South California – 1986

The rough, water coloured mural of the royal blue sky, white clouds and distant horizons hung on hooks from the ceiling of the gym, just behind the basketball backboard, vibrating to the loud music. The bottom third of the large painting was a crude drawing of the skylines of cities, from Seattle to New York, all were silhouettes of buildings in grey paint and black outline. The most recognizable shape was the statue of liberty. Someone had even cut a hole where her torch would have been and put a light bulb there.

In front of the painting, high school kids danced, ate at tables and shouted over the music at the annual prom. The table clothes were blue, the napkins were blue and most of the girls had a ridiculous amount of blue eye shadow. Over half of the boy's tuxes were royal blue, though under the blue lights that flooded the air and li the background of the gym, they looked dark and faded.

A red echidna, Knuckles Summers stood facing his date, a wolf called Selena Ki, just to the right of the dance floor. He was thin and lanky, with thick brown hair. His smile and friendly personality made him popular among most of the kids and getting Selena as his date to the prom was like winning the lottery. She was one of the school's cheerleaders, the 4th smartest kid in the school and a beast when placed in in the soccer field, she managed to win the school the district school soccer championships, and sent the unfortunate opposing teams goalie to hospital. About half the school had eyes on her and she could have gone with anyone that she wanted, and Knuckles felt lucky that she asked him out.

He and Selena had been going out for at least a month, Knuckles liked her, but he was having troubles with her jealousy. Two of his friends had warned him about that problem, and he hadn't listened. Now he wished he had, if he even looked at another girl, she goes ballistic.

Right now she was really, really mad. "I don't ever want to talk to you again!" Selena shouted at Knuckles over the music.

"But…" Knuckles tried to say, but too late, she had already turned and ran away into the crowd her red and blue dress skirt brushing dancers out of the way. He went after her, ignoring a few friends who stood to the side, shaking their heads. Knuckles couldn't believe this was happening, not during the prom. So what if he had talked to Alexia yesterday after class? He was here with Selena, wasn't he? He didn't like Alexia that much, in fact he barely knew her. She had just come up to him, said "Hi" but worst of all she gave him a hug right in front of Selena.

Was it his fault that Alexia was a hugging kind of person? It seemed Selena thought it was, she wansn't even giving him the opportunity to explain or talk to him at all. She didn't even notice that Alexia was clearly dancing with another girl.

Selena stormed out of the hall and stopped with Knuckles right behind her, at least out here the music level was almost bearable, maybe out here she would let him explain that nothing was going to come between them. He had almost reached her when she spun off and slipped into the girls' room. He stared after her and set his jaw grimly. That wasn't going to stop him, not this time. He started for the door.

"Knuckles?" a voice said, bringing him up before his hand can touch the door.

He turned around to see Mr Roberts, his history teacher looking at him. Roberts pointed at the men's room a few feet away "Don't you think you would be more comfortable in there?"

"Yes, but I have to talk to her"

Robert's nodded, "I understand that, but not in there. Trust me, eventually they all come out"

Despite the logic in Robert's statement, Knuckles was so mad he had no idea what to do. He was frustrated as well, why was she doing this to him? What had he done to deserve having this night ruined all because of her irrational fit of jealousy?

Suddenly, a jabbing pain shot through the back of his head and into his eyes.

"AHHHHHH" he said, bending over, covering his eyes as they started to water.

"You alright Summers?" Roberts asked.

Knuckles managed to nod, then quickly headed for the men's room. The pain was intense, so intense that his eyes felt as if they were trying to explode out of his head. Inside the men's room about half a dozen others were smoking and laughing, but they all froze when they saw Knuckles. Normally when something like this happened in front of Knuckles, he would immediately tell the teacher. Just last week, he got almost a hundred students suspended when he caught them with drugs. But they can tell that Knuckles didn't even care if there was a dead body in the toilet and they were all holding daggers, all Knuckles cared about was the pain in his eyes, and the sink to wash the pain away.

Stan, the only person that Knuckles trusted that was in the group moved to Knuckles, "Is something wrong Knuckles? Is it Selena? If so it's alright, you can cry…"

"It's not her it's my eyes!" Knuckles cried

"What's wring with your eyes? I got some eye drops might help." Stan said

"Thanks…" Knuckles said, he stood and carefully opened his eyes.

"Holy!" Stan cried, stumbling back, the look in his face was that of pure horror.

Knuckles wiped a tear away as the pain got worse and worse. "What's wrong?" He can still see Stan, but everything was strange, as if he was peering through a red haze.

"Your eyes man!" Stan said still backing away "They are red! Really red! Pupils and all"

Suddenly Knuckles could feel the pain come together at a point above the bridge of his nose. And then it vanished, as if it had never been there at all. Instead there was energy flowing in his head. Energy he could feel like water running though his fingers. Energy that wanted out.

For an instant it felt as if the entire inside of his head was flowing out of his eyes. The energy burst out through them, smashing into the wall in front of him in a bright red beam of light.

The wall exploded.

And then a massive hole appeared, Knuckles could see inside the girls rest room, Selena and four other girls screamed and jumped away from the mirror.

The wall on the other side of the girls' rest room exploded outwards. At that moment Knuckles realised that he was the one doing the damage, his eyes were. He closed them, jamming his hands over them, and he dropped to the ground. Once again, the energy seemed to flow around and around painlessly inside his head, calm now, but waiting to be released again when he opened his eyes. Well, he wasn't going to open them.

Around him the screams and the shouts and yelling started. Shortly after there were sirens. He never had the chance, and never will get the chance to tell Selena that he was sorry.