Author's note: Once again, this chapter is rather depressing, as if you wanted to know.
Chapter 6: Amy's Alive, But......
Knuckles stared deeply into the mirror after washing out his mouth. He still felt very sick to his stomach and started to feel very embarrassed. "I can't believe that this is actually happening to me," Knuckles thought, almost out loud, "I'm the guardian of the master emerald, I'm supposed to be tough! I'd hate to know how my ancestors would feel if they see me puking my guts out into a sink like I had a hangover!"
Meanwhile, back at Amy's hospital room, Sonic was becoming very pale. He almost seemed to be a different shade of blue! Rogue was starting to feel quite lightheaded, and she almost didn't believe the doctor's words.
Sonic was now starting to feel very sick and started thinking to himself. "I was so stupid! I mean, who in their right mind would ever stop a car in the middle a highway. Anyone who does that is just asking for an accident, and I got it. And because of me, Amy's in critical condition with a coma!"
Sonic then started repeatedly banging his head on a nearby wall, kind of like a self-punishment. Rogue just stared in surprise, she never expected Sonic to deliberately hurt himself like this. Dr. Carbana quickly stopped him, "Hey, stop that! There's enough injured people in this hospital already."
Sonic stopped after a few more hits, but just simply slumped down to the floor. He sat down on the floor, leaned against the wall that he was hitting, and hugged his knees. There was a large bump on his head, but no bleeding. There was also a noticeable dent in the wall!
Knuckles finally exited the restroom and walked back to Amy's room. Tails saw Knuckles pass by again and decided to ask him something. "Hey, Knuckles! How is Amy? Is she okay?" Tails was very worried, and his tone of voice expressed it.
Knuckles turned towards Tails and saw that the young fox was worried sick because he doesn't know anything that's happened. The last time Tails saw Amy was on the morning news, and it wasn't pretty.
Knuckles decided to give him some kind of answer. "Tails, if you want to know, Amy's alive. For now that's all that you should know. Just stay here until we come for you." Knuckles walked in the room without saying anything else and closed the door. Tails couldn't decide if he should worry more or feel relieved.
When Knuckles walked in, he almost felt ashamed. "Sonic, what are you doing?" He saw Sonic sitting on the floor hugging his knees and rocking himself. "Hey, get up! You're making yourself a bad image and you're embarrassing yourself!" Sonic still sat there and didn't listen to a word he said. Even if he did though, he wouldn't care. He was too shocked and depressed to do anything else.
"All right," Dr. Carbana called their attention, "now that you're all here, I'm going to continue with Amy's report."
"You mean there's more?" Rogue asked, starting to feel faint again.
"Actually I'm done with the clipboard report," the doctor answered while putting the clipboard away, "but for the rest of the report, you'll all understand more if you see it for yourself." Dr. Carbana pointed at Sonic's depressed form, "that is if he wants me to continue."
Sonic finally snapped out of his depressed trance. "No! Please continue. It's the least we could do for Amy right now."
"Okay, since you're all ready." The doctor pulled out a remote that resembled a garage door opener and pressed the button. Immediately the large curtain slowly moved away, revealing the other side of the room. And on the other side of the room was none other than Amy herself! She was lying on a large hospital bed with lots of tubes and wires connected all over her body. She had large casts on her arms and legs, and lots of bandages around her upper body and head. They all gathered around her bed to get a closer look. Knuckles was very hesitant, but forced himself over.
The doctor decided to speak first, "I'm sure that you'll all be amazed that she's still alive despite her severe injuries. Her arms and legs have healed slightly and most of her rib cage is repairing itself as well. You can also hardly see any sign of cuts or bruises, even though she did have over five hundred stitches all over her body."
They were all very amazed indeed! Sonic decided to speak up, "wait a minute. If she's been here for only three days, how could those injuries heal in such a short amount of time?"
"I'm glad you asked," the doctor answered, "you see that glass tank against the wall? That's the reason that she's still alive. That's an experimental saline tank. It's designed to greatly speed up the healing process by using experimental chemicals and medicine. It was installed just a few weeks ago and since then, it was used only twice and they were both successful. When Amy arrived at this hospital, her body was so badly damaged that there was no choice but to use it. We couldn't risk letting her heal naturally, she would be dead long before that happened."
"Wow! That's amazing doctor," Rogue said.
Sonic almost forgot to ask a question earlier, "hey doc, I almost forgot. Why was I kept here for three days? Can you answer that now?"
"Gladly," the doctor replied, "you see, when Amy arrived here, she had lost so much blood that I was very surprised that she was still alive! But her pulse was almost undetectable, so she needed a blood transfusion immediately! However, the only source for hedgehog blood was you. We had to extract nearly half of YOUR blood in order to save her. We had to put you on life support temporarily to keep you from going into shock while we took out some of your blood. In other words, about half of the blood flowing through her veins is really yours!"
Sonic was both amazed and shocked, "so, is that why I was here for three days?"
"Exactly," the doctor answered, "your own injuries were very minor. But because of the blood transfusion, we had to keep you here until your body recovered the blood that was extracted. We were actually surprised that it only took three days!"
They all took a good look at Amy, she was very peaceful and calm looking. They also noticed a large tube going into her mouth and down her throat. "Um, doctor," Knuckles asked while pointing at the tube in Amy's mouth, "what is that?"
Dr. Carbana took a glance, "that's a respiration tube. It's designed to help her breathe. You see, that saline tank can only help heal normal wounds. However, it can't heal internal organs or replace blood loss. Remember I said that her left lung was damaged beyond repair and removed? Well her right lung is perfectly fine, except it isn't functioning right. This could be another side effect of her brain damage. So until this problem is corrected, this machine should do the breathing for her."
The whole group couldn't believe their ears! It seems like more complications are appearing out of nowhere!
"Unfortunately," the doctor continued, "that's not all. You see those tubes all over her body? They're designed to control internal bleeding and hemorrhaging. But we can't seem to stoop the bleeding. Therefore, she may need another blood transfusion, though not anywhere near as big as the first one."
"You don't even have to ask," Sonic interrupted, "if this will help Amy at all, I'm more than willing to do it."
"Okay," the doctor replied, "this time, only about ten percent of you blood is needed. You don't need a life support machine this time, but you may feel a bit lightheaded for a day or so."
"Let's do it," Sonic said very boldly.
Later that day, the whole group began to feel better for Amy. At least they know that she's still alive. Even though she's in a coma, it's now just a matter of waiting for her to wake up. Although they didn't know how long it would be, they each decided to take turns being with Amy. They even allowed Tails to participate (though they didn't tell him all the graphic stuff that the doctor mentioned)!
However, Dr. Carbana wasn't feeling very optimistic. He studied Amy's body scans and based on some certain damages to her nervous system, he was starting to make a few very startling predictions. He was also hoping that none of them would really come true. He'll just have to wait until Amy wakes up, if at all.
Days passed, weeks passed, and months passed by. The whole group was starting to feel very worried, especially Sonic. He just couldn't get over how stupid he was acting the night of the accident. His depression started to grow rapidly and it was eating him alive from the inside. He could almost feel it.
Amy's birthday came and went, and the whole group left some flowers and small gifts at her bedside. Sonic decided to stay an extra day to give her some companionship for her birthday. Over the months, Sonic became very depressed and usually wouldn't eat. He started feeling very frail and constantly tired, but his hope for Amy never diminished.
Finally, after SIXTEEN long and agonizing months, Amy's brain waves indicated that she was regaining consciousness! Dr. Carbana now felt much more nervous than he had ever been, but decided to tell Sonic and the others. They all felt extremely relieved and happy and they began to celebrate. But little did they know that their nightmare is about to begin once again, and Dr. Carbana already knew it!