5 YEARS LATER

An uncomfortable wind blew through the graveyard, enveloping the flat stones rising out of the dark green grass with its cold arms. A fox and a pink hedgehog broke up the depressing monotony of this environment, standing before one of these stones. A name was engraved on the stone: Sonic the Hedgehog.

"It's been five years, hasn't it." Tails said quietly. In his hands he held a bouquet of sober white flowers.

"We haven't forgotten about you Sonic. And we never will." Amy said affectionately.

"These five years without you have been very long Sonic. I don't think I'll ever be the same." Tails said.

Tails crouched and laid down the bouquet on Sonic's grave. A melancholic expression rose to his face, and he was unable to stand up immediately. Tails stood up… Or at least, he tried to, until he noticed that something cold and hard was pressed against the back of his head.

"Indeed, these five years have been very, very long." A voice said behind him.

"Amy? What are you doing?" Tails asked with a shaky voice.

"You know damn well what I'm doing, Tails. I'm done waiting. I gave you five years to live. You should be grateful for that. I should've killed you five years ago. Back when you murdered everyone I loved!"

"Amy, what are you talking about? You know that Charmy was convicted for those murders, right?"

"Because you framed him! Because the police wanted an easy answer! I knew it was all way too damn convenient. The murderer was someone we never saw, using a weapon that was never found, and then also turned out to be dead afterwards? And did you seriously believe that anyone would just leave a pile of forged wills on their desk? That's like asking for someone to find them!"

The wind around the graveyard grew fiercer, fed by Amy's emotions.

"Okay, so maybe Charmy's dead was a little suspicious. Maybe the truth was a little more complicated. But that doesn't mean that I was the culprit, Amy! Please just listen to reason!"

"Oh, really? You're using that argument? Tails, you remember that the police found traces of a deliriant in the victims' bodies, right? And it was exactly the type of deliriant you suggested, a tropane alkaloid. You sure are smart aren't you, guessing something like that just by the behavior of the victims. Unless, of course, you knew about it already because you administered the deliriant!"

"So I'm suspicious just because I guessed it right? Besides, I didn't even guess everything right! The police never found any traces of brodifacoum in the victims' bodies!"

"Yes, I also wanted to discuss that little thing with you. How did you do it? How did you get the bodies to bleed out like that if you didn't use a poison?"

"I don't know! I just guessed wrong!"

"No, you didn't. You deliberately used only a part of your true murder scheme, the deliriant, to formulate a plausible theory. When that deliriant was found in the victims' bodies, no one would doubt your fake theory."

Tails stayed quiet.

"Got nothing to say, huh? You scared of going to prison?"

"Anyone would be."

"Well, I wouldn't worry about that. You see, I have a gun to your head right now, and if you don't tell me what really happened five years ago, I'll kill you right here. If you do, I might just let you live."

Tails was quiet again for a bit. Then, he mumbled something.

"It doesn't matter anymore anyway."

"Huh?"

"It doesn't matter anymore! I failed! My plan was a complete and other failure! It wasn't supposed to go like this! You weren't supposed to survive! It should've been Sonic. Sonic was supposed to be the only survivor, never suspecting a thing."

"Why?! Why would you do such a thing?!" Amy screeched.

"You wouldn't understand. No one could."

"Tell me or I'll blast your brains out right now!"

"Basically… I wanted Sonic to myself. If you strip it all down to its core, that's why. That's why I planned a massacre and a perfect crime."

"Good. Very good, Tails. Now I've got both the whodunnit and the whydunnit. Now there is only more thing I need to complete the trio: the howdunnit. How did you kill nine people without the police ever finding out?"

"I… well, as you already now, I used a deliriant to inhibit their reasoning and make them fear the ones closest to them."

"I already know that! But that deliriant couldn't kill someone. How did you actually make them bleed out like that? And how did you administer the deliriant?"

"I… used a bacterium. One I engineered myself."

"…What? Are you fucking with me, Tails?"

"No, I'm not. As you know, I'm quite skilled in the sciences. I used a genetically engineered bacterium, one meant to kill people without making it obvious that they died of an infection. The bacterium, which I named "T-64", lives off of the elements that constitute the inside of the human body. It eats away at the victim's veins, arteries, organs and their lymphatic system. By doing so, the entire victim's body bleeds out. I used that to hide the real cause of death."

"That can't be true. If that were the case, how did you even get that inside their bodies. And what about the deliriant?"

"I'll get to that. You see, I made T-64 extremely infectious, but only in one way. It can only be transferred via human contact, but when human contact does occur, the infection is almost instantaneous. One of the reasons for this is that T-64 has an extraordinary ability which almost no other microorganism has: it can pass through the human skin. All I had to do was infect one person, and just waited until the entire ship was doomed. Of course, I'd make sure to avoid human contact myself. But in case I or Sonic did get infected, I had some antibiotics with me. Remember how I carried that pouch around? I carried them in there along with an extra vial of T-64."

"I still don't believe you for a second, Tails! If that were the case, how did the first person even get infected? We didn't have dinner on the ship, so you couldn't have infected that. And all the food we ate after Espio's death was canned!"

"I infected the first person with Espio's body. I knew I had to kill my first victim through conventional means, and I decided that would be Espio. I lured him out of his room and hit him in the back of his head with a wrench I found in the storage room. I then sprinkled one of the two vials of T-64 all over his body. The first to touch that body would be the first to be infected, and that ended up being Vector. It all unfolded naturally after that. If you start with Vector, you can follow a trail of human contact leading all the way up to Blaze. First, Vector is the first to find the body and also the first to catch T-64. Cream then comforts Vector and puts her hand on his shoulder, thereby catching it. Cream then transfers it to Shadow. I didn't know about this back then, but those two were apparently in a romantic relationship, so it's not hard to guess how Shadow got it. A little later, Silver spots Shadow running downstairs and grabs his arm, catching it from him. The same happens but in reverse with Silver and Blaze: Blaze grabs Silver's arm when he tries to get away and gets infected. But then a wrench was thrown into my plans. Blaze ran off without infecting anyone else. What was I supposed to do? I decided to sprinkle my second vial of T-64 over Knuckles' bedsheets while everyone was busy looking for Blaze, since we were bound to get sleepy eventually. And that's when you showed up and ruined everything! I heard your footsteps and got startled, so I dropped the vial. I hastily swept the shards under the bed and took some antibiotics. I searched the bedrooms with you as if nothing had happened and luckily, you didn't find the shards. How could I have known that Sonic would find them afterwards and touch them, catching it himself? But… the blame isn't on you, I know that. Because I should've just told Sonic the truth and given him the antibiotics instead of making up that bullshit explanation with Charmy as the culprit. But I just couldn't bear the thought that Sonic might reject me if I he knew the truth. So I let him die."

After Tails was done, something wet started streaming down his cheeks. Were those… tears?

"You can cry later, murderer. There's still some stuff you have to explain. How did you administer the deliriant? And when did you kill Charmy?"

"The deliriant was included with the bacterium. What I mean by that isn't that it was in the same vial as the bacterium, though. T-64 actually produces tropane alkaloids with the elements it takes from the victim's body. Charmy I killed before anyone else. I used him as a test subject for T-64. I met him in his apartment and injected him with T-64. It turned into a bit of a scuffle, and it was then that I decided that injection was too risky of a method for my first infection and decided to go for the "infected corpse" strategy instead, which I ended up using Espio for as you already know. After Charmy was dead, I took some antibiotics since I had of course come into contact with him during the struggle and picked up his phone. That was when I sent a text message to Espio posing as Charmy, saying he wouldn't be coming because he was sick. I put the forged wills I had brought with me on Charmy's desk to frame him. Everything that happened after that you now know."

Amy said nothing. Only her gun did the talking. The insides of Tails' head were splashed over Sonic's gravestone, accompanied by the loud bang of the gunshot and the soft "plumpf" of the Fox's body falling ton he short grass. Another gunshot could be heard, followed by a second "plumpf". And then, the graveyard was silent.

FIN