VIII – Out of Time
"Liar!"
Sonic stood inside the control room, pointing his finger towards the wizened form of Eggman, his face hot with sudden anger. Either side of him stood Amy and Knuckles, just arrived and panting from their efforts to catch up to Sonic.
"What's happening?" gasped Amy. "Who's a liar?"
Eggman brought his bony fingers together in front of him, his devious and childlike grin undiminished by his sagging face or yellow teeth.
"My dear girl, I was just bringing Sonic up to speed, heh, with my predicament. It seems your dear friend Tails has a lot to answer for."
"What are you saying?" asked Knuckles. "That this is somehow Tails' fault?"
"He's saying Tails was the one who attacked him," Sonic seethed. "As if Tails is the one who's been going around hurting people. But he's a liar. It's just another one of his tricks." He didn't turn around to face his friends when he spoke, and every word felt heavy, forced out through breath hot with fury.
Amy stepped forward, putting a hand on his shoulder. He flinched slightly but didn't move away, her touch feeling cool against his taught and weary skin.
"Eggman, don't play games with us," she said. "There's no way Tails would attack you like this. He's just a sweet kid; he wouldn't hurt a fly."
Eggman's grin fell, his face becoming grim, and he leaned forward, peering over his dark glasses with bloodshot eyes.
"Allow me to disabuse you of your naive notions. That 'sweet kid' as you call him showed up here and started destroying my base. I sent my Badniks out to stop him but, well, you saw what he did to them. They didn't even slow him down. Then he came for me, and there was no mistaking him. It was Tails, drunk on Chaos energy and clearly hungry for more."
"What do you mean 'drunk on Chaos energy?'" asked Sonic.
"He'd entered into a state of hyper-aggravated Chaos energy generation. I believe you like to call it 'going Super.' But he clearly hasn't got control over it; his body is being warped by the reaction and his power levels are volatile. My guess is that's why he wants more of it; to stabilise his form before he self-destructs. He threatened me, demanded I give him my Chaos Emerald. I refused of course, and then-"
"He took the Chaos energy right from your own body," Sonic said, his anger crumbling beneath a weighty realisation. An image of another figure drained dry of Chaos energy, pointing a bony finger past Tails to a figure they couldn't see.
Except Shadow hadn't been pointing past Tails at all.
"I've seen this before," said Sonic. "This is exactly what happened to all the others. How did you survive though? Everyone else is unconscious... or worse."
Eggman looked down, and spoke solemnly. "I've never felt anything so ghastly in my life. There's no such thing as a soul, but if there were, this is how it would feel to have it taken from me. Even though I'm still alive, I feel like a piece of me is missing... no, not missing... elsewhere. Like I exist here and somewhere else at the same time."
Sonic tapped his foot, chewing on his lip. "But how did you survive? Get to the point!"
"Easy, Sonic," whispered Amy.
"I'd be a fool not to take precautions," said Eggman, looking up with renewed enthusiasm. "This chair is fitted with multiple shock tethers, which I launched into your little friend as soon as I could fumble for the button. Each one of those tethers can deliver a charge strong enough to kill a man fifty times over."
"And? What happened?" Sonic's breath halted in his throat.
"I think it mildly annoyed him. It was enough to drive him off, but I don't think I did any lasting damage. He set about destroying the rest of my base and fled. I fear he may have located my Chaos Emerald and taken it."
Any second now Sonic hoped he would wake up. If he just closed his eyes and waited, he would find himself back in his bed. He would get up, shake off his cold sweat and creep over to Tails' room. There he would find the young fox sleeping peacefully, and he would gently nudge him until he awoke. Then for the first time he would ask him a question that he had been asked many times before.
Can I sleep in your bed tonight? I had a bad dream...
Tails. Murderer. The two concepts just did not fit together in Sonic's mind. He couldn't take two pieces of that puzzle and jam them together to make it work. He did not believe that Tails could ever be evil; he would not believe it.
"No," muttered Sonic.
"What?" asked Amy.
"I said no. It's not Tails. It can't be. It's some kind of... thing that's stolen his form or copied him or possessed him or something. Or Eggman's just lying to make us turn on each other. I don't care what the reason is but Tails would never do a thing like this, ever."
"Sonic," said Knuckles, "but what about-"
Sonic put his hand up. "Are you not listening to me? Tails is not the one behind these attacks. You don't know him like I do; none of you do. If I say Tails didn't do it, then he didn't do it, and that's final, understand?"
The others fell silent, avoiding Sonic's gaze.
"Am I talking to a brick wall here? You can't honestly believe Tails would-"
The sound of a wheezing laugh came from behind him.
"They only see what you choose not to," said Eggman. "Have you ever considered that your... infatuation with that boy might just be a weakness? One that he might exploit to his advantage. Tails knows you'll never suspect him of any malice, that you'll do anything to preserve your idealised image of him, and that means he can cause havoc while you run around looking for an enemy that was right under your nose the whole time. Face it, Sonic, he's manipulated you through and through, and here you are still playing his game. You're a fool."
Sonic surged forward, his anger exploding beneath him, but before he closed the distance with Eggman he collided with a large red shape.
"Knuckles, get out of my way! I'm gonna show him-"
Knuckles held him back by his shoulders. "Sonic, don't. This isn't going to help us find Tails. Eggman's just trying to rile you up. Don't give him the satisfaction."
Sonic stared into Knuckles' commanding gaze, and at once he felt his anger collapse. Sighing, he turned away, resting his forehead in his palm.
"Damn it. This whole situation is just... surreal. Since when are you the voice of reason, Knux?"
Knuckles shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe since you started losing your cool all of a sudden. Anyway, you can't hurt Eggman, we came here for his help, remember?"
"Oh really?" purred Eggman, his fingers waggling. "Now this is interesting. The great Sonic the Hedgehog, begging me for help? I never thought I'd see the day. Somehow that makes being turned into a senior citizen worth it. Well, that and the free bus pass."
Sonic turned and marched towards Eggman, brushing past Knuckles. He reached into his quills and pulled out a charred piece of paper, thrusting it into Eggman's gnarled hands.
"Tails was working on a way to send the Chaos Emeralds into the Special Zone before he disappeared. We were going to lure whatever's hunting them there and deal with it before it hurt anyone else."
"Hmm," Eggman held the paper close to his face, squinting at Tails' scribbled equations. "Yes, I can see that this is an amateurish attempt at advanced Chaos physics, far inferior to the much improved models I since developed."
"Whatever," said sonic, rolling his eyes. "So you can make it work, then?"
Eggman snorted, his derisive laugh supressed by his cracked voice. "Hah! Of course I can. This is child's play to a genius like me. But I'm afraid you're out of luck; all my equipment's been wrecked by that mad fox, so I couldn't do it even if I wanted to."
Sonic pinched the bridge of his nose, what little confidence he had ebbing away. Of course it had gone after Eggman; just like when Tails' workshop was trashed, it knew they would turn to Eggman in his stead. Again, the thing was one step ahead of him. Always it seemed to second guess him, frustrating him at every turn.
"How long until you can get everything back up and running?" asked Amy.
Eggman shrugged. "Who knows? Days? Weeks? The damage is catastrophic. I'll be out of action until I can sort this mess out. Fortunately for you, that means I won't be conquering the world anytime soon."
"We haven't got time to wait," said Sonic, pacing. "We need to find Tails right now. There must be another way."
"Go look for it somewhere else," said Eggman, waving his arm towards them, his sleeve flapping loosely on his bony appendage. "I've got enough to deal with without a bunch of smelly Mobians cluttering up the place."
"Speak for yourself, Egg-man," said Amy, covering her nose and waving her hand in front of her face.
"Come on," said Sonic, heading towards the door, "we haven't got all day. Let's head back and... and think of what we do next. There's gotta be another way..."
He strode out into the corridor, muttering to himself. The others caught up to him, and Knuckles put his hand on Sonic's shoulders and stopping him.
"Sonic, wait. I think I might have an idea. Another way we can find Tails, or at least find what took him, if Eggman's wrong about it being Tails, I mean.
Sonic bristled at the suggestion, but shook it off. "Oh? You didn't think to mention this earlier?"
"Er... well, the thing is, this idea is a bit... risky, you might say. But without Eggman or Tails to help I don't think we have much choice."
"If it can save Tails, it's got to be worth it. What do we need to do?"
"First," said Knuckles, "we need to get back to Angel Island."
~O~
A flash of red swept across the night sky above Angel Island, chasing away the deep blue shroud covering the fields and ruins for an instant before it fell again, covering the island in the dim quiet of night. The only trace of the light remained in a gently humming glass orb in a metal frame, from which one echidna strode away while two hedgehogs staggered, holding onto each other for support.
"Bleargh," moaned Sonic. "No matter how many times I teleport I never get used to it. Feels like I've been turned inside out."
"Me too," said Amy. "I'm not sure where I end and you begin. Although I don't have a problem with that if you don't..." She nudged Sonic in the ribs, raising her eyebrows and smiling, her grin glinting in the starlight.
"Amy," Sonic said, rolling his eyes, "just... give it a rest, okay?"
She let go of him, causing him to nearly topple forward, before striding off.
"I was only trying to lighten the mood!"
"Amy wait, I..." he reached out to her, but she had caught up to Knuckles, holding on to his arm and looking back over her shoulder at him. Knuckles didn't react, and Sonic rested his hands on his knees, shaking his head.
"That girl..." he muttered to himself. Picking himself up he jogged over to catch up with the others.
"The sky here is so pretty," said Amy to Knuckles, who seemed to be somewhere else in his mind, "much nicer than that horrible smog at Eggman's base. You can see so many stars up here."
Sonic craned his neck to the night sky. On Angel Island, far above the sprawl of cities pumping out orange and neon light at all hours of the day, the stars looked closer than ever. Instead of the twinkle of a few points of light, the sky shone with countless sparkling embers, and the usual black emptiness filled will colour, streaks of red and yellow from distant nebulae and shooting stars stretching from horizon to horizon. To Sonic it seemed the entirety of creation hung just above his head, and with one step he might just fall into it. Yet despite the beauty before him taking his breath away, sadness weighed him down to the ground.
I wish Tails could see this.
He looked back down, biting down on the thought. Tails would get to see this, he thought. Once he'd saved him, Sonic would bring him here, and he could prattle on about space-time and black holes and other things Sonic didn't understand. He chuckled slightly; even after all they'd been through, it would be worth it just to hear that carefree voice bursting with enthusiasm again.
His eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and he could see they were headed down a grassy slope set at the base of a circle of sheer cliffs. In the centre of the circle the grass gave way to carved stone, and in the centre of that circle stood a multi-tiered dais with steps leading up it. On top of the dais a huge crystal glowed with a deep green light that seemed out of place with reality.
The Master Emerald.
"Are you going to explain this plan to us already?" asked Sonic. "You've said nothing since we left the base."
"I didn't want Eggman listening in," said Knuckles. "I had to make sure we weren't being followed."
He glanced up the steps toward the Master Emerald, then looked back at Sonic, his face solemn and composed.
"I'm going to use the Master Emerald to communicate with the web of Chaos. I'll be able to see all the Chaos Energy on the planet right now. If Eggman's telling the truth about Tails-"
Sonic shot him a stern glare.
"-or if it's some other entity with Super-level power, it should glow brighter than anything else in the web. I should be able to pinpoint their location within a few miles."
"Brilliant!" said Sonic, leaping up a few steps. "We're finally going to catch this monster! But... why didn't you suggest this earlier? We could have avoided wasting time chatting with Eggman."
Knuckles said nothing, his face stony. Then he cleared his throat.
"This ritual is... dangerous. To see the web of Chaos I need to project my spirit through the Master Emerald."
"Your spirit?" asked Amy. "You can do that? Just let your soul wander off without your body?"
"Tails would have a scientific explanation for it I'm sure, but astral projection is the only way I can describe it. I can only do it with the Master Emerald's power, and even then it's difficult and, like I said, dangerous."
"Dangerous, how?" said Sonic. "Surely nothing can hurt you if you're a ghost, right?"
Knuckles shook his head. "I'll be exposing my spirit to Chaos energy in its purest form. Disturbances you hardly notice in the physical world can have drastic consequences in the spiritual world. If I'm there too long I could suffer permanent damage to my mind. That's why I'd have rather used Eggman's technology. If something goes wrong the device gets fried and not me. But we don't have much choice now, do we?"
He turned to head up the steps, but Sonic grabbed him by the arm.
"Dude, wait. I don't want you to do this. Not for my sake. It's too risky."
Knuckles grim demeanour broke slightly as a bemused smirk appeared.
"Never thought I'd hear you say that."
"Seriously, don't do it. We'll find another way."
Knuckles wrenched his arm free of Sonic's grip. "There is no other way, and even if there were, Tails can't wait for us to think of it. Every second we waste risks losing him forever. I won't let that happen, not on my watch."
He headed back up the steps, slowly ascending towards the huge crystal.
"Knuckles, I..." said Sonic, "I didn't know Tails meant that much to you."
Knuckles stopped short of the top of the dais, looking back over his shoulder.
"I know what it's like to have a duty to protect something. I also know what it's like to fail in that duty. The way guilt and shame eat at you every second you're without your charge. The Master Emerald is eternal, but there's only one Tails. As your friend, I can't let you live with that. I'm not going to allow you to fail, not while I can still do something. Now please, no more objections. I need to make the preparations."
He climbed to the top of the dais and sat down cross-legged. Reaching over to the stones, he pressed something Sonic couldn't see, and all around the Master Emerald torches flickered to life, their amber hues dancing in the green of the Emerald. Incense burners rose out from hidden panels, pouring sweet smoke into the air, and Knuckles began to chant.
"The servers are the Seven Chaos..."
Sonic turned to Amy. Her eyes glistened in the torchlight, and her lower lip trembled.
"Hey now," said Sonic, putting his arms around her. "It's alright. Knuckles knows what he's doing. We'll find Tails and everything will be alright."
She buried her face in his chest fur and sighed gently.
"Oh Sonic. I keep thinking about poor Tails. What must he be going through right now? He's probably scared and alone and..."
Sonic rubbed her back. "Don't think about that. Think about how awesome it will be when we swoop in to rescue him. Knuckles was right; Tails is a fighter. We'll find him, then we'll find whoever took him and kick their butt together, all four of us! How does that make you feel?"
Amy pulled away from the hug, smiling warmly despite the sadness in her eyes. "Well, when you put it like that, it does sound pretty cool. Okay! I'm gonna stay strong for Tails so I can fight by his side!"
"That's the spirit!" Sonic ruffled her quills, though she squirmed slightly at the patronising gesture.
"I believe you, you know?" she said.
"What's that?"
"I believe that Tails isn't the one behind this. I know Eggman was lying just to stir up trouble. You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say he faked the whole attack just to throw suspicion on Tails."
"Maybe..." said Sonic. Amy's theory didn't sit right with him. Even for Eggman that would be an audacious thing to plan, but that wasn't all that bothered him. Maybe it was the incense clogging up his nostrils and making his head feel fuzzy, but something still didn't feel right about the whole situation. The sensation that something invisible drew near, closing in around them; it had never really left him since the attack at the house, but now it grew more intense, sending ripples of anxiety along his spine.
"Something's coming..." he whispered.
"What?" asked Amy. Sonic shook his head briskly.
"It's nothing. Just a weird feeling. Come on, let's sit down and wait while Knuckles does his thing."
He sat on a level stone lining the steps, and Amy sat beside him, deliberately closing as much distance and possible and leaving no air between them. Sonic sighed, but put his arm round her nonetheless.
"Knuckles is a surprisingly deep guy, huh?" she said. "I never knew he felt so strongly about his friends."
Sonic glanced up at the sitting figure of Knuckles slowly rocking back and forth while chanting. The sense of dread creeping through his fur didn't abate, and as he exhaled his pent up breath it rattled and dried on his tongue.
"To be honest, Ames," he whispered, "I don't think anything can surprise me anymore."
~O~
He dived down from a great height, through clouds of incense and of fire, into a sea of green deeper than the deepest ocean. Its currents turned him around and upside down, flowing through him and filling his mind with new ideas. The green became a vortex, swirling around him and threatening to pull him down into an inky abyss. Then the currents changed again and thrusting him upwards towards the surface.
He emerged to see his own body sitting cross-legged and closed-eyed before the Master Emerald. Further down the dais, Sonic and Amy watched silently, oblivious to his presence. He laughed quietly, and his body laughed too. If only they could feel the joy of becoming something other than crude matter. His spirit surged with power, and he felt the beauty of the world around him touching every part of him. Every tree and rock shone with iridescent colours, colours that he couldn't just see, but taste and smell and feel them brushing against him. His friends' colours shone brightest of all and he could feel everything they were and could be overlapping with his soul. If he could, he would never let it end.
But he had a job to do, and he couldn't waste any more time. Soaring high above the Emerald he raced into the sky, the ground rapidly falling away from him, the detail of the surface growing smaller, merging together into the distinctive outlines of the continents. The blue sky faded away to the blackness of space, and Knuckles hovered high above the planet, a shining marble in an inky abyss.
Across the surface the web of Chaos flowed like paint in water, its shimmering, ethereal colours pushing and pulling against each other, maintaining the balance that kept Mobius alive. He had seen this sight before, but its beauty still struck him dumb every time.
But something was wrong.
"Sonic? Can you hear me?"
"I hear you," Sonic's voice responded at deafening volume, bouncing off the world and echoing around him in all directions. "Are you doing, ya know, the thing?"
"I'm inside the web of Chaos now, sending my thoughts back to my body to speak to you."
"Wow, that's cool," said Sonic. "Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'my mind was elsewhere.'"
"Listen, there's something wrong here. The Chaos energy flowing over the planet; it's like it's missing something. The colours seem duller, less vibrant."
"What does that mean?"
"I'm not sure. Nothing good, anyway." Knuckles scanned the surface of the world, searching for any sign of a disturbance.
"There!"
"What?" Sonic asked, his voice rising. "You've found Tails?"
"No, it's strange... I expected to see a bright light; a Super-level being should shine like a beacon, but it's more like... it's like the web of Chaos is entangled on something, tied up in knots or... being strangled. Sonic..." Knuckles' voice cracked. "I think Chaos itself is sick."
"Where is it, Knux? Where's it coming from?"
"About fifty miles west of Station Square, I think. I'd say that's the Verdant Spiral Zone."
"Great work, Dude," said Sonic. "Better come up for air now."
The edges of Knuckles vision began to blur, and he heard a sound within him; a deep rumble that shook his spirit. Then the sound came again, louder and shorter, and to Knuckles the whole planet seemed to shake.
"Wait... something's happening..."
"You've done what you need to do," said Sonic. "Get out before something bad happens."
As Knuckles watched, the planet grew larger, and he felt himself falling. Within moments he collided painlessly with a dusty, cracked floor. Looking up he saw an endless expanse of flat, lifeless dust beneath a dark and star-filled sky. The rumbling sound grew closer, its steady rhythm increasing in tempo with each quake.
"I think I'm having a vision," said Knuckles. "It happens sometimes when dealing with the Master Emerald."
"We haven't got time for visions!" yelled Sonic, his panic becoming palpable. "I'm telling you, get out of there!"
"This could be useful, Sonic!" Knuckles snapped back. "It might show me something about what we're up against. Just trust me."
In front of him stood Tails, suddenly present despite no apparent means of arrival. The fox stood staring at him, and although Knuckles' heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, he remained calm, knowing it wasn't the real Tails.
The image of Tails stared at him, its face expressionless, eyes unblinking. Its namesakes flitted back and forth playfully, and Knuckles watched them, mesmerised by their movement.
His left tail swept across, and Knuckles found himself looking up at the stars. Though it showed no process of change, the tail covered the entirety of his vision, filling up the sky as high as he could see. Where it passed, the stars vanished, leaving half the night sky devoid of light. The right tail swept the other half of the sky, like a paintbrush coated in the blackest ink erasing the cosmos.
"What?!" cried Knuckles. "What does this mean?"
He looked back to the image of Tails; its namesakes were their correct size, but now the boy wore a wicked grin on his face.
It began to grow, rapidly and suddenly, its head disappearing into the clouds in moments. Another rumble followed, and Knuckles found himself flung back into space. There he saw Tails, grown so large the planet seemed like a marble to him.
The gigantic fox leant forward, his mouth wide and slavering. Instead of straight white teeth Knuckles saw row upon row of jagged enamel spikes the size of continents and caked in dried blood. The teeth came down on the planet, causing it to crack, but it didn't break right away. Again the teeth pushed into the world, and the world pushed back, making a wheezing groaning noise like a living being, while its magma oozed out like blood.
Knuckles looked back. It was blood, and the noise the combined screams of six billion Mobians. He had no eyes to shut, no ears to cover, and he could only watch as the mouth clamped shut, popping Mobius like a blister and silencing the screams in final sticky squelch.
Knuckles knew it was only a vision, a metaphor for something else, but even so his fear took over him. He could feel the sweat pouring along his body's brow, hear the sound of his distant heart thundering in his chest.
Whatever this vision meant, one thing was certain; all of Mobius was in danger, and the upcoming disaster, whatever it was, centred around Tails.
"Knuckles?" Sonic's voice came through. "Knuckles, what's wrong? What are you-"
Something pulled Knuckles backwards, away from the monstrous fox at blistering speed. Faster and faster he soared, until everything around him turned white.
He felt himself crashing through a surface, like emerging from underwater, and his movement slowed.
He was not back in his body. Instead, he floated in a void filled with multi-coloured clouds, strange orbs that pulsed with fire and streams of light that gave off a distant music.
"Is this... the Special Zone?"
The sound of his heart grew louder and louder, sounding like it came from outside of him. Then he realised; it was coming from outside of him. The low rhythmic rumble that had grown shorter and louder throughout his vision was the sound of a beating heart.
A bright point of light appeared before him, and Knuckles found himself drawn towards it. As he approached, the light faded, and he saw the source of the noise: a heart made entirely from yellow crystal, transparent and shimmering, yet pulsating like soft flesh. He drew nearer, and another light engulfed the heart, shifting and growing until it took on a new shape.
The shape of a fox with two tails.
The figure walked towards Knuckles across thin air slowly, placing each foot carefully in front of the other, its tails swishing gently as it approached. As tall as Knuckles but possessing a slender frame straining to hold back tightly-wound muscles, its fur glowed so brightly it looked almost white. Eyes shining with pure white sat in a high-cheekboned and mature face, and its long hair shimmered with colour in the light of the Zone.
Transfixed by the approaching figure, unable to tear his eyes away, Knuckles found himself reaching towards it, the manifestation of his arm stretching out with fingers splayed.
"Tails," he whispered, "Is that you? Wow, you're all grown up and… you look incredible, dude."
It continued to approach, its long and slender arm reaching out, ethereal fingers grasping toward Knuckles' own. Before they could touch, he snapped hand away, as all his senses flared into sudden alarm, telling him to run.
"What are you?" Knuckles gasped. It said nothing, but continued to reach out, its fingers inches from his face.
He fled, forcing his spirit to fly away from the ghostly Tails as fast he could, sending it back through the walls of the Special Zone and into an empty white void.
He could see his body, through a hole in the white, and he pushed towards it, feeling the weight of gravity reassert itself as he plummeted towards the real world.
Then something grabbed him.
He looked behind him to see a point of bright white light behind him, and through it a shimmering golden-white hand reached out, its fingers tightly gripped around his spectral ankle.
"No!" Knuckles yelled. "You can't!"
The hand pulled backwards, pulling his foot into the light. Knuckles reached out, desperate to grab onto anything, but in the empty space between life and death he found nothing to grab.
The light pulled harder, and Knuckles felt his spirit twisting, compressing as if pulled through a straw. He forced himself forward with all his will, but the image of his seated self slipped further away.
"I won't let you do this!" He growled through clenched teeth. "I will not give in!"
He felt the light overtake more of him, submerging him up to his shoulders. Still he fought against it, reaching out for his body even as his spirit seeped away by inches.
With a burst of fury he roared, pushing himself forward with all of his might. But it didn't relent, and the outburst took the last of his will with it. He felt himself deflating, and as he slid backwards into the light, he let out a stifled, desperate gasp.
And then he was gone.
~O~
"Knuckles? Knuckles, speak to me!"
Sonic shook Knuckles by the shoulders. The echidna, sitting still with his eyes closed, had gone quiet for several minutes. Then he had begun to grunt and gasp through clenched teeth as if in pain, sweat pouring along his brow as his whole body convulsed.
"What's happening to him?" whimpered Amy, her eyes streaming with tears.
"I don't know!" yelled Sonic, barely containing tears of his own. "I told him to get out of there, I told him!"
Knuckles' eyes snapped open, and for a moment Sonic's nerves ceased their trembling. Then the echidna let out a long scream that ricocheted from the cliff faces and shook the trees, before slumping onto his side.
Amy covered her mouth with her hands. "Oh no! Is he... Is he...?"
Sonic fell onto his knees, placing his ear to Knuckles' chest.
"He's still breathing. He's okay."
But Knuckles stared wide-eyed and still and no matter how much Sonic snapped his fingers or shook him he didn't shift from his vacant stare, and his arms hung limply by his side.
"Knux! Come on, dude, wake up! Wake up!"
Sonic stared down at Knuckles' prone form, then looked over to Amy. The girl looked like she might collapse at any minute.
"What's happened, Sonic?"
Sonic swallowed, and when he spoke his words shivered through the air.
"He's alive but... he's not in there. I think... I think it found him, the thing we're hunting. The thing found him and..."
He stared into Amy's eyes, for fear that if he looked away she might suffer the fate now dawning on him.
"Amy... it took his soul!"
~O~
