I silently entered my home with the haunting thoughts of the young child's eyes. I had never seen anything like it; I was consumed with fear and it sent shivers down my body. The eyes reminded me of a corpse, but how could it have happened? It wasn't normal or I was just stressed from the holiday madness to the point that I could hallucinate about a child's eyes rolling to the back of his head. I decided to push the matter aside and relax with some food and entertainment.
I hung up my coat and walked towards the kitchen with the little bag the child had given to me. I read the tiny tag and in scripted in gold writing it said 'Taro Tea'; my favourite brew of tea. I poured the dried taro and boiled water into a large cup and the aromas of taro tea filled the room. As I poured the milk, I turned the television and plopped myself on to the sofa with my tea and snacked on some pretzels. The title of the breaking news filled up the screen and what I saw next would only change my life.
Scenes of fire and destruction shot past with people screaming in agony and the sky, a furious orange. A mid aged reporter ran along with the crowd while giving out her report about what was happening.
"I'm Kira Remmel and I'm reporting live from the north side of town which is being attacked by Eggman and his empire of robots." she yelled into her microphone.
I choked on my pretzels and stood up shaking in fear.
"The entire north side is burning under Eggman's fury and after three years of his inactivity, he is back! The mayor is requesting all civilians to evacuate-"she yelled before she was cut off by one of Eggman's robots and was mercilessly killed in front of cameraman and the screen went static; I had no hopes for the cameraman's survival. From the looks of Eggman's empire, it did look like three years of work.
Those poor civilians needed help and nothing was gone help if I just stood here paralyzed with fear. I needed to talk to Shadow first, persuade him to come along with me to the north but he would surely refuse for my well-being and would go himself, but I had to try. Suddenly I felt something on my shoulder and I let out a scream which echoed through the darkened house. I spun around and tripped over the coffee table behind me and fell with a loud thud!
I groaned in pain and rubbed my head. The figure began to get less blurry and I realized it was Shadow.
"Rose! Are you alright?" said Shadow.
"Shadow? Don't do that! You really scared me!" I said.
"Sorry, but I had to check if you were alright, after I saw that that monster was back." Shadow replied with venom at the tip of his tongue when he caught an image of Eggman on the screen.
"I was just about to go over to talk to you." I said, "We need to get to the north and help handle the situation and I won't take no for an answer!" I pointed out.
"Wha-! Don't be absurd, Rose!" Shadow said, shocked.
"Sonic, Knuckles and Silver are surely over there handling the situation, Rouge will be with G.U.N and Blaze and Ella will be evacuating the civilians. What are we doing?" I asked.
Shadow's face was emotionless and his eyes passed from me to the television screen, witnessing the horror erupting on the north side of town. He looked over at me again and sighed in defeat.
"We'll go but you aren't to leave my sight. If Eggman gets his claws on you, it won't be a pretty scene." he responded.
"Did Rouge fill you in on what he's doing?" I asked him.
"All I know is that he's constructed a powerful force shield around the north side so no one can get out." he said, "Chaos Control won't be powerful enough to penetrate through the shield, I can get us close to the western border and we'll have to travel on foot from there."
"That means that we should leave now." I gasped, "I've got to pack!"
Shadow pulled out his emerald and teleported home while I ran upstairs to pack my travel bag.
It was happening so fast, here I was living my peaceful life and out of the blue, it was just taken away. We couldn't fail; Eggman would mercilessly make the world bow to him and kill the innocent; probably repopulate the world with his empire and wipe out humanity.
I packed in a bunch of my warm travel clothes, and threw on my olive green pants, clipped the ends to my hiking boots and covered me myself with a white sweater and threw my overcoat on too. I looked around to see if I was alone and carefully took out a small, wooden box from my closet, dusted it off with gloves and opened it. It revealed about ten beautifully carved knives; they belonged to an old mentor I lived with when I was young and they were passed on to me before he passed. I carefully put them into the sheaths on my belt that were easily hidden by my coat and placed a larger knife into the sheath on my boot. I took a look at myself as I pulled my quills into a ponytail and did not see the old Amy anymore but a rebel.
I made my way downstairs to the kitchen and packed in a bunch of food and cartons of water and belted the bag shut. We hadn't heard the others in a while like I expected; what if I was just fooling myself with what I had proposed to Shadow with that they were already there? Did the force shield disable all communication to the north and they were trying to contact us? The worst scenarios ran through my head until I felt a comforting hand push a quill away from my face; I threw the bag over and saw Shadow ready with his travel pack and gear.
"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Shadow spoke.
I nodded my head and smiled, "I'd do anything to help the others."
He pulled me close to him and took one last look at my home seeing that I might not be back before Shadow summoned Chaos Control and teleported us away.
I crashed on to the soft ground of fresh snow and dead leaves and rolled into the large roots of the towering tree and I quickly got up which was a bad idea because it made the dizziness from the teleportation worse and made me fall back down again. I waited for a couple of minutes and regained my strength to stand up and looked around me to see a deserted mist filled forest.
"Shadow!" I yelled out, "Where are you?"
It was dead silent, all but the echoing of my yelling. The mist wasn't heavy but it was a disadvantage to tell foe from friend but I continued on through the forest, crunching my boots through the snow. Maybe the Chaos Emerald threw us off course, God knows if I'm even near the western border. I finally saw a figure approaching me and huffed in relief when the figure began to transform into Shadow through the mist.
"I found you! Thank goodness, I thought you were-"I cut myself off.
I was wrong, it wasn't Shadow. The figure had changed into another being; me. She limped towards me, bleeding profusely with her arms stretched out towards me.
"Help…" she whispered in a raspy voice.
My mind spun in confusion as I backed away trying to put everything together. If I didn't see Shadow, then he was probably somewhere else looking for me or hurt. Sonic had told me stories of the unnatural hidden in west and north, whereas south and east were under control. Her eyes were a glowing green, like mine but surrounded in a glow.
"You are not me." I whispered.
She stopped for what seemed like minutes and let out a monstrous scream as she lunged for me. I quickly dodged and broke up into a run through the mist. I looked back and saw that the figure had changed into a black ghost like monster flying towards me. Although I ran faster and faster, it seemed useless; it was as fast as me. I came to a sudden stop and swiftly flung one of my knives at the figure which speared right through the monster and flew up towards the dark sky, disappearing instantly. I ripped my knife out of the tree's bark and continued on through the forest.
"Shape shifters. If it was able to take Shadow's form then it probably came across him which means he must not be that far." I said to myself.
After a few long hours of searching, the moon came out with all its beauty and darkened my way through the forest. I brought out a torch from my bag and flipped it on in order to light the way; my search for Shadow could not stop.
A large crashing noise erupted behind me and I held the torch towards the noise with two knives ready.
"Who's…who's there?" I stuttered.
"Rose?" the voice whispered.
"Is that really you, Shadow?" I asked, sternly.
He chuckled, "Just me."
I held the torch closer towards the tree and found Shadow slumped against the tree with a rather large branch beside him.
"Did you fall?" I asked.
"Yes, but the snow softened the-"
I cut him off by wrapping my arms around him and hugging me close to me. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my temple.
"I don't know how we got lost but thank goodness, I found you." I whispered.
"I couldn't have said it better myself, Rose. We should set up camp and press on tomorrow, you're dead tired." he replied.
We split up the broken branch for firewood and set it ablaze and nestled close next to warm up. I found comfort in laying my head on Shadow's lap since he insisted he take watch of the camp.
"Shadow, why were you in the trees?" I asked.
"I came across some shape shifters and they were quite…annoying to get rid of until I realized they needed the mist to strive so I decided to stay above the mist and the trees were the only option. When I saw your torch, I realized that it was you and it was too late to realize that the branch I had jumped on to was weak and I fell." he said as he twirled my quills in between his fingers.
"I never thought about the trees." I replied.
"You came across a shape shifter?" he asked.
"Yes, but at first, I didn't know it was. I was searching for you and I thought I was looking at you but it had shape shifted to resemble me. It tried to attack me but luckily I got rid of it." I said.
He stroked my hair and held my face to steal a kiss; it sent sparks through my stomach and I fell into a deep slumber as he pulled away.
I woke up to a sudden shaking, and it was not Shadow trying to awaken me; it was the ground. I sat up and saw the ground crack and shift and black smoke spew from the cracks. Shadow suddenly sat up and his eyes widened to the scene before him. There wasn't a minute to lose, he pulled me up to my feet and pulled me along.
We broke out into a run into the heavy mist before the black smoke could overtake our path. It was like a nightmare occurring before me, the earthquake continued along, uprooting trees, sending snow flying and darkening the forest. If Sonic had come this way, faced the tragedies and unnatural creatures, what were his strategies? Did he already know of west that would possibly make him go east?
The violent shaking sent snow flying around which almost looked like a snow storm, often hitting us with blocks of ices. Before the rocky debris was thrown about, loud explosions would warn us to take cover from the large hurling rocks which occurred often so I was not able to hear Shadow yelling over to me. The ground shifted below my feet, I turned my eyes to see Shadow's vaguely hidden form suddenly went flying forward disappearing into the white before my eyes; the ground had overlapped the ground below.
"Shadow!" I screamed out.
I jumped and kicked off a flying boulder and landed roughly on the snow covered ground. I ran towards where Shadow had fallen and I finally saw his unconscious body lying flat with most of his body covered in snow. I took off his pack and swung it over my shoulder, I slowly swung his arm around my shoulders and lifted him off the ground; I huffed at his weight.
"Lean on me and try to run." I said to him, hopefully he had heard me.
He gave a weak groan before I began to jog my way towards the border. It seemed like it took the slow hours of the world to get us through the earthquake but finally it began to stabilize and I could finally walk my way through. As long as Shadow was breathing, everything would be fine but I decided that we would rest when we were close to the border; we would figure out how to get through it later.
"Rose." Shadow whispered.
I stopped, "What's wrong?"
He pointed a shaky finger towards the sky. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn't notice the burning red sky ahead of us; we were close to the northern border. I didn't see a force shield but there's no underestimating Eggman; he had his tricks up his sleeve.
"I'll set up camp." I told Shadow as I carefully placed him in a comfortable spot in between some tree roots and fell to rest; they were large enough to easily hide him from enemies.
I started a fire close by him with whatever I could find around us and luckily some leaves to keep the fire going. I covered Shadow in my spare blanket and placed a container of food next to him if he got hungry; I sat myself down next to him and nibbled on my food. I looked to the blood red sky ahead of us and wondered how horrid Eggman's plans were; so horrid to make the sky bleed. Whatever he had in mind would be something we probably never faced; he was capable of so many things.
Shadow began to slowly stir and his eyes began to slowly open to reveal his brilliant red eyes. His eyes travelled around until he found me and gave a crooked smile as he raised his hand to caress my cheek. He suddenly jolted his hand back and gripped his forehead and yelled out in pain; his head had sustained injury unseen by my eyes. I pulled my bag towards and pulled out a few small bottles of blue liquid; ever since Eggman's attack years ago, his weapons gave part of humanity a disease from his radiation that seemed incurable. Luckily, most of the world scientists and doctors came together and after long months of work, they created an antidote called RN-3 or in simpler terms, 'Velani'. It cured anyone from the simplest bruises to the worst radiation infections.
Shadow continued to grunt and yell in pain, his eyes tightly shut; I moved on to hold his arms down which was pretty difficult. He became to show restraint but I finally pinned him down, quickly uncorked the bottle with my teeth and made him drain the bottle. I pulled my self away as I watched him begin to calm down and breathe normally, he opened his eyes again.
"You put up quite a fight." I said putting the extra bottles back into my bag with a laugh in my voice.
"I don't know what came over me." Shadow said, shamefully.
"Don't worry; I would have done the same thing. Probably put up more of a fight." I said teasingly.
He laughed and pulled me down next to him; looking sincerely at my eyes and gently caressing my cheek with his warm hands. I placed my hand in my pockets and a loving smile grew across my face as I slowly placed a small box in his hands, "Merry Christmas, my love."