Sympathy
By Formerly Known As
Author's Note: Sorry about last chapter's note….I was feeling contrary and was slightly worried people would question Shadow's aliveness. Except, these days more or less everyone's accepted that Shadow's alive and running around. So maybe I should just keep my mouth shut.
Disclaimer: Sonic and company belong to Sega. Story belongs to Formerly Known As. Is any one else bored out of their minds of these stupid disclaimers?
Chapter 7
Reflections in the Glass
Life always looks better on a full stomach. Trust me on this one.
Particularly when its full off of a free breakfast.
Got to give that to Rouge, she did pick up the bill.
Just as well since I don't have any cash on me.
Pastries, all properly devoured and given a good home. At least in my opinion it's a good home. The best, in my opinion.
It's still early in the morning, so not many people are out and about. But that'll change soon. If the coffee is as good as Rouge says it is, this little bakery will fill up real fast.
So I'd best be on my way.
Where to, I don't know, but that isn't really the point.
But I'd better go before a lot of people come. I'm not really in the mood for people right now.
I'm getting up from the table and dusting various crumbs and flakes off myself from all the pastries and I notice, sitting forlornly across the table from me, next to a cup half full of cold coffee…are Rouge's sun glasses. The ones that she had with her even though it was absolutely gray and dismal outside.
Maybe she just had them for fashion's sake. She certainly is a stylish dresser.
But how can anyone wearing boots with hearts on them with that outfit care all that much about fashion to wear sunglasses on a gloomy day like this?
Maybe I'm reading more into this than is actually there.
Maybe.
But I'll tell you one thing. I don't trust Rouge. Period.
It isn't that she doesn't want to help me. I can tell that she does.
But I think she, like Amy knows more than she's letting on.
And, unlike Amy, I think Rouge actually has some clue what's going on.
Thinking back on our little conversation, Rouge told me NOTHING I didn't already know. She just asked questions.
And if you ask me, I'm the one who's suppose to be asking the questions around here. After all, I'm the one completely clueless as to what's going on. Rouge and Amy at least know about who I was. And I think Rouge actually knew some of what happened to me. Why I can't remember. Maybe not the whole story but…something.
At least Rouge didn't lie to me like Amy. At least not any lies I could catch.
Then again that bat strikes me as one hell of a good liar.
I sigh and shove my chair under the table violently. All this thinking is just tangling me up in knots. Over all I can't say I'm particularly liking this thinking thing.
So I'll go. I'll go…somewhere else. And I'll figure out where that somewhere else is when I get there.
But just because, I grab the glasses off the table. Rouge might want them back if I see her again.
Besides, they're pretty cool sunglasses. Like Amy's coat, not too feminine. I should be able to wear them just fine.
And if not, it's not like I give a damn anyway.
So I head for the exit the shop, folding up and storing the glasses in one of the coats many (and shockingly empty) pockets. I sort of get the impression that Amy never wore this coat much. Guess it wasn't girly enough for her. Amy really seems to like things on the girly side. Probably means she won't miss the coat all that much. Good.
As I leave threw the door, the bell above it tinkling with insane happiness, I give the girl behind the counter a cheeky grin and bright wave. She looks so relieved I'm leaving almost decide to stick around. But as I'm exiting, a sharply dressed businessman is entering, giving me a dark look. Probably for the best I'm taking my leave.
But when I get outside, I suddenly realize that there isn't anyway I really want to go. Certainly I could go up the street or down the street. But what would it matter anyway? Either way I'm wandering randomly, no place to go. I could use Rouge's business card and go to her place, but of course she wouldn't be there. So what's the point? I could go back to Amy's place but that's the same as saying I could shoot myself in the foot. Certainly I COULD but I do I want to? Hell no.
I stop and stand in the middle of the sidewalk, having nothing better to do. I think about where I am and where I could go.
Can't go to Rouge's. Won't go to Amy's. So that leaves me with…an entire city to wander. And beyond that, an entire world. Of which I remember nothing about…
Okay, so that's not entirely true. I remember not to play in traffic, I remember not to jump off tall buildings, I remember not to eat broken glass. I remember lots of things, general things. I remember what a building is and what a businessman looks like. Sadly, though most of what I do remember about this city is mostly due to sitting around watching Amy's TV for a week. Yes I can remember things. But only after seeing them. Until I see something or interact with something, I don't remember anything about it.
I remember when I first came to the city. I couldn't remember jack squat. I only barely recalled it was a city. I only barely remembered to stay on the sidewalks after nearly getting hit by a truck. Everything had a strangely blurry cast to it, like I was seeing it for the first time, except I know I wasn't because as I saw things, I remembered them. They…came in focus then.
Amy really did help me out in more ways than one. She let me have a chance to heal up a bit (because one thing I didn't need to remember that was the pain that was there right from the beginning) and while I'm not completely healed, I certainly feel better now. Whatever I did, it certainly wasted my body. A week of healing and I'm still not good to go…
She gave me food and a soft place to sleep, just the thing for recharging lost energy. Because for that first week, I felt really drained. I've got a lot more energy now. A lot. Which is why I left the apartment. Too much energy to keep me cooped up quite honestly.
But more importantly, Amy gave me a place and time to sort my mind out a bit. After that week of resting and watching TV I remember a LOT more than I did. Which isn't saying much considering I didn't remember anything to begin with. But my head's on straight now or at least straighter than it was. Things are clearer. When I look at something, I remember what it is, almost instantly. And if not instantly, eventually, if I mull it over in my mind.
Someone brushes past me, muttering angry things, almost jolting me from my reverie. I blush a little, embarrassed at my zoning and move out of the center of the sidewalk and next to the bakery window.
A flash of blue in the glass catches my eye and turn to face my reflection, staring back at me forlornly in the glass. Green eyes, blank and confused. Lost really. Spines an absolute raggedy wreck behind me. No amount of brushing seems to get them to behave anymore. Amy offered me mousse but I'm not sinking that low. They can just stay a wreck. I may not like it, but I don't like the concept of mousse either.
Blue fur not quite present in full force. What was it Amy said I had when she first bandaged me? Burns? That's right, I'd been burned. Badly. Can't remember how. Tried. But can't. The burns are healing, though the ones down my legs and chest and hands still hurt like you wouldn't believe, but I'm healing. My fur is thinking about regrowing. Thinking about it enough so that soft blue stubble has begun sprouting up in a patch work network across my body. Amy was shocked to see that. She said I shouldn't be healing as fast I was. That it wasn't natural. I told her I was damn happy I was getting better and fast, natural or not be damned!
She gave me a really strange look and I felt as though what I said had scared her. As though what I said hadn't been…in character?
In character or not, I really didn't (and still don't) give a damn. Must I repeat how much burns hurt?
I look bedraggled and awful, pathetic and pitiful in the glass. I'd say it was just a shitty reflection in a shitty piece of glass…except I've seen the exact same thing in Amy's mirrors. Often. Sometimes, when I grew fed up with rotting my mind in front of the TV, I went into the bathroom and just stared at my refection. Stared into the green eyes, the tattery quills, the burnt fur slowly coming back.
And the glass is lying no more than the mirror ever did.
But it isn't the pathetic way that I look that bothers me. What bothers me is that I've stared into the glass and the mirror and occasionally spoons…and it doesn't matter how much I stare, how much I mull it over in my mind….Nothing's coming back. I look at the ratty hedgehog in the window and for all I know, it could be someone completely different. It could be just another stranger in the street. No one I've ever seen before, no one I've ever talked to. No one I remember. No one I know.
Because that's what bothers me. I can remember what a car is and what a building is. I can remember something or someone once shown. I remember to eat and crap and grab a coat when wandering through a city at night. And yet I remember NOTHING about myself. Not my friends, not my family. Not who I was or what I did. Not what I like or what I hated. I look at myself in the glass and see someone who, as far as my memory can tell, simply doesn't exist.
Except, I'm not willing to let myself simply not exist. Okay, sure. So I don't remember who I was. And that's a real bitch. But that doesn't mean I'm giving up on tomorrow. Yesterday is dead anyway, so why not focus on tomorrow? I don't know who I was. But I can always make myself into something now. I don't have to be nothing. And I don't plan on staying nothing.
But there's still one more little hitch. I don't remember who I was. But there are people out there who do. Amy remembers me. Rouge remembers me. Both of them mentioned other people, friends of mine. People who knew me. People who will recognize me. People who can actually tell me what I was before I forgot. Okay, forget the slight factor that none of them seem to be telling me jack shit about it.
I've noticed one thing about myself. I'm curious. Very, very curious. They say curiosity killed the cat, but that was after it was done slaughtering, devouring, and throwing up the hedgehog. And I really want to know who I was. I don't desperately need to know, I just really want to.
Ah, what the hell am I saying? I desperately, pathetically, urgently need to know. It's driving me up the wall not knowing!
So that leaves me here, stuck. Nowhere to go, no destination even possible without remembering where I could go. Wanting to move on with my life, but trapped by the memories other people have of me. Really, really wanting to remember myself, but finding nothing in the glass except for a battered reflection.
I lift up one hand, placing it against its mirror in the glass. I stare into my own eyes and yet see nothing familiar.
Life sucks. We'll leave it there.
I stare deep into the glass window, seeking for something I know.
The raggedy hedgehog in the glass stares back at me with tired emerald eyes.
Damn, I actually have kinda nice eyes, really.
All things considered, I'm pretty good looking. I look horrible, for me, but still, that's actually not half bad. I mean, the color combo is nice. The blue and tan and the green eyes and the red streaks…
Wait a minute! I don't have red streaks!
I whip around towards my right, where I'd seen someone else's reflection in the glass. Someone else, who had been watching me.
Someone else, who looked almost familiar.
I just barely managed to see someone dashing away, moving quickly down the alley next to the bakery.
"Hey get back here!" I yell, trying to run after the quickly departing figure. I hadn't gotten a real good look at who ever it was. And the very fact that they had been watching me, then ran away when I spotted them, really wasn't very reassuring. That and whoever it was…looked so familiar. Almost like someone I…remembered?
But as I tried to turn down the alley in pursuit, my ankle shifted in a way I know it's not suppose to go and gave out beneath me. I gritted my teeth and just barely kept back a shriek of pain as agony shot up my leg. I grabbed my burning ankle, trying to move it into a less agonizing position, panting softly as tears pricked the edges of my eyes.
Fucker ain't suppose to go that way! So why the hell is the damn ankle TRYING to go in the opposite direction of the bone? I repeat, NOT suppose to GO that way!
Hell if I know, but it HURTS like nothing else.
A small whimper escapes me and I'm helpless to keep it back. I try massaging the aching limb but it seems to want to do nothing but scream with horrible, agonizing pain.
I begin to curse loudly and creatively, if only to keep myself from whimpering again.
I repeat, life sucks.
No, life really sucks.
And we'll leave it there.
