Julie-Su rocked back and forth in her sleep. She gripped the covers tightly as the images played out before her in her dreams. It was just like the one she had had before on the long drive up here, but this time Knuckles wasn't there to wake her up.
As Sonic flew back, wounded from an unknown shot, Tails motioned to her and Knuckles to follow him. He led them straight to the light, where a human like figure stood silhouetted in the bright illumination. Tails flew over to the figure and stood beside him. Suddenly Knuckles became overrun with anger and ran at Tails. Lara-Su was about to tell him to stop until Tails fell at the feet of Knuckles, whose massive punch had literally blown away Tails' head. But instead of gore, they found only wires and machinery. Both of them stepped away from the machine as the silhouetted man flew at Knuckles and thrust something into his chest. Lara-Su screamed as Knuckles held the open wound in his stomach. She ran to his side as he fell to the ground. She put her hand on his shoulder and told him to hold on. He weakly looked up at her, his teeth stained with blood. He reached out and wiped a tear from her eye, then weakly lay back down; his eyes closed as he breathed his last. Lara-Su sat silent for a moment, tears falling down her cheeks and hitting the ground next to the pool of blood that flowed from Knuckles' chest. He put her face in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably, her cries echoing in the black abyss.
"NOOO!!" Julie-Su jumped back into reality. She sat still as beads of cold sweat ran off her nose and onto the quilt she had on her bed. She hung her legs over the end of the bed and did nothing while drips of sweat ran onto the wood floor beneath her feet.
The sudden yell from Julie-Su had caused Knuckles to wake up from his deep sleep, and he rose to see her, sitting on the side of her bed breathing heavily, a look of terror on her face.
"Hey, you okay," Knuckles asked as he got up and sat down next to her. She made no reply; just stared blankly at the floor. Now he was really concerned. "All right, what's wrong." He scooted over so he was closer to her. Her breathing had slowed down a bit, and she had stopped sweating. She looked up at Knuckles, who smiled sympathetically back at her. She paused for a moment, then hugged Knuckles tightly as she began to cry again.
"Oh my God, it was horrible," Julie-Su said in-between sobs, "Everyone died except for me and I was all alone and-."
"Whoa, slow down," Knuckles said as he pried Julie off him, "And tell me what happened."
Julie-Su looked up at Knuckles' blue eyes and felt like she could tell him anything and he would understand. His eyes had a certain warmth to them that warmed her soul and made even what she had just been through not feel as horrible. "Well," she said, trying to put experiences into words, "Everyone was there, including you, and, everyone just started dying and soon I was alone and didn't know what to do."
Knuckles sighed and tried to contemplate what she had just said. He knew what it felt like to be alone, not knowing what to do, crying out for help but finding that no one is there to answer. He wrapped his arms around her neck to calm her down. Even though Julie-Su made no reply he knew this was helping. He did this until Julie-Su fell asleep in his arms. He laid her back down on her bed and tucked her in. Before going back to bed he lightly kissed her on the forehead, hoping that the dreams would end. He laid back down in his own bed and quickly fell fast asleep.