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Vegetass - Thank you so much! Like, I can't express how much that means to me! That prologue took me FOREVER to write. Now, there's just a whole bunch of random, unused concepts for it chillin' in my drafts. (And no, I am, very surprisingly, not a god. Or at least I don't think so...)

Note: For anyone wondering, I've finally got an upload schedule! *cheers in nerd* Expect another chapter every 2 weeks or so!

Unknown Remembrance

The morning sun danced in and out of the palm leaves, its rays flooding me with warmth. I rolled over, reveling in the heat of the air around me. It was so different from Crisis City, whose humid, smoky air lay like a thick smog over the ground. This world, this warmth, it was...almost comforting; a soft blanket of sunshine.

My eyes fluttered open, and I held a hand up to block the sun. Squinting through the misty air, I froze, transfixed by the sky. The sunrise was breathtakingly beautiful...like the clouds themselves burned with flames. The bright scarlet blazed into gold, mixing with the small pieces of indigo night. A sky on fire.

With a grunt, I forced myself up, back leaning against the scratchy wood of the palm tree. Every fiber of my being ached. I didn't know what fighting a giant fire god did to a hedgehog, but it sure didn't feel so great.

I stretched for a bit and looked around the beach. It was still deserted, save for a few scavenging birds near the shoreline. They circled in the air, squawking as they dove into the salty sea below. The sun, the sky, the birds... It reminded me of another place, another time.

xxx

"They're called seagulls," Blaze had explained, pointing at a white bird overhead. We were sitting on a wooden dock on the outskirts of Soleanna, simply watching the ocean. I hadn't realized just how huge it really was until I had came to Sonic's world. Blaze seemed to, though.

"The birds will circle their prey and then skim the top of the water to catch it."

Sure enough, one of the gulls swooped down, stopped just on the surface the ocean, and snatched a small fish with its beak. The thing shrieked happily before flapping its wings again and soaring off into the sky.

"That's...mildly interesting," I said, resting a chin on my fist and faking a serious expression.

Blaze looked back at me, eyes narrowed. "Don't you mock me."

I snorted and nudged her a little. She laughed, ponytail swaying in the breeze.

"You know we're on a serious mission here, right?"

"Yeah, but I still like to get a smile out of you every now and then."

She just shook her head and kept smiling. I really did like that smile, it made her whole face light up. Chaos, she was beautiful.

"No, it's actually pretty cool how they dive down like that," I admitted. As annoying as their noises were, the birds were still pretty impressive. Like loud, whiny, little angels. "How do you know so much about seagulls anyways?"

She bowed her head, ears closing in a bit. The light in her golden eyes faded. Did I say something wrong?

"We should...probably get going now."

The air seemed colder as she stood up, stern-faced and stiff. I followed suit.

The gulls' squawking rang in my mind the whole way back to town.

xxx

I never did ask her what happened that day. I should have.

I kept watching the gulls for a few minutes, their white feathers nothing more than a silhouette against the rising sun. The temperature started to rise, signal of a new day dawning. I tried to keep my questions at bay while I strolled along the waterline, kicking the occasional shell out into the sea. I just wanted to enjoy the peace before I had to face whatever was in hold for me now, but for some reason, I just couldn't let myself.

"What are you going to do now now that you're on your own?"

The question was a nagging voice in my head. Anxiety. Doubt. Fear. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't seem to block it out. It happened all too often. "Shut up."

"After all that effort, did you even end up saving the world from doom?"

I kicked another shell out into the water. I hated not knowing. And I hated the way I couldn't let myself stop thinking about it. Tearing my eyes from the ocean, I thought back to last night's promise. I needed answers. Knowing where to even get them, that was the problem.

"Blaze would know what to do."

A grimace etched its way into my features. She would. She always did. Blaze was just like that. My vision blurred, teardrops welling up in my eyes. I hadn't been able to save her. Now I was alone. It's my fault. It's all my fault. She should have been here with me.

I looked up at the distorted sky, pushing down my feelings. She would have liked this sunrise. I could almost hear her soft voice calling me naive.

"But I've always liked that about you."

Desperately, I clung to the hope that she was still out there somewhere. I knew it was foolish, but it's what kept me going. Sometimes I questioned if it was Blaze that had kept me going all along. Probably.

I kept walking.

As the minutes passed, the morning sun rose slowly over the water, casting its beams on the world below. I had ruled out going into the dense brush at the edge of the beach, being that there was no clear path through it. So instead, I strolled along the shoreline, not sure where I was going, but needing something to do to feel productive.

My boots crunched against the wet sand, each step slightly clearing my head. I was grateful; I needed to be alert and ready, not wallowing in has-happeneds.

Eventually, the beach faded, white sand giving way to a rocky shore. Dark, water-worn boulders jutted out of the sea. Rays of sunlight bounced off their faces, shining eerily in the light fog. Heavy waves crested and crashed against their surfaces, the ringing sound vibrating through the air. A sheer, rocky cliff overlooked the shore, its emerald moss practically gleaming in the sunlight. The whistling and chirping of the birds above became louder as the day moved forward, the creatures of this place beginning to wake.

As I moved forward, the watery spaces between them became almost too far for me to cross on foot. I looked up at the mossy rocks, and chill ran down my spine. The boulders...they seemed almost...unnatural. Too...perfect

I stopped at a particularly large one, placing my hand on its rough, wet surface. A few bits flaked off, carried towards the sea by the gentle, salty breeze. Looking closer at the cracks, I noticed how perfectly they were aligned; it was freakishly grid-like. I traced one with my finger, following it to the next.

Were they...walls?

Confusion racked my brain. I need a better look at this...a higher viewpoint.

My powers.

Stepping back, I let out a sigh. It was all about focus, quite simple if done right, but disastrous if done wrong. The patterns on my gloves and bracelets shone with cyan as I concentrated on what I wanted to do. Three words came to mind.

"Breathe." Steady and even. Slow, but not forced; calm.

"Will." I focused on my form. Every quill, every fold of fabric, I knew where it was. I pictured what I wanted to happen. I prepared for how I would control it.

"Execute."

I let out a burst of psychic energy, the air around me vibrating with the shock. I hovered, hands glowing, as the aura lifted my higher above the sea. I grinned a little, despite the circumstances. No matter how many times I did it, the feeling of being able to just...defy gravity...it always got me.

The ground below faded together into a mass of slate and green. Looking forward, the rest of the area was covered in the decrepit ruins. Some rose hundreds of feet high, having blended in with the cliff from where I was standing a moment ago. Some were rounded, points spiraling towards the sky. They looked to all be part of the same, huge structure.

A weird sense of deja vu came over me, almost like a grieving sadness. Folding my arms, I floated there for a few seconds, watching as the tides washed over the stones below. I couldn't figure out why it seemed so familiar.

I dropped down to one of the drier parts of the structure. Pillars rose above my head and into the mist above, a broken pathway cutting between them. Pieces of crumbling concrete littered the floor, most likely some sort of collapsed roof. An air of regality surround the place; it had obviously belonged to someone important at one point. The claps of my wet footsteps echoed through the hall as the water lapped around the bottom of my boots. The further I went, the stronger the sense of dread became. Yet for some reason I felt just as inclined, if not more, to continue making my way through the flooded ruins.

I descended down a marble staircase and into it's vault, eventually resorting to using my powers to cast light on the walls. Strangely enough, the water was barely any deeper here. Endless tunnels led off the main branch and were swallowed by the darkness of a place long abandoned. The rotting smell of mildew filled the cavernous underground, where decaying portraits and other adornments lay discarded on the floors. Glass lights were shattered, hanging from rusting wires. Ornate vases and carved stone benches sat crumbling in the endless dark. The silence here was so thick that not even the sounds of the waves above could penetrate it.

The closer I came to the heart of the complex, the more I felt that strange sense of familiarity. Curiosity bubbled up in my mind. It seemed as if I knew which turns to take, where each path led and which one would take me to wherever it was that I was going. Like I was on auto-pilot. (Blaze would use that phrase when I was zoning out. It tended to happen more often than I would like to admit.)

How I knew what to do, I wasn't sure. It worried me a little.

I...should turn back. There's no telling how much disturbance these walls can handle. And there's obviously no one left down here.

Doubt. It was a reasonable concern, but I still felt that weird sort of remembrance; it kept pulling me forward. Curiosity could really be a bit of a curse sometimes. Though, a part of me questioned whether this was just curiosity or something more.

So, I followed it.

The winding stone tunnels turned to metal as I plummeted even further into the depths of the ruins. I could see now why the water level hadn't risen here, there were metal grates on the floor acting as drains. I wasn't sure what they were originally supposed to be for, but I assumed it wasn't this.

All the more reason to question just what exactly this place was.

What felt like miles later, the steel columns came to an abrupt end, a corroded electronic gateway closing off the rest of the corridor. A metal sliding door and touchscreen entry dock lay in my path, both damaged from years of neglect. Something in the back of my mind caused me to pause here, as if there were things beyond the doorway that I'd rather not remember. I backed away, not bothering to hide the stiffness of the motion.

I breathed out a heavy sigh, the noise echoing in the stale air around me.

My heart was beating way faster than it should have been. The room felt much colder than I knew it was.

Why am I so worried?

"I'll be fine. There is no reason to be panicked. It's fine," I didn't believe myself. "I'm fine."

Teeth gritted, I pried the doors open with my psychokinesis, letting the light of it illuminate the room below.

All at once, I finally understood why this place seemed so eerily familiar.

A broken, tarnished metal platform wrapped around the walls, overlooking the wreckage of the pit below. Everything was dusted in a dark ash, but I knew what was underneath. The smoke from so long ago still lingered, and I could make out the vague shape of a centerpiece. A twisted, misguided experiment gone wrong.

"...Kingdom Valley..." The words were flat, emotionless.

"The Solaris Project..."

My mind took over. I was no longer standing above a chamber filled with wreckage. It was filled with light. Fire. The explosions. The debris and shock that pinned people to the floor. The screams that stole the victims' last breaths. The split being in the center escaping into the comfort of dark.

And the Duke.

He was wrapped over his daughter, shielding her from his own creation. Shards of glass embedded themselves into his back, tearing his robe to shreds.

I had thought he was dead. But he held out long enough to bestow one last gift to his beloved Elise. One that he had hoped to never burden anyone with. One so strong that if it were to be released, it would destroy the world.

Chaos Emerald suspended above her, Elise became the vessel for Iblis. The King's face, his expression was so pained, so guilt-ridden I could hardly bear to watch. His voice wavered as he performed the sealing ritual. His daughter lay limp and helpless on the marble slab as the time-bomb was set.

And his final words.

He collapsed to the ground, tears streaming down his cheeks. A gentle hand stroked his dear Elise while the last of his life faded. He entrusted her to me, his last request. Weak and fatally wounded, the Duke of Soleanna said his final goodbye.

"Remember, be brave," his eyes smiled as the light left them.

"And..."

"Live..."

"Happily."

I snapped back to the present, noticing now that I had backed away from the room. A thousand questions bombarded my head, pounding with the force of a jackhammer. My surroundings became an indistinct blur of gray. How was this here? Hadn't that past been erased?

"What in Chaos' name..."

WHERE ON MOBIUS AM I?