Sonic Hill 2: DX
Chapter 14: Betrayal------
Like the barren streets of Sonic Hill, the parking garage was disturbingly empty. Concrete flooring expanded across a very large radius, only having five or six old dented cars scattered across it. One was all Miles and Shadow needed though to get out, and that one was there. Hearts pounding with anticipation, the duo ran across the hard concrete floor, hearing its shadow of sound bounce around the walls before being overcome by silence. The double doors to the E Corridor slowly closed shut behind them, spitting out a sound too distant for them to hear or care about. All that mattered to them now was leaving.
An old rusty station wagon was the first vehicle they came across, and a quick look at the interior through the cracked window proved it was empty and clean enough to drive in. Best of all, the keys were in the ignition like someone had left and forgotten to take it out. They had no problem with that, no problem at all. Pulling the door open, Miles jumped into the driver's seat while Shadow stayed outside the car, guarding the perimeter closely with the handgun drawn. The fox checked the gas meter, seeing there was enough in the tank to get them about twenty miles, far enough away from town to find some outside help.
"Shadow…" Miles looked at the hedgehog, grinning widely even more so than before. "I think we're ready to go!"
"Good." Shadow said, shoving the gun down his pocket as he ran around the front of the car and hopped in shotgun. "Let's get out of this hellhole!"
"Right!" Miles grasped the ignition key and quickly turned it to start the vehicle up.
…
And nothing happened.
"Shit!" Miles winded it back and turned the key again. Still nothing, not even the sound of the engine trying to start. "Shit!!" Groaning, he slammed his head across the wheel.
Frowning, Shadow asked calmly. "Why don't we check the engine?"
Nodding, Miles pressed the hood top-open button, opened the door and walked back out of the car, running to the front hood. Shadow followed on the other side. Grasping the edge of the metal, he pulled it open.
The engine was gone, completely. Leaving behind an empty shell of metal.
Slamming the hood down, Miles screamed in frustrated anger. "GODDAMNIT!!!"
Shadow looked down discontentedly as the fox took his rage out on the hood of the station wagon. Trying to keep his cool, he said. "We should check the other cars…"
"What's the point!?" Miles cried, causing the hedgehog to step back a bit in surprise. "None of those ones will have engines either! You know it! We're stuck in this fucking hospital, stuck in this fucking town…"
The discomfiture and disappointment in the fox's voice was overwhelming. Shadow felt the undying need to make him feel less upset, but there wasn't anything he could do. "Miles…"
Whatever he was about to say, he never got to say it. A loud, inhuman scream echoed throughout the garage, causing both of them to jump and let out a small yelp themselves. Looking up, Shadow's heart almost stopped when he saw the skinless gorilla they had run into earlier crouched on top of the station wagon, flashing its bloody sharp teeth. Before the hedgehog could even shout, the creature jumped off the car, about to land on Miles's back. Instinctive reflexes took over him and he jumped, crossing the short distance between himself and the fox much faster than the time it took for the gravity to push the gorilla down on his friend. Shadow rammed right into Miles and they both flew out of the monsters path, missing its sharp claws just in time.
Miles let out another yelp as he landed on his behind, the hedgehog on top of him. He only had a split second to recuperate before the gorilla jumped at them again. Shadow rolled off of him and out of the way, timing it perfectly as Miles rolled the other direction. The gorilla landed in between them, digging its claws into the hard cement they had been laying on a second earlier.
Shadow rolled to his feet and pulled out the handgun immediately, rapidly squeezing the trigger and firing two bullets at the monster before it spun around, dragging one of it's nails across his right arm lightly and leaving trails of blood in his fur. Pain hissed on his arm and he clutched it tightly, lowering the handgun in the process. The gorilla was about to slash him again, but Miles put the shotgun against its back and squeezed the trigger, smiling as the fresh shells buried themselves into the monster's back.
But to his dismay, the gorilla didn't die right away. It backhanded him, sending him falling to the ground. Before he could make another move the monster jumped on top of him, jabbing its claws into his chest. He stopped it just in time, grabbing its hands before it ripped into his heart and holding it back with all his might. The monster's strength was far superior to his though, and it slowly overpowered him, painfully driving its claws into his fur. The jagged tips just barely touched his flesh. Miles knew, to his own terror, that in a few seconds he wouldn't be able to hold it back anymore, and the monster would dig into his chest and tear out his rapidly beating heart.
-BANG!
But it was torn off of him suddenly, letting out a mangled cry of agony. Miles put his hand to his chest and turned over in pain while trying to catch his breath. Shadow pumped the shotgun he grabbed off the floor and fired again. The gorilla let out another roar as even more bullets entered its body, but it still had ceased to die. Screaming once again, it tried to get up, but stopped when the head of the gun was put against its face. It looked up at Shadow, seeing the black hedgehog grin madly.
"Game over."
Shadow squeezed the trigger and the gun fired right into the creatures face, blowing its head off entirely and covering the cement floor with splatters of blood. It let out a final gurgled cry from its headless body, blood pouring out in waterfalls, until it fell to the floor spazming. Less than a second later, it stopped moving, and the monster ceased to exist.
Glaring at the body, Shadow pumped the weapon again and dropped it, running over to the fox and turning him over. "Miles, are you okay!?"
"Sh-Shadow!" the yellowish orange furred kitsune cried. He took his hand away from his chest to show the gorilla hadn't stabbed him, just left a deep scratch.
"Oh thank god…" Shadow cried with relief. Miles began to sob softly, his eyes moistening. He may still be alive, but he obviously wasn't okay. Shadow pulled him into a close, comforting hug. "Miles, it's okay. It's okay..."
"Shadow…I-I can't believe…" Miles sniffled and looked at his face. "You saved me again…I've never…"
"Relax."
Looking away, the other male tried to think of how to say what he wanted to say next, only coming up with short statements. Deep down inside, those feelings awakened again, those feelings of extreme admiration for the hedgehog, except now they were stronger than ever before. "I…you've been so nice to me…no one's ever been this nice to me, except for Sonic…I think…"
"What?"
"Shadow…" Tails closed his eyes and let more tears roll down his cheeks. "I can't betray Sonic, but…from all this, and what happened in S3…I think have feelings for you…"
Shadow looked down, not knowing what to say. The truth, which he had known since S3, since even before that, became apparent to his mind. It wasn't something he was ashamed of. "Miles…I feel the same way."
Slowly, Miles wrapped his arms around Shadow's neck and buried his muzzle into the white patch of fur on the hedgehog's chest, sobbing slightly again. Except this time it wasn't of sadness, but a profound happiness that he was no longer alone. Shadow pulled his face up to meet his own, closing the gap between the two as their lips met for the second time. Only this time, rather than only brushing their lips together, they locked each other in a long, passionate kiss. Shadow placed his hands on the other male's back, trying to pull him closer without touching the still aching wound.
That hole in Miles's heart mended slightly, and his mind was away from it all now. For that small blissful moment, everything was okay. The two furries had fallen too deep in their ocean of passion to notice the ground was rumbling at first, but soon the shaking brought them to their senses and they broke the kiss, looking around for what was causing it. Stumbling up, they felt the shaking of the concrete intensify, like the ground was about to fall out underneath them.
"What's going on!?"
Shadow's question was answered as they heard a loud roar—this one much louder from the one the gorilla had made earlier—reverberate through the concrete beneath them. The ground around them cracked and started to crumble apart. At the same time, they both jumped away from the area they were standing on seconds earlier and broke into a sprint towards the parking garage door. Whatever was going on, they didn't want to stick around and wait for the disaster to kill them.
They stopped dead in their tracks about twenty meters away from the door, just in time to avoid falling into the pit as the ground in front of them broke away, blocking off their exit. To their horror, they saw something big smash through the concrete to the surface, sending dirt rocks and cement everywhere.
It looked like a giant coffee-colored worm, its head being nothing but a large hole, which they soon realized was its mouth. Like the monsters before it, it had countless jagged edged teeth circling the perimeter of its jaw. Though it had no eyes, it let out a terrible roar and shot towards them extremely fast.
Like they had with the gorilla before, Miles and Shadow simultaneously jumped in different directions, landing on the ground as the worm smashed the large area between them head on. It continued moving, just digging right back into the ground and slithering below till it wasn't visible anymore.
Miles sat up and glanced at the hedgehog across from the large hole in between them. They both knew what the other was thinking exactly.
'There's no way we can outrun that thing.'
"Split up!" Miles shouted, grabbing the shotgun off of the ground next to the gorilla's corpse and sprinting away, farther into the parking garage. Shadow pulled the handgun back out and nervously stood there, looking for any signs that the worm was going to shot out of the ground again. He was lucky, for the worm had decided to leave him alone for the time being and attack his teammate instead.
It burst out of the ground in front of Miles and attempted to ram right into him, but Miles's reflexes were superior to the monsters and he aimed the shotgun and fired right away. This slowed the worm down enough for him to have time to run out of the way of its attack, immediately turning and shooting three more shell bursts at it before it slithered back underground. Turning, the blue-eyed one began to run towards one of the vehicles.
"Look out!" Shadow cried from far away. The car in front of Miles seemed to disappear, falling into the ground below it as the worm destroyed the surface. The car landed in its jaws, and it crunched the metal vehicle up like it was nothing a second later. To Miles's surprise, the monster spit the car back out. The trashed heap of metal bounced off the ground, rolling uncontrollably towards him with horrifying quickness. The fox ducked under its third bounce just in time to dodge it completely, saving his own life.
At least—he had thought second later—it had seemed that way.
The ground around him crumbled again, and the chunk of concrete he was on suddenly tipped over, knocking him down and rolling him into the hole that had just appeared a second earlier, where the worm now lay with its mouth open wide. Miles let out a cry of terrified acknowledgement as he was about to roll down the its throat and be eaten alive. Reaching out blindly, he grabbed onto a chunk of concrete still rooted enough to the ground and gripped it tightly, pushing his feet against the 40º angle he was on at the same time. Doing this saved his life again; stopping him only a few feet away from the worms open jaws.
Disappointed, the monster shot into the air, about to zoom back down into the spot Miles lay in and swallow him whole on the way back down underground. But in the short period of time it was above the hole, Shadow furiously unloaded five bullets into its round bloated flesh. The pain threw the monster off balance, and it dug back into the ground before it could be hurt anymore. This action had spared Miles his life for the fourth time in the past five minutes.
A roar from the right. Shadow looked and saw the beast shoot out of the ground close by. If it attacked him now, he'd have no chance of fighting it off with just the handgun. He looked to the hole Miles was in, seeing the shotgun laying right on the edge, if he could jump for it…
He looked to the worm, and both him and the beast seemed to think the same thing at the same time. Both dived for the shotgun, Shadow grabbing it and somersaulting out of the way as the worm shoved its large mouth into the ground he was on a second earlier. Three rolls later, he stopped on his knee, spun, and fired three shells into the hulking mass of flesh before it could dive completely underground again. He pumped the shotgun and did an 180º turn just in time to see the monster burst out of the ground behind where he was standing earlier.
Already he had the shotgun aimed at its body, and that movement saved his life. The monster shot towards him at incredible speeds, its thousand-toothed mouth opening wide and actually surrounding the hedgehog before he fired the weapon, a split second before it would have eaten him. The shell went right down its throat, cutting and slashing all the insides it scathed on the way down. Throwing its head backwards, the worm let out a terrible cry and sprayed blood all over the inside of its mouth, spilling out onto the floor below. Shadow stepped back as the worm leaned forward and vomited, shooting blood, guts, and slime all over the place. Finally, it fell limp on the ground in its own waste, dead.
Shadow put his hand to his mouth, trying to resist the urge to puke. He took a deep breath and dropped the gun to the floor, turning to run down the hole and see if Miles was still alive.
The fox was no longer on the ground he managed to pin himself to earlier – now he was hanging off the very very edge of the black pit, hanging onto a pipe sticking out of the inner rim for his life. Shadow let out a sigh of relief and jumped down the broken chunks of rock and cement to where the fox was, holding out his hand to help Miles up."Saving you is becoming a full-time job for me, eh?" the hedgehog said with a smirk, trying not to laugh.
Miles rolled his eyes, smiling back. "Just get me out already."
He grabbed onto Shadow's hand and the hedgehog pulled him up, destroying the gravity's plans of dragging his friend down the hole to his untimely death. Once the taller one managed to pull Miles out, they both stumbled up the slope of broken concrete till they reached the ground floor, falling and laying down only a few yards away from the worm's puke-covered corpse.
Both panted heavily, exhausted from the battle. Miles crawled up so he was sitting on his knees. "That's three I owe you…"
Shadow could tell from the way Miles looked away, and from his tone of voice, that the fox wasn't feeling very good. "Are you okay?"
Ashamed and embarrassed, Miles replied. "Shadow…I can't…"
Shadow frowned, knowing just what the fox was talking about. It was just like in S3…"That's okay."
"I can't betray Sonic…I don't know what I was thinking…"
Placing his hands on Miles's arms, Shadow replied calmly. "I said it's okay. You came here to find him, I should…just stay out of the way."
Miles stared at him, and he could clearly tell that the hedgehog was hurt. It was hurting both of them, and he hated himself even more for that. He felt like a selfish ass for doing that to his best and only friend. Taking his eyes away from Shadow, he whispered.
"Maybe he really is dead…"
"No." Shadow shook his head. "He's alive. I know it. He's at that hotel, waiting patiently for you right now. I have no right to stand in your way."
Miles's face had an expression of devastation on it, like he had realized something horrible he had forgotten before. His eyes became moist again, tears almost ready to flow down his ruffled furry cheeks. He put his hand to his face and wiped the wetness away. "I never keep my promises…" He said, his voice matching the expression on his face.
"Oh Miles…"
"I promised him I'd take him back to this town for another vacation. He loved this place so much…but I wasn't able to."
Biting his lip, Shadow tried to think of what to say to comfort his friend. His thoughts came up with nothing, only a profound helplessness that he couldn't make Miles feel better.
"That damn disease..." Miles shook his head again. "I wish I could have done something to save him…but no, no one could. The hospital only prolonged his death, if anything. I still remember that day…"
-----
"Mr. Hedgehog-Prower, you may see him now." the kind blonde-haired nurse told Miles in a calm, sympathetic voice. While not knowing them personally, she did know a horrible situation when she saw one. And this one was one of the worst she'd seen since she had become a nurse, at least at the emotional level.
Giving the nurse a weak thankful smile, Miles slowly pushed the door open, seeing his beautiful blue hedgehog on the bed in the back of the small patient's room, looking out the window. He closed the door behind him, shutting off their following conversation to the rest of the world.
"Sonic…"
"Hey Tails…"
Sonic's once perky careless voice now sounded weak and powerless. As the sunlight shown upon his body, Miles saw the effects the disease had taken on his love since they had last talked. Sonic's sad, ashen face was pale; half of it wrinkled like only that part had aged. He was only 26 at the time—two years older than Miles was—but he looked more like he was 80 now. Most of his drained and ruffled fur had already fallen off his body like he was molting. Parts of his skin were gray and dead, if not already white. His innocent emerald green eyes which Miles loved to get lost in so many times in the past looked glazed and distant, the color in his pupils also fading like his flesh. Abruptly, the hedgehog put his hand to his mouth and let out a dry, throaty cough. It was not unlike the thousands of coughs before it he'd hacked up over the past year.
"It's been a while…"
"Only a few days," Sonic said softly, even now still trying not to make Miles, or 'Tails' back then, feel guilty for not coming to visit as much as he used to. "I can't expect you to come here every day."
"Yeah…" Tails looked at the floor, not knowing what to say. There was a very long moment of silence after that, neither of them knowing what to say next.
Slowly, Sonic turned his head and laid it against the glass window, looking back outside at the bright beautiful world he knew he could never enter again. "I'm going to die, aren't I?" It sounded more like a statement than a question.
"Oh Sonikku…"
"Just as I thought…" The hedgehog tried to crack a reassuring smile, but his muscles were too weak and uninspired to. Tails placed his ungloved hand on Sonic's, feeling the hedgehog's cold and dying fingers wrap wishfully around his.
And so, Sonic and Tails, two unorthodox lovers, just sat there in complete silence, both their hearts and souls pulsing with a lonely sadness. There was nothing left to say. Nothing more they could say, or do for that matter, but stay there and steal a tiny piece of happiness in their own love's comfort. In that room lay another shattered life, not the first nor last the room would experience, but still a broken dream.
-----
Shadow's dark crimson eyes stared down at the floor sadly. "I'm so sorry, Miles…"
"I didn't come the next day, or the next, or the next…" Miles said, eyes still focused on the floor before him. "It was too much for me, for us…"
"I can understand." Shadow nodded.
"You really think he's here, in this town?" Miles asked, a small bit of hopefulness in his tone.
"Yes." Shadow said. It wasn't the first time he'd been asked that. "Anything can happen in Sonic Hill."
"Yeah…"
Standing up, Miles looked around the decimated parking garage again. Though he still couldn't get over it, the past at the moment was not the most important thing they should be worrying about. The present was. It'd be best to continue their escape plan if possible. "Looks like we can't get out of this hospital by car…"
It was then that he noticed a glint of something in the pool of the worm's vomit, something he really didn't expect to see there. Walking up to it, he kneeled down and picked up a slick and sticky led ring. Checking the inner rim, he noticed the writing on the inside just like with the other three rings. Looks like the worm had puked it up along with everything else in its stomach. "Shadow, look!"
Shadow looked over his shoulder, seeing the ring in his hand. "Excellent, I guess it's time to go ring hunting again."
Miles nodded. It seemed ridiculous, but that was the only lead they had to getting out of the place. The parking garage exit doors were locked, leaving the big place useless on their adventure. "Only one more to go…"
"Oh yeah!" Shadow exclaimed, looking around. "That gorilla…"
"What?"
"I saw something on its hand before it slashed me." Shadow spotted the headless corpse of the mutilated gorilla—finding it hard to believe he dispatched that thing single-handedly—and ran up to it. Miles followed right behind, grinning when he saw what Shadow was talking about. On the monster's middle finger was a shiny gold ring. Shadow slid the ring off and held it out to Miles proudly, grinning also.
"Heh…that's convenient." Miles stated, taking the ring. That was the last one - they now had all five. It was time to check out what happens when they stick them on that painting's hand. "Thanks Shadow."
"No problem. You ready to go back to the S Corridor?"
Miles nodded. Together and reassured that they have a lead on something, Shadow and Miles ran out of the parking garage and back into the hospital, picking up the shotgun along the way.