It was February 4th, 2019, and Honest's day started off strange. Well, not strange...

Scary.

It all started when Honest woke up at 4 am. She switched off her alarm and turned over.

Suddenly it began to go off again. She rolled back over and glanced at her phone.

Now it was 4:30. Thirty minutes had just passed within the span of a second.

Honest did her normal morning activities: worked on her upcoming song cover, got dressed, and ate peach oatmeal. However, when she looked up at the clock and expected to see that it had just become 6 am, it said...

6:40.

Honest then brushed her hair at lightning speed and ran out to the bus.

For some reason Cream was getting on at that bus stop today. Strange.

Halfway to school, Honest's MP3 player, which had been on the charger all weekend, suddenly began to flash "Low Battery". It had went from four bars to zero in twenty minutes.

When Honest arrived at the school, Dina wasn't waiting for her. Honest saw Akane walk past, but she acted like she hadn't seen her. Honest started walking along the path her and Dina usually walked together in the mornings. The campus seemed incredibly vacant as she walked along. When her and Dina were there together, they had to dodge people as they walked, but today there was nobody except for an angry-looking porcupine man carrying a stack of paper.

When she entered the fine arts building, the door to the art room was wide open and the light was on as if it were beckoning her inside.

When Honest walked into the room, however, the normal residents were there and moving around. None of them looked at her, but then again no one had ever looked at her or Dina before.

What happened to Dina? Normally Honest would simply accept that she was sick today or had a doctor's appointment, but this was Dina we were talking about. Dina only gets sick if I, the author, say she will. Her not coming to school for any other reason was something to worry about.

When the clock on her phone read "8:19", Honest started travelling in the direction of her first period class. Now, there were plenty of people out and about. The whole campus wasn't deserted like she had thought. Good.

When Honest went to go into the classroom, a badger girl was standing outside the doorway. It was Sticks. She looked confused.

"Do you know what's going on?" she asked Honest as she approached.

"What do you mean?" Honest asked, just as confused.

"Where is everybody? Have they all been abducted? Or maybe they've all been taken in as test subjects for some strange experiment being conducted by GUN?"

Honest kind of wanted to tell her about the things that had happened to her this morning, but then she remembered who she was talking to.

"I think it's early," Honest told her, narrowing her eyes. She fished around in her backpack until she found her smartphone. It said "8:24". Honest showed the panicked badger girl her findings.

"Oh," Sticks breathed, trying to calm herself down. "You see, I left my phone in Amy's car, and I had no idea what the time was, so I just went to class, and when I didn't see anyone here, I kind of, sort of freaked out. But just a little bit!"

"Uh, huh," Honest said, pushing past her and into the classroom. She sat at her computer, immediately logged in, and went to work on her fan fiction.

Honest walked to second period as fast as she could like usual. It was then that she realized just how warm and humid it was. Hadn't she trudged through a blizzard Wednesday of last week? It had only been six days since then. What happened?

Anyway, in second period she typed, well, this. She also worked on interpreting all that Scourge had experienced last week and translating it into English.

Honest wished that she had time to type some other period of the day so that she could get everything typed up before she forgot it, but that was impossible... any other day. Today, Dina wasn't here so instead of talking to her all period... Honest could type! Or maybe she couldn't seeing as though she had something to work on for that class. They were editing a dumb picture of a boat in Photoshop (or Photohog if that bothers you). Borrriiing. She'll just have to try remembering everything tomorrow morning.

Shadow had gone home early that day because he wasn't feeling well, so Honest was alone as she returned home that afternoon. She got off the bus and walked up Snow's long driveway, listening to a peaceful Hatsune Miku song called "Sleeping Forest Night" and taking her time. Once at the house, Honest slipped in through the front door and was met with a strange sight.

The leader of a society of aliens that lived on a comet somewhere deep in outer space was standing, er, floating in the middle of Snow's living room.

"I heard you were feeling a bit unwell. You don't look to be heaving out your insides."

Shadow was standing there with his arms crossed. "I was, but I'm feeling a lot better now, Dad. Thanks for checking up on me, though."

Honest slowly lifted her jaw from the floor and approached them. Shadow saw her and rolled his eyes. "Oh, hey Honest."

"Hey, uh, Mr. Black Doom," Honest greeted him, unsure.

He turned to her with the most friendly expression he could muster. "Oh, please, just call me Doom."

Suddenly, Honest fainted and fell onto the wooden floor with a thump.

"H-Honest!?" Shadow exclaimed, his eyes immediately widening as he dove to check on her. Her heart was beating, albeit very quickly. He looked up at Black Doom.

"See what you did, Dad? Here, let's bring her to the kitchen. I know what will wake her up."

The hedgehog and the alien (except, well, technically they're both aliens) were able to move Honest to the kitchen where they then propped her up in one of the bar stools. Shadow went and fished around in one of the cabinets above the toaster.

Back in the main room, the front door was parted slowly. Black Doom looked towards it curiously. A white hedgehog then squeezed through it and skipped across the room. He saw the dark, demonic alien creature immediately and his whole expression brightened. "Oh! Grandpa Doom! I didn't know you were coming to visit today!"

Meanwhile, Shadow was waving a chocolate chip cookie under Honest's nose. She then responded by reaching up, grabbing it, and devouring it in a flurry of crumbs. The blond cat girl sat up. "I have no clue why I passed out like that," she said, smiling.

"Do you want to see what I drew at school?" Silver asked Black Doom.

He nodded and Silver withdrew his artwork from his backpack and unrolled it so that he could see. It was an extremely colorful, simple drawing of Silver, Blaze, Shadow, Black Doom, Maria, and Doctor Eggman standing in a green field surrounded by trees covered in confetti.

When Honest looked over and saw Silver's drawing, she got out of the chair and walked away. "I'm going to go do some thinking."

Honest called Blaze on the phone and told her to come over. Eventually she got Blaze, Shadow, Black Doom, and Silver all sitting together in the living room of Snow's house.

Honest was standing in front of the CRT TV sitting on the entertainment center with her eyes closed. She let out a long breath.

"So," she said, opening her eyes in front of the two hedgehogs, cat, and alien overlord. "You guys call yourself a family."

They all nodded except for Shadow. He rolled his eyes. "Takashi Iizuka said that Silver isn't my son."

"Yeah, well, he was also the person who said Wisps defined Sonic," Blaze pointed out.

Silver waved his arms and swung his legs so fast he almost fell off the couch they were all sitting on. "I can't forget the sound of my own father!" he yelled.

"But I'm bound to change voice actors at least once more before your time period in the near future," Shadow pointed out. "You're point is invalid."

Honest saw that she wasn't getting anywhere and walked to a bookshelf where she then pulled out a white sketchbook. She flipped through its pages until she found a chart. She showed the chart to them before giving it to Black Doom and telling him to pass it around.

"I drew this family tree one day when I was bored. As you can see, the chart is as follows: The Professor and Doom joined their DNA to create Shadow. He then begat Silver in some way yet to be revealed. The generation between the Professor and Doom is missing, but the Doctor and Maria are either step siblings or cousins. That would make Shadow the uncle of Maria and Doctor Eggman, and Silver their cousin. And Blaze is..."

"My best friend!" Silver exclaimed.

"Y-Yeah," Honest said.

"Anyway," she said, sighing. "You are a family, just... a strange one. Also, Silver, you are half black alien."

"Woo!" he yelled. "Except I'm silver, not black," he pointed out, literally pointing to himself afterwards.

Honest tapped her chin in thought. "Yeah, you're right. Your mother must be white. That's the only explanation."

It didn't take a genius to realize who was the only white, female character.

"Are you saying Silver's mother is Rouge?" Shadow asked, his face devoid of color.

"It could always be a character yet to be introduced," Honest said, shrugging. She then made a scary face. "I'm mostly white and orange-"

Suddenly Shadow was out of the room and the door slammed behind him. A picture on the wall swung back and forth from the force caused by the door slamming.

Honest sighed once more, looking dejected. Suddenly Silver was at her side.

"It's okay, Honest. It's more possible for Rouge to be my mother since she's a canon character, but I still consider you family far more than I do Rouge," he told her.

Honest smiled. "Thank you, Silver. After all, a family isn't defined by their blood connections. They're more... spiritual connections, you know?"

Silver looked like he was very confused for a second. "Hey, Blaze?"

The mauve cat looked up from where she was studying the family tree that Honest had drawn up.

"Is she right?" he asked her. Blaze didn't even hesitate.

"Of course, Silver. You're still just so naive."

Thanks for reading this chapter. See you in the next part.