"Rouge, please stop crying. You've done nothing but cry all day." Amy hugged her, comforting her.

"I saw him just a half-hour ago… I promised him we would be happy and free, as soon as he got better!"

"You didn't break your promise." Amy consoled, "He just… didn't get better."

"You know what the last thing he got to say to me was?"

"...What?"

"He said, 'you also promised that Mephiles wouldn't get to me again.' His last thought of me was probably that I let him die that horrible death!"

"Rouge, don't think that way! He knows you did everything you could!"

"But it still wasn't enough! I loved him, so I should've found a way!"

"Nobody can be expected to work miracles."

"Getting up in the morning and not having to worry about whether or not you'll be raped that day is not a miracle! It's just how people are supposed to live! And I couldn't give it to him!"

"I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say. I'm just so, so sorry."

Rouge cried for a while before she heard the sound of squeaking wheels. Two humans in hospital scrubs were wheeling a stretcher covered in a sheet down the hallway. She could see a gloved hand stained with red hanging out from under the sheet. Sonic suddenly got up and stepped in front of her. "Don't look, Rouge."

"No! Shadow!" She squirmed out of Amy's grip and pushed Sonic aside. "That's Shadow!" She sprinted up to the stretcher.

A human began to say, "Miss, you can't-"

But it was too late. Rouge pulled the sheet back, revealing Shadow's face. He looked pale and lonely, his eyes slightly open and his arms at his sides.

She covered her mouth in shock as it really sunk in that Shadow was gone. Rouge looked over at the floor near the door, where that small white box was still lying. The top was ajar, the pendant shining from inside. She ran over and grabbed it, then ran back to Shadow's body. Slowly, the bat set it down around his neck. Stepping back and observing her work, Rouge could've sworn that he looked a little less alone. But still, when she'd touched him, he felt stiff and unnatural.

The doctors shrugged and covered him back up. They then continued to wheel the stretcher down the hall. "C'mere, Rouge." Silver said, somewhere behind her. She took a step back and bumped into him by accident. He simply put his arms around her.

"Were you there when he died?" Rouge asked softly.

"Yeah. I was."

She pushed his arms away and turned around. "What was the last thing he said?"

The hedgehog sighed. "Okay, before I tell you that, let me explain something to you." He walked her back to the chairs and they sat down. "I didn't say this earlier, because I didn't think you'd believe me. So with that in my defense,-"

"Get on with it! Please!"

"Okay, well, first off, he kept asking where you were. We kept telling him we didn't know." Rouge wiped a falling tear from her cheek. "And then, when his eyes started to close, he mumbled something that I hadn't understood at the time. I mean, he was talking really softly. But when we got back to the waiting room, I realized what it was. At least, I think it's what he said."

She motioned for him to continue.

"'Should've let her kiss me.'"

Rouge's eyes grew wide.

"Does that make sense?"

She nodded, slowly getting up from her seat.

"Rouge, Rouge what're you doing? Where're you going?!" Silver began to get out of his seat too, but she was already sprinting down the hallway after the humans that had Shadow's body.

She ran until she saw a sign that said "Morgue". Silver was running after her the whole way. Rouge threw open the double doors and entered a room that was significantly colder than the rest of the hospital. The doctors had already left. She took a moment look around, and what she saw scared her half to death. No, it wasn't the dozens of corpses everywhere.

"I never meant for this to happen." Mephiles was staring down at Shadow's body.

Rouge's eyes narrowed. She'd never felt so furious in her entire life.

"YOU." She pointed at him. "You did this." She ran toward him and threw a punch. He held up a hand and her fist stopped in midair.

"Please, enough with the jokes. This is majorly disappointing."

"What, are you telling me you feel sorry for him?"

"No. It's just unfortunate that I was a little too rough with my play toy."

Silver's voice suddenly came echoing down the hall. "Rouge! Wait!" The doors to the Morgue locked automatically with a snap of Mephiles's fingers, and Silver pounded on them desperately. "Oh my God!" He could see Mephiles through the window on the left door, standing in front of Rouge. The demon snapped again and the room was suddenly soundproof, just like Amy's living room. Silver's mouth was moving but no words could be heard.

Mephiles then looked back down to the table that Shadow's body laid on. The sheet was gone. None of the bodies were covered, in fact. "I probably would've revived him," Mephiles said to Rouge, "but you decided to go and put that damn crucifix on him. And now it burns me just to touch him."

"Wait, you can revive him?! Then I'll take it off for you!"

"There're a few reasons why that's not going to work."

"Oh… Care to explain?" Rouge asked, disappointed.

"Well, for one thing, it gets harder to revive a mortal, the longer they're dead. It would've been much easier to do a few minutes after he died compared to now. It's been…" Mephiles looked up at a clock. "Almost twenty minutes."

"Is it still possible, though?"

"Not now that you've ruined him with that necklace!" Mephiles yelled, "Even if you take it off, the effects will linger for several hours, and if we tried to wait it out, it'd be nearly impossible! I would have to risk my life and revive him with the effects still intact. That would mean I… make a tradeoff. My life for his."

Rouge looked from the body, to Mephiles.

"And even that is near impossible. Not to mention it'll take my life!" He looked over at her with those bright scleras and reptilian-green irises. "Sorry Rouge, but I could never care that much about a simple mortal. You know what would happen if I died?"

She shook her head.

"Well I'm not going to a pleasant little afterlife with fluffy clouds and sparkly angels, I'll tell you that! In fact, even my dearest Lucifer wouldn't want me after I gave up my body for a mortal to live again! I'd wander the grounds of limbo, aimless and rejected by all, for the rest of eternity! Or better yet, the 'devil', as you call him, could give me an eternal punishment instead of simply casting me out. I could go on and on, Rouge! Do you really expect me to do that?!"

She thought about what he said. Rouge looked at Mephiles, shaken up and uncomfortable as he was. Then she looked at Shadow's body, the pendant loosely hanging around his neck. The bat's eyes wandered over to the windowed door, where Silver was still silently calling out and screaming useless words.

"How did it come to this…?" She mumbled. "Three days, and this happens…" She spun around sharply and glared at Mephiles. "And it's all your fault."

He scoffed. "You think I care?!"

"Well, the way you got yourself scared like that, talking about the consequences of resurrecting Shadow, it sure sounded like you were torn. Torn between doing the right thing, and saving yourself."

He squinted at her. "Don't be ridiculous, now! I can't even feel empathy!"

"Then why are you defending yourself?"

Mephiles grew still and silent. After a moment of thought, he spoke up.

"Take the necklace off him."