I made a mistake. I actually got one story alert after putting up Chapter 6.

"So Amy is really a vampire?"

"Yes," I told Tails as I sat opposite from him on the living room sofa. "And that Knuckles clone we saw last night was really Knuckles himself."

"But Sonic, how exactly did they become vampires in the first place?"

Before I could give him a reasonable answer, I was interrupted by the sound of a knob turning. We looked at the front door just in time to see it slam open. The familiar figure breathed heavily as he lifted his head so he could see us with his crimson eyes.

"Shadow!" I cried out. I could tell there was something wrong with the red-streaked hedgehog. He sounded exhausted like he had been running for days without ever stopping, he had his left hand on the door railing as if it was the only way to keep him from falling to the floor, and he looked beaten up like he had lost a huge fight.

"What the rage of Chaos happened to you?" I asked him.

He took a few more breaths before he answered me. "It was that echidna."

"Knuckles?" I asked.

"No," he said while shaking his head. "It was that other one that he was with."

"The one you sent flying into the ocean? So, he did survive."

"Yes, he did," Shadow said. The way he said that told me that he was out of breath. It was probably the first time I had ever seen him look exhausted. He was probably so weak that he would collapse soon. Concerned about that, I walked over to him, placed his right arm around my shoulder, and led him to the sofa.

"I don't...need your...help," he said to me between breaths as I walked him over to the couch.

"You do this time," I told him. "You look like you can barely stand up."

I stopped in front of the sofa and let Shadow lay on the cushions. Tails was still sitting on the opposite side of the furniture, looking at the heavily breathing hedgehog, wondering why he was so exhausted.

"What did that strange echidna do to you, Shadow?" the curious fox asked him. After the jet black hedgehog finally caught his breath, he told us what had happened the night before.

"I took Knuckles to an abandoned hospital downtown. I placed him on one of the surgical tables and secured him to it so he couldn't escape after waking up. When he did, I pointed my gun at him to try to get him to talk."

"Oh, like that would do any good," I said with sarcasm.

"As I was saying," he said in a nasty tone, "before I could get even one word out of him, I heard a noise and then the door blasted open. That dark gray echidna then walked into the room and we fought for a while. I used Chaos Control in order to sneak behind and hit him again, but he surprised me with that strange green energy of his. It spun me around and slammed me into the wall."

"Did you leave Knuckles there?" I asked.

"No. After I hit the wall, the strange echidna took the key and freed him. Then, they both ran down the hall and out of the building. When I got my strength back, I followed them. Just as I was about to shoot them, the strange echidna used that energy of his to shoot at me. At least I thought he was aiming at me until I saw the blast hit a cylinder of gas behind me.

"I would've made it out okay, but he somehow caused the building to shake and cave in. I tried to use Chaos Control again, but the roof fell on me and trapped me. It took all of my strength to lift the rubble off of me and crawl out of there. When I finally escaped, both of the echidnas were gone."

"Wow! You're lucky you made it out in one piece," I told the black hedgehog.

"Shadow," Tails began after not speaking for a while, "Sonic says that Knuckles and Amy have become vampires."

"Vampires? What do you mean?"

"Last night, Tails and I saw Knuckles bite a man's neck," I explained. "And Amy told me that Knuckles bit her last night too. The man had two teeth marks on his neck where Knuckles had bit him, but Amy didn't have any marks on her at all. And when she came by this morning, she had to stay out of
the sunlight."

"So, Knuckles and Amy are vampires?" Shadow asked. "How did that happen?"

"Something tells me that dark gray echidna had something to do with it," I said.

"Well, if they're vampires, it looks like we'll just have to kill them," Shadow said.

"No," I told him. "Listen, let's just wait until nightfall, and then we'll decide what to do about them."

"That's a stupid idea. We should kill them now before they come back to kill us."

"Shadow, what else can we do? We don't even know if Knuckles and that other echidna are still around. And even if Knuckles and Amy are vampires, we can't destroy them. They're our friends."

"Yeah. I guess you're right, but I still think it's stupid to wait until nightfall to do something."

"We don't really have a choice. We have to decide what to do about Knuckles and Amy. And if that other echidna ever comes back, we'll finish him off
for good!"

(Knuckles)

I had finally caught up with that echidna girl I had saved from those thugs. When she stopped at a wall, she turned around to make an attempt to run in another direction. After she saw me standing a few feet from her, she realized I had her trapped. She began to tremble like before as I moved closer to her until I was just inches away from her face. After quaking in fear for a moment, she finally spoke to me.

"I don't have any money," she said sounding scared with tears beginning to fill her eyes. "Please leave me alone."

"No, it's okay," I told her with Typhoon's voice. "I won't hurt you."

I reached out my mitten covered right hand to touch her face. She continued to tremble as I gently brushed her left cheek . The girl looked at me with a confused look in her tear-filled eyes.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"Summer."

I opened my eyes and found myself on the floor of the Hidden Palace. I yawned and stretched my legs before standing up and walking to the palace's entrance. As I walked closer to the opening, I couldn't stop thinking about the dreams I had. Now I was really confused about them. They all seemed to be in a sequence and I was Typhoon in all of them. Why? I wondered about that as I walked over to the entrance of the Hidden Palace and up to the island's surface. The sun had gone down and the moon and stars were shining in the nearly cloudless night sky above.

I scanned the island until I heard the noise of footsteps on the altar. Someone was trying to steal the Master Emerald! Since I was the guardian and the emerald was needed to keep the island up in the sky, I couldn't let whoever the person was take it. As I moved closer to the altar, I recognized who the thief was. The bright green light shining from the emerald revealed the figure's big ears and dark wings.

"Rouge!"

The white bat turned her attention to me after hearing me say her name. She looked at me with a smug look on her face like she was about to laugh
at me.

"Well, hello guardian. Long time, no see."

"Rouge, how many times do I have to tell you, you can't take the Master Emerald."

"Oh? And who's going to stop me? You?"

"You bet your fancy boots I'm going to stop you."

"Bring it on, echidna."

I took my left fist and charged at her, but Rouge flew up into the air and dodged me. Then, she performed her spiral dive where she descends from the air and twirls around with her feet pointing downwards like a drill. I rolled out of the way seconds before she could hit me. She landed and tried to give me an upper kick, but I grabbed her foot before it had a chance to make contact with my chin.

Rouge gasped like she was not expecting that. I threw her down and she ended up on her back on the grass covered surface below the emerald altar. The white bat groaned as she made an attempt to stand up. I jumped from the altar and landed on the spot where Rouge was. Before she could stand on her own two feet again, I grabbed her with both of my hands and pulled her up. My grip on her was firm as I looked at her sternly, baring my teeth.

"You still don't have any manners, treasure hunter. You need to get off this island and learn how to treat a lady better."

"Maybe I would treat you better if you acted more like a lady," I told her. "Now, I want you to get off my island right now before I..."

Before I could finish my threat to her, I could feel her starting to tremble. This was the first time I saw her actually look afraid. Why was she scared? She was never afraid of fighting me before.

"Rouge, what's wrong with you?" I asked her. "Why are you trembling?"

Before she could answer me, I could sense that feeling I had the night before when I bit Amy. Not again! Why was this happening to me? I began to lean my head toward her until my mouth was close enough to her neck. She continued to tremble as I punctured her neck with my teeth and drank the warm red fluid from it. The white bat gasped and moaned while I sucked her blood until I finally removed my mouth from her throat and let her fall to the ground.

I was shocked as I watched Rouge collapse. She was breathing the same way Amy was the other night.

Oh no! I thought. I killed her!

There was nothing I could do. I couldn't ask Sonic to help me because I thought that he was dead. What was I going to do? If there was no way to get me back to normal, I was doomed to drink blood for the rest of my life. Even though there was no way for me to help Rouge, I couldn't just leave her body on the island. So, I scooped her up in my arms, headed to the edge of the island, and glided off into the cool night air. I landed somewhere in the forest and left Rouge there. Then, trying to fight back the guilt and the tears forming in my eyes, I ran off into the woods.

End of Chapter Eight. Oh, and another mistake I made. I forgot to mention in Chapter Five that the girl from Knuckles's dream was an echidna. My bad.