Sonic Hill 2

Chapter 2: Evil in the Depths of the Fog

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No one was there.

It was rather disturbing. So far he'd been jogging for three minutes, walking for ten, and he hadn't seen a single thing living or moving since he'd started his trek through the forest path. Sure, it was very long on foot. Most sane people would just drive in and out of town; the path was mostly meant for joggers, tourists, and idiots. Yet, he hadn't seen any at all. It was lonely, and extremely quiet. He hadn't heard a sound other than his own footsteps and light panting either, not even any less-evolved animals or trees moving. It was like the whole place was dead.

To top it all off, the weather had gotten even more ridiculous. There was just fog, everywhere. And not the usual fog he'd experienced in his life, but thick fog. Maybe even that wasn't the right way to describe it. He couldn't see anything around him till he was at least within ten feet of it, and the fog seemed to only be getting thicker as he moved forward. That on top of everything else was making him begin to feel very uncomfortable. And impatient, very impatient.

Just in time to save him from a large amount of frustration, he saw an old, black, rusty gate up ahead. He reached it, opened it, and stepped into the new area.

At first he thought it might be an open field of some sort, but as he walked farther into the fog, he saw a tombstone. The grave was quickly followed by another tombstone, and another. Judging from the condition of some of the memorials, it was an old and badly kept graveyard. Graveyards always creeped him out, and he knew he wasn't alone in feeling that. He'd seen plenty of horror video games and movies in his life, and he knew a classic scare would be the creatures of the night crawling out of their graves, craving for flesh. Just thinking of it made him feel uncomfortable

'Oh shove it. Don't let it creep you out, Miles.' He thought to himself. 'Besides, it's not nighttime. And scary shit only happens at night.'

Then again, it might as well be nighttime. The fog was even thicker here. If something were in the area, he wouldn't see it till it was very close. But so far the graveyard seemed as empty as the forest had been, which was both a good and a bad thing. Good thing is that'd mean there's no one there. Bad thing is that…well, it still meant there was no one there.

'Probably because of this weather. Besides, who the hell would hang out in a graveyard—especially this early—anyway?'

The fox sweatdropped when as if on cue, he spotted someone not too far away. The figure scared him a little at first—he didn't expect it, after all—but upon closer look he noticed it was only a tall bat; female from the looks of the outfit. The batgirl was wearing a strange skintight black suit, which ended halfway up her back, along some boots and gloves with a mixture of white and pink in them. She was kneeling down, wings folded, staring at a rather new looking tombstone. She looked so ridiculously out of place in the foggy graveyard that it was kind of funny.

Stepping closer to her, Miles opened his mouth and spoke. "Excuse me, I—"

The girl let out a shriek and jumped, turning to him and backing away in fright. It scared Miles as much as it scared her, and he backed away a bit too. The look in the girl's aqua eyes was a look of terror, which quickly faded away into slight embarrassment. She was wearing some makeup on the lower half of her face—the top half was covered in white fur, opposite of his own. She had large mouse-like ears, and from this side of her he could see that she had very large and defined breasts, which seemed to be held into her dress pretty tightly by the heart-shaped top of her suit. To be honest, she looked rather pretty, for a girl.

"Oh…" the bat said, sounding worried. "I'm sorry…"

"No, it's okay." Miles said. The girl was obviously freaked out, and he tried to comfort her immediately. "I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to scare you."

She grasped her right arm with her left hand and looked down, as if ashamed of her fear. "I'm not usually that jumpy, really. I'm sorry. It's just this place is kind of creepy…"

"Yeah, I know." Miles smiled. She seemed rather nice, but he was on a mission. "Can you help me out here? I'm kind of lost."

The bat raised an eyebrow, as if shocked at his statement. "Lost?"

"Yeah." Miles looked around, seeing nothing but a few graves and then endless fog. He knew the town was close by, but not the direction. "I'm looking for Sonic Hill…"

The bat put her finger to her lip for a second as if the question required some deep thought. "Um…right…" she pointed right of their location. "It's hard to see through the thick fog, but there's only one road to it. You can't miss it."

Smiling once again, Miles turned towards where she pointed. "Thanks." He began to walk away.

"But…"

Miles turned back to her. She sounded like she desperately wanted to tell him what she did next. "Yeah?" he asked.

"I think you'd better stay away…"

"Why?"

"This, uh…this town…there's something wrong with it…"

"Is it dangerous?"

The girl nodded. "Yeah. And it's not just the fog either, it's…"

"I understand. I'll be careful."

"I'm not lying!" she looked at him, almost sounding angry.

Miles held out his hands. "I know. I believe you. It's just that I don't really care if it's dangerous or not. I'm going either way."

"I'm sorry for asking, but…why?"

"I'm looking for someone."

"Someone?"

The fox nodded. Telling someone else would probably make him feel better at least. "Someone very important to me. I'd do anything to be with him again."

He bit his lip, not intending to tell her it was his boyfriend, but accidentally implying it. To his surprise, she didn't seem to react to that at all.

"Me too. I'm here looking for my momma—I mean mother!" She corrected herself fast, illustrating a bit of embarrassment. "It's been so long since I've seen her…I thought my father and brother where here too. But I can't find them." Frowning, she looked away. "I'm sorry…it's not your problem…"

Miles raised an eyebrow. The young bat was acting very weird, and he wasn't sure what it was. She was being pretty dramatic, but it seemed sincere too. She seemed so…insecure with herself. He knew what that was like, and he felt a lot of sympathy for her suddenly, more sympathy than he'd normally give someone he met a minute ago.

"Well…" He wasn't sure what to say—he sucked at this sort of thing and he knew it—but she seemed to need some sort of reassurance. "I hope you find them."

"You too…" she said, looking back at the grave. The way she said it seemed to end the conversation. Neither of them knew what to say. Miles decided to leave before the silence got awkward. He walked away, following the direction she had pointed in earlier. She didn't say anything, so he figured the conversation really was over.

It took him a while after he left to realize he didn't even find out her name, and vice versa. 'Oh well.' He thought. 'I probably won't see her again anyway.' He hated when things like that happened.

After walking through the fog for a while, he was beginning to worry that the girl might have pointed the wrong way. But that worry disappeared when he saw another gate. He walked through it, and proceeded to move through the rest of the forest path.

---Later…---

He made it.

By the time he'd gotten into town he knew something really was wrong with the place. As if the construction, the forest path, and the batgirl hadn't foreshadowed it enough.

Just like the other two areas, the place was empty.

So far, he'd only gone a few blocks, but the town proved to be just as empty, cold, and foggy as the forest. And this time he knew it wasn't supposed to be this way. He put his hands over his mouth like a horn and called out for the third time since he entered the place. "Hello!?"

No one responded.

He was beginning to think the whole town was abandoned or something. But there weren't any signs saying any such thing. He wasn't sure how an abandoned town worked, but he sure as hell knew it wasn't like this. There were cars littered in several parts of the road, all of which looked almost ancient, like they hadn't been used in years. They weren't really beaten or dented or anything, they just seemed to give off an aura saying they hadn't been used in a long time. The buildings gave off that same impression too. And it wasn't like any of them were damaged either.

'Did the whole fucking town just pack up and leave too?' he asked himself. 'Jesus, what's wrong with this place?'

The fog had gotten a thousand times worse too.

Now it was more like he couldn't see more than five feet in front of him. In fact, he'd almost run into a few things quite a few times already, thanks to the weather. It scared him, almost as much as the town's emptiness did.

"Hello!!?" he knew it was useless, but he tried again anyway.

Sighing, Miles continued forward still. Empty town or not, Sonic's letter told him to come here. And he did. He wasn't going to turn back and leave now, not until he at least reached the park and figured out what's going on. He didn't know what to do, if Sonic was there or not, but—

—He suddenly lost his train of thought and stopped dead in his tracks.

There was blood on the road.

First he thought he might be seeing things, but there was no denying it. Something very dark red was there, not just a little, but a hell of a lot. It had to be blood, or some really dark paint. He had reached another intersection of yet another unknown street, and there was a large trail of crimson moving around the curve, as if someone bleeding heavily ('Too heavily…') had made a right turn here. It was still very wet from the looks of it. Miles looked to his right.

"Holy shit."

There was someone there. Only a silhouette, but it was someone. And whoever it was disappeared before he could even fully process what he saw. "Hey!" he called out. He jogged after the person, expecting to see him or her appear through the fog soon, considering whoever it was seemed to be limping. "Are you okay!?"

To his surprise, the person didn't seem to appear anywhere. He kept on jogging, but he never ran into someone. Just blood, more and more blood leading down the concrete road.

'This doesn't make any sense…'

He screeched to a halt when the blood trailed off the concrete road and into a dirt one, right through an open gate. Miles didn't feel like following it was a wise choice, but he had to. What if someone was hurt? He couldn't just leave them there…

His conscience took him over and he continued to jog after whoever was leaving that trail behind. His jog lasted only about ten seconds before he heard something.

Static.

What sounded like a radio with a bad signal on highest volume was heard somewhere beyond his sight. His jog turned into a walk as he cautiously crept forward. The static was getting louder.

A tunnel appeared before him, partially boarded up, but not nearly enough so that you couldn't see the end of it. There were just a bunch of boards and planks stopping any cars from coming in, covering the tunnel entrance like a spider-web. The blood led right into it, where the static emitted off of the dark walls.

'…fuck that. I'm not going in there.'

But he did anyway, feeling almost pulled towards the loud noise. He was too curious and too worried to just turn around and leave now. He grasped onto one board and crawled through one of the larger holes in the web of wood. There was a strangely placed table on the left side of the short tunnel, and not really anything else that looked out of place (other than the second web of wood on the other side, of course). The static was insanely loud now, and the young fox noticed there was a small pocket radio resting stagnant on the table.

"What's wrong with this thing?" he asked, picking up the radio. "I wonder who left this on…"

The sound was really irritating, and scaring him. Something about radio static always made him feel uneasy, and it was one of those many things in his life he didn't know was classified as a normal reaction or not. Either way, it was annoying. He spotted the off switch and pressed it.

But the sound didn't stop.

"What the—"

"ooooooOOOOOOHHHHH!!"

Miles fur stood on end and he jumped, looking at where the loud moan came from.

Something got up.

His eyes widened in horror when he finally got a good look at the…hell, it sure wasn't human, or any sort of furry either. At least, not anymore. The creature looked like the result of a man in a straight jacket being burnt alive. Its arms seemed to be melded into its torso, its head had no face, and there weren't any other features on its body other than a strange hole where the nose should be. Its whole body looked disgustingly brown and dead.

"Oh my god…"

As if responding to his voice, the straightjacket man started twitching, and then limped towards him, dripping a trail of blood out of its rear end.

Miles stepped backwards, and the creature stepped forward. Suddenly, it threw its head forward and spat out some black bile, which let off some steam as if it were hot and toxic.

'What the fuck is that thing!!?'

Miles looked around, desperately searching for something, anything to defend himself with. Whatever the creature was, it obviously wasn't friendly. And the orange kitsune felt terrified when he couldn't find anything to fight off the thing. It continued to limp towards him blindingly slowly.

'There's a whole crapload of boards right behind you. Use them!'

Miles turned and grabbed off a thin part of the barricade, pulling with all his strength. The wood broke off from the rest of the web, and Miles held it in front of him, feeling disturbed yet pleased to see the long plank had a slightly bent nail at the end of it.

"ooooOOOOOhh!!!!!" the creature cried as it spat more bile. It limped towards him once more, only a few feet away from him now. Miles let out a battle cry of terror and thoughtlessly brought the plank down on the creatures head hard, knocking it down to the floor and splattering sprinkles of blood across the tunnel walls.

It wasn't like in the movies. Miles felt sick to his stomach the moment he heard the muted unnatural crack of the creature's skull through its melded flesh. It let out a scream that he couldn't describe, and then stopped moving. It was dead, and the radio static died with it.

There was a long silence, in which the fear finally began to filter out of Miles's mind. He pulled the now bloody end of the plank out of the monsters head and looked down at it, disgusted.

"What the fuck is this?" he asked himself once again, wide eyed. All hopes that there might be something normal about this town died, just like this creature did. He poked it with the plank, growing even more disgusted by the second.

Plank firmly in hand, Miles backed away until his back hit something, causing him to jump and spin around—just like that batgirl did earlier—and breathe a sigh of relief when he realized it was just the barricade. Quickly, he climbed back out of the tunnel, through the larger hole of the wooden web. He knew one thing was for sure: he didn't want to be near whatever he'd just killed.

He only made it a few steps away from the place before the radio suddenly burst to life a second time, sending him into another startled jump. He looked down and pulled the small radio out of his pocket. He didn't even realize he put it there when he saw the monster.

"What's up with this thing?" he asked. He just noticed he'd been asking himself a whole lot of questions lately. But hey, he needed answers. Somehow he got the feeling he wouldn't be getting any anytime soon though.

A voice came over the radio.

"Tails!"

Miles eyes almost bugged out. Over the static, that voice was unmistakably familiar. And even if it wasn't, only one person called him by that name.

"Sonic!?" he asked, dumbfounded.

Sonic's voice continued speaking, but a bad transmission or something caused it to be barely audible. It kept fading in and out, overcome by static.

"…ils…ere ar……d you k…………waiting for yo………k to………………………Is……w…………..h………lost? I'm………..Tails. P…………..ls! Can't……..ar………Ta……ails! Tails! Ta…"

The hedgehog's voice sounded distressed and sad. The radio shut off suddenly, leaving Miles, nicknamed Tails by his boyfriend, staring down, not believing what he just heard.

"He really is here…" he whispered, speechless. He pocketed the radio once again, knowing he'd better keep it.

'That strange bat was right. This place isn't safe at all.' he thought to himself. 'But Sonic's here…oh Sonic…there's no way I'm leaving now, no matter how dangerous this place is. I'm going to find you Sonikku, I promise…'

Rosewater Park should only be about a mile away…

Reassured that his love might actually be here, Miles "Tails" Prower marched on forward.