Hope you guys are still with me! Any thoughts yet on where this is going? ~beams~ Okay, I'll stop talking. Here's Chapter 3! Don't spend it all in one place.
As always: enjoy.
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
III : Instant Replay
"By heaven I charge thee! Speak!"
~ Horatio
"Oh SHIT!" I turn and run like mad, fear once again fueling my feet. The door! If I can just make it to the door!
I feel a surge of freezing cold air right on my neck as I tearass through my lawn. Just because I'm stupid, I risk a glance over my shoulder. Now that it's light out, sort of, I can clearly see the thing. It seems to be having a hard time keeping up with me. It's using its twin tails to propel itself over the ground, kind of like a hovercraft, but it keeps stumbling and reaching a hand out towards me, like it's too frantic to run straight. I may be crazy, but it doesn't seem to be in the same mood as it was when I met it last night. It seems almost . . . scared.
Well, whatever's bothering it, it's enough to let me reach the door first. I give a nasty laugh and leap into the doorway with plenty of time to spare. I'm home free, baby!
"See ya, you freaky little shit!" I laugh in triumph, and then I slam the door just as the thing's coming up the porch.
You know those stupid dances you do when you've done something so totally cool words escape you?
Yeah.
So anyway, I'm laughin' and dancin' and generally feeling pretty good about myself and what I've just done . . . and then a transparent fox head pops right through my door. Its bleached eyes widen to the size of saucers, and that voice that seems to rip the quills right off my neck rasps on the air. "Please! Don't hurt him!"
I scream and jump back, my arms flailing out to catch something, but there's nothing there to break my fall. I land with a thud smack on my tail. As I sit and tremble, watching this thing pull itself the rest of the way through my door, I'm convinced of two things: one, doors don't do shit; and two, this thing is definitely a ghost.
The fox advances, his arm held out pleadingly. "Don't hurt him!" he begs, and that's when I realize he's not talking to me; he's looking past me, through me. Still on my ass, I scoot off to the side and hold my breath hoping that he'll forget about me if I'm quiet. The kid doesn't seem to notice. He just keeps on inching forewords in a trance like I was never there.
I'm shivering all over, partly from the searing cold that's suddenly blanketing the room, and partly from fear. My teeth chatter violently while this undead thing from another plane moves right past me. Now that I'm this close, I can see that the ghost is shaking too. His eyes are focused in horror at a point beyond my small shack's back wall. Underneath them, I can see large silver tears just waiting to be shed. Again, I get the impression that he's afraid, but I have no clue what it is he's looking at. I can't see a damn thing.
The kit stops suddenly and his eyes get even bigger, like someone watching the woman in a horror movie about to be murdered. He puts up his ghostly hands in a form of surrender. "Please!" he sobs, "Don't hurt him!" His ears prick up, listening to some silent conversation that's long dead to anyone but his tortured soul. "All right" he nods. "I'll give you the Chaos Emerald, but you have to promise to let Sonic go."
Forgetting myself, I gasp out loud and then clap a hand over my mouth. Thankfully, the ghost doesn't notice my mistake.
Did he just say Sonic?! Then that means . . . that means I must be looking at the ghost of Tails. I am actually sitting inches away from the Tails!
The fear in my stomach turns to butterflies. To think! Miles Prower! Tails himself!!! I have one of the greatest heroes on all of Mobius walking around in my house! But, wait . . . something doesn't fit. If he's real, then that means he really did attack me last night. And the kid I found in the woods certainly didn't act like the Tails I've heard of. . . .
A glowing silver light distracts me from my thoughts, and I look over just in time to see ghost Tails pull out a shining gem from behind his back. My eyes grow wide in their sockets. I'd stake my life that the gem in his hand is one of the Chaos Emeralds.
The Chaos Emeralds and the legendary Master Emerald were told as nothing more than fairy tales when I grew up --- still are, as far as I know. They've never been found. No one's even been able to prove their existence, but now that I can see one for myself --- or a shadow of one anyway --- I'm pretty much convinced they were real.
Tails glances guiltily downwards and then holds out the gem. One second the crystal is in his hands, and the next it's gone; snatched by some invisible hand that Tails can probably see, but I sure as hell can't.
Tails grits his glowing white teeth. "There. Now let Sonic go!" The fox's ears prick up again as he listens to the silence, and then with a scream more terrible than even the ones I heard last night, his face contorts into a twisted mass of anger and sorrow and he leaps forward. "SONIC! NO!!!" The bloodcurdling scream shakes my entire cabin as I watch him dive desperately towards the ground, reaching out his young arms to catch something before it falls.
The head from last night --- with its glassy, green, fish-like eyes --- comes into view and lands square in Tails' lap. And then, Tails starts to rock hypnotically, all the while talking softly to the dismembered head. "Sonic no! He lied to me . . . he tricked me. . . ."
Seconds later, a chorus of maniacal laughter echoes through my tiny house and a terrible BANG shatters through the air. In a whiz of bright red light, I see a laser blast spiral towards Tails.
"Hey kid! LOOKOUT!" My warning comes out on its own, totally involuntary, but it doesn't matter anyway. Tails doesn't hear me. His eyes fling open wide in horror as the blast strikes him directly in the heart. I have just enough time to see the kid's blood and bone splatter all over my walls before I pass out on the floor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It takes a few seconds for everything to come back to me. I groan and bring a hand to my temple. It must have hit the floor when I fell. I can tell from the chirp of the crickets outside that it's night. That means I've been out for a few hours. The house is silent --- and dark, of course. Can't have a frightening experience with ghosts from the underworld without a nice quiet, dark house. I look over at the place where Tails was right before his rib cage plastered itself to my wall and I almost feint again.
The little shit's still there!
He's laying on his side, his eyes open and hazed in the grip of death. His mouth is frozen in a little 'o' of surprise and a gaping hole is blown through his chest right where I saw the blast hit him. Again, even though the kid's a ghost, I can tell by the dark color on his fur and hands that he's drenched in blood. There's even a puddle of 'ghost blood' on the floor underneath him. From the looks of it, his body's stiff as a board.
Guardian. If ever I needed a joint, I need one now.
I look around in a daze, hardly believing this is even happening. Sonic's head is resting on the other side of the room, propped up against a table leg. It must have flown out of Tails' arms when he 'died.' The green fish eyes stare at me accusingly. For a dead head, it looks royally pissed. The severed pieces of flesh on its neck sway gently in a breeze that isn't there. I swear I can smell blood.
I don't know why, but suddenly a wash of anger floods over me. I'm not scared or shocked or quaking, I'm just pissed as hell.
"You little fucker!" I scream at Tails like he's going to answer me. "What the hell do you want!"
Not surprisingly, the only reply I get is the sound of crickets chirping outside.
"I know you can hear me, you freaky little shit! You're a fucking ghost! YOU CAN'T DIE! Now stand up and answer me! What in the name of the Guardian's balls are you following me around for?!"
The responding silence doesn't help to soothe my temper. I pick up a nearby vase, stolen of course, and hurl it directly at Tails' head. The ceramic pottery passes right through him and shatters on the floor . . . and Tails just stares. Without thinking, I cross the room and reach a hand towards the fox's throat. My fingers pass right through him --- obviously, I don't know why I was expecting anything else --- but as I stand there, I feel the most bone-chilling cold ever imaginable pass through me. It feels like sticking my hand inside a cooler of ice and then peeling back the flesh until nothing but bone is exposed. Within seconds, the otherworldly cold travels up my arm and into my chest, seizing my heart in its grip. I can hear my pulse start to slow in my ears. With difficulty, I yank my hand out of the kid and stumble back into a wall.
"Oh Guardian" I moan. Shaking like a crack addict on withdraw, I somehow make my way to the bathroom and hurl up my guts in the john. I'm only in there for a few minutes, but when I stumble back out, there's no sign of Tails or Sonic. They're gone.
I'm too sick to do a victory dance this time. Not like it matters anyway . . . this wasn't a victory. I have no clue why, but somehow I know I haven't seen the last of Tails.
This is far, far from over. . . .
Ahh. The plot thickens. Hopefully by now you have tons of questions, more so than you have answers. Any thoughts on anything? Drop me an email or stick it in a review. I'll be happy to discuss stuff with you, and I promise I won't give away the plot. Consider it an "open discussion" session.
Hope you liked it. This chapter has more action in it than the last one, I know, but I promise I won't steer you wrong. Each chapter has its place, trust me. The next post should be around August 15th, I think.
