Tails scratched his arm furiously while sitting on his couch. It was strange, as Tails had never felt this itchy in his life.

"Tails, maybe you should take a shower." Sonic suggested, hoping that didn't come off as too rude.

Thankfully, Tails didn't take it that way, and just shook his head in frustration over his own situation. "I think I'm just developing some sort of allergy. Might be because of all the pollen in the air... I should go to a doctor soon."

"Tails, your arm is bleeding from scratching too hard."

The young mechanic glanced at his arm and saw small drops of blood trickle down his body. Tails sighed again, getting up to find some bandaids and medicine in the bathroom.

Sonic remained in his seat, watching the mindless entertainment on the screen in front of him.

"Tails, what on earth is wrong with that tall, buff, red dude?"

"Ahh!"

Sonic heard a thud and a scream coming from the bathroom, and quickly got up to check on his younger brother. Said younger brother was standing with his back against the wall, and the first aid kit on the floor in front of him.

"Tails, what happened?"

"I uh, I think I saw a rat in here" Tails pointed towards the bathtub, which made Sonic go over to take a look. There was nothing there.

"You must have imagined it, buddy. Come on, let me fix you up."

Tails watched Sonic leave the small bathroom with the first aid kit in his hands, leaving him alone within the enclosed walls. Tails felt a million eyes staring at him for a moment, and that sent a chill down his spine. He shivered in fear and followed Sonic, closing the door behind him.

"What's going on? Why am I here?"

[][][][][][][]

"What are you talking about! GEt Me oUt of here!"

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"The doctor said that the tests were negative. They couldn't find any new allergies that I might have grown. It's frustrating, to be honest. I'd much rather know what I need to avoid than rather be kept in the unknown." Tails explained to his brother. Sonic nodded slowly, taking this all in without much thought. They were currently out on a walk through Station Square, the cool yet sunny Winter weather making it perfect for a stroll.

"Well as long as it's not chili dogs I'm fine with it." He joked to lighten the mood. It seemed to work, as Tails let out a soft smirk. It was more than what he usually got out of him with jokes.

"Speaking of chili dogs, there's a stand right there! Tails, do you have any money with you?"

"Yeah, let me grab- Ouch!" Tails pushed his hand into his coat to grab his wallet, but was instead met with a sharp pain. He checked his hand, but no marks were on his gloves. "That's weird...anyways, here you go. Must have touched a nerve or something." Tails handed Sonic his leather wallet and watched him go over to the chili dog stand.

"It still itches…" He thought, running his hand through his fur and trying to get rid of the itch through any way possible. It didn't work. If anything, it started itching a whole lot more.

"Hey Tails, the guy gave me one for free! He said it's on the house for you, isn't that awesome?" Sonic came back with two chili dogs, one in each hand. Tails took one from Sonic, and pocketed the wallet.

"Hey, buddy, are you okay? You look upset" Sonic started walking again, this time heading towards their home. Tails knew that Sonic only wanted to go for a 'walk' because he wanted some chili dogs.

"I don't know, Sonic. I think I might have some weird thing going on with my body."

"Tails, that's completely normal! When you're at that age, it's normal for- Tails, are those flies on your chili dog?"

Indeed it was. Caught off guard, Tails saw the half a dozen or so flies on his snack and dropped it. "Shoot! I...ugh." Considering he was already in a sour mood, this just added to everything.

"Aw, it's fine little guy...Here, you can take a bit of mine."

"Really?" Tails smiled brightly and took a bite out of the warm, spicy dog and buns. The two laughed it off and continued their walk home, completely forgetting about the dropped chili dog currently infested with ants and flies.

After they arrived home, Tails went to take a bath. He first ignored Sonic's suggestion about a week ago, but taking a bath really was the easiest way to get rid of that disgusting itch.

He stepped into the tub and turned on the warm stream of water, closing his eyes and letting all that good stuff flow over him. He felt the water clean his disgusting dirty body, washing away his itch. He opened his eyes again, only to be greeted by a spider the size of his gloves directly meeting him eye to eye.

Sonic was outside, tossing a ball up and down when he heard a very feminine scream coming from the bathroom.

"Cream?" He stood up and ran over, knocking on the door before hearing his brother's voice.

"It-It's fine, Sonic. A spider caught me off guard. Geez, I guess we should take care of pests more, huh?"

"Oh, it was you. I thought I heard Cream screaming in there. Did you take care of the thing?"

"Yeah, I sprayed it with water and I tossed it in the toilet." Sonic could hear the sound of the said toilet flushing behind the door. "It should be fine now. Sorry about that."

"No problem, buddy. I'm glad at least one person made a girly scream under this roof."

"...Sonic, I'm 14."

"Sorry..."

The rest of the day went mostly fine. No surprises coming out of nowhere and scaring the heebie jeebies out of him. After a whole lot more scratching and a whole lot of engineering in his garage, he went to his bedroom at 11pm. It was quite early considering he usually went to sleep past midnight, but he was just so tired these days.

"Going to sleep already, bro?" Sonic asked, sitting on the couch like he usually did before going to bed himself.

"Yeah, these past couple of days have just been a mess. I don't know why it itches so much, Sonic. Maybe I should just live underwater at this point".

Sonic shrugged, and left the kid alone. Tails went into his bedroom, closed the door behind him, turned off the lights, and went under the sheets.

"Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day." Fortunately for Tails, he was able to go to sleep quickly. Unfortunately for him, that meant that the nightmares were going to haunt him for longer.

Tails dreamt of a tight room with no lights or windows. Despite that, everything in the room was clear as day. The walls were made of concrete, and he was laying on the floor unable to move. Tails never had sleep paralysis before, but he assumed that this was what it felt like. He was completely helpless to the skittering critters all around him. He couldn't see them, but he could feel it. He could hear it. He could tell that they were surrounding his body.

A nip.

Tails yelped from the sudden pain, but no voice came out.

Another nip.

Then another

Constant nippings happening at his fingers.

Tails tried his hardest, reaching his eyes to the edge of his sockets to see whatever was going on. He could make out the image of something like a rat on both hands, nibbling on his fingernails.

"No! Stop! Go away!" Tails screamed, but nothing came out.

Each rat devoured away at his fingers, chomping off the nails and pulling them out. They each worked on a single finger at a time, before there were no more fingernails left on his body. Tears poured from his eyes, as the rats moved away from his hands and onto his feet. Tails didn't need to look to know what was happening

The rats. There were more. They were climbing on top of his body. Tails couldn't tell how many there were, but there was a lot. One got on his face, and he could see its mouth open so wide that he could see the back of its throat. Wait. No.

Tails woke up and sat up immediately. His breathing was irregular and left his chest rising and falling at an incredible pace. He looked around and saw that there were no rodents around him. There was a tiny spider on his left hand though, which he shaked off with a "Gah!" The damn spider crawling around his hand must have been what caused his mind to think of rats.

Tails got up, headed towards the kitchen, feeling itchier than ever. Tails hated it already. Tails wished he could just go back to sleep, but Tails knew that only pain waited for him on the other side.

Pain or itch. At least being itchy didn't kill him.

Sonic watched his brother open the door and walk out with bags under his eyes. But before he could say anything to comfort the young fox, Tails fell over and knocked his head on the wall.

"Tails!"

"Tails! Is he okay?"

"Tails? He… No"

"Tails… How could this happen."

"Tails was only a kid. What happened to him?"

"Tails just walked out of his room and fell down. I have no idea what happened. I took him to the hospital the moment it happened, and then I called you guys."

"Doctor, is everything going to be okay?"

"..."

"No"

"Please..."

"Please tell us that he's going to be okay..."

"I have no idea what's going on. I have never seen anything like this. All his fingernails are missing and his eye is bleeding profusely."

"What on Mobius does that even mean? How could that happen?"

"We don't know. We tried our best but we could only prevent more injuries from happening."

"The most they could do was stop it from spreading to the other eye, bud."

Tails sat in his hospital bed staring out the window with his remaining one eye.

"I'm so sorry, Tails. I just…"

"You couldn't have done anything to prevent this, Sonic. It's fine."

Tails went back to sleep that night despite his best efforts. He knew what happened. He wasn't dumb. Whatever happened tonight will happen to him when he wakes up. Tails was in the same room as yesterday, and he could feel the rats again. The damn rats. The damn fucking rats that ate his eye. The damn fucking pieces of shit from the 7th circle of hell.

"FUCKING KILL ME ALREADY!" The boy screamed out.

His head was surrounded by sounds of flies buzzing around him. He felt the disgusting rodents climb up his body and spread open his mouth. Tails knew this was the end. He let whatever happens, happen.

Autopsy Report:

SUMMARY OF CLINICAL HISTORY: The patient was a 14 year old mobian fox with no significant reports of any medical history. The patient was hospitalized for missing fingernails and bleeding from the sclera. At 2300, the heart rate monitor for the patient alarmed the staff of irregular heart rates. On the day of the hospitalization, the patient was pronounced dead at 2305 with no heart sounds and no pulse.

CLINICOPATHOLOGIC CORRELATION: The cause of the patient's death was multiple reasons. The most significant finding was the presence of three dead rats (Rattus norvegicus) inside the patient's stomach. Said rats were alive, but very malnourished. It is unknown how the rats ended up inside the patient's body.

Other strange findings were bite marks and scratch marks underneath the patient's fur, covering most of his abdomen and arms. Lice were found in his fur, possibly the reason for the marks.

Finally, there was a large housefly shown to have crawled up his nose and into his windpipe, probably causing the breathing problems that ultimately lead to the patient's death. It was later discovered that the housefly had lain eggs before dying.

In summary, the patient had died due to multiple accidents revolving around common pests, and the final cause of death being the housefly inside the patient's windpipe.

SUMMARY AND REFLECTION:

I have no idea