Hey!

Thought I'd upload something spooky for Halloween. This first chapter is a little shorter than I would have liked, but I wanted to get the first part up actually on Halloween. Hopefully the rest will be longer when I get around to them. Either way, I hope you enjoy it, this is more of a setting the scene sort of chapter, and I'll try to work on the next soon. A little hard with University assignments and general work for seminars and workshops at the moment, but I'll try my best.

Oh, and there's some gore at the start of this chapter, though if you know me you should already expect that already.

Enjoy! As always, your reviews help the procrastinator known as my brain to function, so feel free to tell me what you think!

~Fortune

Chapter One - Panic

He stood, unmoving, staring at the broken body at his feet.

It was a hedgehog, blue in colour by the looks of it but it was honestly hard to tell. He almost gagged at the sight of their face. There were scratches all over, deep, jagged scratches. There were a pair that went over the left eye, but he couldn't be sure what damage had been done to the eye from here. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. It almost looked like a chunk had been taken from their side, akin to how one might bite into an apple and leave a crater in its delicate hide. One arm was lying at an impossible angle which made him cringe; that must have been nasty. The other arm was cut up. Deep. He felt his stomach churn when he took in the legs in particular. One of them was definitely broken, but other than that they seemed relatively unscathed sans the small cuts and bruises. Oh, wait, was that bone? Never mind, the other leg was not fine. Chaos he might just throw up.

But, what was worse, was that the body was… familiar.

Yes, yes of course it was! It was his own body, but how could that be? He was standing here, so how could he also be lying there? There was some sort of disconnect happening in his brain, not allowing him to fully process what was happening in front of him.

The blood was still fairly fresh, clumps of his fur stuck together in the sections that were starting to dry and coagulate. Some of the wounds were so drenched with blood that they almost looked black, others were simply dried and brown, early stages of scabbing already appearing on some of the more minor scrapes. There was so much blood though.

It suddenly dawned on him…was he dead?

A weird fluttering sensation flitted though his chest. Could that be possible?

But no, could it be? Was that a weak rise and fall of the chest he just saw?

So, if he wasn't mistaken, and he was still alive, why was he seeing his body from outside of it? That couldn't be normal. What happened? Something told him that this wasn't the important thing right now.

He couldn't resist looking down at his current form. An involuntary shiver climbed up his spine. At first glance, he looked normal, even more normal than the version of himself lying on the floor. His cobalt and peach fur was immaculate, he could only assume his quills looked equally as pristine. It was a complete departure from the bloodied form at his red-and-white-sneakered-feet. It was only when he looked closer that he realised he could see through himself. His hands and feet in particular where near-translucent. While he could see the outline of his gloved fingers as he wiggled them in front of his face, the ends were almost completely clear.

And yet, despite all this, he felt weirdly numb.

He could understand that he should feel a sense of urgency, of panic, but all he seemed to feel was confusion. Why couldn't he remember what happened?

In his dazed state, he turned to look at his surroundings and found that, despite all the red he was trying to ignore, he couldn't recognise the place. He saw trees, flowers and what appeared to be some kind of ruins, but it was all blurred together and disorienting. For a second his vision went askew, and he almost fell over.

With a growl he closed his eyes and shook his head, forcing himself to try and focus again. Perhaps he could glean some semblance of what happened from the carnage around him.

The ground was torn up, disturbed. At first he thought it might have been autumn from all the leaves on the ground, but he quickly realised that, under the spatters of what he could only assume was his own blood, the leaves were green. That meant it was either spring or summer, surely. That also meant that either he was attacked from the trees or thrown through them. When he glanced back over the ground, he saw the unmistakeable gouges in the dirt where his body must have slid. There were also streaks of drying blood caked into the earth. Must have been thrown then. But his body wasn't at the end of those tracks, which also meant that more had happened after that.

The ruins. They were stone, crumbling apart and desecrated with moss. Something told him that not all of those chunks on the ground had fallen naturally. There was blood on some of those discarded stones. He could only guess his body had hurtled though the wall that looked to be the most damaged.

Apart from these observations, the clearing could have almost been serene. Interestingly, the flowers had barely been disturbed and were dancing in the breeze, uncaring of the near-lifeless form slumped beside them. It was disturbing how unmoving his own body was.

He needed help. That was obvious. But how could he find help if he didn't know where he even was? Perhaps he should pick a direction and start walking? That was an option.

He thought helplessly of his brother. How long had he been gone? Surely his brother would have noticed his absence. Was he worried? A whine escaped him. He hoped not. He couldn't stand to see his brother upset.

As he thought this, he suddenly found himself standing in his brother's workshop! He did a double take. How could he have gotten here so fast? He hadn't even moved his feet…

The yellow fox strolled into the workshop. To his relief, he seemed ok.

"Tails, buddy!" he cried, waving his arms to catch the young fox inventor's attention.

To his dismay, the fox's large ears didn't even twitch at the sound of his voice. Had he done something wrong? Had he upset his brother somehow? Why would he ignore him?

He stepped into Tails' path, "H-hey, are you listening?"

He felt his body convulse. It wasn't painful, but the suddenness of the strange sensation that tickled his hide was startling. He then noticed that Tails was behind him, his stride unbroken. Had he… walked through him?

"No… no, no, no… Tails?" He could feel his whole body shaking, "T-Tails, buddy?" He rushed to grab his arm but choked back a sob of distress when his hand passed right through the fox like he was made of nothing but air.

"Tails, please!" The blue hedgehog fell to the ground, "I'm right here! Help me!" He took a sharp intake of breath, "I need help… please…"

The fox sat down like nothing had happened, taking out some pliers and a piece of metal from the drawer set into the side of his desk. The hedgehog's breathing picked up. He had to find help, someone who could see and hear him. Surely someone could?

Frantically, he scoured his mind, trying to figure out what he had done to appear here in the first place. It felt like he had just visualised his little brother in his mind. He tried again, this time with his friend, Knuckles. He was the guardian of the Master Emerald, maybe he had a better chance at seeing him?

He closed his emerald eyes, thinking intently of the hot-headed echidna. He opened them up shortly after to the familiar sight of Angel Island. It was bizarre. He could feel the wind, could feel how it should have been moving his fur, but it wasn't. He remarked how he had technically felt Tails' arm back at his workshop too, but it felt different, and he hadn't been able to actually touch him. The feeling was odd, but he couldn't dwell on that, he had to find Knuckles.

When he eventually found the guardian, he was sleeping on the steps of the Master Emerald Shrine.

'Typical.' He snorted, but the steadily tightening feeling in his chest snatched away any mirth it could have had.

"Knuckle-head, wake up."

No response.

He huffed, "I know you like to ignore me, but not right now, please."

Still, the guardian did not rise form his slumber. He was usually a pretty light sleeper from what he could gather. With a sinking feeling, he understood that probably meant Knuckles couldn't hear him either. That probably meant no one could hear him.

"Knuckles, please… if you can hear me and are just ignoring me on purpose, please don't. This is serious. I'm in trouble." He tried to keep his voice even, but he wasn't sure why he was still trying.

With a sigh, he turned away. Now what? If he couldn't get Knuckles to notice him, how would anyone else? He was at a loss.

Feeling discouraged, he envisioned himself in the forest just beside the Mystic Ruins where Tails lived. He didn't live too far away himself, but he had stopped living with Tails ages ago when he proved he could look after himself. As he began to aimlessly walk around, not taking in anything at all, he remembered how hurt he had felt when he moved out. Like he was no longer needed. But at the same time, he enjoyed the freedom that living by himself again allowed. He sighed. If he couldn't find anyone who could help him, would he eventually die? How long did he even have? Would he ever get to see all of this again? Would he ever get to actually feel the wind flowing through his quills again? The summer sun on his skin or the sting of cold, winter rain?

He felt queasy all of a sudden. Then his vision flipped again like back in the clearing and he tried to catch himself on a tree… only to remember half way through this natural reaction that he couldn't actually touch anything. He felt that strange tickly feeling again and then he was on the floor. He lay there for a moment on his back, taking in the bright blue sky above him and the wispy white clouds. It took a moment for his disoriented mind to actually notice he was on the ground, but by that point he didn't really care. What was the point? Why bother moving? It didn't seem worth the effort.

"What are you doing, Faker?"

The voice jolted him out of his surprisingly dark thoughts.

"Shadow…?" He asked uncertainly.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his hands outstretched behind him to provide support.

The Ultimate Lifeform stood in front of him, arms folded over his fluffy white chest. His ruby eyes were narrowed into slits of annoyance. When Sonic made eye contact with the black and red furred hedgehog, Shadow rolled his eyes.

"Yes hedgehog, didn't think you were completely brain dead."

He ignored the jab, too stunned to really acknowledge it, "You… can see me?"

Shadow stared at him pointedly, unimpressed with Sonic's endless stupidity, "Unfortunately so. Everyday I wish I couldn't."

Sonic stumbled to his feet, "Then you can help me!"

"No. I'm not getting wrapped up in whatever dumb thing you've done now." Shadow growled and started to walk away, "Why don't you ask someone who actually cares, because I don't."

"B-but… I can't!" He cried.

Shadow ignored him.

'Wait… does he not realise I'm…'

"Sh-Shadow!" He dashed in front of his rival, similar to when he did so with Tails earlier, "Wait!"

Shadow made to shove him aside, but his eyes widened when he went right through him instead. Sonic gasped at the feeling. It shot a tingling feeling down his spine and he couldn't supress the shiver. It didn't matter that he'd felt the sensation before, he still wasn't used to it. He assumed he'd never get used to it. How could he?

The older hedgehog actually faced him, an unreadable expression on his face, "What the fuck?"

"Now will you help me?" When Shadow looked like he was about to leave again, he added, "Please…?"

The dark hedgehog paused but made no move to agree.

"No one else can see me, Shadow. I need help." He put on the most serious face he could muster, which wasn't too hard considering how worried he was about his body.

"No."