Secluded
6
Disclaimer: I own none of the mentioned characters. Makes me mad.
The blanket of night had shrouded the group in a foggy black. Moonlight was the only way to see, but all it revealed was the crippled X-tornado and the large insects that had adopted it as a home. The furry and some scaly forms of the group were visible, each one curled into a ball of warmth. The soil had formed what was almost a circular depression in the form of their figures so that it was like a bed.
In the midst of the darkness, two figures were making their way back to the campsite, their hormones raging impervious to rest. The moonlight provided just enough light to guide the newly formed pair back to the safety of the others. They sauntered back to their temporary home, hand in hand, one smiling vibrantly at the other.
Their hearts were free of turmoil. Rouge felt like Christmas had come early and Knuckles felt no different.
"So, what made you want to tell me?" he asked his now girlfriend Rouge.
"I'm not really sure. I guess that the helicopter vanishing made me believe that we would be on this island forever and I wanted to let you know, just in case we…"
She didn't feel comfortable finishing the sentence, but Knuckles understood what she meant.
"Why do you like me anyway?" he asked.
Rouge paused, thinking it over.
"I
guess I'd have to be your sense of duty. No matter how many times I
tried to take that emerald from you, you always continued to defend
it. I even tried to seduce it off you, but you still wouldn't let
go. No ones ever denied me like that."
"Have you ever…had a
boyfriend before?"
A smile of embarrassment appeared on the bat's face.
"No, no I haven't. I always found most men to be pigs, treating women as sex objects; but you're different. And I have to say, really handsome" she added, blushing.
The same color of red stained the echidna's face, but it was concealed by the night. They reached for each others hands again and gripped them tightly, as if they never wanted to let go. No doubt this whole experience on the island had brought them closer; close enough so that they would tell one another how they felt about the other. It was a kind of splendor so rare to see in the modern world and seemed to be like an act of fiction or a dream to the new pair. They silently prayed that they would not wake from the dream.
As they approached the camp, it was obvious that there were bodies missing. Shadow, Vector, and Espio were absent from their respective sleeping quarters. Knuckles and Rouge gazed around the area in hope of finding them, but without results.
Knuckles growled, then spoke.
"Where are they? Who would be so stupid as to wander off into the jungle in the middle of the night?"
Rouge chuckled to herself, laughing at Knuckles failure to notice the irony of what he had said.
As he said this, a loud rustling came from within the brush and undergrowth. The grasp of their paws snapped apart as they turned their faces to the source of the noise, only to be met with blood red eyes.
It took only a second for them to realize that they eyes belonged to shadow. In one had he clutched a flint nodule shaped into a knife with blood trickling from it. On his face he wore a smile of delirious abandonment.
Behind him came the figures of vector and Espio. On the back of the crocodile was a dead pig.
"Shadow?!" Rouge exclaimed.
"Rouge, look what we got!" he said, motioning towards the beast.
"Why are you up at this hour, hunting for pigs?!" yelled Knuckles.
"Why are you up at this hour?" asked Espio, but the retort went unheard.
Vector spoke.
"We couldn't sleep, and then Shadow started talking about meat. I couldn't help but agree, and Espio asked if there were any hunters. Shadow said Sonic and he were, but he would rather have us hunt with him than Sonic."
"So we did" added the chameleon.
"Couldn't it have waited 'till morning?" asked Rouge, becoming irritated with Shadow and his little tribe.
"Probably, but I wanted to hunt."
"What is up with you and your sick impulses Shadow? Why do you always have to be sneaking around at night? You've been the root of trouble this whole trip!" accused Knuckles.
"What are you talking about you worthless baboon? You think it was my fault that the ship crashed? Yu think it was my fault that we got stranded here? You think that is was my fault the copter disappeared? You think it's my fault that we're secluded?!" Shadow responded, his hatred towards Knuckles building larger and larger.
"I think it's your fault that we're arguing with one another!"
"MY fault?! You started this! And besides, you can't accuse me of "Sneaking around at night" if you're doing the same with Rouge! What were you two doing anyway?"
"We were-"
Knuckles stopped, not wanting to blurt out to everyone he'd been making out with Rouge, not without her say-so anyway.
"Heh-I thought as much" Shadow spat, motioning for his fellow hunters to carry the carcass of the pig over to the fire pit.
"Shadow, just leave the pig. Get some sleep now" commanded Rouge.
Shadow gave her a look she could not decipher. She almost felt…afraid of Shadow, in a way she had never been afraid before. She'd never actually feared Shadow, as she had complete trust in him to the extent that she would never leave his side. Now he was giving her death glares and becoming almost…savage.
Everyone returned to their sleeping quarters to sleep. Rouge on the other hand, scooted over to Knuckles and snuggled into his warm, strong chest, as if she was afraid of something and that Knuckles would protect her. Knuckles noticed this and wrapped his strong arms around her, never wanting to let go.
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"Hello silly little girl. Aren't you just a silly, silly little girl?" said the pig.
Rouge woke from her sleep and stared at the fly-infested carcass of the pig Shadow had killed not to long ago.
"You look troubled. Are you not having fun?" it spoke again. Its voice sounded like that of a child who had their throat lined with mucus.
She stood and looked around; checking to make sure that the voice was coming from the pig and not anyone else.
"Are you talking to me?" she asked.
It did nothing, and then spoke.
"Are you not having fun? I want you to have fun. You're going to have fun on this island" it said, flies buzzing about its unmoving muzzle.
"No, I'm not" she replied. She didn't know why she replied to a dead pig, other than be frightened or ponder just how it was talking.
"Are you afraid of something? Perhaps the thing that made the helicopter disappear?"
"You know what did that?"
"I know a lot of things. I know everything about you. I know what made the helicopter disappear."
"What? What made it disappear?" she asked.
A sort of cackling came from the pig, as if it were laughing at her inferiority.
"It made the helicopter disappear."
"What did? What is 'it'?"
"It
made the helicopter disappear."
"What is it!?"
"IT made the helicopter disappear. It made the helicopter disappear." It said over and over. The more it said it, the larger its head grew. Bigger and bigger and bigger.
"Rouge!"
She woke abruptly, her body drenched with a cold sweat. Her lungs expanded and contracted, causing her chest to rise up and down. She was staring into the face of Knuckles, who was hunched over her with a concerned look on his face.
"You were having a nightmare. You were screaming something" he said, giving her a concerned look.
Just about everyone else was staring at her too. Her head was rested on Knuckles lap and her limbs were sprawled around her.
"I-I'm alright" she said, reassuring Knuckles and rising to an upright position.
She knew it was no dream. Another one of her times had come on and it was the most unpleasant of them all. She hadn't had an epileptic spasm like that for months.
Her eyes fell on the fly ridden pig and she remembered the attack, which caused her heart to skip a beat.
"Are you sure you're all right?" asked Knuckles again, noticing her reaction towards the dead animal.
"Just fine…" she reassured, and she walked over to the oasis.
"I'm going to take a bath. No one look."
She disappeared behind the brush.
"That was strange."
"Is Rouge epileptic?" Tails asked Shadow, who was eyeing the pig carcass.
"No, not that I know of." He said in a very uninterested tone.
"Dude, could you be anymore obsessed with that pig? You're best friend just spazzed out and you're concerned with a dead animal?" said Sonic in a slightly comical manor.
"Yeah, what's your problem Shadow?!" yelled Knuckles, his anger steadily rising.
Shadow stood and faced the echidna, rage in his eyes.
"You know, I've grown to really dislike you during this whole adventure. So you should mind your own business and get your face out of your ass."
"Get MY face out of MY ass?! I think you got that backwards buddy, cause you've been pushing me and pushing me and now, push is gonna shove!"
Knuckles quickly approached Shadow and grabbed both his arms, brought him towards him and kneed him in the ribs. (A/N never do this at home. I did it to one of my pals and broke two of his ribs.)
"Gackkk!" sputtered Shadow as he stumbled back into a tree.
Knuckles ran to attack him again, but was held back by Vector and Sonic.
"Lemmie go! I'll break his other leg!" he yelled furiously, saliva cascading from his open mouth the same way blood was coming from Shadow's.
"Let it go Knuckles!"
"Just drop it!"
"Knuckles calm down, there's no need to fight! Peach and order are the only things that-"
Before the fox could finish his sentence, Shadow lunged at Knuckles and struck him in the nose, causing blood to spill onto the ground. In less than a second, Espio and Amy were doing their best to restrain him.
"I'll kill you!"
"Fuck you!"
"Enough!" yelled Tails, silencing the clamor.
The two ceased their struggling against their captors and looked at Tails as if he was the one who started the fight.
"What are we?!" he began, "animals? Fighting each other for no reason?! We are civilized. We can't stoop to thins if we want to survive. Shadow, there's no reason for you to go maiming pigs in the middle of the night for no reason. And Knuckles, there's no excuse for attacking another member of our group!"
Knuckles and Shadow stared at each other, their anger cooling.
Tails breathed heavily, noticing the effect of his tirade.
"I'm calling an assembly."
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Authors note: sorry that took so long to get out. I've been pretty busy lately and I'm sick right now. Please review, I promise I'll get the next one up quicker if you do.
