UPDATE (6/27/13): Chapter rewritten for style but essentially remains the same as the original.

Sonic tore through the cold air, minimal moonlight filtering through the treetops. The wind pushed against his face and suffocated him. He drowned in it. Tears streamed from his eyes, but he didn't want to blink. Without a reliable source of light, blinking meant crashing into a tree, especially at his speed. His lungs begged for easy oxygen. Each breath felt like a knife sliced against his throat. His heart thundered in his ears, taking the place of his brain in his head. Every muscle in his body pulled against him. They tried to decompress to their original shape, but Sonic refused to allow them rest. He had never run for so long before.

And he didn't plan on stopping anytime soon.

The screaming of his body distracted him from the pain. The real pain. The serrated knife tearing through his heart with every beat. The way his mind drifted to silly days with the hot sunlight making it feel like his skin was burning and with lots of yelling because he forgot some sort of date that he had not agreed to, or a self-assured grin with a twirl of a red dress, or wide green eyes staring on in horror as Sonic knew for sure that he was about to die and then didn't because by some fluke, the fake Chaos Emerald worked.

Sonic gritted his teeth and pushed his body to run faster, pushing off the ground with more force than he thought possible. He hoped the lack of oxygen would burn out his brain and drown his thoughts, but the image of Amy's broken body in a pool of blood last night burned on his retinas so that was all he saw. All he wanted to do was throw stones at windows just to hear them shatter. He wanted to curl up in a ball among the leaves glued to the ground by rain from months ago the rays of sun couldn't reach to dry up. But he couldn't stop running. He'd forgotten how to do anything else.

Anger balled up in the pit of his stomach. It sent waves of heat across his cheeks, his forehead, his arms, the small of his back. He had done so much to protect Amy. He hid the way his blood rushed when she smiled. The way his heart grew too large for his chest when she laughed. The way the world slowed down when she pulled out her hammer, ready to trash some Badnik or Egg-Walker because he was too busy grinning over his last feat to notice the new enemy coming up behind him. The way his tension eased away when she just existed near him. But it had all gone to waste when the bulled bit her heart.

Now Amy died…never knowing…

Sonic saw nothing more than the shadows of trees in shadow. He dodged the trunks without meaning to. Tree branches reached out and raked against Sonic's skin. Sonic felt none of it, his body too numb.

The world crashed around Sonic, though, too sharp to be real. Even in the gray light of the moon that made the world look like he existed in an old movie, everything was too vivid. Too alive. Despite his speed, he dragged. He felt too heavy. Amy died, and Sonic hadn't been there to save her. He always saved her. She counted on him to do just that. And he failed her.

Tears blurred Sonic's vision too much to see at all, and the half-light making the colors indistinct forced him to slow to a stop. He gasped desperately for oxygen. Each breath tore at his raw throat. As his lungs filled, a sharp pain jabbed through his chest. Tears spilled down his cheeks without Sonic consciously choosing to let them. He collapsed against a tree, hating his weakness. His entire body stood under the assault of stabbing pains that came with each breath, each heartbeat. If Amy could see him now, Sonic imagined her wondering what was happening to her unshakable hero. But even under so much pain, Sonic held himself back from feeling it all. It took all his strength just to keep from screaming at the moon to give her back.

Sonic's mind drifted as it remembered how to operate with sufficient oxygen. A chill rolled through Sonic's body. His mind drifted back to the memory of Amy on Space Colony ARK with Eggman holding a gun to her head. His hands balled into fists at his sides, recalling the way she hung her head and shook with fear, unable to meet Sonic's eyes. But Sonic knew Eggman would never pull the trigger, though he didn't take the chance then. Eggman wouldn't kill Amy. Sonic struggled to imagine Eggman killing anyone. Enslaving the world, sure. Killing was another story. But if it wasn't Eggman, who would fire a gun repeatedly to kill specifically her?

Sonic leaned his head back against the tree trunk and looked up at the moon through the tree's branches, thick with green leaves. Then he pushed off from the tree and took a few steps away before stopping again. Each breath still scraped up his lungs and throat, but his head no longer swam in near unconsciousness. Before he could think it through too much, he leapt into the air with as much force he could muster. He rocketed through the tree branches before scrambling to catch one and stop his flight. Momentum dragged his body still upward, but he held on until gravity regained control of his body, and he pulled himself up onto the branch. He got to his feet, putting one hand against the tree trunk for support. Sonic looked out across the treetops, his world filled with green leaves rather than the sturdy tree trunks down below.

He closed his eyes and let the cool breeze press against him. He listened to the rustling of the tree leaves surrounding him, sounding like water crashing down against the rocks in a riverbed. It lifted him from the heaviness of his limbs and his heart until he wasn't quite himself anymore. Wasn't quite there anymore. The world turned beneath him in a life that had to be fake. No world could exist with Amy dead. This was Amy. She was the kick-butt, insane, unfailingly cheerful, damsel-in-distress, do-not-cross-if-you-care-to-survive girl. Not the victim of a fatal shooting.

Sonic wondered what Amy was thinking right now, if she still existed enough to think at all. Maybe she saw Sonic with his high adrenaline running recklessly around the world and worried about the pain in his body. He hoped she understood what he felt. He hoped she knew it wasn't her fault. Or maybe it was. Sonic had yet to decide.

He blamed his tears on the cold air and brushed them away on the back of his glove. The cold air, warm enough that he couldn't see his breath but cold enough that he almost couldn't feel his skin, reminded him too much of last night. Sonic lowered himself down so he sat against the trunk of the tree. He allowed the tree bark to ground him to what was real. A slow suspiration escaped his lips. But no matter how much he braced himself, he kept shaking. "Amy," Sonic breathed.

Her name drifted in the air for almost a minute before Sonic whispered, "I'm sorry."

Silence answered his words. The world felt too big and too empty. It overwhelmed him. Another breeze drifted past and the leaves around him danced. They continued on like Amy still lived, like the world hadn't been skewed off its rotation by a bullet.

With a sharp breath, Sonic dropped from the branch and landed hard, feet first, on the ground. His body cried out in pain from the force, but he ignored his aching muscles and bolted again. But this time, he ran toward home rather than away. The emptiness of the world that usually calmed him sent his heart racing. So he dashed toward home, hoping his friends might patch the walls of his world. Or maybe they could just be broken together.

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