CHAPTER 26

SUFFERING

Much later, Shadow had slowly opened his eyes and found himself looking up at a bright light that was shining down at him. 'Where am I?' He thought. He tried to move his arms but realized that his wrists, his legs, and his entire body was strapped down on the table he found himself laying on. His eyes looked around the huge bright white room he was in and saw three people wearing white lab coats looking at the papers they were holding and discussing strange things.

He took his eyes away from them and turned to a small metal cart beside the table he was laying on. The cart had all kinds of tools and medicines on it. Just staring at the sharp tools had made him nervous and want to go into panic. Tears began to stream down his face. 'I don't want to be here', he thought. 'I want to be with Rouge…'

When one of the specialists heard him sobbing softly, he spun around and slowly walked over to him. "Hey he's finally awake."

The other two specialists gathered around him and saw the hedgehog having a nervous breakdown in the inside.

Shadow couldn't bear to stare at them. The huge goggles over their eyes and white doctor masks they had around their mouth had terrified him.

"Look at him", one spoke.

"I can't believe he tried to slice his wrists open with his nails", the other spoke.

Shadow began to dig his fingertips onto the metal table he was laying on. "Die…" he whispered in a whimpering voice. "I…want to…die…"

One of the specialists saw Shadow beginning to sink his teeth down onto his tongue. He quickly turned to the other two. "He's trying to bite off his tongue! Stop him!" He watched as they rushed around the room until they found a white cloth.

Before Shadow could extract blood from his tongue, they took the cloth and wrapped it around his mouth. It had prevented him to do anymore damage to himself. Afterwards he began to struggle through the straps that held him down onto the table.

The specialists shook their heads slowly and stared at how he was yelling through the cloth that was around his mouth. They all looked down at him with sympathetic looks.

"He's finally gone mad…"

"So he belongs here after all…"

"I feel bad for his kid…"

As Shadow heard their comments, he couldn't help but to shed more tears. 'Why do I have to suffer so much?'

Later, Sarah had arrived at the asylum and was following a specialist down the long narrow bright white hallway full of inmates. As Sarah looked around she could see half of the inmates talking to themselves.

"It's a surprise to see you here, Mayor Wish", the specialist spoke while he was leading her down the hallway.
She tried her hardest to look away from the crazed inmates. "I only came here to see Shadow The Hedgehog."

"Oh? I don't know if now is the best time. Earlier we caught him trying to kill himself. We had to take extreme precautions and move him to the suicide watch area."

The fox gasped in shock from his words, "…What?"

"Now we have to keep a close eye out for him in case he tries to pull more dangerous stunts."

She then watched him walk up to a huge steel door and type in numbers on a key panel on the side of the door. Once the door had opened, they both continued to walk down a bigger hallway with less yet even bigger cells. She was finally brought to a huge cell that had a clean white floor, ceiling, and walls. The room was bright so you could see everything clearly. Her eyes widened as she looked inside of the big cell and saw a black and red hedgehog. He sitting on the floor with his back against the wall near the huge clear glass that was the entrance to the cell. She gasped at the sight of him wearing a white straitjacket and looking away from the entrance of the cell. "My God…", she murmured.

The specialist had typed in a certain number on control panel to the cell so she and Shadow could talk. Afterwards, he turned to her. "I'm afraid I can only allow you to talk to him for a short period of time. We still have to run more tests on him."

Shadow's ears twitched as he heard him speak to Sarah but he never turned his head to face them.

"That's fine", she spoke coldly. When she saw him walk away from her, she turned to the hedgehog and kneeled down to the floor. "Shadow", she called softly. "It's me Sarah. Sarah Wish."

It took him awhile to respond to her as he was still lost in his thoughts. "…Sarah?" He spoke in a low and hoarse tone.

The yellow fox made a small nod, "Yes."

"…Are you…here to get me out?" He asked in a murmur.

Her eyes traveled down to the floor, "…No."

"…Why?"

Her eyes focused back to him even though he wasn't looking at her. "Because I can't do a thing unless I can prove that you're not guilty of your crime. Though…I guess we can all say that you are indeed guilty…"

"…You heard?"

"Yes. Shadow?" She called in a low tone. "…Why did you do that to Rouge? You knew damn well that was wrong of you. When I first heard about what you did, I was shocked and kept thinking what everyone was saying was a lie."

"Well…it wasn't. I love Rouge and I couldn't bear to let her go."

"Shadow, I know that you love her but you had no right to dig up her grave and defile her body. You think Rouge would appreciate that kind of behavior from you at all?" Afterwards she noticed that Shadow had paused for awhile taking in what she had just said.

"…Sarah?"

"Yes, Shadow?" She soon watched the hedgehog finally face her with his miserable expression.

"…I need to get out of here."

The fox sighed sadly and couldn't bring herself to look into his blood red eyes. "Shadow, I wish I could get you out of here but unfortunately this is way out of my control. You'll have to stay here until I can think of something." She suddenly heard him groaning like he was in pain. "…Shadow?"

"I…I feel so weak…I can barely move my body…"

"What?" She had a bad feeling that something was seriously wrong with him. She decided to call one of the specialists. "Hey!" She spun around and one of the specialists was standing beside her.

"I'm sorry Mayor Wish, but your time is up. We must take him now…"

"Hold on!" She spat, "What's going on with him? He's barely moved his body ever since I began talking to him!"

"Oh?" He looked over to the weak black and red hedgehog and pointed at the white strait jacket he was wearing. "Do you see that jacket he's wearing? If you look closer, you'll see thin light blue lines around the arms of it."

The fox looked harder and could now clearly see the lines. "Yes what about them?"

"Well since Shadow isn't like the others here, we had to make a special jacket to drain his Chaos energy so he won't have the power to destroy anything…including himself if he wanted to", he had explained.

Shadow had heard what he said and was baffled from all of it.

Her eyes widened from his answer. "What? Well isn't there another way to do that? He looks sick." She watched him shake his head.

"I'm afraid not. All we can do is force him to eat to keep his strength up."

She watched as he walked over to the control panel near the cell and push buttons to open the cell door. She then saw him turn to her.

"We'll take everything from here, Miss Wish."

She had then given him a cold glare. "…Take care of him." She then turned her back and began to walk out of the hallway with both of her fists clenched. 'Damn it, Shadow!' She thought. 'You helped me with the whole Itsuki thing…now I have to return the favor…'

A/N:

Demitri: So, what's the plan now?

Fakir: Everything will turn out perfectly after all...

Demitri:...What do you want to accomplish in all of this?

Fakir: If you asked me, I think that damn hedgehog deserve to suffer in that nuthouse.

Sarah: You are really pissing me off....