Sonic Hill 2: DX Chapter 22: Abstract Daddy, a sonic the hedgehog fanfic

Sonic Hill 2: DX
Chapter 22: Abstract Daddy

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-BANG!

Like sparks off of a blacksmith's anvil, particles of the straightjacket monster's now shattered skull were flung into air, each landing in the water behind it with a series of little 'plop's. How many of them had he killed so far? Miles hadn't a clue, but it sure was a lot more than his mind was willing to contemplate. Would it really be considered killing anyway? They didn't seem alive at all, almost like zombies…and the mannequins didn't even bleed. Not to mention they all seemed hell-bent on killing him and anything else they see – even occasionally each other. They couldn't possibly be considered living beings…

He shook his head for another countless time, trying not to think too much into it. He needed to survive, and even if they were considered living things, they were trying to kill him. It was self-defense.

At this point he was very glad he'd drawn out the map of the west end of the labyrinth, for it was being put to good use now that he had to backtrack all the way through it. Most of the corridors on the west side seemed to lead to a dead end, so he had headed back to the labyrinths entrance and tried the right corridor this time. He clung desperately to his hopes that one of the doors would lead to the other end of Shadow's cell, since the cell was the most northern part of the west side. He wasn't even sure if it was truly north or west, but it didn't matter if he was correct – as long as he had some sense of direction he'd be okay.

Trekking all the way back to the entrance was relatively easy. Pyramid Head was nowhere to be found (which was both a good and a bad thing, he knew…), and he already killed most of the monsters roaming the places he'd been to beforehand. The east side of the underground labyrinth proved to be basically the same as the west, except there seemed to be a larger population of monsters roaming around. Right now he only had a total of twenty-two handgun bullets left. Using the shotgun like a club had worked pretty well on the straight jackets, but the mannequins were too deadly to battle it with a melee weapon – their long legs had beaten the shit out of him earlier and he didn't want to go through that again. And even against the straight jackets it could sometimes be dangerous, which was why he occasionally used up a handgun bullet to blow out their relatively simple brains.

Right now he stood again in icy ankle deep waters, frowning at his own discomfort. The ladder he'd recently passed lead down into this section of the place, which seemed eerily similar but thankfully not the octagonal water corridor he'd encountered his helmet-wearing antagonist in earlier. It was basically the same as the corridors above, except now twice as unpleasant to walk around in.

Though there weren't as many monsters roaming the passage, he was still very afraid of running into Pyramid Head again. Good news was that if there was something moving nearby, he could hear its footsteps across the water before even the radio picked it up. It was nice to be that much more aware of something in this barely visible place. The water weighed down his drenched sneakers, along with the rest of his drying furry body, so he had to put a little more effort into moving around.

'Well, at least I'm getting good exercise.' Optimistically, his mind had picked apart that idea for a short period of time. The mood it had lit dimmed pretty quickly.

Thirteen more minutes of sloshing through the barren and dark corridors of the labyrinth, and Miles's haggard face stared upon another ladder. All this floor switching was really annoying him, but at least he didn't have to jump down any holes like earlier. Water sloshed back through the fox's fur as he grasped onto the bars and began to clumsily climb the piece of steel.

-Clink…

The brownish gray trapdoor took a little effort to budge, but after a few shoves it opened up. Nothing but blackness awaited him above. While the ocean of dark in the room was powerful enough to conceal everything from the naked eye, its wall of black was easily cut apart by the bright light protruding from the fox's white-furred chest. Not surprisingly, he was in another dark hall. What a surprise. This one was like two L-shaped halls sticking together at the base; it went about ten yards forward, turned for a yard or two, and then continued on into the end of the corridor – where a door stood tall. On the right wall in the section of the passage Miles was in was a door also, and there was a third door on the other half of the left wall. In other words the hall resembled the shape of a crank.

If he skipped the doors, he knew he'd probably regret it later, so Miles moved to the right wall door immediately. Entering the room, he felt that lump hit his stomach again as he saw a rather disturbing scene laid out before him.

Six limp bodies—a blend of both humans and furries—were suspended in the air, a thin rope wrapped around their necks. Their shoes hung a few feet above the dust-sheeted floor, all aligned with one another perfectly. As if to spare him of a piece of the obscenity, gray bags concealed the grim face of each corpse. But just seeing the silhouettes there, all lined up in two rows of three, seriously gave him the creeps.

Fear wasn't an uncommon emotion to him anymore, and he knew that he'd have to be as brave as he could be (which was difficult – especially when thoughts of Pyramid Head arose). He'd seen things worse than that so far, and if he had given in in the past he would probably be dead by now. Letting the light guide him through the shadowy room, Miles examined the place. Other than the hung corpses, the room was completely empty. He couldn't help but glance at the nearest corpse again, and saw something he hadn't really paid attention to a second earlier.

Written on every bag covering the corpse's face was one word, each probably describing the reason that respective man had been hung. The one nearest to him had the word 'Rapist' marked on him. To the body on Miles's right, the word 'Arsonist' was labeled. Beside that one: 'Burglar'. The fox stepped back a bit, passing by the three corpses in the front of the room and reading what their crime had been.

'Murderer'

'Kidnapper'

'Counterfeiter'

This room seemed to belong more up in the prison than all the way down in the back of the labyrinth. And even if it was back up at the prison, wouldn't someone have removed their bodies and put them back in the…

Miles shuddered, thinking of when he'd gone through the morgue earlier. Not pretty. Nothing down here was pretty, that's for sure. Considering the place apparently hasn't been visited in a long time, the bodies sure didn't seem to suffer from any signs of rot. Touching them to check if they were still warm, possibly meaning they died not too long ago, seemed like a horrible idea that the fox didn't even want to consider.

Too spooky for him – Miles left the room quickly, reentering the crank-shaped hallway. Forward, right, forward again, and he was standing beside the left wall door, looking at the corridor's third exit ahead. Sticking to the same strategy as usual, Miles checked the door beside him first.

This room was identical to the hanging corpse room, except here the six intimidating nooses hanging down from the ceiling held no bodies within their deadly grasp. It was like taking a look into the past of the other room, before the criminals faced their punishment. Not that being hung was even a fair punishment in America nowadays anyway…Miles again found himself wondering how old this place really was.

A slab of stone had writing carved into it on the back wall, which the soggy two-tailed fox examined once he spotted it.

'Please Someone Save Me

He committed an evil crime. He turned a happy home into a pile of ash. For that, he should die. He also committed crimes. He tried to fraud and trick others. So their reward too is natural. Even he cannot be forgiven, my thieving friend. And so his death bothers me not. And what of him? He also is not sinless. There is only one here who is innocent. The missing child was nowhere to be found, and so there was no proof of his guilt. His death was a tragedy. That is all I wish to say. It was neither justice nor retribution.'

Another uncanny macabre message. Whoever wrote it didn't matter – it seemed to go hand in hand with the criminals' corpses in the other room.

'I guess one of those dead guys in the other room was innocent…' Stories about people liked that depressed him very much. The thought of someone being killed by authority for something someone else did…it was a disturbing thing to think about. Even today cases like that probably happened, and it wasn't a pleasant fact to know.

Which one was innocent though? A very short period of time ticked by before the young furry figured it out. Most of the other ones he had seen were cancelled out by the message. If 'the child' was nowhere to be found and that proved his innocence, it must mean the innocent one was the kidnapper. It couldn't be anyone else…

'Alright. You know who it is. Now what?'

He placed his palm on his chin and squeezing a very small amount of ideas from his brain like a somewhat dirty sponge. The only reasonable (as reasonable as a puzzle here could be) explanation was that maybe there was a key in the pocket of the kidnapper. Either that, or…

Miles glanced at the noose equivalent to the one the kidnapper was hung on in the other room: the center one closest to the door. Maybe if he pulled it like a bell…

Crossing over the room to the noose, the increasingly imaginative fox grabbed onto the rope and pulled. It only pulled down about a foot before something holding it on the ceiling above stopped it from moving any farther.

…

Nothing seemed to happen.

'Damnit…' Maybe he didn't have the cryptic enigma figured out after all. Or possibly he had just gotten the wrong noose or something. Best to recheck the other room to make sure. Relatively soon, he was back in the other hangman room, looking for the kidnapper's body.

But it wasn't there. Where its corpse had been before—front row center like he'd thought—was an eerily empty space, like it had disappeared in a ghostly manner. On the floor below the rope was a shiny glint of metal. Examining it, Miles realized it was a key. In tiny letters the words 'Key of the Persecuted' were written on its tag grayed.

It was another freaky experience, but it wasn't all for naught. If Miles had just passed by the puzzle and went through the corridor's exit, he'd probably need to backtrack here and try finding the key anyway. He wasn't sure exactly what it was for, but it was a lot smaller than most of the keys he'd found so far. Still, a key was a key, and if there were a key there would be a door.

Perhaps he had set the prisoner's spirit free? Miles knew not, but it was a nice idea, better than imagining it unhung itself and walked away, at least.

A few twisting and turning, but not confusingly maze-like corridors later, Miles finally reached an impassable doorway. It only seemed that way at first glance. Metal bars stuck to the ceiling and almost reached the floor, but he would be able to open the gate pretty easily if it wasn't for the pair of handcuffs wrapped around the handle and one of the bars, holding it closed. Try as he might, they wouldn't budge.

'I'm not coming all this way just to be stopped by a fucking strip of metal.' Standing there, he began to consider his options.

Only one convenient one arose, and he hoped it would work. Reaching into his side-pack, he pulled out the Key of the Persecuted and slid it into the tiny slot on the side of the handcuffs. To his luck, they fit in perfectly. He turned it and felt the reassuring click of the handcuffs unlocking. He picked the handcuff around the edge of the gated door off and let it swing against the wall as he pushed the gate open and entered the next corridor.

An old wooden door was at the end of this corridor, which he took. The interior of the room it led into was very strange, because it looked somewhat familiar. The broken stump of what was once a statue in the room was in the far corner, and there were a few shattered glass cases too. It looked like an exhibit room that belongs all the way back up in the museum in South Vale, which felt like it was light-years away now. Why it was down here was beyond him, but it wasn't too unlike the criminal's hanging room a few minutes ago with its unorthodox placement.

On the floor, stained in dark crimson, was a folded up newspaper. Soaked in blood, it didn't look like a very pleasant thing to read or touch, but Miles was interested in what it had to say—if anything at all. Maybe it had something useful. Kneeling down, he shined his light and tried to read the barely legible ink covered in blood.

'--- -- --11

----- --re ----- --- this morning at an unknown time. The house recently owned b- --- --- family, - ----- -amily of four, --s severely burned in the outb----. --- ---- ------- -- --- ------ ------- -- -- --known force. M-tches ha-e ---- ----d -- --- -iving room, spread out across the -----. Police suspect ar--n'

About two paragraphs of writing were completely illegible, their ink already diminished. But there was a little more information below it.

'Also the body of a male, ----r identify--- -s --rl --- -a-- 39) --- ---covered in the children's -----om lying ---- -own. Th- ---bable ca--- -f death ----as 18 stab wounds -- --- -r--- -- -he neck --d t-- -eft sid- -- --e torso -- - ----- ----- ------- The estima--d t-me -- -eath --- ------n 11:00 p.m. and 12:30 midnight. --- -- ---ns of s---g--- -- -he ---m --d the lack of a murder weapon, ------ --- ----------- ---- a hom-c--e and --ve -pe---d a murder in-------tion. F--------r-, g---n the fa-t ---- --- cash in the room was untouched and Mr. Bat had a history of drunkenness and violence, the police -----ect that the objective was not robbery --- - crime o- ----ion.'

Miles stood back up – it seemed to just be another of the many disturbing stories he's been learning since he came here. While the newspaper had little significance to him, it did manage to make him feel even more uneasy. Like the bodies, the blood seeping through the thick paper was still wet, meaning it must be new…

Maybe it was best just to try and keep his cool and keep moving. Miles really just wanted to find Shadow and get the fuck out of there, if there was an exit at all. On the left wall was another wooden door. Being the only exit out of the room besides the one he used to enter, he decided to check out what lie behind it. Opening the door, he walked into yet another long dark corridor. His squishy wet shoes clopped against the cement floor, echoing down the dark hall and back into his large ears.

Looking up at the ceiling, he finally let that barricade in his mind break and began to think more about what the hell was going on. It was like trying to drink the whole fuckin' ocean. So many inconsistencies, unanswered questions, and scary situations reared themselves through his overwhelmed mind. By now, this place should have gone far below the sea level – the stairs should have led right into the lake since they moved north for ages while still descending. Not only that, but it must have taken an extremely long time to build all this so far down underground, especially if it's underneath the lake.

And Shadow…

Shadow still being alive was the most confusing of all. Even more so than his confusion of Sonic's cryptic letter. That short conversation with the black hedgehog earlier was real solid proof before his eyes that he wasn't just delusional. Shadow was waiting for him…just like Sonic…

But he'd seen him die before his very eyes…not only that, but Shadow had been acting so weird before. Somehow he knew about that videotape, not to mention that name…

It was strange being called that name again, especially by someone like that mysterious hedgehog. Miles Prower was just a hollow empty shell of what Tails used to be, left behind after the happy and free soul died away three years ago. Sonic had given him that cute nickname because of his birth deformation – his two now slick and wet tails that clung to the back of his legs. While many people had put him through so much torment and pain for having something no one else had, that blue hedgehog had thought it was 'way past cool'. It was cheesy, but he knew Sonic had always brightened up his world since they met in senior year at high school ages ago. Just thinking of the hedgehog brought him a warm happiness back then, but now it just enveloped him in a lonely layer of cold. Words couldn't describe how much he missed hi—

"—NOOOO, DADDY! PLEASE DON'T!!!"

An abrupt, female scream shattered the silence of the corridor, along with Miles's reverie. His heart jumped with surprise at it. In reaction, he looked up and down the corridor rapidly, trying to figure out where it came from, and who it was. The scream…it sounded really familiar. It sounded almost like—

'—Rouge!'

Not too far in front of him, on the right wall, was a strange white door completely covered in thick newspapers. The cry had definitely come from there, and whatever it was for, it didn't sound pleasant. Miles broke into a sprint; quickly reaching the door and yanking it open.

"Nooo!!!" Rouge screamed in pure terror, her face coated with tears. She fell to the floor and backed away into the wall behind her, shaking violently and letting out cries of fear.

Time seemed to almost freeze as the scene slowly played itself out in front of the young fox.

The room was small, very small. And like the door, the walls were covered with countless newspapers, similarly to those paper machete projects he did years ago. In the corner, next to where Rouge was curled up and weeping, was a broken TV set on a little desk, showing nothing but static on its cold blank screen. Strange large holes lined the walls, each of which had big metallic pistons moving in and out of them slow and awkwardly. That only added to the intensity. The terrified bat covered her face and let out another mixed cry of extreme fear and devastation at what stood before her.

The monster's body was something Miles's mind couldn't even fully accept with one glance, for it was too obscene and grotesque for him to even imagine in his most horrible nightmares. He had to stare at it for a few moments before he could even identify what the mound of flesh had looked like, and when he did, it wasn't pretty.

It was very large, taking up a quarter of the room on it's own. Standing on all fours, the monster resembled that of two people, a female below and a male on top, brutally fucking in a king-sized bed. But it was like someone had covered them in gasoline and threw a match on their bodies, just like with the hospital demons. Their slick flesh was melded together, but in a much more grotesque way than any of the monster he'd seen before now. Their constantly thrusting bodies were not only melded to each other, but also the mattress itself. And it was like doing that given the fleshy looking mattress a soul too, for it too moved and shook, its wood-like legs traveling slowly across the floor to the screaming young batgirl in the corner.

'Holy…' Miles's eyes practically bulged out of their sockets; still having a hard time accepting that that thing was really standing right in front of him.

The mattress monster seemed to hear his very thoughts and turned to him, letting out a gurgled and mixed male and female roar from its two pounding bodies. While it had no visible eyes, it seemed to see him easy enough.

'Shit!' the fox cried, immediately reaching behind him to grab the only weapon that he felt had a chance of stopping the grotesque beast – the hunting rifle. He managed to slide it away from his back and into his arms right before the beast rammed into him and sent him flying into the paper-padded wall.

The ever-diminishing pain in his back screamed with life again, making the fox let out a small hurt-filled yelp. Opening his eyes, he saw the mattress monster moving towards him, its hulking body only a few feet away. Before it could reach him, he aimed the rifle up and squeezed the trigger.

-BANG!!!

The thing let out another an angered scream as the shell entered its flesh, spilling many of its black insides all over the floor and walls. Rouge, still covering her face and curled up in the corner, let out another cry right after it. The thing's two heads spread apart wide, forming what looked almost like a mouth. Miles realized what it was about to do and managed to just barely let out a scream before the thing 'bit' down on his head. His heartbeat tripled, overcome with terror, and he frantically tried to pry the monster's two wet bodies off of him before his skull caved in. Blindly, he managed to aim the rifle at the thing's mattress-like waist and fired again. The agonized scream it let out reverberated throughout his head as the shell entered his attacker at point-blank range. Doing this had saved his life, for the beast let go of him and he fell to the floor right in front of it, dazed but still filled with adrenaline. That should have killed just about anything, but it didn't die; the two melded forms connected to the top of its body continued to bounce up and down, still fucking within the beast's grayed flesh.

Disgusted, Miles still remembered through the fog of horror that he only had four rifle shells left when he entered the room, meaning if he didn't kill it with the next two he was as good as dead. He was practically underneath it now, and if it so much as fell on him his bones would be powdered into dust. Immediately, he aimed up and fired again, being rewarded with another roar and a shower of gore from the creature's underbody. It backed away a bit, giving him enough time and space to get up before it tried to ram his body into the wall a second time. Slapping his wounded back onto the wall, Miles aimed forward at the monster, placing his fingers on the trigger right when the beast charged at him.

'—One shell left.'

-BANG!!!

The fourth chunk of lead entered its body. This time, the beasts mixed male and female scream was much louder and more agonized. Its blood sprayed out onto the walls again, and it fell to the floor in a heap, its pulsing bodies' spazming within each other.

With the fight over, Miles breathed a sigh of relief and dropped the empty rifle to the floor. He glanced at Rouge and ran up to her, checking to see if she was okay. Her pale body still trembled; her gloved hands still covered her face. The sound of a traumatized little girl cried out from her chapped lips. Frowning in pity, Miles kneeled down next to her, trying to speak as calmly as he could.

"Rouge are you okay?"

"Raaaaaahhhh!!!" Rouge suddenly screamed furiously at the top of her lungs, jumping up and pushing the fox out of the way. He fell to the floor again, surprised, and looked at the bat as she ran up to the monster's fleshy body and started kicking it frantically with her heart-tipped boot. "Aaarrg!! Rrraaaahh!!" With every kick, she let out a stressed out and angered scream, which mixed in with the monster's grunts of pain.

Miles slowly stumbled back up to his feet as the enraged batgirl took her anger out on the still living beast. Five more hard kicks later, she ran up to the small desk in the corner of the room and, straining her frail muscles, picked up the staticy TV set. Then she ran back up to the monster, letting out a final scream as she slammed the monitor onto its mangled male head. Glass shattered, along with the beast's skull. It slumped down, probably regretting its own pitiful existence, and finally died from the abuse. But that didn't stop her; she kicked it one final time and burst into tears and choked sobs.

"Rouge, calm down…" Miles tried to say, reaching out to her before she did something crazy.

She spun around and stared at him with an even more enraged glare, the red cracks in her eyes showing. "STOP ORDERING ME AROUND!!!"

Miles shook his head, still trying and failing to make her relax. "I'm not trying to order you…"

"Then what do you want then!?" the bat asked quickly. "Oh I see. You're trying to be nice to me, right? Be my friend? Be kind to me? I know what you're up to! It's always the same! You're only after one thing!"

"N-no," Miles didn't have to think twice to know what she was talking about. "Not at all!"

"You don't have to lie! Go ahead and say it! Or you could just force me, beat me up like he always did!" Her voice broke in the last sentence and more tears formed in her eyes. Wrapping her hands around her arms, she looked away from him.

"I won't hurt you Rouge…" the blue-eyed fox stated.

"Shut up!!!" the spastic bat screamed plaintively. Falling to the floor in a brawl, she began crying even harder and letting out forced dry heaves like she was in great pain. "All you care about is yourself! You sick pig!"

She stayed crouched down there, looking down at the dirty gray floor below her. Along the walls, the metal pistons continued to enter and exit the room, now even more rapidly and intensely than before. Miles gave her a moment to calm down a bit, and then placed his hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

"Rouge—" he wasn't able to finish saying whatever he had to say, because the girl immediately slapped his hand out of the way and began to rise back up to her feet.

"Don't touch me. You make me sick." she stated shakily. Once she reached his eyelevel again, she put her hand over her face and wiped away some of the grit, tears, and mascara sticking to it. It stuck to her stained glove like glue. Her eyes gazed around the room for a moment, and then rapidly turned back to him. "Your boyfriend, Sonic, he's dead right?" she asked somewhat calmly, startling the fox with the sudden mood swing.

"Yeah…" Miles stated, not really sure if that was really the correct answer anymore or not. "He was ill…"

"LIAR!!!" She screamed at his face again with rage. "You probably found someone else! Just ditched him for another fuck! Like all of them do!"

The newspaper-plastered door was right beside her now, and she took that to her advantage. Grabbing the handle, she yanked it open and began to walk out of the cramped room, still keeping her enraged eyes on the fox the whole time as if afraid to take them away for even a second. Quietly, she muttered: "Yeah…found someone else…" and slammed the door closed.

"Found someone else…?" Miles echoed, looking down at the floor. "I'd never cheat on Sonic……I'd never…"

He trailed off. His mind exploded with thoughts of the past, and for a moment he felt so overloaded he thought his head too would explode. As quickly as he could, he pushed it away and tried desperately not to contemplate it.

The obscene mattress monster's body was still pulsating a bit, maybe still not completely dead after the severe beating it had gotten. If it wasn't dead now, it would die pretty soon. Shards of glass from the TV set were already lodged all over it, along with enough rifle shells to kill a wild animal. Blurry white liquid oozed out of both its mouths and onto the floor. Miles instantly knew what it was, judging from the smell and sight, and knowing that grossed him out even more.

"What's happened to you Rouge?" he asked himself distantly. "What is this thing…?"

Disgusted, he picked up his empty rifle and, like the bat before him, exited the room.