Scourge was unsure if he was awake or dreaming.
He felt the unnaturally cold air of the castle hanging about him like a mist as he was walking down a long, dark hallway. This felt like something he would encounter on his way to bed, not after he was already there. He definitely remembered getting into bed and pulling the sheets over his head, so how the heck did he get out in the hallway? Had he subconsciously gone to get a glass of water? The kitchens were downstairs, but where were the stairs?
Scourge glanced behind him and saw the same thing he had seen in front of him: miles and miles of hallway. The cold of the hardwood floor was seeping through his socks. He had left his jacket in his room and he felt so naked without it. The Ruby was in one of its pockets. With it he could create anything, even an artificial heat source to insulate him from the cold. But where was his room? Where was anything? There were doors everywhere, but they all looked painted on. He began to run, but without his shoes he was so slow. Too slow. Too painfully slow.
And then everything began to fall away. The doors, the floor, the walls, even the cold- everything fell away into a void of nothingness, leaving Scourge floating there, suspended by nothing. Something light and feathery was ticking his ears. And then, whatever it was pulled tight and began to choke the life out of him. It filled his nose and mouth and even his eyes. He couldn't see anything. And then it all faded to white.
With a yelp, the king kicked the sheets off of him and everything, including the comforter, fell to the floor. His eyes stung as if he had been staring at the sun for hours. But he hadn't been. He was in Moebius; there was no sun. His head screamed at him to sleep, but after being choked by a thin layer of fabric, he was a little more than trepidacious about doing so.
The king donned his red sunglasses, which were on a nightstand, chose the fluffiest of his two pillows, and walked to the door. His jacket was on a hook. He took it and his shoes and left and headed straight to the teleporter, intent on getting at least some sleep, even if he had to travel to find it.
It was the next day and Honest was the first to come down the stairs. She liked to start making coffee an hour before Shadow woke up so that she could get the first cup. The first cup always tasted the best. Honest was unsure if it was due to the coffee grinds being less diluted when you first started running water through them or due to the fact that the water hadn't had as much time to run through the filter and therefore excess water hadn't been able to leak into the pot and dilute the coffee there. Either way, Honest knew, even with half n half, the first cup of coffee was the strongest, therefore she wanted it.
What she didn't want, however, was freeloaders in her house.
There, lying on the sofa with his jacket draped over him and his shoes and glasses on the coffee table, was Scourge the Hedgehog. At first, Honest wanted to shout and wake him up, but after a while, she decided she should just leave him there. After all, if it was some total stranger sleeping there, she might've panicked, but this was Scourge. If he had asked to spend the night on her couch, on Snow's couch rather, it would have been fine. She'd let him off with a warning. But first, she had to make coffee.
Scourge drowsily awoke as Honest sat next to him and placed a cup of coffee on the table next to his shoes. He sat up and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry about not calling ahead of time, but it was late and I didn't want to disturb you guys." His eyes then traveled to the mug on the coffee table and then to the one Honest was still holding. "That one's for me?"
"Well, yeah," Honest said, shrugging. "If you don't want it, that's okay."
"No, a warm beverage sounds nice right about now." The moss-colored hedgy reached for the cup and took a sip. He was surprised by the taste. "This is some good coffee." He picked up his sunglasses as well and placed them on his nose.
Honest giggled. "Yeah, it's the first cup. The first cup's always the best, and you're our guest, so."
The sound of feet thumping down the stairs next to them made Scourge freeze for a second, but it was only Shadow. He saw Scourge and looked confused. "Why is he here?"
Scourge and Shadow were both waiting for Honest to explain, and she could, but she instead turned to Scourge. "Scourge? Why are you here?"
The green screen-colored king looked startled as he recalled just how he came to be sleeping on their couch this morning. "I had a nightmare," he explained. "...I think. It could've been real because I woke up suffocating in my bed sheets. I think it was brought on by the ghosts. Anyway, it's dangerous there. I don't know what we did to them the other night, but they're especially angry now."
"Sorry about that," Honest apologized, wincing. "But what else can we do? Do you have any ideas of what to try next?"
Scourge held the cup in his hands and stared into it just as Shadow was prone to do when he was thinking. Or, maybe that was just a common thing all people did. I mean, it was something Honest wrote, so it was in her subconscious as well, right? Thinking this hard about a simple habit made Honest feel annoyed with herself. Her eyes wandered over to the pillow Scourge had been lying on just seconds ago. It was plain white and without a pillowcase. Didn't Scourge know that it was easier and more beneficial to wash a pillowcase every time instead of the whole pillow? Spirals of confusion swirled in Honest's violet eyes.
Scourge finally looked up from his cup. "Maybe if we painted the walls and strung up lights- Honest, are you okay?"
Honest blinked and the swirls disappeared. "Yeah, I'm fine." She folded her arms and stared into her own cup, her eyes full of sorrow. Her cup was empty, though, so nothing was being reflected back up at her.
Shadow turned around and started to walk to the kitchen. "Well, while you two think about that, I'm gonna go get some coffee." Scourge thought that was funny somehow and muffled his laughs with his palm.
"Well, Honest. What do you think?"
Honest yawned and set her empty mug on the glossy wooden surface of the coffee table. "About chasing the ghosts away with some interior decorating? I dunno."
"No, not really that, just livening the place up a bit. What's a better method of repelling the undead than by filling a place with life?"
Now it was Honest's turn to laugh. "I mean, it makes sense, but also…" She put a finger to her chin in thought. "What if it only makes them madder? What if-" Honest seemed to grow pale. "What if that's what set them off to begin with, not the Chaotix, but you cleaning the place?" Scourge's positive face twisted into one of fear.
"If that's true, then it makes total sense why I was able to spend weeks there before with little incident." He then gritted his teeth in anger. "But it's my castle! I earned the right to claim it as my home."
Honest nodded and put her finger up to her chin again. "Yes, I would agree that going through the effort needed in order to steal something does count as 'earning' it."
Scourge sighed and glared at her. "When you say it like that, though, it makes it sound more like a petty crime rather than the natural ending of an era."
Shadow walked back out of the kitchen. "So, you're going to go to school with us, or-?"
"No, I guess I'd better go meet up with Fiona," he said, standing up and stuffing his pillow under one arm. He looked back down at Honest. "I'll see you later."
Honest waved enthusiastically as he left even though the only person who could see her was Shadow. "Bye!" When the door was closed and he was gone, Honest looked to Shadow. "You know, it's hard to understand what to do about ghosts since they may or may not be real." When Shadow looked confused, Honest continued. "I mean, here they're obviously real, but I don't have anything in the real world to base them off of… right now. Maybe I'll do some research. I did some for the ghost hunting chapters of {w/Rosy}." She stood up and went to the stairs. "I'm gonna go get the others up."
In no time, Dina, Akane, and Silver were lined up at the door, ready to go. Dina looked the most tired out of all of them. Perhaps Akane and Silver's child-like vigor kept them looking energized. However, as they were about to depart for school, Snow the Rabbit pushed past all of them with a purple bag over one of her shoulders.
"Sorry, guys. The commander wants me up there early. Apparently it's an emergency," she said, stumbling down the steps and into her silver car which was parked in the driveway.
"An emergency?" Shadow echoed, blinking. He turned to Honest. "Well, expect me to probably leave school early sometime today."
Honest just stared at him, not completely understanding. What was happening? She shook her head as if shaking all her concern out. However, it didn't work. It wasn't concern for Shadow, it wasn't concern for what was happening at GUN, it was concern as to what was happening to her story.
Perhaps it was wrong for Honest to consider this story hers, much like how it was wrong for Scourge to claim his ownership of the castle as a right. Perhaps it was "the story" and "the castle" instead of "Honest's story" and "Scourge's castle".
Things were "just happening" again. Perhaps it was due to Scourge having too much freedom and being too independent. Perhaps it was due to Frank's creation, or Doctor Finitevus's presence, or the Dark Silver problem standing next to Honest, fishing in his backpack to make sure he had a pencil. Perhaps Honest was saying "perhaps" far too often?
Perhaps we'll never know.
