Sorry for this being a little last than inteneded... Holidays... y'know...

Any way... everything is now going to be moving back to the seriousness (is this even a word? It should be...) so be prepared... I hope you enjoy it... So here's Chapter 7... wow... I've never gone this far on any story before...

Oh... once this story is done... I'll give a list of every song I listened to while writting this so you can see how that effected my writting. See if you can spot a few. I'll give you a freebie : During the moment between Shadow and Rouge in Chapter 5, where they stare deeply in each other's eyes, I was listening to "Sweet Dreams 06 Akon Mix" from Next Gen...

We lay like lovers in a warm embrace
Your kisses thrill me like no-one before
Baby, I'm all yours
Livin' just for you

I can see the moonlight shining through the mist
The moonbeams playing over you and me
I see the light of love
Shining in your eyes

I'm holding you in my arms
Loving you beneath the stars
I don't want the night to steal you away

Well... if you know the rest of the song... you can see how that works... Hm... now I feel like I wanna do a music video for them for that song someday... hm...

Well... enjoy and happy hunting!


Shadow's face felt hot. Fever hot. He rubbed his clawed fingers on his forehead, feeling the heat rise to his cold fingertips, warming them as he did so. He sat on the ground of the forest, alone, as the moon shone brightly above.

A twig behind him snapped, and his ear twitched in response. Tensing up, he turned his head to look behind him slowly, feeling an adrenaline rush kick in. He had no idea why he would be so scared, but something told him to keep on edge.

A shadow moved among the trees, shifting the leaves in a whisper of movement. Shadow shifted his gaze quickly to the right, and saw a shimmer of blue streak past.

"Hello?" Shadow whispered shakily, swallowing hard as he felt his hands shake as well. He placed his hands down slowly, and began to push himself off of the ground once they touched, to stand and look around him.

As he did so, the nightlife of the forest began to shift and swirl around him in a mixed blur of colors and sounds. He could hear Mephiles' faint, but deep laughter echo all around him, filling up his ears. Shadow shook his head roughly in an attempt to clear it, but as soon as the image of the forest came into view… it simply clouded back up again.

Holding his hands in front of him, Shadow readied himself for any surprises that might jump out at him.

Not feeling shaky, now are we, Shadow? Mephiles' voice echoed all around him, causing him to jump. You'll never survive at this rate…

"Show yourself!" Shadow said quite strongly, despite his fear slowly filling him. "C'mon, I can take you on, right here, right now!"

He was really just babbling to buy himself some time to get out of this predicament. He hoped Mephiles' wasn't really going to take him seriously.

Mephiles' laughter reached his ears, and right there he knew he was screwed.

Well… if you're so sure you're up to it…

Shadow began to look around wildly, trying to catch a crystal gleam or something in his fogged vision. A dark shape moved out of the corner of his eye. He blinked and saw for a brief moment a cloud of purple mist making its way towards him.

At that moment, Shadow had suddenly forgotten how to move in his terror. His muscles locked in his fright, and he felt the vapor wrap around his ankles. He tried to scream for help, but his voice died before it even made its way to his lips.

You can try to scream, Shadow… but no one will hear you…

The purple haze snaked its way around his frozen body, wrapping around his arms and legs, tightening around his chest like a ghostly boa ready to take his last breath.

He heard Mephiles' laughter ring in his ears as he closed his eyes.


"SHADOW! WAKE UP!"

He felt someone shaking him violently. He vaguely wondered what had happened. Then the memory of the forest rose swiftly to his mind.

He shot up quickly, his breath coming in heavy pants as he found his fur was drenched in cold sweat. He gaped around frantically, expecting to see the dark shape somewhere, shifting his eyes from side to side as he did a quick sweep of the area. He found his towel clenched tightly in his quivering hands, the fabric scrunched in a wad in his fists as if he had been holding it like that for a while. Along with his hands, he realized that his entire body was trembling. He felt a bead of sweat slide down the side of his face before he realized he was looking into a pair of concerned jade eyes.

Rouge stared at him with worry as Shadow tried to regain his composure. His entire body quivered as he took deep, and hopefully calming, breaths. He held his hands, cupped, over his mouth, his eyes wide, and staring at his feet.

He's trying avoid eye contact… The bat thought to herself sadly as the shaken hedgehog before her kept his head low. He's scared, and he doesn't want me to know. He probably thinks that might freak me out, too…

And indeed, Rouge was right. Shadow was visibly shaken from his nightmare, and he was trying everything he could to calm down. After all, he was supposed to be Shadow, the Ultimate Life Form, a genetically enhanced hedgehog created by Professor Gerald Robotnik. He was suppose to be superior, and more hard wearing than other Mobians, even right down to his aging process. He was never suppose to fear anything, and was to stand before sources of darkness and evil, stare them down and laugh. At least… that's how it was intended… but since the loss of his best friend Maria and the Professor nearly fifty years ago, Shadow had never quite been the same. Seeing one's death can do that to a person…

Shadow sat on the ground, his head low, his hands to his face, his body shaking and overall, appearing like one who had just had some horrific nightmare. Rouge closed her eyes, as she turned her head away, sighing dejectedly. She then opened her eyes, perked her ears up, and placed a hand on Shadow's shoulder as she tried to comfort him.

At a loss for words, Rouge spent the first minute or so silent. After all… what could she say? She decided to say what came to mind for this, hoping that talking to him would help. She took a deep breath…

And stopped.

Shadow was staring forward, blankly as he did when he was scared. What made Rouge stop wasn't that, but more of what else she saw.

Tears.

Tears that ran heavily down his reddened cheeks and over his hands, flowing like little rivers that didn't seem to stop. The dirt he was sitting on was already damp with the drops that had long since fallen, splatters of damp dirt clumps sitting below him. With each breath he took, the streams became more and more obvious, flowing more profoundly as the time passed quickly. He either didn't notice them, or didn't care, as he made no attempt to hide them, which Rouge found very heartbreaking.

"…Shadow…" was all she could manage. It came out like a broken whisper, lacking any strength at all. It was more of a slipped word, rather than a word of comfort.

Shadow slowly broke out of his dazed, blinking some of the tears way, though they kept coming back. He lowered his hands, revealing a quivering lip caught between his teeth. He slowly turned his head to gaze at Rouge, his cheek twitching as he stared at her with his now glassy looking red eyes.

The three words that came from his mouth shocked the white bat entirely, as she never thought she would hear him say such a thing. It came in half a sob, filled with fear, and every bit of emotion that played through his mind and heart right then.

"…I'm scared, Rouge…"

It seemed like an eternity afterwards. All sounds and life around them had stopped. Even Omega seemed quiet, his robotic whirring unheard by anyone. Shadow stared at Rouge, clenching his teeth to try to hold back his sobs, which now came from him like high pitched whine that sounded from the back of his throat. The light breeze of the night had now long died, leaving Shadow's quills and Rouge's hair tufts perfectly still. Shadow's ears flattened out to the side as he began to shake from holding his back his tears for this long. With one breath, he broke down once more, throwing himself into her arms for probably the third time since this all began.

Rouge wrapped her arms around the poor hedgehog protectively, letting him burry himself as much he felt he needed to. She flattened her ears once more, a practice that was now becoming a regular occurrence. She rested her head on top of his spiky quilled head, and let her own tears fall.


Mephiles decided to ignore his current predicament. After all, what did he care if his nose ran? The entire plan shouldn't stop such a stupid reason. He would never get to live it down.

He pushed himself off the ground, which he had fallen onto after his freak out over the thin slime that came from his nose, dusted himself off, cleared his throat for no real reason and fixed his quills…

He suddenly stopped halfway through realizing that would be something Shadow would have done and kept his hands on his quills halfway in mid comb. His eyes widened as a sudden chill shot down his spine when he realized exactly what was starting to happen.

Shadow's personality was beginning to rub off on him.


Uh oh... Well... this might prove to be interesting...