Author's Notes:
-I'd like to give my thanks to meekyz for the review.
-If this is your first time seeing Chapters Two and Three, don't fret- FFN decided to be really glitchy when I uploaded Chapter Two, so it took a while for the site to register its existence. Sorry about that, but for those people who missed Chapter Two, you at least get two chapters at once, right?
-Just to make sure you see this, I'm adding this again: unless I specifically state otherwise in the previous chapter, updates will be every other Friday from now on.
-Not much else to say, except that I hope you enjoy the chapter. Thanks again for sticking around!
Chapter Three: Welcome to My World
Sonic followed Silver through the ruined city, not sure where their destination was or even if there was one to begin with.
He didn't see another soul the entire trek there. Sure, while the attack had probably caused everybody to take shelter, it should have been clear that the threat was long gone. Even now, though, no one roamed the streets or even appeared to be glued to their windows.
Sonic moved to walk alongside Silver after a while, mostly to try and strike up some form of a conversation to try and keep his mind sharp. The first words out of his mouth, to the shock of absolutely no one, were, "Is this normal?"
"People don't go outside unless they have to," Silver said. "On top of that, since I figured out pretty quickly that telling everyone the threat is gone just results in it coming right back, just about everybody waits a couple of hours after the siren goes off before even checking if the danger seems to be gone, just to be safe."
Sonic almost instantly regretted asking that question in the first place. "Better safe than sorry."
"Agreed," Silver said. Sonic didn't push any further after that, merely following Silver in silence until after what felt like an eternity, he finally stopped.
"Well, this is home," Silver said, gesturing in front of him to a surprisingly intact apartment building that seemed to have weathered the terrors of whatever had happened here quite well. Almost all of the windows were intact. The bricks Sonic could see from here were surprisingly free of things growing on it. Even the glass revolving door that marked the front entryway was intact, although it made a screeching noise that rivaled the siren when Silver tried to push it forward.
After a few seconds of straining, Silver gave up trying to move the thing with his body, stepped out, and simply thrust his hands at the door like he had with the monsters from earlier. This sent the door spinning, albeit with it shrieking like a witch being burned alive. Silver stepped in while it was still spinning, and Sonic wasted no time following him in, the two of them ending up in what had once been the lobby.
However, the only reason Sonic knew that was because the word "LOBBY" hung on the far wall, right above where the receptionist's desk probably used to be. That, along with just about everything else that would make up a typical lobby- furniture, overpriced vending machines, paintings- were gone, probably having been taken by outsiders quite some time ago. The only things left were the paint (which was starting to peel off the walls, anyway) and an analog clock that didn't appear to work.
Silver turned left and disappeared for a second. Sonic felt panic start to rise in his chest until he realized Silver had simply started hiking up a flight of stairs. Surprisingly enough, the stairs were made of concrete, so they would have given into the ravages of time far less than the conventional wood or stone, but that didn't stop them from being pitted and covered with a thin layer of dust (not counting some footprints).
Five flights of stairs later, Silver reached the top floor of the building and turned right, disappearing from sight again even as Sonic tried to track him. When Sonic made it to the top and could finally see Silver again, he was standing at the far end of a short hall, holding a doorknob.
"Well, I'm home," Silver said to no one in particular. Quickly, he pulled open the door, slipping inside as Sonic followed.
For such a horrible, horrible place, Silver's apartment looked quite pleasant; Sonic would have been remiss to see it as something out of the ordinary back home. Everything was extremely tidy, with no dust, debris, or even clutter jumping out at him. A shelf took up a good portion of the wall to his right, on which Silver had placed several vases of flowers as well as what appeared to be a lone portrait. A mattress had been crammed against the far wall near the doorway, angled so that it directly faced the one window (although it was more of a hole in the wall now since the glass had been taken out), which would have had an excellent view had there been anything to see. The kitchen was near the far end, a handful of strange-looking appliances populating it, still looking fresh and ready to be used. Of the two doors off to the side, chances were one led to a bathroom, although the other could have been for just about anything. Only three things kept Sonic's minds from being completely at ease here: not a single light was on, the kitchen was mysteriously devoid of silverware, pots, or pans, and of course, the mire that made itself clear just outside the window.
"Nice place," was all Sonic could think to say.
"Thanks for the compliment," Silver said back. "I don't get to spend much time here, but I treasure the moments I do. You want anything to eat?"
Sonic wanted to be as little of a burden as possible, but given that the chance of his being able to leave anytime soon was minimal, he was going to have to eat at some point. "Sure. A little conversation over dinner sounds great."
Silver didn't say anything to that, instead moving to the pantry to get something. In a few seconds, he'd pulled out a plastic gallon bottle of water, as well as a few bins with a limited assortment of fruits and vegetables. Before he could get any further, though, Sonic asked, "where did you get those?"
"Just about everybody grows something to help out," Silver says. "Some people grow different things just to add some variety, but for the most part it just comes down to whatever's easiest. Once the stuff's edible, which tends to happen in cycles, it gets traded around so everybody has something to eat that they like, in a relative sense at least. I just take whatever's left because I'm long past caring."
"I'm not picky either, don't worry about that," Sonic said. "Anything else I need to know that isn't about monsters?"
"Actually, yes," Silver said. "Running water isn't really a thing anymore, so if you have to go to the bathroom, there's a trench on the far side of town most people use. I know it's not going to be far for you, but it's a couple of miles. Also, everything's going to be raw, electricity doesn't work either. We have some solar panels, but those are reserved for keeping the warning sirens running."
"Thanks for the info," Sonic said, silently resolving to hold it in for as long as possible.
With no cooking required, it didn't take long for Silver to set up two plates of mixed fruit and vegetables, each one chopped into pieces small enough that eating them by hand wouldn't be seen as that impolite. While it would be far from the most delicious things Sonic had eaten, it was shaping up to be pretty good in its own right.
For a few minutes, the two of them didn't talk, focusing on eating. The flavors of each component worked together far better than Sonic expected, to the point he debated asking Silver what had gone into that so he could replicate it later. It didn't take long for the plates to go from full to mostly empty, with only a few wayward pieces of food remaining on each.
Sonic took that as an opportunity to break the silence. "So… I remember you saying something about a history lesson before we came here. What did you have to tell me?"
Silver took a deep breath. "It's going to be a lot. I know you can't exactly take notes, but pay as much attention to this as you can, got it?"
Sonic nodded, leaving the floor open for Silver to start recounting all he remembered.
"I know you had problems with a Doctor Eggman back in your day. Funnily enough, we had problems with one as well. It was a different Doctor Eggman, obviously- if my memory's correct, I believe it was one Samuel Robotnik, three generations down the line from yours."
"Wow, Eggman actually had kids," Sonic thought. "Wait, did he actually find someone willing to marry him or did he make his kids with a machine or…" He stopped there, shivering a little at the deeply unpleasant third possibility.
"While most of your other friends eventually passed on, Shadow took up your position after you could no longer handle it," Silver said. "From what I remember, he was successful for quite a while. He even began to sound a bit like you."
Despite everything, Sonic couldn't help but smile a little. Whenever Shadow lightened up, even a little, it was a cause for celebration.
Silver paused for a moment here, taking another deep breath before he continued. "But one day about five years ago, everything changed. Everyone was already uneasy because neither Shadow nor Doctor Eggman had made any kind of public statement for quite some time. They figured something awful was going to happen, but they never could have predicted what did. Nobody was prepared when it happened."
Sonic felt like he already knew the ending to this story, but he listened on anyway.
"It was a Wednesday," Silver said, tears starting to form in his eyes as he pushed further. "I was in school. I'd just finished a chemistry test. Right as I got to the last class of the day, the principal announced that we were entering lockdown. Normally, I thought nothing of it, because we'd had drills before, but there was just something… off about his voice. It set everyone on edge, including me, so we did our part and hunkered down in the corner without saying a word."
Silver was fighting to keep crying, but it wasn't one he was going to win if things progressed like they had been. "Shortly after that started, all our phones went off at the same time. When I checked it right afterward… let's just say the news reports weren't pretty. All I remembered were the headlines: 'Global Threat Loose, Do Not Go Outside Under Any Circumstances,' 'Worldwide Massacre in Progress, Call Your Loved Ones Now,' and others that sounded even worse. A couple of kids started laughing, thought it was a joke of some kind."
Silver's expression hardened, even as tears steadily trickled down his cheeks. "That all stopped once the window broke."
Sonic could imagine it clear as day: a group of terrified high schoolers, most of them with no self-defense skills whatsoever, being forced to face down a monster that resembled their greatest hero. He didn't know how Silver could do that- hell, he wouldn't have been sure if he could have done that in his high school years.
"In seconds, there was blood," Silver said. "So much blood. I couldn't look at the bodies. I remember doing nothing except knocking aside the attacker and fleeing like the coward I was."
Sonic disapproved of that interpretation of what happened, but let Silver continue uninterrupted. "The rest of the town was even worse. Blood everywhere. So many monsters. So much screaming." Silver cupped his hands over his ears. "I will never forget the screaming."
Silver kept going. "I needed someone, anyone, to help me through this. Somehow, I managed to look for everyone I lived with and didn't die," Silver said, the trickle of tears threatening to turn into a full-on stream. "My mother's apartment. My brother's middle school. The bank where my father worked." He paused again, a deep, gasping sob erupting from his throat. "All I can say is that there were no happy endings."
Even Sonic's happy-go-lucky attitude was starting to waver. He had a high ceiling, but even he could only handle so much concentrated misery before being pushed over the edge of despair. And Silver wasn't even done.
"I remember getting into an armored car with a bunch of guys with guns that stopped for me. They might have been attempting to kidnap me, but I didn't care anymore. I'd already lost everything I loved, what was a kidnapping going to do on top of that? We got on the highway and managed to make it maybe five miles before we got swarmed. The guys with guns somehow held their own for a while, but once they ran out of bullets…"
Sonic didn't need to think very hard about what the end result was there.
"I remember running and running hard, and then I lost them at some point or at least I think I did, because I'm not dead," Silver said. "After a few hours, I found myself here. There were bodies. So many bodies. Most of them you could barely recognize as something that had once been a sentient creature. But once I ventured deeper in, having to stop and fight every once in a while with barely anything left to spare, I realized that this place was the only hope I had."
Silver's tears had slowed. The painful part was probably over. Sonic didn't want to push him there, it was clear he was almost done.
"A big city meant a lot of death and despair, but it also meant more survivors," Silver said. "When we kept getting attacked, I built up a reputation over the next few months that I could fend off monsters without a weapon. We were attacked so constantly, I was able to practice, practice, and practice some more until my attacks became vastly more effective. Then, things finally began to change for the better. I was treated as a sign that not all was lost, that maybe there were others like me, keeping other cities from being completely overrun. As for me, I'm less optimistic. A week after everything began, just about any way to keep in touch over a distance vanished. If there's another place like us, I've never seen it, and as far as I know, we're the last people alive."
Silver took one last deep, slow breath before finally gathering up the courage to finish. "But even if that's true, I'm keeping everyone I can alive until I'm dead. I want to keep the people here safe to try and atone for the ones I didn't that fateful day."
He closed his eyes, it was clear he'd finished. Sonic's breathing was shaky, his body struggling to avoid tumbling over the precipice of sorrow. That feeling lasted for ten or so long seconds before he managed to keep his emotions at bay. For now, at least.
"That's all I know," Silver said. "Neither Eggman nor Shadow have made a peep all this time, so unless I learn otherwise, I'm assuming both are permanently out of commission. I don't even know what caused all this. It just happened, and here we are."
"Thanks for telling me all that, I know it must have been hard for you," Sonic said. "It was hard for me, and I was just listening. I can only imagine how awful going through all that was."
"It's hard," Silver says, "but it gets easier every time."
Sonic opened his mouth to say something else, but before he could start, he got cut off by what appeared to be the high-pitched, hideous wail of a siren. Before either of them could process that, its screeching was joined by that of several others, creating a noise so loud and so grating that Sonic clamped his hands over his ears.
Silver began making wild gestures at Sonic, then began yelling so loud Sonic could hear it even with his ears covered. "They're back for round two, we have to go!"
"Wait," said Sonic. "Where are we going?"
"Not sure where, but this one's going to be bad," Silver said. "More than one siren at once always signifies a lot of trouble, especially since we just got attacked maybe an hour ago. Just go wherever you think you'll be needed most, any help at all is better than what I usually get."
"No problem, but let's get moving," Sonic said. "Every second we spend here is another second everyone else is in danger. I don't want any blood on my hands, I just got here."
On that note, both Sonic and Silver leapt out the hole in the wall posing as a window, landing neatly as could be before sprinting towards the madness that was to come.