In case you haven't heard... My computer is dead. So this chapter is typed from my iPod Touch... ^^; This was originally intended to be a Halloween Chapter.


A paper ball flew through the air, bouncing off the ground as a furry little black form chased after it, tumbling on the floor as white paws wrapped around it.

Mephiles sighed as something small with sharp teeth and claws and a spiky dot above it's head tackled it as well.

It's too quiet without Dark here... Mephiles told himself. He didn't dare go in the kitchen where Shadow was, because the black hedgehog was putting together some sort of model and had newspaper laid out across the table, and was so into it, that Mephiles doubted that he would be noticed at all anyway.

That... and he was a little creeped out by Shadow's mutterings to himself, presumably about the model, which was some sort of two wheel vehicle, strangely in Shadow's color scheme. The mutterings sounded oddly like "... Shame I lost you..." and "... I had so much fun..."

To add to that... Rouge had left to go shopping, as they were short on some important things, and though he would normally offered to go with her, Mephiles didn't feel like leaving the couch, and to add to that further... There was nothing good on TV, and the shows he liked were rerunning the same episodes for the third time this week!

The phone rang, and he just looked sidewise at it before turning his attention back to the TV. He wasn't going to answer that. He hated answering the phone. Most of the time, it was telemarketers anyway...

"Is anyone going to get that?" Shadow said, not looking up from his project as the phone kept ringing.

Mephiles sighed again, and got up, heading over to answer it.

"Hello..?" Mephiles said quite unenthusiastically.

Shadow's ears perked up at a sharp gasp, the sound of something hitting the floor, and then a spur of purple energy sparking off from somewhere as it engulfed the florescent light above him and made it explode, charring the plastic cover.

He looked up from his project, and turned his head slowly to the side, finding Mephiles to be standing right where the phone was, hand held up in the air as he stared blankly, eyes wide and fur and quills on end. He seemed frozen, as the phone itself lay on the floor beside him.

Shadow blinked, looking back at his project as he wondered what had happened. Finally leaving his model, he walked over to Mephiles and picked the phone off the ground.

"Hello?"

It was the hospital, and be the sound of things, he was probably going to have to leave his project to help restore order. "Can't you just hit him over the head or something to get him to knock it off?"

Thizon's yell over the phone was making it obvious that it wasn't that easy.

"Oh, alright... We'll be there in a bit..." Shadow cringed as he pulled the phone back to his ear.


Mephiles grabbed at his ears, wincing at the "sound" only he could hear. Everyone, save for Thizon, Shadow and Mephiles, had evacuated the floor of the hospital, which was locked down.

Black, inky darkness was sliding across the floors, crept up the walls and dripped from the ceiling.

Shadow, half out of curiosity, reached forward and tried to touch it, only for a piece to branch off and crawl quickly up his arm, and try to suffocate him.

He reacted quickly, grabbing it with a hand, tearing it off and flinging it back into the darkness. Then he formed a Chaos Spear, and held it in front of him, the mass pulling away from him.

At the same time, Mephiles had also tried to touch the darkness, but instead the mass pulled away, and parted, as if he was simply a barrier.

"Whoa..." Mephiles whispered, pulling his ears back as he tried to ignore what was making his inner ears itch.

He stood up, blinked and took a step forward. The darkness pulled away from him again, as if it didn't care he was there.

Looking up, he could see the source of the darkness, drifting out from under a door... The door to the room that Dark had been assigned to. Crossing the room, he tried the door, and found it to be locked.

"Hey... Can I get in there..?" He looked at Thizon, who was hiding behind Shadow, trying to wrestle his glasses from a tendril of darkness. Then, the darkness, almost as if to mess with him, let go, and Thizon toppled back into Shadow, holding up his now tweaked and useless frames. Mephiles waited, then asked again, and he was tossed a keyring, which he almost fumbled and nearly dropped.

He unlocked the door and went in, gawking in confusion as to what he saw. Dark was in the middle of all this, sitting slumped forward on the bed, eyes wide and solid black, as if he in a trance of some sort. From a wild guess, Mephiles figured easily that whatever was going on and Dark being like this had to be connected.

Mephiles gave him a quick shake, but it didn't wake him up. If he was slightly worried a few minutes ago, he was even more worried now.

"Hey, c'mon, Dark... Snap out of it..." He said worriedly, shaking him again. "You're scaring people... You're sc-scaring me..."

Tendrils started to form around them, and Mephiles didn't like that. Especially when they started to inch towards him. A squeak escaped him, and he took a step back, closer to Dark.

"D-dark... D-do something..." He stuttered in a somewhat weak voice. "S-stop it... D-dark?"

Something wrapped around his foot and he shouted in fright and grabbed Dark by the shoulders and smacked him hard in the face. Dark's eyes went back to normal and he shouted in pain, all the darkness disappearing and returning back to where it came from. Dark held a hand to his face, scrunching his features as he let loose a stream of curses, finally looking up and glaring at Mephiles.

"What is your problem! IT FEELS LIKE YOU ALMOST BROKE MY NOSE!" Dark barked a him, baring his teeth.

"You scared me!" Mephiles justified, taking a step back away from him, biting down on his lower lip. "I wasn't trying to hurt you! I was trying to wake you up!"

He tried to explain what had happened, but he was stuttering so much from the effect that Dark's anger had on him, that he couldn't speak straight. Dark glared at him, letting an angry growl roll from deep in his throat.

The next thing anyone outside the room knew, Mephiles was out of the room, slammed the door shut, and hurried away from it, shouting in fright as Dark spindashed through it, destroying the door completely as he took off after him.

"Dark! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" Mephiles wailed, dropping to the ground to dodge him, Dark slamming into the wall as he spindashed again. Before either of them could get up, Shadow pinned Dark to the ground, eyes narrowed.

"What do you think you're doing?" Shadow said loudly as Dark fought against him. "You trying to bring this place down or what?" Dark tried to bite him, but Shadow grabbed him with his other hand and restrained him even more. "No! Not the arm! Not this time!"

Mephiles looked up from the ground, folding his ears back as he just stared. The last time Dark acted like this...

"Stop it! Both of you!" He shouted as he picked himself off the ground, waving his hands in the air, getting their attention. "I-I'm... I-I mean... I d-didn't... I'm sorry D-Dark! It's my f-fault!"

"No! No, it's not, Meph!" Shadow snapped at him. "Stop apologizing for things you didn't do..."

"B-but..."

"How long are you going to keep letting him do this to you?" Shadow shot a slight glare at him over his shoulder. "If you're not defending him, you're scared witless! Tell me... What kind of brother is supposed to do that?"

"It's not his f-"

"How long are you going to keep telling yourself that?" Shadow cut across him.

"Shadow! If he's acting like this, wouldn't that mean that because of that "virus" thing, he's acting differently than himself?" Mephiles reasoned. "He's acting like this because he's not himself! You said that would happen! Why are-"

Mephiles stopped suddenly when he looked at Dark, who didn't look so angry anymore. In fact, he looked quite upset.

"... I don't try to hurt anyone... I don't mean to..." He said, losing his growl as his ears drooped.

Shadow was surprised enough that he let go and jumped back. He hadn't heard Dark's true voice before. He was amazed at how many shades away from Mephiles' it was.

"I know you don't..." Mephiles said, moving past a stunned Shadow and offered a hand, which wasn't taken. "C'mon, you have to go back to the room..."

"I'm tired of staying here..." Dark muttered, looking down.

"I know... But you have to be here until either you're cured or whatever is going on stops..."

"... Hrrrm..." Dark groaned unenthusiastically.

Mephiles sighed before getting an idea that was bound to help cheer Dark up. He looked at Thizon, who was holding his mangled frames up to his face, having been forgotten for some time now by the hedgehogs.

"Can we bring Dark's cat tomorrow? He hasn't seen him since he was last home, and he always makes Dark feel better... Please..?"


Shadow and Mephiles were now on their way home, the sun starting to set, and no doubt, they wanted to be home before the strange things started to happen.

"I wonder what that was all about? I don't think he even knew we were there until I smacked him..."

"... I didn't know he could sound like that..." Shadow was still surprised.

"He says that he's had the growl for so long, he can't use his real voice..." Mephiles explained. "At least not very often..."

Mephiles suddenly stopped, twitching his ears in confusion.

"What?" Shadow said.

"I swear to you, I hear a wolf!"

"It's not impossible... Westopolis has all sorts of-"

"No... I mean a howl... I've heard it every night now..."

"I don't hear it..."

"Because you don't have ears like mine and Rouge. We can hear things others can't..." Mephiles looked into an alley, and thought he saw something move. This time, he figured not to look further into it.