"Who are you?"
"My name's Sonic the Hedgehog, in case you'd forgotten Shadow," Sonic's doppelgänger answered.
"That can't be," Sonic replied, "I'm Sonic."
The double sighed. Sonic could tell this person, whoever he was, was getting annoyed by this. The hedgehog looked at his double, it was a perfect copy, from the buckles on the shoes to the bright green eyes, and even the way his ears would flinch ever so slightly every once in a while.
As far as he could tell, Sonic was the exact double of Shadow too. Something at the back of Sonic's mind said that this new imitator was actually Shadow, but that very same something also said that Shadow wouldn't relent or admit it, and thus Sonic decided to play along, and humour his impersonator.
"Perhaps you can fill me in on something," Sonic eventually said, "My memories fuzzy, how did I get here?"
"Couldn't tell you," the double replied, "You were here when I got here. You sure you're okay Shadow?"
Sonic bit his lip, inside he was beginning to get annoyed by being referred to as Shadow, but without any proof he was going to have a hard time passing for Sonic here. Either way, Sonic thought, he had bigger things to worry about, and he had to get to the bottom of everything that was going on.
"I'm fine," Sonic eventually answered, "But I've got business to take care of. See you around, faker," Sonic replied darting of on hover-skates. Sonic had to admit to himself that it felt good calling the imposter a fake, and Sonic was actually enjoying the run, even if the leg motion required for it was completely different to what he was used to. Still, it came to him naturally, and something in the back of his mind had told him he had done something like this before, less than a week ago, but the newly blackened hedgehog couldn't figure out just what exactly had inspired that thought.
Dashing off towards the ruins of the Marble Zone Sonic began to trace his thoughts. He needed to think hard, everything was a blur of confusion, and constant changes. The hedgehog had no idea what was going on any more, and he felt as though he had lost the source of things. "Think, Sonic, think," he said aloud as he ran, "Where did this all begin? What was I doing when it started?"
"The emeralds!" Sonic suddenly realised, "It began when the emeralds broke!" Sonic kept running, dashing through the Marble zone like he had countless times before, leaving the destination to auto-pilot, and trying to figure out in his brain just what exactly had happened. In the distance sat the entrance to the Marble Zone, but Sonic was too busy seeing things in his mind as he re-traced his steps to notice the what was going on around him.
"Okay, trace your steps," Sonic continued, "The world went insane, then before that it was run by Eggman. What was before that?" he asked himself, as his memories clouded up further and further, "I was in a GUN facility, and I was interrogating someone, but who?" Sonic remembered, surprising himself with his own words.
Sonic drew a blank. He couldn't even see a face. Everything before that was a blur too. Sonic sighed and thought hard. Whoever he was interrogating must've been someone important, because the memory, as blurred as it was, was brining up bad feelings in the pit of Sonic's stomach. Sonic sat down amongst the brickwork, staring at the patterns in the ceiling. Small green spirals, carved into the purple marble, It was needlessly elegant and complicated, and Sonic had guessed it was here before Eggman had been, they looked like time was spent making them, and Sonic knew Eggman didn't have time to waste on these sort of things.
"Why can I remember the distant past," Sonic asked, "but not anything recent? I can remember stopping Eggman's machines numerous times, but I can't remember what happened two weeks ago."
"Okay, lets look at it differently," Sonic continued to himself, "What's the most recent thing I remember before the gap?" Sonic thought for a moment, he could remember all the attempts to save the Death Egg, he could remember the stuff on the Ark, and the things with Perfect Chaos. The hedgehog continued forwards with his memories, remembering countless battles against Eggman, and his numerous friends.
"The time with the emeralds!" Sonic said, with another realisation, "When Eggman tried to hypnotise the world, but he was stopped by Kintobor." Sonic kept running, dashing through the zone and avoiding the dangers. Even though Eggman's traps had long since been cleared, the place was still ancient, full of unsafe ruins that threatened anyone foolish enough to climb on them with a long drop into a waiting pit of lava.
Nevertheless, the hedgehog pressed on, his mind began piecing it all together. Kintobor was in the emeralds, working to stop Eggman's plans, and in doing so he was pulling the emeralds into new Warps of Confusion.
With this realisation Sonic watched as the entire world began to melt in front of him. The hedgehog panicked as first the walls, followed by the floor melted away from him, pulled by some greater force than the hedgehog could comprehend. Sonic looked all around him, and even saw that his own skin was melting, or rather the appearance he had of Shadow was slipping away, revealing Sonic's true image underneath it. Sonic looked around him, as everything was slowly but surely replaced by a black nothingness that stretched out infinitely. This nothingness felt familiar to Sonic, it felt as though this was natural, and as if he had been here before. Sonic calmly smiled as the last of Shadow's image disappeared leaving him alone in the nothingness, waiting for the arrival of Doctor Kintobor, and with it some explanation as to what had happened.
"Welcome dear fellow," beckoned the all too familiar voice of the Monsters of Chaos.