Darren was sitting on his legs on the floor, in front of him the swirling vortex excluded vision of all else and was impossible to draw away from. Even Bach on the ceiling seemed to be having an issue looking anywhere else. The swirling purple blob on his wall was all he had eyes for: had he done it? Were they even coming? If they didn't Darren had little doubt that Sonic wouldn't be treated in time. He'd already called the ambulance. He tried to say as little as possible, which is surprisingly easy when you slip in the names of some of their most advanced doctors who just so happen to be your parents. The ambulance should be here in ten minutes so they don't have long, Darren absently thought, always with eyes fixed on the portal, as if the slightest lapse in concentration would result in the summons not working. He'd have to think of something very clever to explain the best part of months in a couple of seconds. Thankfully thinking was one of Darrens best skills. For the meantime he stared at the blob impatiently, Sod's Law no doubt meaning that the ambulance would arrive on time for once.

Now we're in the portal there's no turning back. I was tempted to tell my colleagues, but there's no noise in space. Well, at least I thought we were in space. I've never quite understood portals, so my surprise when Chris managed to manipulate one to get to our world was massive, but when the Metarax attacked I was a bit busy flying spaceships and beating up bad guys as usual to ask how he did it. I was going to ask him later, but he took the opportunity to go home before I got chance. Speaking of which how on earth was this guy doing it? Chaos control? The Sol Emeralds of Blaze's world proved that there are equivalent versions of the chaos emeralds in alternate dimensions. Were there any in his world? I could see Cream and Vanilla floating nearby, it looked as if Cream was trying to say something but nothing was coming out. Her mouth forming words that weren't being spoken. Vanilla was looking down dejectedly; what was wrong with her? Had she changed her mind? What was she hiding? Slowly though I could feeling my senses returning to normal and suddenly gravity returned. I had fallen for this trick before so to avoid faceplanting into the ground I hit it and commando rolled forward to negate the impact. Cream caught herself at the last minute and flapped her ears to stabilise before landing. Vanilla... well she wasn't as lucky. Behind us the portal closed up. I just hoped this kid could get us back.
As Cream helped her mother up I surveyed the scene with a practised eye: we were indoors. It was clearly a boy's bedroom and judging by the pull of gravity we were two or three floors up. I recognised with silent admiration the high-tech one way sound-proofing and saw the drum kit and various other instruments standing to attention on their various stands. Obviously well off, a bit like Chris Thorndike. I also noticed the posters containing some composers I knew and others I didn't. Clearly Chris' world and this one were very similar as some of the composers I recognised from my time on Earth. The instruments were also identical to ones I knew from Earth. Finally I saw the boy. He looked about 15. Quite tall and lanky but definitely the wrong side of scrawny. I'm not exactly a brilliant judge on human fashion, but he didn't look bad for his build; he wore a pair of plain jeans with a black casual shirt. His face was a mystery, his lips naturally in an expression of easy going caution, his eye's darting across the room as if he were checking for danger. His hair was so dark a brown it appeared black, but there was a streak of red in a line from the centre of his head running down to his left ear that was clearly natural and not dyed. his eyes though were the most extraordinary thing though, they were a sky blue so pure they seemed to automatically make you feel good about yourself, whilst giving away a hidden knowledge. But the amazing thing was that I had only seen that shade of blue on one other person before:
Me.
Cream had helped her mother up by now and had joined me. The boy and I looked quizzically at each other, taking each other in. I thought that I should break the silence.
"Well... hi. You're the one who spoke to me right?" It was lame, but it was all I could think of; something about this boy unsettled me, but I still didn't fell threatened. That's a strange place to be. "I'm Tails, and this is Cream, Vanilla and Sonic." My voice faintly caught on Sonic's name. How on earth could this mysterious boy be able to help him? Then he did something really unexpected: he pinched himself on the upper arm.
"Sorry, I just needed to check this was real." the boy replied with a glint of humour. His voice was tenor, but clear without being tinny. The list of intriguing things about this boy was getting longer by the minute. "Yes, I'm the one who called you and the one who brought you here." The boy didn't mince his words, but seemed to be having a struggle picking them in the first place. At the minute I didn't know who was more confused, but the more I saw and heard him the more I seemed to like him, for no reason in particular. He just seemed nice. Just then I caught the strains of an ambulance in the distance. five seconds later (when the others who hadn't got hyper sensitive hearing heard it) Darren said "I'd love to explain now but our first priority is Sonic." I agreed whole heartedly. Cream and Vanilla understood and lifted Sonic who was now barely conscious on his stretcher in preparation of the ambulance crew. I went and gathered up their stuff and held onto it for them while the boy headed downstairs to fetch the paramedics. At this stage only one thing was clear:
This is gonna be interesting.

Darren whizzed down the stairs and after three flights got to the intruder alarm and deactivated it. He could hear his parents waking up and heard his dad running down to see what was going on but by now he was at the door letting the medics in. One of them was Brian whom he knew personally when he'd done a work experience trip which had ended disastrously when one of the people in the waiting room had a heart attack and he successfully resuscitated them. For the next two hours he was paraded around like some kind of hero with all the staff making a fuss. Ugh, for an agoraphobe like him it was hell on earth. It was really quite simple to bring the guy back, he'd known CPR since he was eight. He could have diagnosed him there and then to save on waiting times but he thought he'd attracted enough attention to himself without getting employed at thirteen.
"Hey Darren" Brian said "who's hurt? Is it one of your folks?" He seemed concerned, but then suddenly Darren's dad appeared.
"Wait, what's going on? Why are they here? Are you hurt Darren?" Darren's dad was really confused, but not as confused as the paramedics when Darren's mum can running down too.
"Sweetie, are you ok?" his mum looked her son up and down but seemed to find nothing.
"Wait, John, Melissa? But if none of you three are ill then why did Darren ring? I know you're not the kind to go prank calling."
Well there was no way of hiding it now. He had hoped to tell it to them a little smoother than this, but he hadn't really planned this whole get Sonic to hospital thing very well. Darren breathed in deep.
"We'll there's no hiding it now. You guys better come up to my room, there's something you need to see."