I love you all, and I'll see you all soon!))

~SonicTheHedgehog-Nerd