Hihi! ^_^ I'm back with another chappy, everyone. :) I hope you like this one!

Hello, hello, hello! ^_^ Here I am with the next chapter in the revision of Sonic: Before Heroism! You guys can probably tell that the story's gonna be a bit different since Sam lived this time around. I hope you guys like it!

Chapter Two

Ugh… What… happened? I'm so… so tired… I feel like I was just hit by a truck or something. God, I hurt… I have no clue what went on to make me feel so horrible… and on top of all the pain, I seriously feel like I'm gonna puke… I open my eyes, and I'm almost blinded by the light that's in this room. Once my eyes adjust, I look over to the source of the light to my right. There's a large window there, and the sun is shining almost directly in here through it. I think it's sunrise or something.

I also hear a slow beeping… What is that sound? It's really steady… Like a heartbeat… What is that? I look up to my left to see a computer with waves and a number above it. It's something like one hundred twenty-four. The heck? Am I in a hospital or something? Why would I be in one? What happened to me? I look down in the direction of my feet and see three people sitting in the chairs in the room. Milly, Sam, and Max are sitting there, but they're all asleep. Did they stay here all… however long I was out? Was I hurt that bad?

I try to sit up, but my stomach… Jeez, it stings! I groan in extreme pain, and Sam seems to have heard me, because he lifts his head off Milly's shoulder and looks at me. "Ogie?" he sounds really tired. I don't blame him. After all, it's probably like seven o'clock. Then his eyes widen, and he nearly jumps out of his seat and rushes over to me, glomping me. "You're okay! I thought you were gonna be out for days!" And he starts crying. Why's he crying? Did I do something dangerous?

"What's wrong…? What happened to me?"

"Y-you mean you don't remember the fire? Or anything about it? Or what happened to Mom?"

Something happened to Mom?! "What do you mean? What happened to Mom?" And then my head starts aching. I bring my right hand up to my forehead and notice that there's an IV in there as well as bandages wrapped around it. There are also bandages around my head. What did I do?

"You okay?" he asks, his voice full of worry.

"I'm fine. Just a headache, that's all. Now what happened to Mom?" He's getting me really worried here…

"She… Um… She… The fire… There was a fire… at the house… and Mom… She was… She was…" More and more tears keep flowing from his eyes and down his face.

"She was what? You're scaring me, Sam!" I'm really terrified right now! I don't know what went on, but I… don't think it's good… Before I know it, he completely loses it and buries his face in my shoulder while still crying. I can feel his tears wetting down my fur. I start petting his head to try and get him to calm down. Whatever it is that's causing him this much grief, it must be terrible.

"Ogie, you're awake?" I take my eyes off my little brother and look over at the chairs again. Both Milly and Max are awake now, but it was Milly that spoke. I could tell by his voice. Max's voice isn't that loud.

"Yeah, I'm awake, and I hurt so much that it's not even funny. What on Mobius happened to make me get hurt this much… and do I have a concussion?"

"You mean… you don't remember anything…? What's the last thing you remember?" He gets up and walks over to me, and I can still hear Sam sobbing onto my shoulder.

"Well, I guess the last thing… is Sam showing me that picture that he drew of me… The one that said 'Sonic the Hedgehog' on it… I know something probably happened, but… what? I have a feeling it's not good."

The vermillion raccoon sighs. "This isn't easy to say, but… there was a fire at your house… probably started by an arsonist… and your mom was stuck in there…" I can see tears welling up in his sky blue eyes, and he's not one to cry. "You ran in there to try and save her… I tried to stop you, but you went in anyway… I don't know what happened in the house, but it burnt down with you inside it, and you were hurt pretty bad. You had a large gash on your head, and your stomach and hands were covered with third degree burns. They said that your lungs were filled with so much carbon monoxide that it's a miracle you survived, and they said with the giant gash on your head that you probably hit your head so hard you're lucky you don't have brain damage…"

Wow… I sure was hurt… "But what about my mom? What happened to her?"

Tears start dripping from his eyes. "She… didn't make it out… I'm sorry, Ogilvie…"

Tears start forming in my own eyes as well. "No… No, that can't be true… You're lying… You've gotta be lying…"

"I-I'm not lying!"

Sam lifts his head from my shoulder and looks me in the eye. "He's telling the truth… She never came out of the house…"

No… How…? Why…? Why did this have to happen? I close my eyes for a second, and the tears that had accumulated in my eyes stream down my face. "Goddammit…!" After I shout that, Sam gasps. I don't think he's ever heard me swear. Heck, I think I've only sworn once or twice in my entire life… but I don't know what else to do right now… I mean, my mother is… dead… She's dead and she's not coming back…! "Dammit, dammit, dammit! Why the hell did this happen?!"

"Calm down, Ogilvie," says Milly as soothingly as he can. "Swearing about it isn't going to help anything."

"Well, what else do you want me to do?! Just sit back and act like this never happened?! That's easy for you to say! You're not the one who just lost his mom! You don't even know what it's like!"

As rare as it is for him to get cross with somebody, he narrows his eyes slightly and sternly replies, "You know as well as I do that I know what it's like. I lost my brother two years ago, and your mother was the closest thing I had to one besides Mrs. Mutti. You, Sam, and I have all lost someone important to us, so quit your whining and stop acting like you're the only one suffering here." I hit a nerve there… and an already damaged one, at that…

I sigh. He has a very good point… "You're right… Sorry… I just… I just don't know what to do… I mean… I don't even know what the heck happened… All I have to go off of is what you told me… so I don't even know all of what happened, and I know nothing about what happened inside the house… I'm just not sure if I have a way to cope." I really don't think I honestly have a way to cope… I mean I've never had to cope with anything like this. I don't have a coping mechanism built into me.

"Don't worry, Ogie. I'm sure you'll find a way through it." And he smiles at me. I don't think he's angry anymore. It's rare to see him angry, but even rarer to see him stay that way.

After that, I hear Max mumble, "Oh, yeah…" And he gets up and makes his way over here. "They found this after the fire…" He hands me a picture with slightly charred edges. Just by glancing at it, I'm surprised it survived the fire. I look at the photo, and it's one of me, my mom, my dad, and Sam. It was the last family picture we took. It was my eighth birthday and the week before my father was deployed. My dad… I hope now more than ever that he'll come back soon.

Sam must be a mind-reader, because he asks, "Do you think dad will be home soon?"

"I dunno, li'l bro… I hope, but I dunno." Well, the uncertainty of that isn't very assuring… I guess he and I'll just have to continue to hope. Speaking of Sam… while I'm here in the hospital, where's he gonna stay? "Hey, Milly, do you know where Sam's gonna stay while I'm recovering?"

He nods. "I talked to Mrs. Mutti, and she said that he can stay at the orphanage until you guys find out what's gonna happen."

I sigh. That's a relief. It'll be one less thing on my mind when I'm here all alone at night. Well, I'd best prepare myself… This is gonna be one long couple of days…

"What?! No, no, no! You can't make us live with hi—GAH!" Jeez… How much can my head hurt…? But seriously, they can't make us live with him… They just can't. I mean, he's a drunkard!

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hedgehog, but he's the only close relative you have here on Christmas Island, and he has no previous offenses for anything such as driving under the influence or things related to alcohol."

"I don't give a damn! We're not staying with him!" No matter what that man says, I'm not letting Sam near our uncle. Frank is a bad man, I tell you. A bad man. I had to stay with him for a day one time, and he gave me a black eye for bringing him the wrong kind of pop… He's the devil incarnate.

"I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice in the matter. He'll be picking you up around five o'clock this afternoon." The human man who was just telling me that walks out of the room without saying anything else.

"For God's sake… First Mom dies, and now I have to live with Frank. How much worse can this get?" As if on cue, Milly walks, or rather fast walks, in the room with a look of urgency on his face and a newspaper in his grasp.

"Ogie, you won't believe what they think Max did!" he exclaims, not quite loudly enough for it to be a shout, but it sounds serious enough to be one.

"What do they think Max did?" I ask, still kinda depressed at what just happened. "It can't be that bad, Milly." I reach over to the glass of water by my bed and take a drink.

"But it is! They think he murdered his parents!" And at that, I almost do a spit tank with the water in my mouth, but I swallow it.

"They think he did what now?!" My head starts aching once again, and I bring my hand up to my head and close my eyes for a second.

"You okay, Ogie?"

"I'm fine. What happened with Max?" I can't believe they think he killed his parents. I mean, there's no way. There's just no way. He's not like that.

"Well, apparently, one of your guys' neighbors had heard gunshots being fired from inside Max's house, but nobody saw anybody come out of the house after they were. They called the police, and when they arrived, they saw Max repeatedly punching a bloodied man out of some kind of negative emotion; they couldn't tell if it was anger, fear, sorrow, or anything else. His parents were dead, along with two other men that they couldn't quite identify. When they approached Max, he seemed to snap out of some sort of trance and looked at a police officer before glancing back at the body he was on top of and screaming.

"He nearly jumped off the body and backed up to a wall, where he started crying. They say he kept saying the phrase 'happy place'. When the police once again tried to approach him, he backed further away begging for them not to hurt him, and when they started to get closer again, he ran off. No one knows where he went to after that, but they found a gun at the scene of the crime, and it had Max's fingerprints on it."

"What on Mobius?" I ask out of astonishment. "Why do they think that he, of all people, would do something like that? Don't they know about his Asperger's syndrome? He'd be too scared to even handle a pistol. He had to have been set up."

"They're the police. I think anyone at the scene of a crime is a suspect to them…"

"It's not right. I don't care if they're the police or not. They need to have some common sense, because whatever Max was doing when he was in that trance, it wasn't something he would have done on his own."

"Yeah, but for now, I'm a bit more worried about you. Where are you gonna stay?"

"How can you worry about me and not Max at a time like this?"

"Because we can get the thing about Max sorted out later, so who are you staying with."

I sigh. I don't even want to think about it… "Frank… My goddamn drunkard of an uncle…"

Milly sighs, too. "First of all, would you quit swearing so much? I can't count how many swearwords you've said in the past few days. Second, he can't possibly be that bad."

"Easy for you to say. You haven't met him, and you should be glad as hell you haven't. He's such a bastard."

"Would you stop swearing?"

"Sorry, but I just don't wanna think of better words right now. Besides, he is one." I'm telling the truth. He is one sick bastard.

He kneads his forehead. "Okay, I'll let your annoying swearing go for now, but is he seriously that horrible?"

I roll my eyes and say in a sarcastic voice, "No, I'm just exaggerating because I'm so not worried for Sam." I resume my normal voice. "Like hell I'm not… I'm more worried for him than I've ever been. If I'm not there to protect him every second of the day, he's gonna get it something fierce from Frank…" I look around, and Sam's not here right now. Odd… "Speaking of Sam… where is he?"

"He's getting your guys' new stuff ready. Mrs. Mutti and I went and bought some new stuff for you, like jackets and coats for when it gets cold, new backpacks, a small suitcase for each of you, some new toothbrushes… That kinda stuff."

I smile a bit. At least we'll have our necessities. "Thanks, Milly."

He winks and gives me a thumbs-up, like I would normally do to him. "No prob, Ogie… So when are you leaving."

"Five o'clock."

He glances over at the clock on the wall. "You've still got a good hour and forty-five minutes before you have to go, and if he's as bad as you say, let's make the best of this time."

Well, it's 4:57 now. Sam arrived here about half an hour ago with our stuff, and Milly and I had spent all this time talking and cheering me up… Well, the most I can be cheered up anyway… Let's just say that I'm not looking forward to going with Frank… and I honestly think I'm about to break.

And I can't help but cry into Milly's shoulder when he hugs me. All of the emotion from this and the depression from losing my mom come flowing out at once. "I don't wanna go, Milly! I don't wanna deal with him!" I know he's probably thinking that I'm overreacting a bit too much, but he nevertheless runs his hand up and down my back, trying to calm me.

"It's okay, Ogie. It's okay. You'll get through it; I promise." After about a minute, he releases me, and after that, I see someone walk into the hospital, and what do ya know…? It's Frank…

That brown hedgehog is as repugnant-looking as I remember him, and he doesn't look like the kind of person that anyone sensible would hang out with. He's wearing a stained white muscle shirt, a black leather jacket, and ripped blue jeans. He looks kinda like a gangster, actually. "C'mon, kids…" He grabs both me and Sam by the wrists and starts pulling us, and we barely have time to grab our suitcases.

"Bye, Milly!" I exclaim as I'm pulled out the door. He drags us through the parking lot with an iron grip on us. Jeez, he has strong hands. My wrist is seriously starting to hurt.

"Um, Uncle Frank, do you think you could let go? You're hurting me."

Apparently Sam's hurting, too, because he chimes in, "Please?"

He sighs and squeezes even harder, getting a yelp of pain from both of us. "Don't tell me what to do, you brats. I couldn't care less if I'm hurting you two or not. I'm very angry that you two just got dumped on me."

"So you're just gonna take it out on us?" I ask.

He squeezes increasingly harder on my wrist, and I start whimpering repeatedly in pain. "That's exactly what I'm gonna do. I never wanted two damn kids in my life. I never asked for this. My life's a shithole as it is. I don't need you two to make it worse."

After about half a minute more of pure torture, we make it to his truck, and he releases us from his grip, but not before slamming me into the truck right where my burns are, and I shout in pain. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him smirk. That sadistic bastard… "Ogie, are you okay?" asks Sam worriedly.

I try to be as resilient as possible as I say, "I'm fine," and walk over to the passenger door and climb in. I'm gonna sit in the middle, 'cause I'm keeping Sam as safe as possible, and that means putting myself between Frank and him.

The whole car ride to the house is spent in silence. Frank is actually a better driver than I had expected, although he's still not very good. We make it there in one piece, and he parks in the driveway by a very small house. It's almost the size of a shack. I've been here before, but it looks even smaller now than it did then.

We follow Frank up to the house, and once I step inside, I'm immediately disgusted. It's a complete and utter pigsty in here. There are empty cans and beer bottles and food containers scattered across the floor. It just looks… horrible in here. He said that his life's a shithole… Well, his house is, too, but I'm not gonna say that to his face…

He walks over to one of the couches and lifts off the cushions before pulling out a bed. "You'll sleep on this." He then digs out two pillows and a decently sized blanket. "And you'll get these to sleep with. And don't even think about going to sleep now, because you're gonna have to do some work… Now get me a beer!"

I'm not gonna let Sam touch one of those or get close to Frank, so I walk over to the fridge and get one, and I make a silent promise to make sure Sam doesn't get harmed for however long we stay here.

Well, what'd ya think? Is it better than the first one? I really hope so! I'm putting so much effort into this to try and make it a million times better. Looking back on the original makes me feel like I was so mediocre back then, and I thought I was on top of the world! XD Well, that's all I have to say right now, and please review! Do you guys not love me anymore or something? T_T

-Camobamo1

Okay, so I wasn't getting very many reviews on my other profile when I posted this up there. ^_^' At least I'll probably get more on here. Well, auf wiedersehen!

-Tails Luv-er