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Sonic meandered along the beach after nightfall, carrying his red and white shoes in his left hand, his eyes on the stars. He was brooding again, a keen sense of loss in his eyes as he stared at the twinkling heavens. It had been what? Two weeks? Three? He couldn't tell.. and he still had this empty feeling inside of him.
The night sky used to make him content, the way the stars winked down at him cheekily, as if attempting to rival his mischeviousness. He had always gazed up at them on late nights in the summer with Tails, on the roof of his work shop in the Mystic Ruins. They had pointed out constellations, occasionally choosing a gathering of stars and naming them themselves, just for the fun of it. Just because they could. But now..
..sigh...
The stars were different now. They didn't smile down at him anymore, they shone dully, reminding him of the hell he had gone through. How the Finalhazard had screamed its nightmare-ish shriek to the never ending stars. How he and Shadow had used the Chaos Emeralds to change into their Super Forms and fight the prototype. How they had used Chaos Control together and set the Colony back on its rightful course.
How Shadow grew weak. How he had drifted. How Sonic had reached for him, and caught him by the wrist, terror in his eyes. How Shadow had caught his gaze, filled with confusion, shock, but fullfillment.
..How Sonic's hold on him slipped and Shadow's hand fell from his own, leaving him with nothing but his comrade's wrist guard. How Shadow kept Sonic's jade eyes locked in his own while he fell, but at the last moment closed his eyes and let his neck slack, whispering words to the stars that Sonic couldn't hear. Then Sonic had stared, the metal ring clasped in his fingers, horror struck as the silvery white and garnet hedgehog vanished like a flash in the atmosphere, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling that he had lost something precious. He couldn't move, but then heard Amy calling to him, and realized that he had to get back to the Colony before he started to drift from losing his Super form and was lost into space.
Sonic shuddered, ripping his emerald gaze from the inky sky and closing them, becoming painfully aware of the coldness of that same metal band around his wrist. Those scarlet eyes stilled burned into his memories, etched on the back of his eyelids. He lifted his free hand and rubbed the bridge of his snout, shaking his head and trying to clear the horrid memories from his mind. His chest swelled as he sighed and attempted to preoccupy himself with the sand, musing over how it took on a silver look beneath the moonlight.
Silver like -
A small growl reverberated in his chest as he shook his head vigorously. How come everything ended up going right back to Shadow? His right hand moved to wipe his face, as one would do when suffering from fatigue. Whenever he thought too much about it he felt exhausted, as if he had gone through the whole ordeal again.
Suddenly a shiver ran down his spine, causing him to look up and glance around, perplexed. He hadn't felt something like that before - well once, when he had gone into Super with Shadow but..
The blue hedgehog shook his head for the third time and blinked, then realized he had stopped walking when he had looked for the source of the tingle.
"Weird.." he mumbled quietly, blinking those large green eyes again. He glanced at the ocean, then put his white-striped shoes down in the moonlit sand and started towards the surf. He had only recent learned how to swim, his red echidna friend forcing him into it one particularly hot day when they had nothing to do, so he still wasn't too good at it. But he wasn't looking to go for a swim at the moment, he just wanted to feel the coolness of the salt water. He stopped walking when he reached the wet sand near the sea, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath of the saltine air. He exhaled as the water swelled over his feet, breaking against his ankles before retreating back into its tumbling watery home. The ocean looked like it was black at night time, littered with diamonds that had fallen from the sky as the stars gazed down at their reflection.
Black..
No. He thought sternly to himself, stopping the thought before it had fully developed, and took a deep breath of ocean air again. The wind blew, rippling the waves and sending his cobalt quills rocking in its wake. That was when it caught his eye, just from the corner, and he peered through the moonlit darkness at a blob of darkness that had just washed up on the shore. His emerald eyes narrowed. It was too.. oddly shaped.. to be a peice of drift wood. It almost looked like an animal of some sort, but he couldn't really tell from his distance from it, and always being too curious for his own good he started towards it.
He stopped when he neared it, eyeing it warily. Yeah.. it was definately some kind of animal. He immediately felt a swell of pity, thinking it must be a dead seal or something. A small frown curled his lips downward as he stared down at it.
Then he saw the torn gloves
And the red that streaked down the thing's back, like arrows.
His gut lurched.
No, it's not. Don't do this to yourself.. Sonic thought firmly, but still he couldn't stop his stomach from twisting. His lips pursed and he stooped down beside the being, the sand seeping between his toes as his hands pressed against his knees. His neck craned as he tried to see its face, not wanting to touch it. It didn't smell like death..
It was black.
With red stripes.
There were red marks above its closed eyes.
And it had quills.
He let loose a strange noise - somewhere between a strangled yelp and a choked gasp. He fell back on his rear end out of shock, fear, and hope and sort of backpedalled away from the body. However once the initially slap in the face weakend a bit, he swung himself over onto all fours and crawled over to the crumpled figure.
It was waterlogged, its quills slicked back, its fur equally wet, thought obviously singed, and burned away in a few places. Its white gloves were torn and one of its arms jut out at a strange angle the proved it was broken. At its other end its tail was nearly flat against the sand, and its white and black shoes were mangled as if they had been melted as the salty water lapped up against them. Sonic lifted a gloved hand, and it hovered above the unconcious creature's shoulder, before touching down. Immediately it jerked back, as if it had been burned. 'He's cold as ice..'
The sapphire hedghog pulled his knees beneath him, staring at the black figure, thinking that this couldn't be real. That it was a dream. It couldn't be Shadow.. he had seen him fall, he had to be dead..
Didn't he?
It was at this point the hero noticed the gaping wounds as blood starting to spew, trickle through the ebony fur. Sonic's ears fell back, and the shiver ran up his spine again. He lifted a leg, so one knee was down and one foot was down, then gathered the broken hedgehog into his arms. He was limp, complete dead weight, but he hardly noticed as he pushed himself to his feet. It was Shadow alright. Sonic could recognize that face anywhere, even if it was slashed and injured. He held the dark hedgehog close to his chest. He was on the teetering on the brink of death, he could tell. His chest was hardly moving..
He was so cold..
Sonic whirled around, darting back to his shoes. He forced his feet into the openings, stomping them on as he started walking, then shot into a full fledged sprint. Shock and fear and hope tugging at his insides, but only one thought rang like a bell in his mind.
Shadow. It was Shadow. He had Shadow.
Sonic's breath picked up, not from the run, but from newly formed anxiety. He pumped his legs faster, the sounds of his shoes pounding against the grass as he tore back to Tails' workshop.
Shadow don't die.. don't die on me now.. hang on..
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*blinks at story* soo... This is my first one, and I'm just sort of testing the ground methinks. Should I continue? Reviews? Please? *blinkie* Constructive criticism would be nice, no flames thanks ^^;;;
Disclaimer: Sonic and Shadow - not mine. All Sega's! *worships them*
