Sonic Hill 2: DX
Chapter 12: Run Away Run Away Run Away Run Away Run Away
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"…okay." Miles bit his lip again, afraid to say the wrong thing at every turn. "No more splitting up, no matter what."
Sniffling again, Shadow asked. "You promise?"
"Yes." He nodded. "I promise, and I won't mess up this time."
Shadow wiped his eyes again and gave the fox a warm smile. That smile relieved him to no end. "Thank you Miles."
"No problem." Miles smiled back; seeing Shadow's kind expression return eased him. Reaching into the side-pack, he pulled out the handgun and held it out to the hedgehog. "Listen Shadow, it's way too dangerous to be walking around here without a weapon. This doesn't have any ammo left in it, but…"
"Sure it does." Shadow said as he pulled out a handgun clip and flashed it before the other male's eyes, grinning proudly with his usual expression returning. "I found this in S9."
The mood of the conversation had changed completely, and Miles liked that. He grinned. "That's good. If we stick together as a team like this, we'll fare a lot better against those demons." Shadow nodded with complaisance. "Did you find anything else?"
"Yeah, but…I don't think it's very important." Shadow put his hand and his other pocket, pulling it back out and showing the item in his palm: a thick, silver ring. "It kinda just…seemed out of place, so I took it…oh yeah, there's some weird writing on the inside of it too."
Miles took a closer look at the ring and noticed the hedgehog spoke no lies: there was some foreign writing on its inner rim. Something about that writing though looked familiar…
"Interesting…" Miles said. He had a feeling it'd be useful somehow, but he had more important matters to discuss. "But more importantly: What the hell happened here since we split up? Do you know?"
Shadow paused for a few seconds, seeming to think of how to respond and finally shook his head. "I dunno. I fell unconscious."
"You too, huh?"
"Yeah."
"That's so weird…" Miles crossed his arms and glanced around the room, surveying the place for the third time as if he was trying to make sure it was real. "I don't understand what's going on in this town. At first it seemed to make at least some sense, but…"
"Now this mental hospital really is mental, eh?" Shadow joked nervously.
"Amy's gone now…" Miles frowned sullenly. "Maybe that's sort of a good thing. It's even less safe for a girl to be around here than before…Shadow, I think what's most important now is getting out of this building."
"Right." Shadow agreed. "But the doors to the main hallway are locked now, so…"
"There's got to be a key to it somewhere." The fox said. He glanced at the shelf beside him. It was still there, forgotten during the conversation but never ceasing to exist. There was that weird metal thing underneath it…"There's something underneath this."
"What?"
Miles put his shoulder to the shelf and began to push, grunting a little as he and the wooden piece of furniture slid across the floor. A few loud noises later, Miles stopped pushing and looked down at what revealed itself.
"…a trapdoor?"
Kneeling down, Miles grabbed the handle of the trapdoor and pulled it open. Darkness flooded the area below.
'Is this the bottomless pit?' he shined the flashlight into the darkness, revealing gray cement flooring below. 'No…no it's not…'
"What happened to you?"
"Huh?" Miles looked up at Shadow, who stared down at him with a horrified look on his face.
"Y-your back." Shadow kneeled down next to him, hovering his dirty gloved hand over the bloodstained bandages on Miles's back. "Jesus, what the hell happened?"
"Pyramid Head." Miles stated coldly.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Miles jumped down into the room before the anthro could ask any more questions. His feet landed on the cement, sending small sparks of pain through his legs, which faded away as quickly as they came. He looked around the dark room, feeling a bit weirded out at how eager he was to enter the place. Had he been in a similar place when he first entered the town, he would have been terrified of the thought of it.
He scanned the room, finding that it was actually quite small and cramped, about the same size of the storeroom. It was extremely stuffy, like it hadn't been entered or cleaned out in a very long time. Cobwebs coated the walls and ceiling, along with quite a few small black spiders. This was the first time he'd seen any bugs in the town, he realized.
'I guess this is the basement's basement that note was talking about…'
A bolted steel door lie a few feet ahead of him, dusty and rusted. Something about it felt very intimidating – it was a lot older and more classic looking than all of the other doors in the hospital. Almost seemed like it was meant more for a castle dungeon than anything else…
"Are you alright?" Shadow called from above. Miles looked upwards, staring up at the worried hedgehog.
"Yeah…" Miles scanned the room a second time. "A note told me about this place. It's dusty, but safe."
"I don't think it's safe anywhere in this town."
"Relax." Miles stared forward at the door. "There's a door down here."
"Is it locked?" He grabbed the door handle and tried to turn, only to find it held still. "Damnit…" he muttered. Looking back up at Shadow, he replied. "Yeah.""Come back up here then!"
"Alright." Miles frowned. That door was their last opening he had hoped for, and unless Shadow had a key or something, they were stuck. He turned around and looked at the back wall for the third time. "Uh oh…"
"What?"
"There's no ladder."
"Damnit. Hold on, I'll grab you." Shadow began to reach into the hole. Try as he might, he couldn't stretch it far enough to get even anywhere close to Miles's hand. "Shit…"
Miles noticed something on the back wall he hadn't before – what looked like a 1'x1' metal control panel of some sort.
'"…I got out by pressing the buttons on some machine. I dropped my precious ring, and I saw a door. But I will never, ever go back there."' Miles remembered the note had said.
"Wait a second, I think I've got it figured out."
Walking up to the control panel, he noticed there were ten small lights horizontally across the middle of the panel. Only three of them were glowing, and two were broken completely. Thought they were lights, they looked a lot like buttons at the same time. Miles pressed his index finger on the button-light the farthest to the left. It sunk into the panel and shut off, while two other lights on the panel sparked with light again.
"Interesting…"
He continued to press the buttons at random, always causing some to shut off and others to turn back on. It looked kind of like those classic spaceship blinky lights he'd seen on TV, almost. After a few seconds of random button pressing, all the lights except for the two broken ones lit up. The sound of small metal moving was heard, and Miles looked to the bottom of the panel to see a hole had opened up. He kneeled down a bit and looked into the hole, seeing a large red button inside. He pressed the button, and a soft whir reverberated throughout the small room. He turned and grinned with accomplishment as he saw a ladder had produced itself from the pressing of the button, leading back up into the storeroom.
"How'd you do that?" Shadow asked from above.
"Just another puzzle." Miles said, feeling a lot smarter than he did a minute ago. He proceeded to move towards the ladder until he noticed something reflecting off light from his flashlight.
"Hey, wait. There is something down here." He said.
"What?"
Kneeling down, Miles picked up the item, not too surprised to find it was a brown copper ring. On the inner rim was more strange handwriting, just like on Shadow's silver ring…
"Another ring." Miles looked up at Shadow. "Do you think there are any more of these?"
Shadow shrugged. "I dunno."
'That statue, on the third floor…' Miles contemplated the idea. 'It had this same kinda writing around its fingers…maybe it—'
"Could you please get the hell out of there now?" Shadow cried from above, derailing his train of thought. Grasping the bars of the ladder, Miles climbed back up into the storeroom.
"Here." Miles said as he held out the ring. "You hold it for now."
"Why?"
"I think we'll need it."
Shadow raised an eyebrow, but nodded in agreement. The idea of that was weird, but he seemed to understand. Miles pulled the shotgun out from behind him and grasped it tightly. "You ready to go?"
"You bet." Shadow flashed him another benign smile, again reminding Miles of how glad he was that they weren't separated anymore. Together again, the two comrades exited the storeroom.
---Later…---
So, Shadow and Miles began their trek back through the hospital floors, taking the elevator back to the second floor and moving through the M Corridor, evading the two nurses which seemed to reappear there since before. The day room was just the same as Miles remembered on his way down to the basement: nothing but that mysterious fridge lay on its floor. Miles passed by it when he remembered he couldn't open it before and looked to Shadow.
"Shadow, wait." He said, looking down on the fridge. "Could you help me with this?"
The hedgehog looked at the fridge and, rather than asking any questions, nodded. "Sure."
He stopped at the fridge right beside Miles and together they grasped the large handle and pulled with all their might. After some strain, the door finally began to pull open. It was a lot easier after that, and they quickly opened the fridge all the way, feeling its cool interior spread out across their faces.
The fridge was empty, except for some frozen metal in the back…
Miles picked up the object and realized it was a key. The letter 'E' written on it. Things just got weirder and weirder…
"The E Corridor?" So far the only places they'd checked out in the hospitals were the main halls, the C M and S corridors, and the basement. Looks like they'd be able to check out more of the place, which meant only more key finding, more fruitless searching, and more monsters.
"That's next to the C Corridor, right?" Shadow asked. Miles nodded.
"Before we go though, there's something I want to check out again on the third floor."
"Alright."
Leaving the fridge door open, they walked out of the day room and into the second floor main hallway, taking the main hall stairway to the third floor. The roof and first floor were blocked off now by that stairway, Miles knew, which is why he didn't bother to try going down to the first floor via that route. Shadow seemed to know too, and the fox wasn't surprised; Shadow had been awake a lot longer than he had apparently.
The S Corridor was still devoid of demons thankfully, so they had no problem reaching the angel painting in the middle of the hall covering the corridor stairway door. It's 3D arm stuck out of the painting, just like Miles remembered. He looked to Shadow. "I think those rings belong here." He said, pointing at its four fingers and thumb.
Shadow pulled out the silver and copper ring and slid it onto the angel's fingers, hearing a click both times. Nothing happened though, and it hit him that they'd need the other three rings before…well, before whatever would happen when they put them back where they belong would happen.
"There's gotta be three other rings…" Shadow said, glancing at Miles. "But I've been everywhere here, and I haven't seen any others. You think they're in the other part of the hospital?"
"Yes." Miles said, looking back down the hall. "Let's go."
Together Miles and Shadow ran back down to the M Corridor, took the elevator to the C Corridor, and headed for the E Corridor door. The D corridor wasn't on the map for some reason, but he didn't really care. Nervously, the young fox slid the key into the lock and unlocked the door, pushing it open into the new room.
It felt strange, finally entering a different hallway in the hospital rather than constantly backtracking, and it made both of them feel uneasy, since they knew even less about this place than any other. While the C Corridor had that strange metal grating, the floor looked relatively normal in this corridor. The place led down about thirty feet, then branched out in two directions. There were doors on both walls, unlike in the other three corridors. Miles wondered how many patients there really were in this hellhole. The town wasn't that big or populated, yet the hospital was gigantic. That was just another thing on his list of things that made him feel uneasy about Sonic Hill.
Also unlike the other corridors, this one's lights were working. Miles and Shadow didn't mind that at all. Miles turned off his flashlight for the first time since he'd woken up and said to Shadow: "Let's check out these rooms. Same formation as usual, okay?"
"Okay."
So they moved slowly down the corridor, Shadow checking the doors while Miles walked beside him, shotgun raised and ready for any unfortunate monsters that stumbled across their path. The first unlocked door they found was E3. They moved in.
It was another standard room, holding within it a bed and a small table. On the right wall was a desk, which had a piece of paper laying flat on it right next to a handgun clip.
Shadow grabbed the clip and shoved it down his pocket, happy to find more ammo for his gun. Two full clips - that meant thirty bullets. That should last them long enough. Miles stood beside him, eyes transfixed on the piece of paper before him.
"What is it?" Shadow asked. Miles felt another strange nervousness as he stared at the content on the paper. Nothing was written on it, except two black bold words typed up in the very middle of it.
'Run Away.'
"Weird…" Miles said. Yet another thing to add to his uneasy list. That message was nothing compared to the one written on the paper underneath it. Miles slid the first paper out of the way and read the second one, his eyes widening in horror.
'Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away. Run Away.'
Miles dropped the paper and backed away quickly, startling Shadow.
"Whoa, relax." Shadow said to Miles, looking slightly worried. "You okay?"
"Y-yeah…" Miles said. Who the hell would type that up? It was like in that one movie he saw, almost. He couldn't remember the name though…shaking his head, he looked to Shadow. "Just…this whole thing is getting to me."
"I can understand." Shadow agreed. Many probably would have lost their minds to maddened terror by now.
"T-there's nothing of use left here. Let's get out."
"Right."
The second Miles and Shadow opened the door and walked out, the radio screamed with life. Two nurses were on Shadow's immediate right, pipes already ascending to slam down upon his skull. This time though he was prepared and a split second later his gun was drawn and the closer nurse was on the floor, spazming in its own blood. The second one followed right after it, but the radio static didn't shut off. Shadow soon found out why as he heard Miles's shotgun go off and he turned—spotting several straightjacket monsters on his way there—to see the shorter anthro shoot down another nurse.
They were everywhere; nurses and straightjacket monsters littered the whole hallway, all limping towards them in a swarm. He didn't understand. How did they all get here so fast? Before Shadow could even begin to contemplate how, Miles grabbed his hand and they were running.
They stopped very quickly around the corner of the T shaped corridor, horrified as they ran into only more straightjacket monsters blocking the left hallway. Already the nurses and other straightjacket monsters were limping not too far behind them. They were surrounded.
Miles looked at Shadow, and Shadow looked right back, knowing what they had to do. Quickly they went back-to-back, raising their weapons and opening fire on the creatures. Two nurses fell down dead, simultaneously being hit by a single blast from Miles's shotgun; the nurse right behind them only lived a second longer before it too was torn down by the weapon. Meanwhile, Shadow unloaded his handgun clip into seven straightjacket monsters, relieved to see them fall but terrified to see only more behind them. Static from the radio continued to scream into their speeding thoughts, combining with the screams from the monsters and the roar of their guns.
"Shit!" Miles cried when his shotgun let out an empty click, knowing that he had to reload with his last box or they'd both be done for. At lightning speed he pulled the box of shotgun shells out of his bag and desperately tried to reload as the nearest nurse stumbled closer and closer. He took too long, and the nurse raised its pipe to clobber him. He shut his eyes tight, expecting to feel the weapon across his skull any second, until he heard several bangs and opened his eyes to see the nurse on the ground, Shadow right beside him grasping the handgun.
He smiled, wanting to thank the hedgehog but not having enough time to. Shadow moved so they were back to back again, shooting down the remaining straightjacket monsters before they reached him. Miles turned to the three demons ahead and aimed the now fully-loaded shotgun, squeezing the trigger and being rewarded with a scream from all three of them. They began to maneuver down the hall, spinning around in a circle together and shooting every monster that was closest to them.
This stopped when Shadow cried out, and Miles whirred around to see a nurse grabbing the hedgehog by the arms while an straight jacket monster wiggled towards him, getting ready to spit its stomach acids onto him. The fox shouldered the shotgun again to shoot the nurse down, but realized that the weapon's wide firing range would surely kill his teammate too. So instead, he turned the gun around and bashed the nurse's brains in with the butt of the shotgun, throwing it off of Shadow and causing it to fall to the ground like so many others before it.
Released from the monster's grip, Shadow looked to the straightjacket monster and shot it down, dead. He had already gone through the first handgun clip, and the second one was already halfway empty now. There were way too many monsters to go on like this. He looked to Miles and knew the fox was thinking the same thing.
Lowering theirs weapons, the team broke into a sprint, pushing and rushing past any monster that got in their way. None of the demons managed to get their hands of them luckily, and they turned around the second corner in the hall, moving down the F corridor now.
They stopped dead in their tracks, their blood running cold and their eyes widening as an extremely loud roar reverberated throughout the twisting hallway, sounding like it was coming from behind them. Quickly they spun around, their horrified eyes widening even more as they saw what had just run around the corner and stopped not too far away.
It looked similar to an ape, but it had been skinned of its flesh; its brains sticking out through its small inhuman head. Opening its large mouth, it let out another gruesome roar, showing its long sharp yellow teeth. Its thick muscular and mutilated arms pulsed with strength. Its claws, long and narrow, cut into the tile flooring.
Miles and Shadow stepped back in horror as the ape monster suddenly charged at them at amazing speeds, clearing eight feet in less than a second. Adrenaline rushed through their veins and the two furries turned to run away as fast as they could. Run away run away run away run away run away.
The creature charged after them, its mouth screaming and spraying its saliva across the floor, even gaining speed. It would have stabbed its claws into their backs and eaten them alive had they not turned another corner before it could, jumping through the metal gate and entering the G corridor. The twosome grabbed the iron bars that were left open on the metal gate and slammed it closed, just in time to save their lives. The ape slammed into the bars, screaming with disappointment. It looked disgusting, beating against the bars and making gorilla-like noises and shaking its head around, spraying more saliva everywhere.
Miles and Shadow slowly backed away, too afraid to take their eyes off the beast for even a second. Hands trembling, Shadow grasped onto the handle of the G2 door and opened it, running in with Miles right behind him.
They slammed the door behind them and put their backs to it, panting heavily and sweating like dogs. In unison, they slid down to the floor and stared at the wall ahead of them.
Miles looked to Shadow with a haggard expression on his young face. He looked at least ten years older. "What the fuck was that?"
"I have no idea…" Shadow panted, his voice sounding higher through his gasps of respiration.
"Uuugn…" Miles groaned and put his hands on his temples, looking down at the floor through his orange-furred legs. "I'm gonna need some serious therapy after this."
"I've never seen any monsters like that here before." Shadow said, his eyes still wide and staring at the wall on the other end of the patients' room. "Do you think there are more than one of those?"
"I wouldn't be surprised if there were." Miles stumbled back up, not believing what he just saw. Things just seemed to be getting worse and worse by the minute.
"W-we've gotta get out of here…" the hedgehog muttered. They both already knew that beforehand, but he still felt the need to repeat it out loud.
"Yeah…"
…
"…let's wait here for a while first though."
"Good idea." Miles stumbled over to the mattress not too far away and sprawled out on it, looking up at the dimly lit ceiling while Shadow stayed sitting on the floor. They both had to be a lot more cautious around the corridors now, if they hoped to even have a chance of surviving. For the time being though, it seemed best just to wait for things to calm down a bit before getting back to searching for those rings.
And so, their blood still rushing with adrenaline that was beginning to subside, Miles and Shadow began to wait.