Things Best Forgotten

Disclaimer: Is exactly the same as Dat-claimer from a chapter ago in which I said that I don't own anything Sonic. Got it?

OK, thanks to me starting a new story right when I was in the middle of this one, this chapter has been delayed longer than usual. However, I assure all my readers that both of my stories now will hopefully receive roughly equal attention so that one or the other is updated every week or so. Now, with that said, I need to say a huge thank you yet again to all the wonderful people who took the time to review last chapter! This story is attracting a lot of you that I've never heard from before, and still more that favorite it but are too shy to leave a review! I love knowing that people are reading and enjoying my work, so, please, keep up the needed encouragement!

Now, on to the story! This chapter answers a few questions that the last one brought up. The most important being, who is stalking Sonic and Tails and took those bodies? For readers, things are about to get a little clearer, while for our favorite furry friend (and if he isn't, why are you reading this anyway? XD) Tails, he's about to be...

Chapter 7: Driven to Madness

A narrow beam of light shone in the fox's eyes. His first instinct was to roll over slightly so that the annoying shaft of illumination struck the top of his forehead instead. This tactic worked, but only for a few more minutes until the rising sun outside caused the light to angle ever more downwards and once again into the tired fox's eyes. Closing his eyelids tighter against the oppressive light rays, Tails attempted another maneuver to block the interfering sunlight from striking him as he rolled almost completely over to allow the light coming through the blinds a target only on the back of his furry head. Satisfied with having won the fight against Mother Nature, he settled in yet again to return to his disturbed rest. However, it seemed that Mother Nature had yet one more trump card left in her hand to rouse the slumbering fox as Tails begrudgingly noticed that, although his current position protected him perfectly from the incoming rays of the morning sun, it also left him just uncomfortable enough to make sleep almost impossible. Realizing that he was defeated and that any hopes for further rest would be futile, Tails slowly opened his eyes to greet the new day, albeit in a way which suggested a less than joyful welcome.

Yawning deeply as he still lay in his current position, too lazy at the moment to sit up yet, Tails' eyes finally adjusted to the morning's illumination of the room as fuzzy images of the roof slowly came into focus. Immediately, Tails felt that something was wrong as the object he was laying on started to feel unusually strange, as if he wasn't in his own bed. Glancing down from the ceiling above him, Tails finally discovered why; he was just now waking up while laying on his living room sofa. With a small start, Tails tried to remember how he had ended up there last night. At first he couldn't really recall ever falling asleep to begin with. There had been a whole bunch of cops that came over, something having to do with Eggman again, and then Sonic had sat with him all night while they had both… cried? No, that was impossible. Sonic never cried, and he rarely acted so mushy even when Tails did. So, what could have been so wrong that it would have driven Sonic to cry with him all night until he had fallen asleep? Just as Tails finally backed his train of thought up to this critical point, all the memories of yesterday came pouring back to him as his groggy mind also began to reboot from the short night's rest.

Cream… Tails instantly remembered as he recalled vividly the news that the cops had delivered along with their handcuffs less than 24 hours ago. Vanilla and Knuckles, too. Why? he asked himself the same question he knew that he had spent most of the night pondering. That is, the few conscious moments which he could recall as he and Sonic cried themselves to sleep over the loss of their friends. Those sorrowful moments now seemed almost no more real than his dreams which had haunted him the whole night through. Some had been wonderful memories, mostly of Cream making flower crowns for him and everyone else, Vanilla giving him her typical warm greeting followed by homemade desserts, and Knuckles in his rare, less gruff and more playful moods. Most, though, had not. Tails now raised both hands to his head to apply pressure to his aching skull as he recalled the nightmares, the visions he had encountered time and time again during his rest last night. Gruesome images of those he cared for in various stages of dismemberment, his friends' bodies lying out on small, glowing, white tables which resembled graves, and, everywhere observing the terrified kit as he saw all this, a small, floating figure with two red eyes and a glowing red orb which hung between them. Tails immediately shook his head violently to rid the image from his mind.

Sitting up at last on his improvised bed for the night, Tails finally realized that Sonic was gone. Taking a quick look around the entire downstairs of his home with a quick sweep of his head, Tails saw no signs of Sonic anywhere. Probably waited until I fell asleep and then snuck back upstairs to his bed, Tails hypothesized. That was when he also noticed the warm, fuzzy blanket that had been resting comfortably over him as he slept last night. Tails knew that Sonic must have put that blanket over him when he left, not wanting to possibly wake the sleeping kit by trying to lift him upstairs and into bed. Sonic's never this nice to me for so long in a row, Tails thought to himself, remembering the somewhat unusual level of compassion Sonic had been constantly giving him for the last couple days as he hugged the extremely comfortable blanket to his white-furred chest using his hands and elbows. Maybe yesterday was just all a big dream, Tails hoped.

That thought, though, suddenly inspired Tails to get excited as he entertained the notion for a while. Yeah! That's it! It was all just a really intense, bad dream! I probably was working on my new invention, sat down for a quick break, and fell asleep until I woke up just now! Tails pretended until he almost came to believe it himself out of desperation for the loss of so many of his friends. That would even explain why Sonic had been so nice to me all the time! He would only act that gentle for even that long in my wildest dreams! Two days with no pranks? Nope, I was definitely dreaming. OK, but how can I prove it? Tails' scientific side took over as he sought a way to figure out if he was in reality right now or not. He removed the warm blanket from the couch so that he could stand and cross the room to reach his house phone to call Cream and set his mind at ease, when he noticed something cuddled up in a furry sort of nest made by his two tails that previously had been concealed by the covers. It was not a terrifying sight, nor a too awfully unfamiliar one, either, but spotting it now assured Tails without a doubt that the events of yesterday were indeed very real as that creature should never have been there otherwise. Gently, Tails lifted the sleeping form of Cheese from his comfortable nest in Tails' furry appendages and placed the Chao back on a pillow his head had rested on most of the night. Tails was surprised that the little Chao had actually slept so well with all his tossing and turning last night, and Tails even wondered if Cheese had ever been at all concerned that he might accidentally roll over and squash him. Apparently not, though, since the neutral Chao only continued to snooze soundlessly while Tails tucked a small end of the blanket Sonic had left for him around Cheese's tiny body.

No wonder Cream loved Cheese so much, Tails observed as he stepped back from the sofa to view his handiwork. He's so cute that you can't help but feel good around him, if it is a him, Tails thought as he finally realized that Cream had never really, truly given him Cheese's gender, if Chao had such a thing. Letting the dilemma pass as unimportant, Tails slowly walked into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for him and the small Chao that he was sure would also be getting up soon.

He only got halfway there, though, when he spotted something resting on his kitchen's counter which divided it from the living room that made Tails almost jump out of his fur. Slapping both of his hands over his mouth to stop himself from screaming or shouting and waking up Cheese, Tails stared straight at the object resting comfortably on top of the counter as if it had always belonged there. Staring back at him in a figure and smile as crooked as ever was the doll that seemed to haunt Tails' every move.

"It can't be! Sonic put you upstairs in my room yesterday! You can't be here!" Tails started softly exclaiming to himself as if the doll could hear him. There has to be an explanation, Tails! Just think, come on, think! Tails wracked his mind one more time for a logical explanation to the impossible situation, and once again came out with only one possible answer. No! It couldn't be Sonic! He's been super nice to me all the time for the last two days! It just doesn't make sense, unless… Tails, unable to come up with any other explanation, slowly forced himself to believe the unbelievably harsh possibility that Sonic really was doing this to him the whole time and was being nice to him more than usual in order to avoid suspicion. But, why, Sonic? Why would you keep playing such a cruel joke on me? Tails' heart still doubted what his mind told him must be true.

The mental conflict, combined with the fox's already delicate emotions having lost so many people that he cared for recently, sent Tails' mind reeling as he was forced to place one hand on his forehead to stop the spinning and the other on a nearby table top to steady his suddenly wobbly legs. Out of this chaos where Tails could hardly tell up from down anymore, a single stray fact suddenly burst through that made everything crystal clear. That doll, Tails finally made the connection, when I woke up that doll wasn't here, and Sonic hasn't been downstairs since then either! But that would mean that this doll is moving on its own! How could anything do that, unless… Tails took one more long look at the disfigured puppet's creepy visage, it's haunted!

Tails, still being a young kit and very afraid of ghost stories, let alone ones which turned out to be true, quickly backed away from the harmless looking doll on the counter as if it would fly forward at any moment and consume him. It all made sense now to the young fox, this doll was the one responsible for all the bad things happening recently. It had killed Cream and Vanilla when he left it at their house just yesterday! It was the reason for all of his horrific and bladder-loosening nightmares! And it was probably the one who killed Knuckles after Tails accidentally dropped it during his run! Even the mysterious pain he felt which prevented them from discovering Knuckles' body earlier might have been the work of this demented doll! More than anything at this very moment, Tails wanted Sonic. He'd know what to do! Tails reassured himself, even though he knew that deep down, Sonic had never faced off against a spiritual or possessed being before either.

Realizing that the demonic mannequin might discover that it had been made and decide to attack before Sonic could arrive to render assistance, Tails quickly formed a plan of action to take on the potentially deadly doll by himself. It seems like it's completely harmless around me. It only appears to attack people when I leave it alone with them, so I should be safe to destroy it myself! But, how? Then Tails got a brilliant idea like he was often inclined to do and quickly dashed down the trap door and into his workshop/basement. Moments later, he re-emerged with a good sized, battery powered rotary saw and stepped up to the counter which the doll rested on.

"OK, you freaky doll thing, I know that you're the one causing all these problems and killing all these people, so I'm going to stop you now once and for all!" Tails shouted to the innocent looking plush sitting on his counter top as he turned on the handheld rotary saw. Not even stopping to think if he was taking this too far or might have even lost it completely, Tails revved the saw's motor to maximum RPM's and descended it on the sinister-looking doll. Stuffing and ripped fabric started flying as Tails attacked the doll, fully believing, and oddly enough rightly so, that it was the actual murderer of so many of his friends. All this noise, however, clearly woke the slumbering Chao on the living room couch just a few feet away as Cheese quickly hovered up to see the source of all the loud noises and found Tails meticulously hacking away at something which now emitted showers of white fluff.

"CHAO!! Chao, chao, CHAO!" Cheese started screaming as the sight and loud noises instantly frightened the little Chao to death. If Cheese could have talked, it probably would have just shouted something to Tails like one would imagine a child watching a gruesome execution might have.

Tails didn't hear Cheese's screams of terror over the din of his saw slicing through every stitch on the creepy doll's body. Tails couldn't really believe what he was doing, either. It almost seemed to the young fox that he was watching someone else brutally hack up the doll in front of him instead of his own hands being the culprit. Strangely, though, Tails got an immense sense of relief at vindictively slicing up the plush doll. Perhaps, after all these years of pain, hurt, and worry both before and after he met Sonic, they were now all being heaped upon this one object as Tails destroyed it. Some may argue otherwise, but tearing this doll to shreds felt like the absolute best way to Tails to start to let out his frustration at losing his friends by using it as a scapegoat. Little could Tails have known that this doll was indeed guilty of every crime he now 'executed' it for in order to simply garnish some relief.

Hearing Cheese's cries after finally turning the handheld rotary saw off, Tails turned around with the look of frenzy still in his eyes to stare at the frightened Chao. "Don't worry, Cheese! Look, I destroyed the thing that killed Cream and the others!" Tails spoke to the Chao as if that fact was obvious from the now pile of stuffing with a few remaining pieces of fabric which was now all that remained of the Tails Doll. Then Tails happened to spy the strange, red gem which had been attached to the Tails Doll's head lying on the counter top. "After I smash this, then I'm sure that I'll be rid of this haunted doll forever!" Tails observed as he fetched a small sledgehammer from a kitchen drawer and raised it over his head to shatter the small jewel in one mighty blow. Before he could finish the job, however, Tails was snapped out of his frenzy by a shocked voice other than Cheese's.

"What on MOBIUS?! Bro, what are ya DOIN'?!" Sonic yelled as he came in the front door from an early morning run just to see Tails next to a pile of shredded fabric and white stuffing with a small rotary saw lying on the counter next to him and a mini-sledgehammer in his brother's hand frozen in mid-swing. Sonic had expected for Tails to have been awake by the time he returned, but never in his wildest imagination could he have anticipated the almost surreal sight which now greeted the blue hedgehog. Tails looked almost in a frenzy, totally driven beyond any logical thought whatsoever, which was a significant worry to Sonic as he knew more than anyone how much Tails tended to analyze everything before taking any kind of action. Cheese instantly turned to fly straight at Sonic, hugging the cobalt hedgehog tightly as the frightened Chao whimpered into Sonic's more tan-colored chest, clearly terrified at the sight of Tails right now, too. Sonic placed one of his hands down there to cradle the horrified Chao against his body as he then started to stare daggers at Tails from across the room.

Tails, on his own part, was completely unprepared for Sonic's untimely return and quickly realized himself that he was going way overboard as he snapped to. "Wait, Sonic! I… I can explain!" Tails stammered as he set the hammer down and stepped away from the scene of the unrecognizably mutilated doll.

"Hold on, bro," Sonic stopped Tails in his tracks as the blue hedgehog instead slowly made his way across the room to stand face-to-face with Tails. "I think I understand what's goin' on here now," Sonic said as his shocked expression now turned to one of great concern. "Cream, Mrs. Vanilla, and Knucklehe…, Knuckles'," Sonic corrected himself quickly, remembering how Tails acted to his using the somewhat derogatory nickname for the deceased echidna yesterday evening, "All their deaths so soon and at the same time are bound to be really stressful for ya, so I bet that this was just a way for ya to blow off some steam."

"Well, kinda, Sonic. But, there's more than just that!" Tails quickly informed the blue hedgehog.

"Like what, bro?" Sonic decided to hear Tails out, concerned that something had snapped in the kit's mind due to all this stress.

"That doll of me that I found the other day, remember it?" Tails began his explanation to prove that he had a reason for creating such a huge mess and scaring everyone.

"Kinda have to now, bud. It looks like it's just a big mess now," Sonic wittily observed.

"No, Sonic, listen!" Tails tried to keep Sonic from frequently interrupting him with his comical observations. "I figured it all out! You know how that doll seemed to follow me around all the time but neither of us could explain it?" Tails made that sure Sonic remembered.

"We already went through this, bro. You were probably just carrying it around with you without noticing it because it was once your favorite toy or somethi…" Sonic recapped the earlier resolution to this unusual occurrence before Tails interrupted him.

"No, Sonic! I thought about it just now, and, if it was my favorite toy once, why don't I remember it at all now? You know I have a great memory, so it just doesn't make any sense! But that doesn't matter right now," Tails quickly got back to his earlier train of thought. "Sonic, do you also remember my really bad nightmares the last two nights?" Tails inquired.

"Yeah, you were pretty restless last night, bro, but at least it wasn't like the night before when I had to change your bed for ya," Sonic recalled the recent events vividly. "But what's all this gotta do with…?" Sonic once again tried to rush Tails to the point of all this as he again was interrupted.

"What do both of those things have in common?" Tails expectantly asked.

"Look, bro, I'm all for riddles and everything, but would ya just spit it out already?!" Sonic began to lose a little of his patience at Tails unusual and slightly disturbing behavior.

"It's that doll, Sonic! It was haunted!" Tails finally got to his point.

"Haunted? Bro, are ya sure that you're OK? I know that losing so many of our friends can be really hard, but…" Sonic now worried that Tails was legitimately insane.

"No, Sonic! You gotta believe me! It has been moving around on its own in order to scare me, and it's the reason for all my awful nightmares!" Tails reiterated to try and convince the skeptical hedgehog.

"You mean 'was', little bro," Sonic remarked as he pointed again to the pile of fluff and fabric which was now all that remained of the diminutive, grotesque mannequin. "You sure made it 'give up the ghost' in my book!" Sonic joked even though he was now extremely worried for Tails.

"OK, so maybe I did go a little overboard, Sonic…" Tails admitted as he saw the fragments of the doll that had once resembled him scattered around the counter and floor as it now more resembled a bunch of fallen snow due to all the stuffing, even including, as does all snowfalls, the patches of yellow from the doll's colored fabric which simulated the snow that was unfit to eat.

"A little?! Bro, you just took a mini-buzzsaw and hacked up a good sized doll within the space of a few minutes and turned it into confetti! That's not 'a little' overboard, that's full on psychopath!" Sonic made his concerns known. "And what in the name of chili dogs was the hammer for?!" he demanded to know.

"I… I was just going to smash this last piece of the doll to make sure that it wouldn't be able to kill anyone anymore," Tails spoke sincerely as he pointed to the red gem still sitting helplessly on the counter top.

"Kill someone?!" Sonic shouted as he felt Cheese grab on to his chest tighter in fear of the hedgehog's building rage at the ridiculous conversation. Luckily, this action brought Sonic's attention back to being more delicate as he remembered the frightened Chao clinging to him. "Look, bro, even if this doll was haunted, it most certainly couldn't have killed anyone," Sonic tried to talk Tails back to reality.

"But, it did, Sonic!" Tails now dropped the largest bombshell yet on the stunned hedgehog. "I left it at Cream's house, and, just a few hours later, both her and Mrs. Vanilla died! And remember when I dropped it on our run? Knuckles must have found it, and it killed him, too! Every time someone is alone with that doll, it…" Tails frantically explained as he sounded totally sincere telling Sonic this crazy theory.

"Whoa! Whoa! Hold up there, bro!" Sonic broke in as he almost physically shut Tails' open muzzle with his unoccupied hand to stop the stream of nonsense coming from his little brother. "Now look, first off, we can't be sure that the doll killed Mrs. Vanilla or Cream because not even the police could figure out why they died," Sonic informed Tails. It had just so happened that on his run this morning he had made a point to stop by the police headquarters for this area and ask for more information about the three dead friends of his and Tails'. However, this news seemed to only support Tails' ideas in his mind as the fox quickly turned it against Sonic.

"Of course not, Sonic! Ghosts don't stab people to death or poison them! They steal their souls and stuff like that!" Tails spouted out this fact, obtained from years of scary movies watched with Sonic at least once a month that proved its validity.

Sonic groaned as he instantly thought back to those nights and horror films as well. If he had known what kind of impact they would eventually have on his little bro, Sonic swore that he would never have made the kid watch them with him against his will back then. "Look, Tails, soul-snatching ghosts and demon possessed dolls don't exist!" Sonic shouted to try to show Tails how ridiculous he sounded now.

"Oh yeah? Maybe we should ask Knuckles! He got his soul stolen, too!" Tails now shouted back.

"We found your doll lying on the ground miles away from Knuckles' body!" Sonic retorted. "How could it have possibly stolen his soul from that far away, Tails? Admit it, you're just makin' up this whole 'haunted toy doll' thing because you miss your friends just like I do! It's not healthy, Tails, and I won't let you drive yourself crazy over this!" Sonic resolved as he got close to the point of needing to resort to harsh love to return Tails' mind from its frenzied state.

"The doll can follow me around the house, Sonic! What's to say that after it killed Knuckles it didn't just float off to keep the body hidden! Remember my strange pains when we got close to the woods where Knuckles was?" Tails kept on connecting the dots as the whole picture finally came into view for him. Sonic, on the other hand, was completely astounded and confused at his little brother's erratic behavior and outrageous claims.

"Snap out of it, Tails!" Sonic shouted as he finally reached his wit's end with the current conversation. "The only thing I think is possessed around here is you!"

Tails was noticeably stunned by this last remark as he recoiled protectively from Sonic's verbal assault. "You… you don't believe me, do you, Sonic? You think that I'm going crazy, right?" Tails tentatively asked as the young fox felt tears forming in his eyes at the feeling of betrayal from his big brother's lack of trust in him.

Sonic sighed as he calmed down before responding. "Look, bud, there's no one in this whole wide world that I trust more than you, but, a haunted doll that kills people by stealing their souls? Come on, even you gotta admit that that's quite a stretch, bro," Sonic calmly explained.

"But, it's the only thing that makes sense, Sonic!" Tails pleaded yet again.

"OK, OK, little bro! Chill for just a minute, will ya?" Sonic calmed Tails down before their previous conversation started all over again. "OK, say that your right and that doll ya hacked up really was haunted and stealin' people's souls," Sonic entertained the notion hypothetically to satisfy Tails and make a point, "How come, then, it hasn't stolen my or your souls yet? We've been around it much more than anyone else, but we're both still fine," Sonic made the valid point.

"That's the part that I don't understand, Sonic," Tails inquisitively answered as he rubbed his chin with one of his hands in his typical thinking pose. "The doll never seemed to attack anyone whenever I was close by. It also looked a lot like me, too, so it has to share some kind of connection with me, but I don't know what that is."

Sonic's heart sank as his anger rose again at Tails' response. No matter what the blue hedgehog tried to do to convince or refute to Tails that the 'haunted doll' never existed, the super smart fox always had a somewhat logical response that negated Sonic's argument entirely. Defeated at last and now more worried than ever for his little bro's safety, Sonic decided that it was time for him to get help and take drastic action. "OK, Tails. Come follow me upstairs real quick, 'kay?" Sonic implemented his plan to save his little brother from himself and letting what the blue hedgehog thought was delusions born from grief rule his gifted mind for the rest of his life.

Tails followed Sonic obediently to his room upstairs and, upon a gesture from Sonic, sat down on his own bed while Sonic stood in the doorway, still holding Cheese. After the young fox got settled back on his bed and began to wonder what Sonic was planning, Sonic finally spoke again.

"OK, here's the deal, Tails," Sonic began as he remained in the open doorway, blocking Tails' only route of escape at the moment. "You clearly need some professional help here before ya go and ruin that talented brain of yours over the death of a few of your friends. Bad things happen sometimes, bud, and, even though it may not be easy to admit, people we care about die. I've tried my best to help ya come to terms with that, but you know that I'm not really the emotional type, which isn't to say that their deaths don't affect me too, bro!" Sonic bore his soul to Tails in a last ditch effort to force or shame the delusional fox to a revelation of reality.

Seeing, though, that his final effort seemed to have no effect, Sonic unwillingly continued with his plan. "I don't know what's happenin' to ya, bro, but your mind is screwed up every which way but Thursday! Until I can get ya some real help, I'm takin' Cheese here to Amy's where it's a little safer," Sonic gave his verdict and sentence to the fox as it hurt him to have to be so rough to his little bro after all he had already been through lately.

"But, Sonic! I thought you believed me!" Tails almost screamed as tears began forming rapidly at the feeling of being betrayed by the person who was supposed to know him best.

"I do believe ya, bud, but right now your mind is obviously all messed up and confused so ya don't even know what you're talkin' about anymore," Sonic tried to placate the emotional fox. "I really care about ya, Tails, which is why I've gotta do this for your own good. You are gonna stay right here until I come back, and, then, we are both gonna take a quick run into the city to see a professional, 'kay?" Sonic made his intentions and feelings known to the now heartbroken fox.

Tails didn't even nod his head in assent or refusal as he broke down in tears on his bed at the overwhelming despair of Sonic not trusting him when he needed it most. The sight of his little brother reduced to sobs on the sheets of his bed hurt Sonic more deeply than anyone could have probably ever known, but he was convinced that it was either this or watch Tails slowly slip into madness as the blue hedgehog regrettably shut and locked the door behind him. Continuing downstairs with all the stiffness of a concrete wall, Sonic ignored the mess Tails had created from the mutilated remains of the former doll of himself for now. Ensuring that Cheese was still cradled tightly against his body, Sonic opened the front door and dashed off after ensuring that it closed securely behind him.


Tails obediently remained on his bed even as he heard the door close and knew that Sonic was now gone. He didn't think about trying to escape or even move around his own room as all the young kit wanted to do now was cry. Burying his face into his pillow, Tails simply let loose with another torrent of tears to rival that of last night. It was all just too much for the kit. First that doll scaring him to death all the time, then the death of three people that he knew really well, and now Sonic thought that he was going insane! Not even knowing where to start to improve his current situation, either, Tails felt completely and totally lost in his own emotions. The only thing he knew anymore was that he wanted to cry, and so he did.

Why doesn't Sonic believe me? It all makes sense! That doll was behind everything, I know it! At least now it will never hurt anyone else again, but why won't Sonic trust me? Tails thought in his mind over and over as he wracked his brain for some method to prove his sanity to Sonic and still tell him the truth about that doll. Unfortunately, Tails quickly realized that he could never do both since Sonic simply would not hear of it.

Maybe I am going crazy, Tails finally thought to himself after he managed to quell the stream of tears that had already soaked his pillow and slowly sat back up on his bed. Maybe Sonic is right. A haunted doll that steals people's souls? What was I thinking! Sonic has to be right; I'm just imagining things because of all the stress I've had lately. But I could have sworn that there is a connection between that hideous doll and those murders! How could it just be coincidence that it was there when all three deaths occurred? Then again, it could just as easily all be a coincidence, too, so… Arrgghh! Tails tried to reason things out in his mind, only to be rewarded by an immense headache to top off his list of recent unpleasant things that had happened to him.

Finally, Tails had enough of the mind games and the second guessing as he balled his hands into fists and drove them suddenly onto the mattress of his bed in anger. OK, that's enough! If I keep thinking like this I really AM going to go crazy! The best thing to do right now is to just forget all about that old doll. It's destroyed now and gone for good, whether it was haunted or not. When Sonic comes back, I'll just tell him that I'm sorry and that I don't know what came over me, and everything will be fine again. At least, as much as it can be without Cream, Mrs. Vanilla, and Knuckles… Tails gloomily resolved. Just then, however, Tails heard a noise downstairs from the front door opening again.

Sonic's back already? Tails curiously wondered as he realized that the blue hedgehog had hardly been gone for more than a few minutes, more than enough time for Sonic to run there and back, of course, but hardly long enough to tell Amy what was happening and give her Cheese to take care of. Hearing the footsteps moving around downstairs, Tails quickly started to develop goose bumps as something told him that the current intruder in his home wasn't Sonic. Deciding that he needed to find out who it was and what they were doing, Tails quietly walked over to his door and tried to open it, only to discover that Sonic had locked it from the outside to keep Tails safely contained during his mental episode. Thinking on his feet like he did best, Tails quickly glanced around the room to find some item he could use to pick the lock and escape before the stranger found the trapped fox. But, it was already too late, and Tails was frozen stiff seconds later as he heard the footsteps come up the stairs to the second floor and stop right in front of his door. He gulped as the doorknob to his room slowly began to turn, and he heard the locking mechanism disengage, eliminating Tails' last line of defense from whoever was about to come through that door.

Suddenly, the door was thrown open with a sizable amount of force as an unfamiliar figure took a couple steps into the room to stand over the cowering fox who had just leapt out of his fur for the second time today. The stranger at first seemed to Tails to be his big brother, Sonic, but quickly the fox realized that this person was a different hedgehog entirely. Instead of a blue color with a tan chest, muzzle, and arms like Sonic, he was almost completely jet black with a white patch on his chest and red highlights on his quills which stood up behind his head in a completely different style than Sonic's did. If Tails were to describe this new stranger in one word at that very moment, it would undoubtedly have been 'unfriendly' due to the way he carried himself and gazed at him now. Just seeing this intruder staring at him scared Tails to the point of trembling as the yellow fox instinctively backed away until his own bed halted his retreat. "Who… who are you?!" Tails stammered as he focused on gathering his scattered wits to confront the new threat.

"You can call me Shadow, but I didn't come here to play the name game," the dark hedgehog immediately answered in a voice that fit his unfriendly appearance perfectly. "You've unleashed a dangerous threat on us all, and I'm here to seal it away again. Now, give me the chest you found that doll in," Shadow demanded in an all business attitude as he continued staring at the frightened fox before him.

Tails was stunned to say the least by Shadow's demand. "How… How did you know about that?" Tails' curiosity won out over his fear as he asked.

"The doll was easy since I've been following you around ever since you found it, and the chest I knew about because I have sources," Shadow quickly explained without his voice shifting whatsoever in response. "Now, give me that chest."

"Wait a minute! You've been following me and Sonic around, even yesterday?! But, that means that you know what happened to Mrs. Vanilla and Cream!" Tails exclaimed as his quick mind caught on to the obscure fact instantly. "What happened to them? Did you kill them?!" Tails now started to shout as he demanded answers, especially since he didn't have a very hard time believing that the dark hedgehog standing before him could have been a murderer.

"If anyone killed them, it was YOU!" Shadow now yelled at Tails as it became obvious that he was very unhappy with Tails for some reason. "You let it out, and then you had the bright idea to carry it around with you and leave it places so that it could devour your friends' souls! I'm here to clean up your mistake before it kills us all! Now, where is that chest?!" Shadow's small supply of patience inevitably ran out as it could be obviously noted that he was already on a short fuse to begin with.

Tails was terrified again by the vicious outburst and tried to turn and run. Unfortunately, he was backed up against the foot of his bed already, so he only succeeded in tripping on the footboard and tumbling to his mattress in a clumsy face-plant. Quickly rolling over to keep Shadow in his sight unless the black hedgehog tried to attack him, Tails let his eyes wander over to his closet door where the box he had first found the strange doll in was still located.

Shadow saw this subtle tell, but he had no intentions of going through Tails' closet to find the chest himself. "Get it, now!" Shadow demanded as he stared at Tails and pointed to the kit's closet.

Realizing that the only way to keep this stranger from getting violent was to do as he said, Tails immediately hopped out of his bed and dashed over to his closet. Thanks to his extensive cleaning of it just the other day when he found the strange chest in the first place, Tails didn't have to waste a second before he lifted the eerily ornamented box out of his closet and showed it to Shadow.

Shadow, on his part, immediately snatched the chest from Tails as soon as the fox held it out to him. Then, without a word in response, the ebony hedgehog turned to leave. Tails, however, was far too curious still to just let him go. Sensing that Shadow knew much more about recent events than he had already said, Tails asked him one more question, "But, why do you need that chest so bad? It's not like it's imp…" Tails' words were cut short as Shadow turned around swiftly just before leaving the room.

"You still don't get it, do you fox-boy?" Shadow spoke up in a voice of annoyance and barely controlled anger. "You are the one who killed those rabbits and that dense echidna friend of yours because you let out this!" Shadow then immediately produced from his other, concealed hand the whole and undamaged look-a-like doll of Tails that he had destroyed just minutes ago.

Tails' eyes got as wide as saucers as he saw the complete form of the Tails Doll yet again, without so much as a tear evident from his earlier reduction of the doll to little shreds. "No, that can't be real! I… I destroyed that thing just a couple minutes ago! It's in pieces all over the floor! How could it…" Tails began speaking frantically as the fox also started to hyperventilate at the impossible sight right before his eyes.

"You chopped it into pieces? Really?" Shadow seemed amused to hear this news as it became evident to Tails that the doll must have been whole when the dark hedgehog first came in less than a minute ago. However, the amused smirk faded quickly as Shadow again addressed Tails in a gruff manner. "Know this, fox-boy, no one can ever truly destroy the Tails Doll, which is why no one should ever let it out!" Shadow reprimanded Tails as he stuffed the doll into the sinisterly decorated box and closed the lid tightly shut.

"But… I don't even know how it got here!" Tails defended himself as he now got confirmation that his earlier beliefs about the doll had been all too accurate.

"You think that that matters now?!" Shadow responded as he glared at Tails. "Whether you knew about it or not, their deaths are on your hands, now!" he pointed at Tails and gave him the blame for his own friend's deaths due to his negligence with the Tails Doll.

Tails grabbed his head as his mind pulsed with pain as the chaos Tails had tried to dismiss earlier as nonsense now came back again. Overwhelmed with the truth so soon after he had just convinced himself that it wasn't actually true, Tails found everything both making sense and being completely illogical all at the same time. He let out an anguished yell as he walked back over to his bed and collapsed beside it with his head in his hands and his tails quickly forming and untying giant furry knots in the air as Tails tried to make sense of the flood of conflicting emotions now running rampant in his mind. Had he killed them? Was he the one to blame? How could he have know the doll was possessed and evil? Was it really? Who should he trust? Was he just crazy? Tails began pulling on the fur in the back of his head as a seemingly infinite number of difficult questions all bombarded him at once, leaved the kit much more than just simply overwhelmed as he felt tears begin forming again in his eyes at the sensation.

Shadow closed his eyes for a second in pity for the suffering fox before again rapidly turning around and dashing straight out of the house with the strange chest in tow and the Tails Doll safely inside. If that kid was right, then this thing was in a million pieces just minutes before I walked in. How could it reform itself so quickly? It was just sitting there when I saw it. Maybe Doctor Eggman will have some answers for me. With that to motivate him, Shadow continued full speed on a course for Eggman's new base where the good Doctor awaited him. Poor kid. He'll get over it, though. He deserved to know the truth, even if it hurts. Glancing down at the chest he now carried with him, Shadow let out a short sigh. At least it's all over now.


Sonic arrived back home just about ten minutes later and immediately noticed upon his return that the front door wasn't closed tightly like he had left it. Oh no! Tails, buddy, please still be here! Sonic worried as he rushed in, frightened that Tails may now be on the loose and mentally unstable at the same time. He noticed that the mess from the ripped up doll that had been there earlier was completely gone, with not a single piece of fluff or shred of fabric remaining, which told him that Tails had definitely slipped the lock to his door so that he could come down here to clean it up. Only his little brother would be so meticulous. He had to find Tails now. Although Sonic now worried extensively that Tails might be down in his workshop preparing to take off in the Tornado or do who knows what with his myriad of dangerous hardware tools, the blue hedgehog quickly resolved to check the fox's room first.

"Tails?!" Sonic shouted as he ran upstairs and almost beat his own voice to the open door of his brother's bedroom. To his relief, Sonic immediately spotted Tails kneeling beside his bed with his face straight down into his covers crying. "Tails, buddy, what's goin' on here?" Sonic asked as he implied the reason for the fox's current tears and the signs that he had clearly been out of his room while Sonic was gone.

"I… I killed Cream!" Tails shouted through his rapid sobs after Sonic walked up and placed a reassuring hand on Tails back.

"WHAT?! Whoa, hold on there, bro! Don't go sayin' stuff like that! We both know that ya didn't kill anyone!" Sonic quickly objected as he now grew even more worried that leaving Tails here alone for a while had only made him worse.

"But… I did, Sonic!" Tails yelled through his tears as he tried to turn his head to face Sonic's. "I'm the reason Mrs. Vanilla and Knuckles are dead, too!" he continued on while his tears only intensified despite Sonic's soothing touch.

"Look, bro, I don't understand what 'cha mean by all this…" Sonic tried to calm the distraught fox as he wondered just how in the world Tails could have snapped like this on him without the blue hedgehog knowing.

"The doll, Sonic! That Tails Doll killed them, and I'm the one who set it free!" Tails shouted to Sonic as he lunged forward and grabbed the hedgehog's midsection in a tight hug while the kit buried his face into Sonic's short fur.

Sonic, in response to this sudden move, didn't speak for a second as he wondered what to do. More than anything, Sonic wished that situations like this came with instruction manuals on how to deal with them as he imagined that his mind was just about as lost as Tails', but he knew deep down that what Tails needed right now was just comfort. Following his impulse, even though Sonic traditionally despised such acts, the blue hedgehog gently wrapped both his hands around Tails as the fox cried into his chest and squeezed the young kitsune loosely to his body in a bear hug. "Look, Tails, now I don't know what on Mobius is wrong with ya right now or why you're sayin' such kooky stuff, but there's no such thing as possessed dolls, bud," Sonic tried to reassure his little brother yet again.

"But, Sonic, it's true! Shadow told me so!" Tails blurted out as he raised his head out of Sonic's chest to make his words audible.

"Shadow? Who's Shadow, little bro?" Sonic immediately inquired.

"He's a hedgehog just like you, only he's mostly black instead and not very friendly," Tails quickly described the earlier intruder. "He said that he's been following us around and that the weird doll I found really is what has been killing people!"

"Right, and tell me more about this 'Shadow' character," Sonic spoke as he failed to take all the sarcasm out of his voice.

"I… I don't remember any more than that, except that he ran away almost as fast as you can, and he took the doll with him," Tails spoke as he prayed that Sonic would believe him.

"Bro, no one can move as fast as I can, and you know it," Sonic semi-pridefully remarked. "And besides, you sliced that doll into tiny pieces earlier," Sonic also pointed out.

"I know, Sonic, but it fixed itself! All the little pieces must have come back together after you left and while I was locked in my room!" Tails outlined the ridiculous, but only possible, timeline.

Sonic, however, didn't buy it. In his mind, what had started as an innocent and stress-born fear of a ghost that didn't exist had now evolved into a regenerating, soul-sucking, demon-possessed puppet that Tails now claimed total responsibility for unleashing upon the world, as told by some mysterious stranger that looked and ran just like him called Shadow. Sonic's heart sank to the souls of his super-quick feet as he now wondered if Tails had officially gone insane or if he would ever have his old buddy back again. Realizing that there was nothing he could do for Tails beyond what he had already planned, Sonic begrudgingly released his grip on Tails and stood back up while motioning for the fox to do the same. "OK, bud. Remember what I told ya we would do once I got back from Amy's? Let's get ready and head out, 'kay?" Sonic asked Tails in his calmest voice possible as not to alarm the unstable kit any further.

"I don't need to see a psychiatrist, Sonic!" Tails quickly rebelled. "I'm perfectly fine! You gotta believe me; this is serious!" he pleaded once more with Sonic.

Sonic wanted more than anything to give in and simply tell Tails that he really did believe him, but to falsely admit that now might doom the fox to madness for the rest of eternity, or so the hedgehog thought. As much as it pained him, and Tails no doubt, Sonic shook his head side-to-side in disapproval at Tails outburst. "Bro, you know that I care for ya more than any other person on this world, but I just don't buy this whole soul-eating, demonic doll thing for one second! Now come on, let's go see a doctor just to make sure that you're OK, bro," Sonic offered.

"But I'm not crazy!" Tails protested loudly as the very volume and ferocity with which Tails yelled this only served to possibly lend more evidence to the converse being true.

"Look, bud, if you're really not crazy, then the doc can tell us that, and, then, I might start to believe ya," Sonic made the deal with Tails to get him to agree to seeing a professional without Sonic needing to physically carry him there against his will.

Tails still seemed deeply hurt that Sonic would insist on such a radical test before trusting him, but decided that since he really wasn't crazy that he had nothing to lose by proving it in whatever means necessary. "OK, fine then," Tails at last consented with a downcast face. "I'll go fire up the Tornado," the fox mentioned as he began to walk downstairs.

Sonic intercepted him at the bottom, however, and restrained Tails with a simple hand to his shoulder. "Ya know, bud, it's a beautiful day outside. How's about we just run there together? It will be good for ya to get some exercise, ya know," Sonic tried to prevent the unpredictable and still highly emotional fox from getting in the cockpit at this time.

Tails immediately picked up on this real reason Sonic preferred not to fly to the city this time, and only sighed as he realized just how skeptical Sonic really was of him right now. However, Tails didn't take any further offense at this as he realized that he himself didn't think that he was in any condition right now to fly either and just nodded his head to accept Sonic's proposal. Together, the two Mobians left Tails' small home and began a high-speed jog towards the nearby city, Sonic noticeably keeping a watchful and concerned eye on Tails the whole way.


(The End? Oooh no, not even close! This is still just the beginning! Mweee hee hee hee hee heeee!)