The hedgehog duo trek through the twisted tunnels that contained all number of things crammed to the walls and ceiling with stretches of silk. The Spirit alongside him was quiet, a calming smile etched along his muzzle as he floats cross-legged, matching pace with Sonic's gait.
While the passages lacked light, his companion had an ethereal glow to him from the patterns on his clothes and his body that guided them as the sounds of strings thrummed in the distance at a slow even chord, barely a change in tune from each note that took place.
The items around them were all commonplace for the theater they had to be under. How far under was another question, one that the hedgie wanted to answer only by leaving the dungeon he found himself in. Papers, background sets, props were positioned at their sides with no rhyme or reason to them, but all depicted a depressing fate for their owners.
Upon a closer look to those sets, from a brighter glow from the lighter male, faceless shadows were presented in harrowing scenes, like madness had gripped the painters as they went to work. A faceless evil trapping helpless people clawing their way to escape outside the paintings, all of them were like that.
Just with a new face being dragged into the void of hands and sharp claws, delicate webbing wrapped around their necks like an awaiting noose being tightened.
"H-how are you supposed to help me with him? Envy, I-I mean?" Sonic stutters, trying to take his fraying nerves away from such a perilous doom. A familiar cold seemed to cling to him the more he stares at the imagined scenes.
They were just fiction, right?
Then why did that sinking feeling settle at the pit of his stomach?
When his green eyes once again pinned the floating male, a rush of warmth relaxed him, that cold washing away. It was brought to his attention how familiar this person was, he had to be someone he knew in reality for him to be here, and yet...
The name.
The face.
All was lost on him. It was on the edge of his tongue, but so far away from his mind.
The grey male hums, a soft sound escaping his lips before he stops the mortal by his side with a glowing cyan palm. "I'm like the secret weapon in this fight." He states a giddy smile on his lips before that palm turns away to point at the tunnel before them. "I see on a different plane than you, one that even your Envy can not comprehend."
The glow of his body, his extended finger lights up the path, lavender strands of webbing decorating the tunnel like the all the rest, highlighted with that particular glow.
But it was what came with the color, the light, that was frightening to the blue hedgehog. Two husks collapsed on either side of the walkway, twitching and mumbling under their breath. They were devoid of emotion, but Sonic could tell, it was the people in those few paintings, matching threads surrounding their necks.
No longer gallows nooses, but collars, like security dogs waiting for trespassers to approach.
Sonic shivers, placing a hand to his throat in visible disgust, his already fraying nerves taking a turn for the worse.
Spirit frowns suddenly, his head tilting in his direction. "I can only help, but it will have to be you who learns and grows from this experience. To defeat Envy is your goal." His hand tightens into a fist, the strands following suit and tying the two emotionless beings to the sides of the tunnel, along the wall.
Neither stirring from their rest.
"Come along mortal." The king piece murmurs, once more flowing past the cerulean hedgie, his light retreating after him as he moves forward, no care towards the restrained husks.
Sonic clenches his hands, jogging to catch up, a small bit of hesitation in his eyes as he looks cautiously at the sentries. On closer inspection, they had features, features that displayed sadness and pain that they could not voice. Tear tracks that glistened with their freshness, even with their eyes as hollow as they were.
Their mumblings comprised of lines of various plays and movies.
'I was never in a movie though.' He whispers in his head, trying to make sense where he had heard these lines before. He feels a stinging pain above his eye as he glares at the ground between his feet, gritting his teeth in frustration.
"Hey," A voice coos lightly, "Relax, you'll unlock your memories in due time. You can't rush a stream, just as you can't force what you don't have just yet." Spirit hums, a glowing palm resting over his closed eyes, drowning the sting he felt. When he opened them again, the Spirit was turning back towards him.
Although he could not see the colored eyes that followed behind that blindfold, he knew they were locked with his. With an exhaled breath leaving his heavy chest, the blue male catches up, ears flicking when he heard the bodies settle back in their previous position.
"They're all like that, aren't they?" Sonic questions, his face screwed up in pity at their fate. His emerald orbs never leaving the ground in front of him as he follows the bright glow of his companion. "They don't have anything left in them. Like-" He huffs defeatedly, "Like he didn't steal just their looks, but their souls too."
Spirit folds his hands together in his lap, muzzle facing forward and back straight as he listened to the sinner with empathetic control.
The azul hedgehog stops in his tracks, facing the king piece at his side. His ears pin back against his quills in worry. "I'll end up like that. Soon. Won't I?" His hand reaches back to his neck, touching the sensitive column with barely shaking fingers. "He stole my looks, he was talking about energy, my energy in my legs," His quills rattle when he shakes his head, "His legs."
"Do you want the truth?" The ivory male draped in teal whispers, tone revealing nothing, but did not settle the coldness running up the other's spine.
A pause, only the sound of an eerie violin reached their ears, growing in volume in the time they had walked.
The glow softly traveled from ahead of them, from unseen center to the catacomb and crawled slowly up Sonic's body before hanging between his fingers, his neck was wrapped in this hidden thread.
His noose.
Waiting to be pulled.