One, two… Thud.

One, two, three… Thud.

One…

two…

Shadow let his shoulder, numb and bruised, slide down the curved wall. The rest of his body followed sluggishly. There's no way to get through that wall again. The silence in his mind and of the room screamed at him to do something purposeful, but his tired physical being stubbornly refused. He had only spent God knew how long trying to find a way out; nothing was working. He had yelled again- especially after discovering that his lower half was missing- but it had eventually given him a headache and raw throat.

His mind was tired, too. He knew he couldn't rely on just his strength to get him out, so he had plotted out the structure of the room, hoping to find any hidden faults that might serve him useful. There were, much to his grief, none. His last resort had been the faith that he could get back though the wall.

He ran what the genie had said through his mind again. I have his powers. Being he knew nothing about who or what a genie was, he didn't know if having a genie's power was a good or bad thing. He wouldn't give me a gift as a so-called punishment. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes, an opposing thought coming to mind. But power is a good thing. If he could do this to me, then what am I now capable of?

Yet just as he felt he was getting somewhere, the walls began to shake.

"Good morning, Sonic!"

Sonic thought it was funny how people assumed that he couldn't hear what was going on around him while he was running. He couldn't help but smile to himself when someone would bring it up. He heard everything perfectly fine. It was his selective hearing that blocked out a lot of what happened around him. Though he preferred to think of it as a skill he had developed over time to keep him from getting distracted by the wrong things, others, more specifically Amy, knew he used it as an excuse to ignore her.

And of course, with this in mind, it only made Amy madder as he ran by her on that fine overcast morning. So mad, in fact, that she stuck out her foot just slightly as he ran by. Just enough to tamper with his balance.

"Whoa!" Sonic yelled as he stumbled chin first into the pavement. Amy was a little surprised at her sudden action, but hid it quickly with a smug smile. She knelt down beside Sonic, who was sprawled out on the sidewalk groaning, and shook him gently on the shoulder. He cringed slightly at her touch.

"I don't think I've done that one in a long time," she said more to herself than her bruised hero. She watched him roll over and gingerly rub his chin. He examined himself carefully and took a deep breath. Looking up, his electric eyes met her's.

"Alright, you've got my attention. What do you need, Amy?"

Sitting on her legs, she began slowly. "I was thinking about Tails earlier today. He's been so busy lately… maybe we should go visit him? Get him to take a break for a bit. He worries me with all the work he's doing. He's going to overwork himself!"

"Tails knows what he's doing, Ames. I just talked to him yesterday and he told me the only reason he's working so hard is because he wants to test out the plane he's working on before the end of the week when we get that storm everyone's buzzing about. He can't take it out in the rain. Too dangerous with the lightening and all. Besides, he needs me with him when he goes and there's no way I'm getting rained on the whole time we're up there."

Amy looked blankly at him for a moment. "Storm?" She asked slowly.

"Well I've heard a few people talking about some sort of monstrous storm that's headed our way for the end of the week. Sounds like flooding to me." He pushed himself up off the pavement. "And I'm fine, thanks for asking."

"Sonic, please come with me. I just want to take these cookies up to him. We wouldn't have to stay long, just pop in and say hi and-"

"I dunno," he interrupted. "By the looks of it, we'll be getting a bit of rain this morning. I'd rather not be out in it. And it's hard to get to his house once it starts raining. The beach gets all wet and hard to walk on and then you've got all that mud to get through once you're off the beach. And I've got to finish my run, anyway."

"I thought you didn't like running in the rain, Sonic." She persisted. "You've said so yourself. In fact, I know I've heard this excuse before." Her arms folded across her chest stubbornly.

He opened his mouth to speak, but a deep rumble of thunder interrupted him. The two of them stood still, looking around and feeling the vibration gently shake the ground around them. Sonic took advantage of the moment.

"I'll talk to you later. I've gotta get going."

"Sonic-"

But before she could say anything else, he was gone. She growled dangerously to herself. "One day I swear…" She looked up at the cloudy sky. "Stupid thunder." She turned to the trees lining the park. For a long minute, she stood looking at the trees blankly. Before she knew it, her feet had begun moving towards them, slowly at first, then faster and faster until she was inches away from the trees. Coming to a skidding halt, she looked for a way through the suburb; any possible path. There was nothing but the sporadic pattern of the trees. In fact, she couldn't even see the beach through the density of it. But she was determined. And that was more than enough to get her through.

Shadow watched as the flames of the lamps flickered. Their gentle light vibrated with each rumble of thunder, casting an unsettled atmosphere through the room and into its inhabitant. He had noticed that if he were to stay silent, he could hear everything going on outside the lamp, from the waves lapping against the shore to the wind sifting through the trees. Hearing this, he had figured that the genie had kept the lamp where he had originally found it- on the beach. But how long would he have to wait for someone to find him? Weeks? Months? Could they hear him if he yelled? Was he even visible?

Lying on his back, he listened. Waves, wind, trees. It was soothing, but sickening. The longer he did nothing, the worse he felt. But the more he tried, the less he accomplished. Waves, wind, trees.

"This is going nowhere fast," he finally told the taunting silence. He decided that if there was nothing he could do at the moment, then he wouldn't need to suffer through it consciously. Placing his hands behind his head, he let his eyes droop closed.