Here's chapter 3, too. :) Take it and be happy… LOL JK.
"Shit," Sonic hissed and leapt from the couch. He approached the window with deliberately slow steps, and when he reached it, he slid it open and began jumping up and down, waving his arms around. "Hey! Asshole! Come and get me!" he screamed out the window.
I heard a manic laugh and I cringed. "YOU are the asshole here, blue boy," the voice said, sinister and chilling, with a thin layer of charm underneath.
Sonic put his hand on his hip. "Y'know, I still don't get how you can talk without a mouth."
"That really doesn't matter right now!" the voice screamed. The fact that Sonic said he had no mouth intrigued me, and I came a bit closer to the window to get a peek at what was going on.
The hedgehog before us looked neither a god nor a mortal, but a strange cross between the two. He looked stronger and more deadly than, perhaps, Sonic did, but still retained the natural shape of the hedgehogs. The quills were a charcoal color and the same design as the black hedgehog I had seen with Sonic earlier, except instead of red stripes these were gray-teal, and the muzzle was a light gray. Sonic was right - this guy didn't have a mouth, not even a tiny slit. What scared me the most were the eyes; I didn't think before then that the term "icy cold" could be described to green eyes, but that's the way they looked on Mephiles.
"Look dude: you've caused havoc among almost every corner of this planet. What else do you want?" Sonic retorted.
Mephiles seemed to smile - I could tell in the way his eyes narrowed and his cheeks raised slightly. "You know that all I need is you or one of your friends," he said. "I need one of your kind, blue boy, then I'll have this place under my power. I will have more authority in my little finger than every army, every general, every solider in the world. So please, I'm asking politely," he continued, bringing the charm in his voice to the forefront. "Just give me a specimen. It's all I ask for."
"As if I'd give you shit," Sonic growled at him, and to my surprise, leaned out the window and spat at the hedgehog's feet. I had a feeling that this was going too far.
Mephiles frowned. His voice was sweet and soft, yet venomous. "Fine then, you leave me no choice." He raised his arm, and I recognized an over-sized, sparkling gem, glowing blue.
"A Chaos Emerald?!" Aidan yelled.
"Give me someone in this room IMMEDIATELY, or else I will pierce THIS -" he created a Chaos Spear in an instant - "right into your heart. ALL of you. Rarely does anyone survive such an attack. Is that clear?"
Everybody looked at each other, despair and worry ripping at their eyes. Then, Sonic looked at me, an apology in them. "Take this one," he said, holding onto my hand and pulling me forward.
"What the hell?!" I managed to say before Mephiles reached out and snatched me from Sonic's hand. He was taller than he had appeared, almost 4 feet, and so much stronger. He held me like a baby doll in one arm and yelled, "Chaos Control!"
My vision danced around me for a few seconds, a rainbow of colors in a splatter-paint design, before we landed in the dark. It was pitch black, and I felt chills running along my spine. Mephiles took a few steps, then flipped a switch on the wall, and the room was suddenly lit up.
It reminded me of a prison: the walls were smooth concrete, with bars covering the small window; a lumpy bed sat in the corner with no sheets, and there was a large garbage can sized bowl of water in the corner. A larger window looked into another jail like cell. Mephiles threw me to the floor, and I squeaked in pain as I slammed into the stone. "Stay," he commanded like a dog trainer and materialized from the room with another "Chaos Control", but not before muttering, "This is some serious bullshit."
I stood, rubbing my butt cheek where I had hit it - I was probably going to bruise - and looked around my little room. It was definitely not the cozy mansion I had been in less than a minute ago. I walked over to the water bowl, wondering what it was for. It had to have a reason.
"You take baths in that water," a young boy's voice near me said, making me leap about 5 feet in the air. The voice came from a small yellow fox in the prison to my left. His tail swished around him nervously. He smiled weakly. "I'm Miles Prower, but you can call me Tails. I've kinda got a..." He glanced at his tail, and I realized that there were two of them, moving in near perfect synchronization. "I've got a mutation."
"Don't say that, it looks kinda cute," I replied, making him blush. "I'm Renata."
"Nice name. Say, Renata, do you know why he brought you here?" Tails asked. When I shook my head, he sighed and looked at the floor. "He said he needed me for a specimen. What kind of specimens are we supposed to be?"
"Do you think he may run tests on us or something?" I wondered aloud.
"Maybe," Tails mused. "I wish I could help him with the tests, not that I'd wanna use you as a guinea pig. I'm pretty good with science stuff - well, specifically mechanics and building things."
"Have you ever thought about building something to get yourself out of this place?"
It was his turn now to shake his head, his wide blue eyes sad. "Nope. Old Mephie has got this place bound with dark magic. It would be utterly impossible to try to do something as drastic as that."
"Oh." I felt like an idiot now. I sat down on the bed, feeling the springs groan under my weight. "How long have you been here?"
"Just a couple of weeks," Tails replied, sliding one of his tails through his fingers. "It's a better life than it seems at first. We do get to come out of this little room a couple times a week, and we get meals. But there are some pretty strict rules that I've had to learn fast. First we can't use the bathroom in our cell. There's an outhouse nearby, but it smells something nasty, and there isn't a separate stall for genders, either, so you might walk in on an old guy taking a dump occasionally."
This made me giggle slightly since I knew exactly how embarrassing it was to see that. Let's just say my human grandfather was a bit out-of-it and he didn't always close the door... or put the seat down, for that matter.
"The second most important thing is," Tails continued, "if anyone, and I mean ANYONE, comes up to that little window over there..." He pointed to the tiny barred window above him. "We have to alert a guard immediately. Usually they will respond to a loud whistle, and if you can't whistle with your mouth, you're given a little metal one instead. Third, if you abuse the whistle rule in any way, you are going to be used as a guinea pig for an electric chair that has enough energy to power all of Mobius." He shuddered. "It's not a pretty sight, trust me. The people start smoking as soon as they get buzzed, and they explode in less than a minute. It gives a new meaning to raining blood."
I flinched. I definitely did not have a nice image in my mind.
"I'm just wondering," Tails said after a few seconds, "but do you know Sonic the Hedgehog personally?"
"Sort of," I replied. "I met him briefly earlier today."
"Is he okay?" He sounded worried, concerned. His arms wrapped around his knees, and he rocked back onto his heels. "He's like a big brother to me, and I like to know he's okay."
"I'm sure he's alright," I assured the little fox, who looked so frightened that I wanted to walk into his little room and hold him close, in case he wanted to cry into my shoulder. But the cold concrete wall separated us, so I could only use my voice to comfort him.
There was a loud buzzer, and he curled up on his bed, wrapping his tails around him like blankets. "That's the curfew bell," he murmured to me. "Good night, Renata." And with that, Tails fell asleep, snoring lightly.
I climbed onto the bed and looked out the now starry window, lost in thought. What was going to happen to me now? Would I ever see my friends again? Had today been the last day to talk to Aidan, and had I completely blown it? Can I really trust Tails the Fox? Can I befriend him without losing him? Were there any more creatures as horrifying as Mephiles the Dark?
And my most important question: who were the other two hedgehogs at the mountaintop with Sonic?
All of these questions buzzed among my head like large bees, stinging but never dying, flying eternally. This made for an uneasy state of mind, but I eventually managed to keep my eyes shut for more than a second, and soon after I slipped into a dreamless sleep.
You might have to wait a while for Ch 4, I'm having writer's block :( Wretched thing…
~GABL
