Chapter 8 Back to Reality
"Mhmm…" I stirred in my sleep. For the last five minutes or so, sunbeams were dancing on my face as soon the sun started to arise again. Even though there are plenty of tall and leafy trees to break out the sunlight, the rays managed a way to get through.
I deepened the shut my eyes to try to block the brightness out, but it left me getting more irritated so I turned around and lay on my stomach. Then, I laid my head down on the soft patches of grass while enjoying the cool crisp morning wind occurring constantly. Rest was slowly about to overcome me once more.
"Chao Chao!" a cute little voice cried, and it led to soft pokes on my left shoulder. I finally let my eyes open, and saw Sakura sitting close and staring at me with a playful look. She poked me again.
I blinked a few times more to adjust to my sight, and to wake me up. Then I finally sat up and gotten a hold of Sakura, and started to play with her for the time being. During that, I noticed that everybody else was still sleeping. Even the blue blur himself, who would get up to the crack of dawn to run. I softly giggled. This is a great accomplishment that I awoke first.
I was thinking about waking everyone up, but I didn't want to bother them. Then the thought of going back appeared in my mind. Now I was certain not to wake them. Don't get me wrong, I was excited about visiting the biggest cities in the world, but the fact of leaving this world that longed to go back to for such a long time, wanted me to stay put. Sitting there silently with Sakura for a few minutes, I tried to figure out a plan.
As quietly as possible I stood up and picked up Sakura—while telling her as silent as possible to not to make a peep while I carried her—and slowly walked pass my sleeping friends and into the forest for a third time. As we went into the forest however, the crunching of leftover autumn leaves sounded whenever I took a step. Automatically looking back, nobody made movement or reacted whenever that occurred. I sighed in relief and continued on going.
When we'd gotten deeper and farther into the forest, I could've sworn I heard another pair of footsteps behind me. Stopping and looking back once more, I saw nobody. It just might have been a squirrel or something else. Remember, other animals live here too.
Continuing our nature walk for about sometime now, I finally stopped at one of the little waterfalls I saw last night. Seeing it now in late morning, it looked prettier. Seeing the water in the sunlight make it sparkle, and the mist rising up from the crashing waters made a rainbow appear right by it. When Sakura noticed it, she kept whining and reaching for it. I giggled and decided to walk into the clear shallow water to let her touch it. Afterwards she wanted to play in the water, so I let her.
I watched her along the bank of the small pond, having fun while splashing, swimming, and also watching out for her safety. I didn't think that owning a Chao could bring this big of a smile on my face.
While watching her for the last five minutes or so, I then felt another series of pokes this morning. Great…I knew there was someone following me!
I stood there like a statue for a moment, disappointed that my plan didn't last long as I hoped. I knew it was bound to happen anyways. Slowly turning around, I saw the person who poked me. When I found out though, my disappointment slowly turned to happiness as I saw my best friend standing there with his Chao, Muffins.
"What are you doing?" asked Dylan with a concerning look, but he tilted his head to make the situation less serious. Shortly after, Muffins copied the same movement.
I laughed at the sight, and then answered by asking him the same question.
"Heard something, woke up, saw you leaving, followed you." He answered short and sweet. I knew I was bound to wake someone up walking through those leaves. "Now you?" He questioned again.
Having trouble what to say, I couldn't just tell him that I wanted to stay here, after all our excited discussions to travel to each famous city. Last thing I wanted to do was disappoint him. So, I decided to say: "I just want to explore the forest again…"
After that, Dylan didn't reply. All that he did was lift his right brow and gave me a smirk, knowing what I said wasn't true. I bit my upper lip and looked to the side and try to ignore it while holding my giggles, and also to check on Sakura.
"Court Court…" My best friend said my nickname seriously and funnily. I couldn't help and release my laugh.
"What's the problem of going exploring in the morning?" I looked back and tried to defend myself while smiling uncontrollably. Still, Dylan continued with his look and didn't believe me. I'm such a bad liar, why did I even bother?
"It is the problem." He chuckled. "I know you're not a morning person, Court."
I made a soft sigh, and shook my head slowly in defeat. I looked back at Dylan again, with my smile faded to half.
"I kind of don't want to go back." I finally confessed. As soon as I spoke those words, Dylan now looked at me kind of relieved, like he'd felt the same way.
Then he said that he wasn't ready to go back either. What are the odds? I knew that he loved being in this world, but I didn't know how long he wanted to stay. I breathed another sigh of relief.
"…But you know we have to go back, Court. Eggman will keep getting ahead if we stayed." Dylan said with a hint of serious in his voice. I sadly mumbled out a 'yeah'. He looked at me and placed a hand on my left shoulder.
"It's not our last time being here though; we'll be back as soon as we get one of those H.I. thingies." He laughed for a short moment. "And you know…I have a feeling that this journey will be longer than the last, so we'll be visiting here till we get tired of it." He smiled confidently after each word in his sentences. I believed his words, and couldn't help but smile back at him.
"But you know that's not going to happen…" He added as I picked up Sakura, and we started to leave. I giggled. "Nope!"
As soon as we got back, everybody was up and awake. Chelsea was sitting up on the grass half-dazed, Trevor was looking at his phone, Shadow was leaning against a tree with his usual pose, and Sonic and Knuckles were up on the altar of the shrine conversing with each other. Since they were the only ones talking, we couldn't help but overhear.
"Are you sure you don't want to join us?" The blue hedgehog asked, almost eagerly. "There's always room for another member."
The red echidna blinked at him clueless for a few times, then chuckled. "Sonic, you know mighty well that it's my duty to protect the Master Emerald. Its ok for me to leave on some adventures, but all the time is unnecessary. I think I told you this sometime before."
Sonic also looked clueless, but he snapped out of it as he remembered the discussion they had about this. His mood went sad for a moment, but he accepted his answer and smiled his famous smile.
"Ok. We'll miss you Knucks!" He said before he fled down the long set of stairs on the shine. Knuckles smiled, then turned around to us down below and shouted: "Wish you guys luck! You all be careful!"
"You too!" Dylan shouted back and added a wave.
As our team assembled together, we discussed of what city to head to first in our world. Since it was our first time going to a big city, we've decided that we should start off someplace easy, a city with our same language and culture.
"Tokyo!" Was the first place Chelsea blurted out. Dylan made a facepalm.
"Someplace easy Chelsea…" He softly laughed while shaking his head frustrated.
"It's easy for me!" She replied to him bubbly, her cheerfulness never leaving her.
The first place that came into mind for me was Italy. I know that it was a country, but it didn't matter to what city we decided to go to, as long it's in Italy, I'm happy. I think that it was the first place that popped into Dylan's mind too. The city he wanted to go to there was Venice, and he wanted to go there more than anywhere. When I researched on Italy back at home, I found out that Venice wasn't as big compared to what Rome was. Maybe after this gem hunt was finished, we can stop by for a little while.
"New York City?" I heard Trevor's suggestion, interrupting everybody's fantasies of dream vacations except for Sonic and Shadow. Chelsea, Dylan, and I all looked at Trevor, then each other. New York City wasn't the place that we dreamt going to first, but it was what we've been looking for. We nodded in agreement.
Unchaining the necklace around my neck, I did the same technique that I've done before entering this world. Everybody backed away to give space, I raised the Harmonic Iridescent in front of me, closed my eyes, and thought of the location we're going to. As I opened my eyes, a little multicolor firework display appeared like last time. As it the sparks begun to grow more, it was fully developed into a bright colorful portal.
"Ok, it's ready." I told my friends as I quickly placed my necklace back on, feeling the calm rushing through my body again. Before anybody replied or moved ahead, Trevor made an excited screech and then ran head first into the portal, leaving awkward stares and silence behind.
"Haha…Ok." Laughed Chelsea, as few seconds of awkwardness flew by. Sonic snickered shortly after.
"Well if he's that excited, so should we!" He said in an upbeat attitude, then yelled 'woohoo!' before he dashed right into the portal. Shortly after, Chelsea got in, Dylan got in, till it was just me and Shadow. He grunted.
"Whatever, I'm not for it…you go next Courtney." Said the black hedgehog, stepping aside for me. I sadly gave him a look, and he couldn't help but give in. I was surprised how quick he gave into it.
"Alright…" he grumbled as he started walking to portal, until he stopped before he got one more step to go into it. "Umm…yay?" he tried to sound excited, and then he looked to me to see if he was doing it right. I shook my head and smiled.
"Give it more feeling." I advised. Then, I heard happiest yell that ever came from Shadow before he jumped in. I widened my eyes in shock, never giving the thought that he can make a sound that happy.
Another accomplishment for the day. I thought happily. Then I made my cheer before I was engulfed by the radiant colors of the portal.
Out of the blinding lights, my ears were filled with the honking and the movement of vehicles, and the conversations of thousands of people. When I opened my eyes, I saw many rising skyscrapers and flashing lights of ads filling up Times Square, which we were now in.
Yep, this is New York City. I thought again. Checking, I looked at myself to see if I was back to normal. I didn't want to cause attention to myself if I was still a hedgehog. Good, I wasn't.
Then I paid attention to my surrounds, looking for my friends. It was hard, since I was the only person standing here among the other hundreds of people trying to pass though the sidewalk. Some people even shoved me out of the way.
"Dylan? Sonic? Chelsea? Trevor? Shadow?" I called my friends names and looked around everywhere, but they were not in sight. I didn't see any familiar faces.
This would be the point when I would freak out, but luckily my H.I. prevented that. Then I started to run around Times Square, checking every sidewalk and building there while pushing anyone that got in my way. An hour passed while I searched as I sadly lay against a side of the building, slid down, and sat down tiredly on the concrete.
"Great…" I said in anger as I slid two of my hands on each side of my face. A buzzing occurred in my jacket shortly after, and then it hit me.
I had my phone this whole time, and didn't even bother using it! I screamed in my head, typical blonde moment for me right there.
Rashly, I dug into the pocket of my jacket and then checked my texts from my phone, seeing that I had five missed texts from Dylan and Chelsea. I quickly responded and told them where I was. My phone immediately vibrated again.
"You had us worried Court! We appeared right by the Empire State Building after we went through, and we didn't see you anywhere! O.o Sonic is on his way to get you lol, you're going to be surprised!"
The last part of Dylan's message made me confused. Surprised? But I knew what he meant whenever Sonic got here.
A guy in my age stood in front of me. He wore a blue and white jacket with a blue sleeveless shirt underneath, blue jeans, and unique red and white shoes. When I got to his face, he had bright peridot eyes, and he had spiked back blue hair.
"Sonic?" I stood up slowly, looking at the now humanized hedgehog in front of me. My whole body trembled in shock. He's human!
"Yep it's me! Sonic the hedgehog!" He said while making a back flip in the process. A lot of people walking by stopped at stared at the trick, and either gave him glares or cheers. Yep, it was him.
Before I asked or said anything else to him, he grabbed a hold of my form and started to dash away, his incredible speed still in possession.