"W...What should we do?" Sonic asked. He was knocked backwards onto what was left of the wooden floor.

Amy sat up beside him and rubbed the side of her head. "Everyone fell down..."

Sonic suddenly looked at her, his eyes wide. Amy stared back.

...

"It looks like we're alone together, Sonikku..." Amy said, fluttering her eyes.

The dust from the sudden collapse of the floor eventually settled and a shape was revealed on the other side of the hole from them.

"It looks as if the subfloor is rotten..." Shadow noted, crouched by the edge of the hole.

A voice whispered behind him. "Get out..."

"Or perhaps it was that voice..."

Sonic looked over Amy's shoulder. "Uh, Amy?"

Amy huffed and turned around to see what he was seeing. "What?" she said angrily.

Spotting Shadow there, the fuschia rodent sighed. "Of course."

"Heeey! Rosy! Blaze!" Amy yelled over the edge. Since her moment alone with Sonic was compromised now, Amy's priorities changed.

"Uh... let's go check those stairs," Sonic said. He pointed to a set of stairs going down behind them.

Amy glanced down the stairs. "I don't remember there being a lower level."

"Shadow, you can come, too!" Sonic pulled Shadow with them. The Ultimate Lifeform just blinked and allowed himself to be tugged. He wanted to go down after the people who had fallen (though mostly just Honest), but perhaps the stairs were safer.

Meanwhile, below...

"Ouch..." Blaze complained, rubbing the back of her head. There was a cloud of dust settling around her. Rosy popped up in front of her.

"Rosy! Are you okay?" The cat questioned, concerned. The hedgehog was on her hands and knees.

Rosy nodded her head. "Somehow."

"Cough! Cough!"

Honest was spitting to get dust out of her mouth while Infinite was coughing up a storm on his knees beside her. "Pleh! Pleh! There's so much dust..." Honest choked out. The fall was nothing. It was the dust of the collapsed floor above them that bothered her.

When the dust finally parted, Blaze saw Honest's tail and was relieved. "There you guys are! So we all fell together, huh?"

Rosy shook her head. "No, we didn't." She pointed up above them at the hole in the ceiling. "Amy, Sonic, and Shadow didn't fall."

"I want to find everyone and get out of here as soon as possible!" Blaze exclaimed, frightened since they were now separated from Amy, whom she had used for a Mobian shield all this time.

"I'm not sure if I could feel safe knowing all this is below the club room," Honest said, looking around. "We should continue to explore, don't you think?"

"But... that voice from earlier said for us to 'leave'. If the ghost wants us to leave, then I think we should," Blaze said.

"That's ridiculous!" Infinite exclaimed, standing up abruptly. "I won't believe it's a ghost!" Honest didn't argue with him. After all, his fierceness might be all she needed to get them to continue exploring the lower levels. "It must be one of that idiot Shadow's tricks."

Infinite shot a fierce, angry look at Honest. "I can get the fact that Honest is, like, a god or something... well I can't... but ghosts are the one thing I absolutely refuse to believe in."

"Infinite?" Honest said in a questioning way. Either he didn't get that it was a question, or he was choosing to ignore her as the next thing the jackal did was push past Blaze.

"Alright. Let's get going because we're violating the school's rules by being here."

The center hallway split in two eventually, but the group didn't have to decide which way to go because Infinite made the decision for them, heading right. This hallway was a mess. Not even twenty feet to the right and their surroundings suddenly took a sharp turn for the worst. This hallway was quite literally falling apart- and nothing at all like where they had traveled before falling down a story. Perhaps this floor was older than the rest of the building. If it was on the verge of collapse, maybe the rest of the building was impacted structurally as well. Honest had to admit that was kind of worrying seeing as though her club room could be on the topmost floor of a doomed building. Honest was knocked out of her thoughts by a screaming Blaze.

"What's wrong now, Blaze?" Honest asked, beginning to lose patience. This screaming thing was getting old.

"J-Just now..." the purple princess said, her teeth chattering. "I think I heard a piano."

"Huh? A piano?" Rosy asked. Suddenly the rest of them heard it, too. It was a familiar tune like something from Sonic 2006 but slowed way, way down. That was when Honest and Infinite spotted it- a music room down the hall.

"Th-There isn't a ghost in there, right Infy?" Honest didn't want to check.

"Of course not!" Infinite exclaimed.

"W-What if you checked to make sure...?"

"Why me? I'm... crippled," He pointed to the side of his mask without the eyehole.

"Well Blaze is most terrified of ghosts and I'm sure Rosy is equally as-"

"Who is it?" Rosy asked, pushing the door open immediately. She opened it without any hesitation whatsoever.

"Nevermind," Honest said, huffing. Infinite's mouth was agape, though no one knew but him due to his mask.

"Hm? Oh, no one's here," Rosy spoke calmly. There was one punctured drum to the left of the door and assorted shelving to the right. The piano they had been hearing was in the center of the room, its worn seat vacant.

"Th-There's no one there?!" Honest's frightened exclamation could be heard from the hallway behind the rose hedgehog. "That's proof it's a ghost, then!"

All the hairs on the back of Infinite's neck stood up upon seeing the piano's seat empty. I won't admit it, I won't admit it, I will not admit that such a thing exists!

Amy, Sonic, and Shadow had been about to head down a set of stairs to the lower level, but they had gotten distracted and now it was too dark to see. It must've been well past eight by then.

"Uh... where are those stairs that go down again?" Sonic asked, squinting.

Amy was trying to stick close to Sonic so they couldn't get separated as easily. "I don't know. It's way too dark. I think we lost them."

That was when she noticed the red glow behind her and jumped. It was two eyes... Shadow's eyes. He was looking around, appearing to be able to see just fine in the poor lighting of what bits of the moon shone through the windows. Most of the windows were obscured by worn fabric and let no light through at all.

"Shadow? Is there something wrong?"

Shadow sighed and looked down the long hallway. "It's nothing. I just got a strange feeling."

Sonic turned around when he heard a loud sound. There was a desk on its side in the hallway. It was suddenly alive and spazzing out, making a ton of noise. Shadow turned his head when he saw a bunch of books and paper strewn about on the floor immediately begin flying up into the air and circling over their heads.

"Aaaah!" Amy screamed, ducking.

"It's a poltergeist!" Sonic exclaimed, pointing up at the circling objects.

Shadow saw a ruler and a blue pencil case come flying towards him as if they were aimed purposefully at him. He jumped up and charged some sort of green energy in his hands.

Sonic and Amy noticed this as the start of a battle, so Amy pulled out her hammer and Sonic readied his fists.

Sending out a barrage of small bolts of Chaos, Shadow was able to pin each one of these objects to the walls so that they could not longer be used against them by the ghost. Landing, Shadow glared down the hallway.

"What are you? How about you show yourself?"

...But now everything was still. The presence disappeared.

"Spirits aren't something I really believe in, but I need to thoroughly check this building so I can know for sure that Honest and our club is going to be safe here."

At this point, Amy and Sonic had already deemed that they weren't needed. Shadow felt another presence now as the two other hedgehogs began to approach him. "Hm?"

"You handled that pretty well, Shadow!" Amy told him, smiling.

"They were just flying school supplies..."

Sonic chuckled softly and elbowed him in the side gently. "And you handled it pretty quickly, too. I'm impressed." Shadow "pft"ed and started walking again.

"Who says I ever aimed to impress anyone? Much less you."

"Yeah, I wasn't really impressed. I was just completely in awe."

For a moment, Shadow stopped.

"Faker."

"'Faker'? Are calling me a liar? 'Cause, if anything, I'm being Honest. Super Honest."

"D-Don't use her name all willy nilly like that. Don't just throw it around haphazardly. It has meaning."

"Alright, then. Call me Frank."

Shadow turned around. "F-'Frank'?"

Sonic crossed his arms and tapped his foot. "Well, uh, maybe not, but-"

"Hey!" Amy yelled, bringing her hammer between them. "Step away from my Sonikku, mister broody-pants!"

Shadow didn't try to fight her and immediately backed up. "Whatever you say." He avoided looking at Sonic and turned around. As they continued walking down the hallway, Sonic kept his eyes glued to Shadow while he led them from a distance.

Why didn't he feel the same mischievous feeling Shadow usually gave him? Now all he could do was watch him solemnly. His heart felt heavy. Maybe it was the atmosphere of the building getting to him. "We need to find the others and get out of here."

"Woah, woah, woah. What happened to the whole 'Any excuse to see Shadow here crying over squeaking floors and bats' thing you said earlier?" Amy asked.

Oh. That. "That was before we all got separated and it turned out the ghost was real." Then he noticed Amy getting that hopeful look on her face. "But I must keep my word! Let's keep exploring this floor." He began to lead them further down the hallways instead of towards the front where he had seen the stairs leading down. "Hey. This old science lab looks especially creepy. The floors have got to be squeakier in there."

Oh, wow! This segment needs three chapters! :O This makes Honesty is the Best Policy history! I could probably go on, but these chapters are getting dangerously long. Like, I felt as if I were seeing red flashing lights while I was typing it. (0n0;) Anyway, I hope you're enjoying this despite its length, and I hope to find you reading the next part! \"(^ワ^)/'