(Ok, welcome to chapter twelve. Zephi got sick of writing all the chapters out by herself so Tails decided to help her out.

Tails: HI!

Zephi: … anyways, have fun reading!)

Tails woke up the next morning, his head still hurt and his ears were buzzing. He sat up In bed and looked around. Everybody had already left for breakfast. He tried to get out of bed, but his entire body was stiff. He got out of bed very slowly and managed to stand up straight.

He walked towards the door and reached for the handle. Before he did, he saw the silhouette of Drake through the stained glass window. He backed up slowly as the knob began to turn. He quickly ran to his bed and pretended to be asleep.

Tails heard Drake walk into the room and go near Amy and Cream's bunk. He opened one eye and saw him sorting through all of Amy's stuff. He saw him pull out Amy's hairbrush.

What the heck does he want that thing for?

Drake moved his fingers through the brush and pulled out one of Amy's pink hairs.

Drake put the brush back and quickly ran out of the room. Tails once again got out of his bed and went up to Amy's bed. He sorted through her stuff to see if anything had been disturbed or taken. He could remember her talking about EVERYTHING she had packed back on the plane. Tails nearly fell asleep listening, but still managed to drink in every detail. He found nothing missing.

He quickly closed the bag and left the room. It was another stormy day out, and by the looks of it, it had been the entire time he was unconscious. The forest path and the path to the lake both seemed entirely flooded and the courtyard was filled with large puddles here and there.

"What is Drake up to? He is stealing hair from Amy's brush, taking Rouge on nighttime strolls, and he was the last thing I remember before waking up in my bed with amnesia. He has to have something to do with all the weird stuff going on."

Tails dwelled on this subject for a while. In his deep thought, Tails had not paid attention to where he was going and found himself in front of a large purple door covered in stars. It had a weird inscription on it that Tails could not translate.

He pushed aside the doors and found himself in an immense library.

( Tails: Now where have I seen this before? Zephi: Shut up, Tails! They are trying to read the story! Tails: Sorry.)

Tails walked up to the shelves and looked at some of the labels. A lot of historic junk and biographies. He soon found that the books had no particular order and were just shoved on the shelves wherever people wanted them to be.

He noticed a table groaning with books. Tails walked up to the table and looked among the piles. He saw one book labeled "The Home of Vlad Tepes: A History of construction and occurrences."

Tails eagerly pulled the book from the pile. As he yanked the book from its place, the pile wobbled and fell on Tails.

Tails pushed the books off of him and stood up, his head throbbing.

"What are you doing here?" asked a voice from behind the table of books.

Tails looked up and saw Knuckles picking up piles of books and setting them on the table.

"Knuckles?" asked Tails.

"No, it's the Easter bunny."

"What are you doing here?"

"Reading, what are you doing here?"

"You can read?"

"Of course I can! What do you think I am doing here? Christmas shopping?"

"What are you looking for?"

"Something on this stupid castle."

"You mean like this?"

Tails held out the book he pulled from the pile. Knuckles took it from Tails and flipped through it.

"Where'd you find this?"

"It was in your pile of books. When I pulled it out, the whole thing toppled on top of me!" replied Tails.

"I noticed."

"Do you think it has blue prints in there?"

"Don't need them." replied Knuckles.

"What do you mean?"

"Me and Rouge were in here the night we arrived, before that Drake idiot showed up. We were looking through books and she found a map."

"Do you still have it?"

"No, she kept it and I've barely said a word to her since Drake showed up."

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

"Do you ask enough questions?"

"Hopefully."

"Your funny. We will probably have to steal the map from her stuff. Hopefully she doesn't stuff valuables down her shirt."

"You felt comfortable yanking it down in the woods."

"That wasn't me! How many times do I have to say it?"

"Then who was it? Shadow?"

"That would be something to laugh about, but no. He was at the back of the group and we were more near the front, remember?"

"No that you mention it, Rouge, Sonic, you, and me were all in the middle. Amy, Cream, and Shadow were towards the back. Are you trying to say Sonic did it?"

"That amnesia must really be affecting your brain. Of course it wasn't Sonic!"

"Well then who? It wasn't me!"

"Well you were even lower on the list than the girls. I was actually thinking that it might be…"

"….Knuckles?"

"I was thinking it might be Drake."

"But Drake wasn't here yet! He couldn't of-"

"What about the cave he took Rouge into? It had diary notes he had written BEFORE he was supposed to arrive. I saw you and Cream go in."

"No we didn't, Knuckles you must be getting paranoid."

(Tails: See, PARANOID! Not PARANORMAL! Zephi: Be nice, Tails.)

"I'm not being paranoid! Drake must've erased your memory, I was watching him, but I didn't think he was doing what he did."

Then, it all came back. The dots of candlelight through the fog, the candlelit cave, the diary page, Drake erasing Cream and Tails' memory. It all went back in a rush of light, flickering past his eyes.

"You ok, Tails?"

Tails suddenly became aware that he was still in the library, and drooling slightly, which was different for him because he was SO handsome.

(Zephi: Tails! Tails: Shh, you are interrupting the story! Zephi: grumble)

Anxiously, he dug into his memory for what had happened before he was knocked out…...nothing.

"I just remembered it! You are right! It probably WAS Drake that did all that."

"Do you remember what happened before you were knocked out?"

"No."

Knuckles leaned against the table and sighed.

"I'll try to look though this book tonight. I want you to look out for Rouge, nobody has seen her lately. I think that stupid vampire bat has had his way with her already."

"So you think he is a vampire too?"

"Yep, and if I'm correct, he'll be after another girl very soon."

Tails realized something. It made since now! Why Drake was looking through Amy's stuff.

"It's Amy!"

"What?"

"I saw him going through Amy's stuff earlier. He took one of her hairs! What do you think it was for?"

"Maybe a shrine or some kind or love potion. Maybe even a voodoo doll, who knows!"

"Wait a second; don't vampires have to be WELCOMED into somebody's house?"

"Lucius and Veronica were kind enough to take care of that for us."

"What if there is a grave around here? They can't touch hollow ground!"

"I think that is Witches. We could hide garlic around the castle; those servants don't ever seem to clean anything anyways."

Tails looked around the room.

"Where will we get garlic?"

"I'll run into town to get that, and some other stuff."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"Ok then, is that it?"

"Yep."

"Can I go?"

"Nobody's stopping you."

"Ok then, bye."

"Bye."

"Bye."

"Bye."

"Bye already!"

Tails left the room in a hurry and jogged back to the ballroom.

When he pushed aside the doors, he saw all the girls talking about something on their side of the room. None of the boys were there, and Amy was missing.

(Tails: See, I was right! Zephi: Tails you are going to give me bad reviews! Tails: You get reviews? Zephi: Yes and people are going to hunt me down for putting authors notes in the middle of the story! Tails: Sorry Zephi: No you are not.)

Tails approached the girls and listened silently to the conversation.

"…..they'll stick right to the bed, and they'll smell like shaving cream." Tails heard Kyra whisper.

"Who has all the supplies?" asked Cream.

"Amy, she is getting them right now." replied Kyra.

"So, we are pranking ALL the boys?" asked Cream.

"Hopefully not." said Tails causing Kyra and Cream to jump a foot from their beds.

"Did you hear…..well, what DID you hear?" asked Kyra.

"That you were going to cover the boys in shaving cream and something sticky tonight. But don't worry, as long as you don't prank me, I won't tell anybody."

Kyra and Cream looked at each other for a while then both nodded their heads yes.

"Oh, and the sticky stuff is going to be melted rosin from a chemistry set." said Cream.

"It comes out, but I'd still be careful with it if I were you."

Just then, Amy walked into the room with a bag filled with what was probably melted rosin and shaving cream.

"Tails knows." said Kyra simply.

Amy dropped the bag on the ground near her bed.

"You won't tell anybody, will you?"

"I swear, I personally think that Shadow could use a wake-up call.

"I'm doing Shadow." said Amy. "Kyra is doing Knuckles and Cream is doing Sonic. Rouge was going to do you, but we haven't seen her for a while, so we gave up on her."

"How can I help without doing any actual pranking?"

"Try making a good scary story or something, anything to keep their minds on other things for a while." said Amy.

Tails shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the ballroom to find Sonic, Knuckles, and Shadow sitting in the corner talking.

Tails went up to the group and listened to the conversation hoping it was not another planned prank.

"Hey Tails, guess what we just saw!" said Sonic.

"What?" asked Tails curiously?

Shadow held out a picture of one of the hallways.

"See that?" he pointed to the edge of the picture, which was overshadowed. He showed him five other pictures of different places in the castle. "The right side of all of the pictures I've taken, including the ones in the courtyard have shadows on the right side. They were all taken at different times so it could not be lighting and I took a picture of a few street signs so I would know my way back to the castle when I went to the town. The shadows weren't in any of those pictures."

"So?" asked Tails.

"So, I asked these two bookshop owners and they said that the same thing happens in this weird haunted lighthouse that's in one of their books."

"What were you doing in a bookshop?" asked Tails.

"Looking for a book on this Vlad Tepes character."

"Did you find one?"

"Yep."

Shadow held up a black book with a painting of Vlad Tepes on the cover and dark red letters saying "Vlad the Impaler: The bloody ruler of Wallachia."

(Tails: Why was he called Vlad the Impaler? Zephi: After he beheaded his enemies he stuck their heads on spears. Tails: Eww, do you think the people reading this story really want to hear all of that? Zephi: You are the one that asked.)

"Have you read it yet?" asked Tails.

"No, I plan to stay up late tonight reading.

Remembering the prank, Tails replied. "Not tonight, you will, um….. be too tired for the race tomorrow! Same with Sonic, and Knuckles will be too worn out for the treasure hunt."

They were all quiet for a while until Shadow said "Fine, you aren't competing right? You can read the book tonight." said Shadow simply.

Tails groaned and said "Ok then."

They all walked into the ballroom and sat down on their beds.

"So, you all up for a scary story?" asked Tails.

"Yeah Tails, lets hear it."

"Just don't scare us too much, or we will be waking up in the middle of the night again." said Kyra.

"Ok then everybody, it goes a little like this………."

(Tails: Wasn't that a great chapter? Zephi: It would be better if you didn't interrupt so much.

Tails: Come on Zephi, it wasn't that bad! Zephi: I guess it wasn't that bad. Tails: So I get to help write the next chapter? Zephi: No, I promised Amy she could help. Tails: Darn it, I thought you didn't like Amy. Zephi: Don't tell that to the readers, they hate when I talk about it. Tails: What about Amy? Zephi: You can tell her, she won't believe you. Tails: OK! )