Here you go, Chapter 2! And I have also decided that I am never going to grow up. Thank you for your time.
As always: Don't forget to have fun…and…uh…eat your vegetables.
Sonic the Hedgehog is not my creation,
His story belongs to the Sega Corporation.
This fanfic is made with humble intention,
To honor their art and brilliant invention.
~ Lael Adair
II : Shadows of Shadows
"There is plenty of peace in any home where the family doesn't
make the mistake of trying to get together."
~ Kin [F. McKinney] Hubbard
"Manic?" someone asks from the entryway.
I'm shaking all over, my mouth is dry, and I look like shit. There's mud all over my front, claw marks all over my back, leaves impaled in my quills, my ear's throbbing like hell, and I'm about to piss myself.
Sonia emerges from the side bedroom in one of those pink, disgustingly girly nightgowns. She must have just put her brats to sleep. She takes one look at me and rushes over like I was one of her kids.
"Manic?! My Guardian! What happened?!"
All I can do is point and stutter at the door while the mud drips off me onto her fine, white carpet. I immediately see the mother instincts set in on Sonia's face. She grabs a heavy bat from the nearby sports closet and looks at me.
"Outside?" she asks quietly. She crosses to one of the long windows lining either side of her expensive front door and cautiously lifts back the lacy curtain. A frustrated sigh later, she looks at me like I'm nuts. "Manic, there's no one there."
"What?!" I fly to the other window and practically rip off the curtain. The front yard is completely empty. "No, no! No way!"
"Manic! Shh! You'll wake up the children."
"No! There's no way! There is no WAY! Sonia! I swear on the Guardian's soul that . . ."
"Manic! I will not have you abusing the Almighty's name in my house!"
I grab her shoulders and give her a shake. "Sonia! Listen to me! I swear! There was someone . . . er . . . thing there! The fucking thing chased me all the way through the forest! Look!" I show her the marks on my ear and shoulder.
She inspects the wounds but does not look convinced. "These look like they were made by tree branches. Were you running through the woods?"
My jaw drops. I can't believe this!
She stares at me for a moment and then I see the shadow of suspicion pass over her eyes. "Manic?" she asks, cocking her head accusingly. "Are you high?"
Did I forget to mention that stealing wasn't my only ex-bad habit?
I push Sonia away, hurt. "I told you I don't do that anymore."
She sighs. "I'm sorry, Manic. I didn't mean it. I just . . . I worry about you. I don't want you going down that path again."
"So I made some bad choices! That doesn't mean that every time I leave here I'm dealing again! And how did we get on this topic anyway?!"
"Ok, ok. Calm down. I believe you --- and don't think for a second that I'm not proud of you for doing what you did. It takes a lot of courage to fix a problem like that. . . . Look, I'll bet you were attacked by a mugger or something looking to make a quick buck --- "
"No! It wasn't --- "
"Why don't you stay here for tonight and get some sleep. Your shop will be fine in the morning. Besides it's freezing out anyway."
Before I can do anything, she takes my hand and starts pulling me towards the guest bedroom. "Now come on and let's get you out of those cold clothes" Sonia insists. "You're shivering like mad."
I'm too drained to argue with her. Without a word, I let Sonia lead me through the house. I don't tell her that I'm not shaking because it's cold.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't sleep well at all that night. I keep jerking awake from nightmares filled with silvery two-tailed foxes and haunting wails of suffering.
Poetic, huh?
When I'm not sleeping, the shadows dancing around Sonia's guest room made sure to give me plenty to worry about. I swear they're doing it on purpose. They keep taking shapes like long claws and sharp fangs. By morning, I look even worse than I had when I ran in the night before.
"I'm gonna take a shower" I groan to Sonia as I pass the kitchen on my way to the bathroom. If the clanging sound of dishes and plates is any indication of when she got up, she's been awake since 6 am. I don't know how she does it. I am so not a morning person. Of course, the night-owl habits may have come with being a thief, I don't know.
Once the door to the bathroom is closed, I rub some sleep out of my eye and scratch myself in a few places. Guardian do I love being a guy. I inspect my leather jacket, a trinket stolen from a very fancy suit store. It's not hurt too bad, just a few scratches here and there. This jacket's always been pretty important to me. I used to wear it as a badge of pride since it was the first thing I ever stole, but now I wear it more to remind myself of what I'm fighting against. Believe me, the road from kleptomaniac to normal citizen is a long and hard one, and having a few reminders along the way helps a lot.
I turn and check out my shoulder in the mirror where I was scratched last night. I don't really want to admit it, but it does look like it was made by a tree branch. There are three marks running from my shoulder to my lower back, but they're jagged and not very deep. Even the slice on my ear, which I was so sure nearly cut it clean off, turns out to only be a minor nick. I shake my head a few times and run a hand through my hair. After a good flex in the mirror --- yeah, it's a guy thing --- I finally get in the shower.
The water's freaking hot, but it feels good on my poor leg muscles. It's not everyday that you're forced to run the 100 meter dash in less than ten seconds. Pieces of that damn pinecone are still stuck in my quills, but some shampoo and a dash of paint thinner takes care of the little prick. I give out a sigh. There's nothing like a hot shower in the morning after a grueling battle with death the night before. I'm working on washing the caked mud out of my tail, when the water suddenly starts to get cold. I reach my hand towards the knob and turn it a little to compensate, but the temperature drops even faster.
"Sonia!" I yell, frustrated. "Are you running the dishwasher?!"
She doesn't answer. She must not be able to hear me. I give out a gasp as the water plunges another thirty degrees.
"Dammit! You'd think in a rich house like this the faucets would work!" I step to the side of the shower stream and start to inspect the head. I'm not a plumber, my forte's in mechanics, but I do know a little about piping. I'm too busy fiddling with the shower head to notice the soft plink plink echoing around the bathroom. It's not until I feel the pricks on my skin that I even look up from what I'm doing.
"What the. . . ." I step back to get a better view.
My eyes widen when I realize there's ice falling from the shower head. I'm talkin' real, honest to Guardian ice! Now I already said I'm not much of a plumber, but even I know pipes aren't supposed to do that. Out of anger, or maybe fear, I throw my hand to the water nozzle and pitch it all the way to the hot side. Stupid move. The temperature instantly responds and sends scalding hot water cascading all over me.
Yeah, go ahead and laugh. You know you've done it too.
I spit out a few more curses and then shut the water off. For a few minutes, all I can do is just stand there and stare at the tub, like some retard pondering the meaning of porcelain. I search every inch of it with my eyes, looking for . . . I don't know. A sign? An explanation? The events from last night replay in my mind for the thousandth time. Does this have anything to do with it? No, it can't be. Sonia's out in the kitchen . . . she must be running the water to boil eggs or something. I must have been imagining things . . . I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. There's nothing to worry about.
Feeling slightly better, I give myself a quick once-over with a towel and throw on my tattered jacket to get some food.
I stop before emerging out of the hallway, just watching my sister bustle about the kitchen making breakfast. She always makes good stuff when I come over, like pancakes or waffles or eggs or something.
A smile touches my face . . . I don't deserve her. My bad habits hurt more than just myself, they hurt Sonia too. She never said anything about it, but she knew I stole from her a couple times, I can tell. As a thief, you get pretty good at recognizing in people's eyes when they figure you out. That's usually your cue to move on and find another sucker, but Sonia never kicked me out. She never yelled at me or spit in my face or called me any names like those people who think they have no problems did. The only thing she ever did wrong was trust me.
"Manic" Sonia smiles, snapping me out of my thoughts. "You're awake."
I grin, "Yeah." I glance at the plates she's using to set the table and Sonia rolls her eyes. She knows what's coming.
If I haven't made it clear already, Sonia's really girly. She obsesses over the latest fashions and makeup and hair and all that annoying stuff that girls seem to be so fascinated with, and one of her most obsessive habits has to do with her dishes. Sonia insists on having a different set of dishes for different types of foods, meaning I can always tell what we're having based on the plates she uses. "Hmm" I moan thoughtfully, "The china. The china means . . . oh what was it what was it? The china means we're having . . . waffles!"
"Ha ha" she says, "very funny. Now sit down and eat before the kids and Jack get up, or else there won't be anything left."
"You don't have to tell me twice!" I grab a nearby, silk covered seat. "Your family eats like a hoard of dragons."
"Funny. I remember the kids saying the same thing about my brother."
I give a sneer. "Aren't you confusing your kids with Jack?"
A deep voice suddenly interrupts from the other side of the room. "Did I hear my name?"
A burly hedgehog emerges from the master bedroom. He's a big guy with arms too long for his body and a neck half as short as it ought to be, in my opinion anyway. Jack's kind of a pretty boy, with blonde quills and light blue eyes. Seriously, if he wasn't married to Sonia, I'd swear the guy was gay.
"Ahh, Manic" Jack says with a suspicious glance at the good silverware sitting right next to my left hand. "So nice to see you."
If you can't tell, Jack and I don't exactly get along.
I nod, "Jack."
Pretty boy eyes the silverware for another second and then takes a seat at the table, opposite me of course, so he can keep an eye on my hands. I make sure to keep them in sight. I've found out from experience that it's not a good idea to put your hands under the table if you're an ex-klepto. It tends to make people nervous, especially brother-in-laws that are rich and twice your size.
"So" Jack says, helping himself to a couple of waffles, "I heard you had a run in with some muggers last night." The 'serves you right' tone in his voice is hard to miss. His pretty boy eyes meet mine. "They steal anything?"
"They weren't muggers" I answer. I try to keep my cool, but that's something I've never been very good at. Jack looks at me expectantly, waiting for my answer. "It was a . . . a . . . shit, just forget it."
Jack frowns. "Watch your mouth, Manic. They may speak that way on the street, but not in my house."
I sigh and stand up. I am so not in the mood for this today. "Hey Sonia, I think I'm gonna head out."
My sister shoots a glare at Jack but walks me to the door without protesting. "Ok, Manic, but be careful. I don't want you getting hurt or anything. When will you be coming back?"
"I don't know." I look directly at pretty boy, "When did you say you were leaving next, Jack?" Feeling rather proud of myself for that quip, I step out onto the porch.
The second the door shuts behind me, though, my courage melts off me like the butter on those waffles inside. The events in the shower come back to me, and for the second time that day an edgy feeling creeps back into my stomach.
It's midmorning, so the sky's resumed its normal, sickly charcoal color it keeps during the day. I take a deep breath and set foot off the porch. I don't know what I expect to happen. A rotting hand to pop up from the ground? A pasty face to materialize before me?
I stand still for a second with all my muscles tense, waiting for that terrible ghostly wail to float on the wind.
Nothing.
I take another step and another and another, and pretty soon I'm back on the path and well on my way towards home, all without incident. The forest seems quieter than usual. None of the birds are singing, no animals are moving through the leaves, even the wind is still and silent.
I swear the Guardian is doing this to me because he thinks it's funny.
Up ahead, I can see the place where I wandered off the path last night. It's a lot harder walking past it now that I know just a few feet into the woods lies the clearing from hell. With shaky steps, I approach the spot looking for signs of last night's struggle. There's nothing there. No blood on the ground, no claw marks in the dirt, not even a single disturbance in the leaves.
"Maybe I was seeing things" I mutter.
The longer I stand there, the less afraid I become, and soon I'm scouting around the area for any sign to defend my sanity. I even go so far as to take a few steps into the forest, but there's nothing there. There aren't even any broken branches or footprints to mark my frenzied dash through the foliage. I shake my head a few times in disbelief. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. I have enough problems as it is without having to defend my sanity too. But at the same time, it feels like a heavy weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
My confidence comes back in full force as I travel back to my house. Well, actually it's more of a shack if you compare it to where Sonia lives. She's the prize of the family; little miss college graduate, married, perfect Sonia with all the brains and all the money. Mom and dad would be proud of her if they were alive. It may be really awful of me, but I'm kind of glad they're not. At least they can't see where I ended up: Holed out in the middle of the woods with nothing to live off of except a struggling mechanics shop built up from mostly stolen money. I'm working on it, though.
I give out a happy sigh when my raggedy-ass house comes into view. It may look crappy but at least it's mine, purchased entirely with legit money, and I can't think of anything to be more proud of than that.
By the time I take my first step towards the front door, I've completely forgotten about the events last night . . . that is, until I see a silvery two-tailed fox tearing after me out of the corner of my eye. . . .
Sonia's husband's name (Jack) is my silent tribute to Jack Skellington. And, although I didn't know it at the time since this chapter was written a few months ago, it can also serve as my tribute to Jack Sparrow. Savvy?
The next chapter is going to be delayed by a few days. I'm going on vacation, so the spacing's going to get a little messed up. This one, Chapter 2, is getting put up early and the next one will have to be put up late, I'd say around August 8th or so. Sorry about that. Uh . . . my bad?
