In a wide corridor on the second floor of Green Hill's Diamond Heart Hospital, a light gray hedgehog stared solemnly through the glass of the door in front of her, into the room on its other side, directly at the black hedgehog lying on its single bed. She was at a complete loss for words, unsure even of what to think as the image of the other hedgehog lying unconscious and vulnerable in the bed burned itself into her mind. The only thought that managed to ring out clearly within her head was the notion that if the worst were to come of this entire ordeal... it would devastate her beyond recovery.
As Maria gazed quietly at her father, she sensed the distant sound of her husband's voice faintly blending in with her thoughts. Miles was standing a short distance away in the waiting room just outside the corridor, a payphone's receiver to his ear. The lavender hedgehog was currently engaged in a conversation with his and his wife's twin sons, who were currently at home only with his mother Amy.
"I'm sorry, boys; I don't know when Mommy and I will be home... Don't worry, we're fine. You be good and listen to Grandma, OK? Do everything she tells you. Mommy and I will be home as soon as we can. Now let me talk to Grandma, please... I love you too... Hi, Mom..."
While Miles provided Amy with updates concerning the night's unfortunate event, Maria continued to stare unfalteringly through the door before her at Shadow. She remained unperturbed by the many voices sounding in the waiting room behind her: Sonic attempting to comfort a desperate Crystal; Tails and Sonia discussing once more the workings of the Robotniks' strange laser weapon; and Knuckles and Rex still pondering aloud exactly how and why the Chaos Emeralds had reacted so violently with one another. The light gray hedgehog was almost completely oblivious to her surroundings... until she felt a hand being placed lightly on her shoulder, which promptly brought her back to her senses.
Maria turned her head slowly to her right to find that the hand now touching her shoulder belonged to no one other than her sister-in-law. Lily gazed quietly at the light gray hedgehog standing beside her, wanting more than anything to comfort her, to somehow lift her spirits. Not an easy task, but the lilac hedgehog was determined to help Maria see some sort of light at the end of her currently pitch-black tunnel.
"It's gonna be all right, Maria", Lily said in as reassuring a voice as she could manage. "Shadow isn't your average hedgehog. Anyone else might have suffered much more severe damage from that attack. The fact that he's alive is already a good sign; I'm sure he'll be fine. Don't worry."
Maria stared seriously back at her sister-in-law for several seconds, then smiled weakly and nodded once to acknowledge her kind words. The light gray hedgehog then turned to face the door again without saying a word. The lilac hedgehog followed suit, gazing through the glass along with her brother's wife, both women now watching Shadow in silence.
To Lily Rose Hedgehog, family was the most important thing in the world. She saw Maria as her sister, and saving Shadow's life had felt very much like saving Sonic's. The lilac hedgehog was nowhere near ready to give up on the black hedgehog's health, for if anything worse were to happen to him, she would take her sister-in-law's pain like her own would be for her father.
As Lily stared through the door along with the light gray hedgehog, her thoughts began to drift slowly into unease. She soon found herself thinking of her own family: her dear husband, Calvin, who also worked in the hospital as a lawyer; and their two young daughters at the respective ages of four and two years old, Violet and Daisy. Seeing the everlasting expression of concern on Maria's face and hearing the tone of uncertainty in Miles's voice, Lily began to wonder exactly how great an impact such a devastating event would have on her family. It was not a pleasant thought on which to dwell, and the lilac hedgehog did not wish to continue allowing it to cloud her mind.
"I'm gonna go talk to Miles now", Lily told her sister-in-law, breaking the silence between them. "See how he's doing. Will you be OK?"
Maria turned to the lilac hedgehog and nodded once in understanding. Lily then stepped back and retreated into the waiting room outside the corridor, leaving the light gray hedgehog alone once again to stare solemnly through the door at her unconscious father.
"Dad..." Maria whispered, feeling the strange sensations of darkness and loss closing in on her ever more, "where are you?"
The light gray hedgehog could already tell that the black hedgehog's condition was not normal, though she had yet to discover just how abnormal it really was. Neither Maria nor anyone else involved in this crisis could possibly know it, but although his body was still in their presence, Shadow was not anywhere within the realms of the normal conscious world.
In a strange misty plane of semi-existence, a black hedgehog and a phantom girl sat side by side, each one carefully studying the other, both silently recalling the last time they had seen one another. The hedgehog was finding it nearly impossible to believe his eyes. No, it couldn't be true... She couldn't be real... And yet, there she was, kneeling beside him in the same manner in which she always used to kneel beside him while gazing out over the world she had always dreamed of visiting almost a century ago. It was a simultaneously wonderful and terrifying sight.
Shadow took a deep, slightly shuddering breath as he gazed quietly at the spirit of his beloved friend. The ghost of Maria Robotnik stared back at the black hedgehog with an eerie sadness in her eyes, waiting silently for her friend to find his voice. She had to wait for several long minutes, but it finally came back to him.
"Maria..." the hedgehog breathed again. "What...? How...?"
The young girl smiled weakly at her friend, then softly spoke much lighter words in response:
"Hello, Shadow."
The black hedgehog continued to stare in shock at Maria, still unable to translate his thoughts into full sentences. All he could do was gaze at her in disbelief, struggling to understand the significance of her presence. Only one explanation came to him, a thought that chilled him to his very core. Shadow's eyes suddenly widened, and his next words came tumbling out awkwardly as he began to tremble in terror.
"Maria... Oh my... Am I...?"
The phantom girl immediately understood exactly what her friend was implying, and at his broken sentences and fearful voice, she rapidly shook her head in response.
"No", she replied quickly. "Almost... but no. You're still alive."
At those words, Shadow subconsciously exhaled a deep breath and placed a hand over his heart in relief. He was not dead. Not yet, anyway. But he still needed to figure out where he was before he could even come close to finding a way out. So many questions...
"Maria... what's going on? Where are we?"
Instead of answering her friend's question immediately, Maria looked slowly around at the white mist floating over the cold ground on which she and Shadow were currently sitting. That was it: mist. There was nothing else in sight to offer any sort of comfort to the two friends, any sign that they could somehow gain access to the normal world waiting somewhere beyond. The phantom girl sighed deeply, then turned back to the black hedgehog and spoke again in a solemn voice.
"I would tell you, Shadow... if only I knew. All I remember is that I felt some sort of... 'tugging' from my place in the afterlife, and I was summoned into this plane. To be honest, I'm not sure how I got here. I was just drawn to this place by a strange power, maybe Chaos energy. Of course, I knew that what I felt had something to do with you, Shadow; even if it was formed almost a century ago, our connection is still strong."
Shadow stared quietly at his friend as she spoke, choosing to absorb everything she had to say before replying. Maria continued:
"So the next thing I knew, here I was, waiting for you. I couldn't tell you exactly how I knew you would come; I just... knew. I can only imagine what could have caused such a powerful pull of energy in me, but I was sure it wasn't good. Unfortunately, it seems I was right..."
Once his friend had fallen silent again, the black hedgehog lowered his gaze to the ground and slowly wrapped his arms around his knees, now feeling immensely overwhelmed by the information that had just been provided to him. Another plane of existence... somewhere between the conscious world and the afterlife? That seemed to be the only explanation... and yet it wasn't much of an explanation at all. There was still more to be discovered concerning their current whereabouts...
"So..." Shadow breathed in an uneasy tone, finally choosing to speak again after a long pause, "this plane of existence... is a spirit world?"
Trembling slightly in mild fear, the black hedgehog lifted his gaze once more to see Maria nodding calmly in response.
"I think so", she replied in her soft voice. "It isn't really like the afterlife... but it's still a spirit world."
Shadow nodded slowly as he shifted his gaze once more to the misty ground. Another spirit world...
"Does this mean that my body is still in the... material world?"
"Yes. Only part of you is here with me. The rest is still where you belong."
Maria's last statements forced an awfully chilling reality into her friend's mind: his spirit had somehow been separated from his body. However, this thought only lingered for a brief moment in Shadow's head, for he soon came across a new realization of a considerably lighter nature. Fixing his gaze on the mist near his feet, the black hedgehog dared to breathe the idea that ironically provided him with a small light in the new sea of darkness upon which he had stumbled.
"Maria... if you and I are now in the same plane of existence... does this mean it's possible for us to touch again?"
It was a lot to hope for, and Shadow knew it. But although he was certain his question was a dangerous one in terms of his own emotions, he was also convinced that it was a risk he was willing to take. To be able to see his beloved friend again, to be able to touch her, maybe even hug her one more time... was a gift for which he had been longing only too long.
There was an extended moment of silence after the question had been voiced, neither friend saying a word... until finally, the black hedgehog dared to turn his head gradually upwards to gaze at the phantom girl kneeling beside him. The next sight that caught his eyes nearly caused his heart's spiritual counterpart to leap out of his chest...
A subtle smile on Maria's lips.
The phantom girl slowly extended her left hand out to her friend with her open palm facing up, and softly replied with the simplest possible answer:
"See for yourself."
Shadow stared transfixed at his friend's hand poised several inches away from him, hardly daring to believe that his wish of so many years might finally come true. After a minute that felt like an hour, the black hedgehog slowly lifted his right hand and reached out towards the phantom girl's left, without taking his eyes off it for a second. His hand lingered over hers for another brief moment, until finally, Shadow closed his eyes, gently lowered his fingers... and touched the ghostly hand of Maria Robotnik.
In that exact instant, back in the conscious world, chaos broke out. One of the machines monitoring Shadow's health picked up on an abnormal change in the hedgehog's system and suddenly went haywire. Specifically, the heart monitor. The steady blip of the machine quickly shifted to a racing pulse, an alteration that successfully caught the attention of the patient's family members waiting outside.
Maria Hedgehog was the first to notice the sudden change in the monitor's reading. The new rapid rhythm of the machine's blip caused her own heartbeat to accelerate to a similar pace, prompting her blue eyes to widen and the blood to rush out of her face. This was beyond bad...
As terror began to grip her insides once again, the light gray hedgehog felt the world around her slip into slow motion. She heard shouting around her coming seemingly from a distance. She only barely felt her sister-in-law's hands brush her briskly aside to remove her as an obstacle to the doorway. She hardly noticed the team of doctors rushing past her to follow Lily into the room. She almost didn't sense at all her husband's arms wrapping around her to hold her back as she subconsciously began to move towards the alarmingly quick blipping noise herself. There was only one clear thought within Maria's mind in the midst of the new pandemonium, and that was the black hedgehog caught in the middle of it all.
"Dad!" the light gray hedgehog cried as the world gradually began to return to its normal speed and she struggled against the lavender hedgehog's grip. Her attempts were made in vain; Miles would not let go for anything in the world.
"Maria, no! Let Lily handle this!"
"But... I have to..."
"There's nothing you can do! Honey, please, leave it to Lily! It'll be OK!"
"How do you know?" Maria replied in a breaking voice, barely aware of the words tumbling from her lips as she stared directly at her father in the next room. "How can you know everything will be OK?"
Despite his own fear and uncertainty, the lavender hedgehog kept a firm hold on his wife, refusing to show any trace of doubt regarding his own words on his face or in his voice. There was only one answer he could give her, one reply that came to mind in that terrifying moment. In an almost desperate attempt to calm her down, Miles pressed his lips to Maria's cheek, then lifted his head and softly whispered in her ear the only words he felt he could say to her in that instant:
"Because... it has to."
Knowing she couldn't resist her husband's grasp, Maria ultimately gave in to Miles's hold, and the two of them watched in silence as the lilac hedgehog in the next room once again directed her team of interns to aid the black hedgehog supposedly crashing on the hospital bed. The light gray hedgehog could not recall a night when she had ever felt so helpless.
Lily shouted orders to her colleagues while keeping her eyes focused on the machine currently emitting the shill noise that was provoking the chaos in the room. She was not about to allow anything unfortunate to happen to a member of her family, and she was determined to provide her sister-in-law with everything her brother could not. Shadow the Hedgehog would not meet his fate tonight. Not on her watch.
But as skilled a physician as Lily was, there was no way she could possibly know exactly what had happened to cause the heart monitor to emit its shrill alarm so relentlessly. She couldn't know how surreal her patient's condition truly was, and she had no clue that in his newfound plane of existence, the black hedgehog had found something – or rather, someone – with the rare power to jolt his heart into overdrive.
A dangerous situation...
Shadow kept his fingers clasped around Maria's hand as he felt his own heartbeat race into a perilously fast rhythm. Words could not describe his exhilaration. He had been certain he would never again be able to see his beloved friend, let alone speak to her or touch her hand. It was a wonderful feeling...
Wonderful... yet frightening...
Suddenly, without full understanding of why he felt compelled to do so, the black hedgehog released his friend's hand and drew back from her briefly in alarm. Shadow then glanced up into the bright blue eyes of Maria Robotnik yet again... and found that the gaze they were locking with his own red eyes was eerily calming and reassuring.
Another occurrence with consequences on his physical being...
In the material world, as abruptly as it had quickened, the rate of the blip on the heart monitor slowed back to its original steady pace. The first to notice this change were the two hedgehogs watching the scene in silence from the open doorway. However, it didn't take long for the superior doctor working inside the room to notice the abnormal switch of pace as well.
"Stop! Stop, stop!" Lily yelled to her team, suddenly thrusting her arms out and cueing them all to cease their respective tasks. A moment of silence followed, in which every head among the group of physicians turned to face the newly calm machine now blipping steadily, as though nothing had happened in the first place.
The eerie quiet in the room persisted for a chillingly long time, until finally, one of the interns of the group, a yellow-orange cat, managed to break her gaze on the heart monitor, turned to face the lilac hedgehog standing on the opposite side of Shadow's bed, and asked in a slightly shaky voice:
"Dr. Hedgehog... what just happened?"
The question motivated the rest of the interns to slowly look away from the machine and turn their eyes instead to their superior. Despite her awareness of the fact that she was now the main focus of attention, however, Lily kept her own eyes fixed directly on the screen of the heart monitor, still trying hard to comprehend the events of the past five minutes.
What had just happened? The machine couldn't have malfunctioned briefly; it was close to brand new, and had never suffered any problems before... Had something beyond scientific explanation really occurred to the black hedgehog still lying unconscious on the bed?
As she stood there in silence, Miles stared fixedly at his twin sister, hoping beyond hope that she had some plausible explanation to offer that might stifle the concern he knew was rising ever more in his beloved wife's heart. But after another long pause, Lily slowly opened her mouth with only one vague answer to give:
"I have no idea."
For a full minute, Shadow did nothing more than sit still as a statue and stare transfixed into his friend's eyes, as though hypnotized by them. For a full minute, the only sound that was heard was the steady rhythm of his own breathing. For a full minute, the material world was forgotten; there was no life awaiting the black hedgehog outside this strange realm, no family or friends worrying over his condition, or wondering how he had fallen into such a state in the first place. For a full minute, there was only Shadow and Maria, just as it was in the past, nothing more.
And then Shadow spoke.
"How did I get here, Maria?"
The young girl took a moment to consider her friend's question, then sighed softly and replied:
"That, Shadow, is a question to which you should know the answer."
Of all the responses Maria could have given, this was the last one Shadow wanted to hear. The black hedgehog sighed and lowered his head to stare at his feet again, only just beginning to comprehend the true severity of his situation.
"But how can I possibly know what I'm doing here?" he said with a note of mixed confusion and disappointment in his voice. "I can't figure it out alone! And I need to know how I got here if I have any chance of getting out, of getting back to where I belong..."
There was a small pause in the conversation before the phantom girl spoke again. When Shadow heard Maria's voice, however, he noticed that it carried a much greater air of hope than his own had a moment ago, as if she knew that he did, in fact, have the means to discover on his own how he had ended up in his current predicament.
"What happened?"
The hedgehog looked up at the girl to see that her countenance had not once faltered from its calm state. Following his friend's example of avoiding panic, Shadow took a deep breath and thought back on the night's unfortunate sequence of events. Realizing that it would be easier to replay the scene backwards in order to find the cause behind his situation, he first considered the last memory he recalled before awakening on a different plane of existence.
"I saw a flash of bright light..."
"What caused it?" Maria replied, encouraging the hedgehog to continue with his current line of thought. Shadow paused to think about it.
"The laser weapon Eggman and his nephew built."
"Only?"
Another pause...
"No... The Chaos Emeralds reacted with each other too."
"Why?"
A longer pause as the hedgehog considered this last question...
"I don't know. Does that matter?"
The young girl gazed deeply into the black hedgehog's red eyes for a moment, maintaining her serene expression as he stared back into her blue ones, before finally replying in her sweet voice:
"You tell me, Shadow."
Twenty minutes after the strange case of the heart monitor going berserk, Maria Hedgehog found herself standing beside her father's bed, looking down at his expressionless face with pure concern on her own. Watching Lily attempt to save his life while she herself could do nothing more than watch had given her an immense feeling of helplessness. If only there were something she could do to pull Shadow out of his state, the light gray hedgehog would do it in a heartbeat, regardless of the consequences such a deed might have on her. But there was no way she could know what needed to be done...
Or was there?
As she stared unfalteringly at the black hedgehog on the hospital bed, Maria's thoughts began to drift to the events her husband had described to her of that evening's adventure. Miles had mentioned that Shadow had been struck by the beam from the Robotniks' laser weapon, at the same time that the Chaos Emeralds were reacting with each other. It was common knowledge that the black hedgehog was especially sensitive to the power of the legendary gemstones. It was also common knowledge that he had passed on this unique sensitivity... to his daughter.
An idea struck Maria like a small bolt of lightning. Indeed, there was a way to discover what had happened to her father, and more importantly, what could be done to rescue him.
Just as the outline of the idea began to take shape in her mind, Maria heard a small noise behind her, which effectively brought her back to her senses. Turning around, she saw her husband stepping through the opening door into the room; Miles had come to check on her for what was probably the tenth time in so many minutes.
Seeing that his wife had noticed his presence, the lavender hedgehog proceeded to approach her, step behind her, and wrap his arms around her. Leaning his head against hers, he then asked Maria the single simple question on his mind:
"How are you feeling, love?"
It was a risky question, for the light gray hedgehog had clearly been in distress since she had first stepped into the hospital earlier that evening, but Miles still had the small hope that his wife had managed to make a fraction of progress in recovering from the shock of her father's accident. To his surprise, she had.
"Better", Maria replied, causing her husband's heart to skip a beat as he raised his eyebrows.
"Really?" The lavender hedgehog breathed the word like a sigh of relief. "Honey, I'm so glad..."
Miles wrapped his arms a little tighter around his wife, holding her close and resting his head on her shoulder. Maria leaned her head lightly against her husband's, all the while keeping her dark blue eyes fixed on her father. Comforted by his affectionate gestures, the light gray hedgehog continued to speak to the lavender one standing behind her.
"I have an idea, Miles", she said in a low voice, as though hardly daring to believe that what she had in mind might actually work. Her husband lifted his head slightly in surprise, hesitating for a brief moment before responding to this statement.
"An idea?" the lavender hedgehog repeated, sounding both nervous and intrigued. "What sort of idea?"
Another minor pause followed this question, in which Maria considered exactly how she would go about explaining her growing plan.
"You said my dad collapsed while the Chaos Emeralds were reacting during the fight against the Robotniks, right?"
"Yeah..."
"And one of them was inside the laser weapon?"
"Yes; it was the main power source."
"Tell me, love..." said the light gray hedgehog slowly, feeling her spirits rising with each affirmation she received to her questions, "did you ever recover that Chaos Emerald?"
A brief moment of silence passed as she waited for an answer, wishing like mad that it would be the one she needed. It was.
"We did. My dad snatched it back just after he destroyed the weapon. It's still in the case inside the Prowers' jet."
Maria took this moment to break her gaze from Shadow's face and turn to face Miles instead. The look in her eyes told him that everything he had just said was exactly what she wanted to hear. There was a newly recovered gleam in her dark blue irises, one the lavender hedgehog had been longing to see in them from the very beginning of the evening: a gleam of hope.
Looking deeply into his wife's eyes, Miles dared to ask her the most obvious question that came to mind:
"Why do you want to know?"
As she stared directly back into her husband's green eyes, Maria's lips curved the tiniest fraction upwards in a subtle smile.
"Because that Emerald is what's going to help me save my dad."