Walking was taking longer than Amy had anticipated, and she was starting to get stressed. She had never paid much attention to her surroundings during the taxi rides and somehow or another she'd become lost, much to her irritation. The problem was, she was running behind schedule. It was nearly mid-day and she hadn't seen Sonic yet. She was supposed to be monitoring him by now, evaluating her next opportunity to attack. Plus she'd had to take care of a couple of construction workers along the way, who had decided incorrectly that she would appreciate being wolf-whistled at.
Squinting at her watch, she decided that she had no time to head home to change. She would just have to visit one of the nearby department stores and buy something appropriately garish like Amy Rose would wear. Amy had started heading toward the nearest clothing shop when she spotted a familiar black and red figure on the edge of her vision. Swearing under her breath she ducked into the store, hiding behind a rack of clothing. What on earth was he doing here? He was heading for the store she was in, and if he saw her out of disguise he could ruin everything.
Grabbing a dress off the shelf without looking at it, she ran into one of the changerooms and slammed the door just as Shadow entered the store. She peered over the door of her cubicle as he walked in, looking disorientated. Why was he in a clothes shop anyway? It's not like he needed to wear anything other than gloves and shoes (although she had to admit he had very nice shoes), and perhaps a bracelet from time to time. He walked around the store for a while, examining different racks of clothing, looking completely lost. One of the store clerks, a female human, after a moments hesitation approached him and started talking. Amy could see that she was feeling awkward, most likely because she was talking to what most humans considered a giant animal. Stupid predjudiced humans.
They wandered near the change room, and Amy ducked behind the door, holding her breath as they passed, pulse racing. She heard a snatch of their conversation;
"So, they really didn't let you in there just because of that"
"Yes. They didn't think they could trust me"
"How rude. Some humans just don't understand"
The pair moved out of her hearing range, and, when she peeked over the door again after a few minutes, they were out of sight. Breathing a sigh of relief, Amy got down from the door and had a proper look at the dress she'd snatched off the rack. It was an ugly orange colour, a size too tight, and not particularly flattering on her. Perfect.
Getting changed back into her normal clothes, Amy surrepticiously stuffed the dress into her bag and calmly walked out the door. By the time the store clerk realised the dress was missing, she was long gone.
----
The light was starting to fade, and Knuckles was feeling the cold, seeing as he was lacking any kind of protective clothing. Echidnas, even the kinda half-human echidnas such as himself, weren't built for such a climate. He shivered as he walked, searching for relief from the icy wind. It probably would have been better to stay where they had been, he mused to himself, imaginary monster or not. Better than freezing to death in any case. He and Rouge had beaten off all sorts of enemies in the past, some kind of bear or whatever it was that had scared her shouldn't have been too hard to deal with. But no, she'd insisted they leave. There probably had been no creature in the first place, Rouge was just trying to make him freeze and die in the snow so she could steal the Master Emerald back. Yes, that was it. She was out to get him! And to think, after all he had done for her. She would be buried under a metre of snow with a broken arm and most likely dead if it were not for him. Did that mean nothing to her? Was she just so obsessed with money? He could see her true nature now. Everything she did was motivated by greed. If she hadn't been after the Master Emerald they wouldn't be down here in the first place!
A wave of pain from his skull brought him back to reality. He was raving. The cold must've been getting to his head, for he never went on like this. No point in obsessing over that horrible excuse for a creature anyway. Just find shelter. And food. He couldn't recall ever being so hungry in his life. It felt as though his stomach was being eaten away by its own acid, dissolving from starvation. With a groan, he took more notice of his surroundings as he walked. What could he find to eat out here? He supposed real echidnas ate ants, but the mere thought of that was appalling to him. And he wasn't that familiar with the bush as it is. Any berries or plants he might find could be poisonous for all he knew. No, food could wait. Shelter was much more important right now. Knuckles made his way through the trees, often stumbling on tree roots, flesh scratched raw by the thorny branches. He'd already accumulated many scratches across his bare arms which were angrily red and bleeding. He would have to clean his wounds when he got a chance to rest, lest they get infected.
The trees were starting to thin out, and there were less things to trip over. Knuckles had never realised he was so clumsy. Normally he would have glided over the trees when travelling through a densely forested area such as this, but whenever he'd attempted to take to the air he was so gripped by dizziness he had to land before he crashed. Something was seriously not right with his head. Perhaps she had given him a concussion? After all, he was far more scatter-brained than usual, his head was throbbing and although he had run out of things to throw up he still felt nauseous; the putrid taste of vomit and blood lingured in his mouth, bile still stinging the back of his throat.
He emerged in a clearing and the fading light hit his eyes, his path now unobstructed by trees. Before him was a steep rocky incline. Looks like he'd found a wall of the chasm. Great, that meant it would be relatively easy to get out. But not tonight. Climbing all the way up in the dark was not an attractive idea. He started to climb anyway, using claws as well as his feet, stumbling now and then as his mind swam. After ten minutes of climbing he discovered a hole, too small to be called a cave but enough to give some protection from the weather. Only a rock hanging really, but it was shelter all the same. Wearily, Knuckles crawled into it, cramped for space but thankful for the small protection it gave him. As he examined his surroundings, he pressed a hand experimentally on the back wall. It consisted of tightly packed dirt, but as he dragged his clawed glove against it he saw the earth fall away quite easily. Although he was past tired, he summoned his last reserves of strength and started digging, widening the hold just enough so that he could fit inside properly. At least now his legs would not freeze either.
He was starting to drift off, but a stinging from his arm as he leaned against the dirt wall reminded him that he needed to clean the shallow cuts on his arms, which were by this stage filthy and probably infected. With a lack of anything better to use, he scooped up a handful of half-liquid snow from the ground outside and pressed it to his arm, biting his lip as the cold of it hit him, sharply painful. It didn't seem to do a great deal, but the wounds did look a little cleaner so he left it at that.
Completely worn out, Knuckles curled up as best he could and swiftly fell into a dreamless sleep.
----
It was early afternoon when Sonic woke up, still lying upon the couch. He looked around feeling disorientated, and slowly sat up with a groan. His neck ached from sleeping on an awkward angle and dried saliva was etched in a line down the right side of his face. With what felt like a huge effort Sonic slowly got to his feet and wandered into the kitchen, heading straight for the fridge. His shoes, which were still dirty from his late-night run, left muddy footprints in his wake. As he drank milk from the carton, he had barely enough time to wipe away the white mark on his lip when the doorbell rang. Swearing under his breath, he ran a hand through his quills in a poor attempt to neaten the general dissarray and then answered the door. On his doorstep stood Amy, wearing a bizzare looking dress so close fitting it made him feel intensely uncomfortable. Swallowing heavily, he fixed his eyes firmly on her face.
"What are you doing here?" He managed to croak, still removing sleep from his eyes.
"Oh, Hi Sonic! I was just in the neighbourhood and I thought I'd drop by. Have I come at a bad time? Oh, never mind, now that I'm here it'll soon be a good time!" She swept past him into the house, leaving a confused Sonic to close the door. "Uh, would you like a drink or something then?" He asked lamely, those blank blue eyes demanding that he speak, or at least do something. Silence would not be tolerated.
"Sure, that'd be great"
Sonic returned to the fridge, its dismal contents offering little that might appeal to his uninvited guest. He settled with a jug of water, and began to fill up a glass.
"Hey Tails, Get some lemonade when you go to the shops would ya?" He called up the stairs, but if Tails was up there he saw no sign. Perhaps he'd already left for the supermarket.
Resigned to another afternoon of dull conversation, Sonic handed Amy her glass of water and then sat down on the couch himself, doing his best to look interested. As far as Sonic was concerned, things couldn't get much worse than this. It wasn't as though he actually hated Amy or anything like that, but he just got sick of her constant attention. I'm not that interesting, he told Amy silently. Get over it. Get over me. He watched her as she chatted away, how she leaned towards him as she spoke, licking the water off of her lips as though it was something much more potent that what she drank. He wondered if she was even aware of her body language. It seemed much more suggestive than a girl of around fourteen should even understand.
"Would you like to go for a walk?" Amy asked, her eyes fixed on the slobber on his cheek with only the slightest hint of distaste.
"Sure, I guess. Let me just get cleaned up." Grateful for the excuse to get away from her constant attention, if only for a second, Sonic left her for the bathroom. Splashing some water on his face and brushing his quills properly, he wondered how long he'd be able to hide in there before she'd come to find him. Only one way to find out...
----
In a different part of the chasm, Rouge was alot better off. Shortly after she and Knuckles had gone their seperate ways she had taken to the air, gliding easilyover obstacles similar to what Knuckles had struggled through. Her flight path was a bit wonky, given that her arm was jutting out to the side and hindering her wing, but she managed to travel fairly fast. Obviously she couldn't gain anywhere near enough height to get out of the chasm, but flying still made progress alot easier. After about half an hour of searching, she had been fortunate enough to find a rather large and clearly unoccupied cave. After examining it carefully, she accepted it as safe and started getting settled in. There wasn't much she could actually do to get settled in, but an uncomfortable lump in her pocket as she sat down reminded her that she was not without posessions. A minute's digging around in her two pockets resulted in a small pile of generally useless things; five rings, a set of keys, the gas mask, a small vial of the sleeping gas, several crumpled tissues(most of them dirty), her clawed gloves, a lock pick and a voucher for a free Happy meal at McDonalds. Put together with her watch, which broke upon the fall, and the metal from her boots, she had little of anything which would be of use to her. With a sigh, she shoved her inventory to one side and focused upon her next task.
Rouge decided she was in dire need of a fire. Athough it was no longer snowing, the night was still icily cold and a fire might keep wild animals away. She left the cave to find suitable branches and kindling, a task made somewhat more difficult considering the snow; everything was damp. After some effort she managed to accumulate a decent sized pile of kindling and sticks and headed back to her cave. There, she quickly ran into another problem; how was she supposed to light it with one hand? She had no matches on her person, and rubbing sticks together would surely take two hands. Well, she'd just have to be creative, wouldn't she. A small setback like this couldn't stop Rouge!
Twirling the stick with one hand had little effect, much as she had expected. Frowning at the pile, she had another idea. Using a combination of her good hand and her teeth, Rouge untied her boots and kicked them aside, grimacing at the blisters on her feet and chipped toenails. She made a mental note to get a pedicure as soon as she got back home. Leaning on her elbows, she tried twirling it with her feet, but quickly found that her toes were not as agile as she'd given herself credit for. She tried everything she could think of, involving various parts of the body, attempting to create sparks with the keys and her shoes, praying to gods she did not believe in, and staring at the pile of wood hopefully incase it would start to burn in pity, but the wood stayed stubbornly unlit. Eventually she collapsed in a heap next to it feeling utterly miserable. How could she hope to survive out here if she couldn't even light a fire? From what she had seen of the chasm, it would take a very lucky break for her to get out the next day, so she had better be prepared to be here for a while. Right now, she wished fervently that she hadn't driven Knuckles away. Yes, he was an arrogent bastard. Yes, she couldn't stand him. But he could have at least lit a fire for her, and together they would have a better chance of survival, she was sure. She would have to find him in the daylight and degrading as it is, apologise. She wasn't even sure why they were fighting as it is. Immature arguments. Foolishness. That's all it was.
Too tired to continue trying to light a fire, Rouge lay down and pulled the kindling over her in a poor attempt to keep warm. In days gone by, she would have hung from the rocky ceiling, but things had changed since then. She wasn't even really nocturnal anymore.
The moonlight threw an unearthly glow on her features as sleep slowly claimed her. She was plagued with nightmares, dreams that were full of fire and hatred, fractured images of people she knew slowly burning to death. A vision of Knuckles crying out to her, pleading for help, but her dream self simply laughed and left him to his fate.