GAH! ...Okay, someone hit me. Hard, and in the head, and with a shovel. I let this story sit again- and after I had promised not to! I feel awfu.. but his stupid scene wouldn't turn out right!

I had to cut this chapter in half just to update it! On one hand, that's good because it means I'll update the next chapter sooner. On the other hand, it's bad because it means this chapter is SHORT. Well short for one of my chapters, anyway.

I feel so bad... soo, soo, bad... (awaits the shovels...)

By the way- I'm going to be updating a new fanfic. (yes, I know, I can NOT afford to take on another story, and that sequel to 10,000 miles is still due...) but this one was just what I needed to take a break from the Sonic universe. It's a 'Majesty' fanfic. Please, please, please tell my you've played the game and promise to read it. Thank you- keep an eye out for the story later this week. I'm almost finished with chapter one.

"Okay guys, break's over- let's move!" Shadow yelled, storming onto the campsite, seizing three of the six remaining backpacks and throwing them on top of their respective owners, keeping his own for himself. Amy gave out a startled cry as one of the bags was thrown into her lap and almost onto the head of the half-asleep Sonic, who had previously dozed off while Shadow and Alexi were away.

Knuckles and Fliara, the only other members of the group, jumped to their feet and glanced from Shadow to the leopard standing behind him. Fliara smiled slightly, and reached for her pack, apparently eager to move foreword in the labyrinth.

The blue hedgehog, having just woken up, sat up uncertainly and rubbed his eyes, looking around at the hysteric scene with the innocence of a child. He pressed closer to Amy and shivered slightly, but the pink hedgehog stood up before he could get a firm hold on her, leaving a cold, tired, and confused Sonic unattended to for a few moments.

"Shadow, what are you talking about?" She snapped, lowering a hand upon Sonic's head to calm him. If you had woken up under the same circumstances, you may need some calling down, too. "We just set up camp- everyone's exhausted!"

Knuckles almost stumbled as Shadow thrust the pack into his gloved hands and turned, without excuse, to the darkness of the hall before him, taking the lantern as he went, almost leaving the rest of the group in darkness. Amy glared and ran ahead, (leaving Sonic alone- GASP!) stopping Shadow in his tracks.

"Answer me! What is going on here!" She demanded, ripping the lantern from Shadow's hands and holding it in the direction of Knuckles, Fliara, and Sonic- the latter of which was half-stumbling upright, just out of the lantern's reach, and still not exactly sure what was going on. Fliara took a few hurried steps to the black hedgehog's side.

"We should get moving- but what happened that was so bad?" The dragon also requested. Shadow groaned and pointed a finger to the darkness ahead.

"That thing that I thought was following us? Well it's here, Amy. It's here, and if we don't start moving now, we'll never move in the rest of our mortal lives!" He explained- snatching the lantern back and storming off- or attempting too before Amy caught him by the arm.

"At least give us a few seconds! Sonic's in no condition to start a marathon run, and if he-"

"What is it with you and that blue deadweight? Sonic can't do this- Sonic can't do that! Well Sonic better figure out a way to pull his weight around from now on, cause we have to get moving!" He snapped, picking up her pack and thrusting it into her hands.

Sonic's blood boiled at the other hedgehog's words- and he was about to take a step forward, to argue (he could almost walk now if he leaned against the wall) when he stumbled, lightly- not of his own fault, either. A cold, foreboding feeling fell over Sonic, and his eyes widened in shock as the feeling grew more and more familiar. He held a hand to the claw-marks of the ghost's attack, shaking in fear as they began to burn fiercely. Sonic moaned lightly, and staggered to his left- but in the midst of the argument, and since he was out of the lantern's reach, he went unnoticed.

"Don't talk about him like that! We'd do the same thing if it happened to you!" Amy came back fiercely, dropping her pack on the ground.

"Shadow, the whole group is exhausted- how are you even sure this 'monster' is here? You just saw a footprint!" Knuckles shouted, giving Shadow a shove. The black hedgehog shoved back, and Knuckles ended up on the ground.

The pain on Sonic's wounds seemed to double, and it spread along his limbs and into his mind. Sonic wanted to cry out, ask for Amy's help- run to her- but he couldn't move, he couldn't breathe! He fell to his knees, gasping lightly and wondering why no one noticed. He looked up at his friends- arguing, shouting, and yelling...

He saw a dark shape move quickly across the fringe of the lantern's light- then another one. And another one. He felt so weak...

...He looked over at Amy, who was in the middle of a heated argument with Shadow- when his vision started to haze... He looked around in something next to a panic. The ghosts- they were back- he could feel them surrounding him. It was a terrible sensation.

His eyes wandered to Fliara, and at first he was relived to find she had noticed him- but... she was grinning. Grinning at his pain, grinning at his arguing friends- grinning darkly into the shadows. Something was wrong here...

Sonic passed out onto the cobblestone floor, feeling the ghosts draw nearer...

"Stop acting like a-" Amy began, pointing an accusing finger, before a deathly scream breached the silence of the labyrinth, forcing the heroes to fall to their knees and clamp their hands over their ears as the screech rang on. No one noticed that Fliara did not flinch, but drew back into the darkness.

"What is it?" Exclaimed Knuckles, shouting over the declining but still mind-piercing sound. "...Where's Fliara? ...And Sonic?"

At the mention of Sonic's name, Amy's eyes snapped open and she sprung to her feet despite the noise- actually, the sound had ended and was only reflecting echoes now- but still quite present in the heroes' minds.

"Sonic!" She called, nearly hysteric, into the dark. "Sonic!"

Shadow and Alexi staggered to their feet- and a deeper, less agitating shriek rang through the halls. This time, the lantern flickered dangerously, and then began to dim... Shadow noticed, and his eyes widened in shock. If that light went out, you could bet things would start to get a lot worse...

"The battery must be going dead!" Shadow commented. "Alexi, get one from your pack! If we're left in the dark, there's no telling what might happen!"

The leopard, for some reason beyond Shadow's understanding, complied, and leapt to the pack. Shadow paused for a few moments in surprise, but then began opening the battery hatch.

"Sonic!" Amy shouted into the darkness- when there came noises from overhead- the same noises they had heard when they first entered the labyrinth...

"A-Amy!" Came Sonic's voice, distant and weary, from the darkness behind them. Amy gasped, and took off running in his direction, disappearing in the depths.

"Amy, come back!" Exclaimed Knuckles- who was frantically looking around for Fliara. The lantern flickered and dimmed even further- and the noises escalated. "Where's Fliara!"

Shadow grabbed the battery from Alexi as she leapt back to his side, and prepared to replace it. If he could replace the two batteries one at a time, with the lowest power possible, and not turning it off... there could still be hope. He might shock himself, but as long as he had it on a low-voltage setting, it wouldn't hurt that much... Shadow quickly took out one of the batteries and placed in a new one, taking a sharp intake of breath as the lantern flickered for a moment, and the noises grew louder.

"Fliara! Amy!" Shouted Knuckles, staring at the darkness in disbelief. "Sonic! Where are you guys?"

Shadow reached for the second battery- but in one instant, the most horrifying, ear-splitting shriek burst from the walls and the light was immediately extinguished. For a moment our heroes sat, dumfounded, in the dark- before the horrible sound overpowered them, and they passed out.

About an hour later
...It took Shadow a moment to realize where he was. For one- it was terribly dark- and for a few strange moments he thought he was back in his room. That was it. He must have woken up in the middle of the night. Alexi was having another one of her fits, and had come to his place to blow off steam- by shouting at him. That woman loved to yell... sometimes, she didn't even make any sense... Shadow knew that she wasn't exactly healthy, though, so he didn't blame her. Or at least he tried not to, but she really knew how to say hurtful things.

When he didn't hear Alexi- or anything- he became suspicious- when he suddenly remembered everything, and bolted upright, a few beads of cold sweat running down his forehead.

It was dark. Shadow had never gotten a good look at the inside of the labyrinth as it was meant to look. Dark. You couldn't see anything- but at the same time, it created an immensely peaceful feeling. Without being able to see at all, you relaxed, for some reason. In only mild darkness, shapes could shift and move and create illusions. In pitch black, there were no strange shapes. You could suddenly hear everything, too. Only it was also quiet.

The dark and quiet were not evil. That wasn't what made the labyrinth so foreboding, he realized. What made it such a threat was that because it was so different from what he had grown accustom to all his life. He had eyes and ears for a reason- to use light and sound to his advantage. It was different, but not evil. What it was being used for was 'evil'.

After a few moments, he realized that he was still holding the lantern and battery in his hand- only the lantern was off- and he quickly shoved the new battery in it and attempted to turn it on. It didn't work, and Shadow swore audibly, staring around at the darkness in frustration.

"Alexi?" He called out, wondering where she was. "Knuckles?"

No answer.

"Fliara? Amy?" He paused, and looked around "...Sonic?"

He was only met with silence, and the black-furred hedgehog sighed, rising slowly to his feet.

"...I guess I'm all alone, then, huh?" He mumbled to himself. He still had on his backpack from before he and the others passed out- so he reached into the pocket and took out the chaos emerald he had brought. Fliara had told him not to bring it, for Dan-Chilack could use it for great evil- but he had to bring it along anyway, for the occasional emergency chaos-control, as he had done back when he found the pool. He couldn't have used it in the fight, though- he had read about what happened if you tried to use chaos power on demons, and besides, he couldn't let Fliara see that he had brought it- she would have gone hysteric. Hysteric-err might be a more appropriate word. If he had ever met the most obsessive workaholic on the planet, it was Fliara.

But she had broken out of her own mold a few hours ago. It was so... uncharacteristic of her to dive headfirst, plan-less and rashly, into unknown territory like that. For Sonic to have done that, he could believe, but not Fliara. The dragon's trade-mark was to have a plan formulated at least hours before schedule, and to be able to make her decisions as precise as possible- she called it 'being efficient' but Sonic called it 'being paranoid'. That was just one more reason the two never got along. He liked to think on his feet, she liked to use her time to the fullest. He liked to save time, but Fliara would spend all the time she could afford. Maybe it had something to do with a dragon's lengthy lifespan.

In some ways, Shadow was like Sonic. He preferred to get things done quickly when given the chance- he could almost imagine the dragon's voice repeating 'would you rather it be done quickly or it be done right' - but there were many occasions when that phrase held no meaning.

Bah, Thought Shadow to himself. Enough about the blue burden and hyper hothead- I have to figure out what happened.

The fault was easily placed- Dan-Chilack must have been at the bottom of this. But if he had the power to knock them all out, why not capture and destroy them? The mind boggles. He mused quietly, shaking his head. He could figure out the motive and execution later- right now he had to deal with the outcome. For one, he was separated from the rest of the group- a bad thing indeed. He wondered vaguely if the rest of the group was on their own, and if so, how were they doing? If Sonic was all by himself, the answer was obvious- awful. He should probably try finding the blue hedgehog first- but running into any member of the group would be beneficial.

Looking down at the chaos emerald in his hand, he murmured a quick 'chaos control' and grinned as the power poured into him and the room appeared to illuminate with a soft green glow. In reality, he had used the chaos power to improve his eyesight- trying to make it glow would take too much energy and the illumination spell wouldn't work in small areas like this one.

Shadow sighed, turned to his left, and walked half-heartedly through the path, looking for his friends.

The group is seperated? Is Sonic okay? What the hell is up with Fliara? Why did I just now discover that fanfiction dot net eats the tab button?

Also, if you notice the first paragraph in Shadow's P.O.V., There's some character development to Alexi. She's sick. It's pretty much the only reason she's not a complete Mary-Sue. But I love Alexi anyway. (Hugs Alexi)

"DEAR GOD GET OFF OF ME!"

...heh... sorry there, Alexi.