Another desolate hour or so of rolling down cracked streets, which were even more littered with burning, rotting corpses than they were when we had went out on this mission for hope.

Only when I look back at the trip from that shack to St. Louis can I say that not much went on.

I can say that that was when I was beginning to approach my first total mental breakdown, of sorts.

Also… being there was one of the most scary, uncertain moments of the entire trip.

All of a sudden… the light that usually came from the speedometer went out. No new speed was acquired as I worriedly floored the gas pedal.

We soon rolled to a stop. We were trapped, with only one uncertain defense against absolutely anything that could have been thrown at us.

"Hang on," Sonic growled, stepping out of the car and opening the hood. "…Well, here's the problem. The battery has literally exploded. Please tell me we have spare ones."

Knuckles was way ahead of him.

"Yep," he said, taking a clean, healthy car battery to Sonic. "We have one more after this one, too."

"Great!" said Sonic, taking the dirty battery out and tossing it in a nearby bush (I'm surprised that it still stood… all by its lonesome…). "That makes me wonder about other things this car could mess up."

"We also have two mufflers and two spare tires," Knuckles nodded.

But that was the last I heard from them until they returned.

Mid-crisis… crisis struck me, and I was left to just sit there, spaced out, when in reality… I thought I was having my fortune told.

Images of death danced in my head. I could only imagine what would happen if the "Safe Haven" turned out to be a cruel joke. What would we do then?

My sanity dipped halfway to an all-time low… at the time.

And… Silver… I felt so cold and hopeless without him here. I could only imagine him and his telekinesis making us that group of weary travelers that could brag to everyone else. As horrible and cruel as it sounds… and as awful it would feel if we were on the other side of that scenario… it was true.

Not only that… but I wondered if maybe he and I would sit on the back of the car while he had his arm around me, and we'd watch a band of travelers tell stories and laugh around a bonfire, trying to shed what positive light was still conceivable on the situation.

It was that that kept us both sane and alive. And Silver may have been… gone…

I could feel my eyeballs begin to sting a little when Sonic slammed his car door and snapped me back to the cruel reality.

"We're good to go, Rachel!" he said. "…You really don't look so good. Are you sick? Oh, God, if you're sick…"

As I turned the car on and met a fluent startup, I sighed shakily. Bottling things up was only going to add a hint of poison to my sanity… which was already declining rapidly in condition, I'd learn soon.

"Sick with depression," I admitted, making the car go forward again.

I still didn't want to go any further than that. If they knew I loved Silver like… that… Sonic, Amy, and Knuckles would never let me live it down unless we learned that he was dead.

Indeed, I speak the truth, though. My sanity did decline. Not only was I sad, like had been the cases in all of the past instances throughout this entire trip. I could feel my faith drop to the lowest-possible point. There was nothing I could learn or get from the others.

Life was hard all of a sudden, let alone my optimism.

I couldn't say a word.

As we pulled up to a shelter that resided by the sign that said "Welcome to St. Louis!," I looked back at my gun and felt something I had never felt before toward anything of the sort.

Relief.

"No!" I told myself. "Look away from the gun! You will NOT do it."