I apologize deeply if the last chapter was a little rushed; another bad habit of mine was that I really wanted to publish the chapter, although it was late at night and the chapter wasn't complete, and I continued writing it as fast as I could instead of just waiting till the next morning to complete it… I hope it was readable at least

Again, thanks so much to everyone who reads this story, if only this far^^ Reviews and comments are very much appreciated, all kinds.

Thanks a lot!

A Weird Dream

Two weeks had passed since Cream's kidnapping, and everything went so smoothly after that, that Amy almost forgot about it all.

The first days were really lazy; all she'd been doing was to rest and recover from the previous journey, and she even forgot to chase after Sonic during that time. The very first day had been the greatest, because Sonic had actually, finally, come by to see if she was alright. Oh, how happy she was! She just wanted to hug and embrace and kiss him and apologize for being angry at him earlier… but that was only the first day. When he realized that she would be just fine, he simply said that it was great and left.

Amy sighed; it was too bad. But frankly, she'd been so exhausted, it was like if all the nights of lack of sleep had returned to her at once; she was not sure if she would've had the energy to be with Sonic in the first place.

But Tails and Cream and came by a lot of times, and Amy enjoyed their company as much as Sonic's, so they always cheered her up. Tails' broken tails had healed incredibly fast, and although they were still somewhat stiff from the lack of use, he could now fly again. And the last few days, they'd been going out on picnics and met up for tea, and all sorts of nice things; as mentioned, things had gone back to normal and went so smoothly that Amy had almost forgotten about Shadow, Eggman, evil plans and Chaos Emerald hunting.

Until one night.

She was standing on a wide field of grass. To her left, there were a forest; to her right, there was only darkness. Above her, the stars twinkled and in front of her, there was a strong light. Naturally, she headed towards the light; the closer she came, the safer she felt, and the feeling of recognition grew stronger.

As she moved forward, the surroundings darkened, just like if the night was falling, but without a sunset. And without a moon. The only light that existed was the beautiful, warm turquoise light in front of her. She almost thought that she could hear it whisper, deep and softly, but in some ancient kind of language which she couldn't understand.

Amy followed the soothing voice until she reached round stairs that led up to a stone platform, and as she approached the stairs, she felt more than anything that she knew this place. Then, as she was almost there, the light ceased to whisper and was replaced by another voice, only that this voice was even deeper than the previous one, and dark.

The seven Chaos Emeralds…

Amy couldn't move. Suddenly, the voice grew in strength and started speaking in a dark and violent language to which her ears wouldn't listen, and it almost seemed to be upset about something. As the voice continued to whisper, hiss, the darkness suddenly opened up a hole around Amy, and the ground disappeared beneath her; she desperately tried to grasp the fading light above her, and tried to understand what the dark voice was saying, but the very last words were the only ones she caught:

The seven Chaos Emeralds… are found…

Amy sat up in her bed with a gasp; it took several seconds for her to realize that she had been dreaming. Just what kind of nightmare was that? Amy wondered as she wiped the sweat off of her forehead. It felt so real too…

Amy gazed out the window, into the night. Just where was that place? She was sure that she'd been there before… was this one of those "deja vy" visions or whatever people could have? But this one felt different.

She glanced at her watch: 5 am. She rubbed her eyes sleepily before she lay back down and thought about the weird dream for a long, long time, but no matter for how long she tried to, she still couldn't go back to sleep.

The next day, Tails' house…

"… and then, even though I told him that it definitely would rot and wither if he let it stay in the sun, he just waved me off and ignored me," Tails explained as he sat with Sonic, Big, Froggy, Cream, Cheese and of course Amy, by his big coffee table where they'd decided to meet for some good old storytelling and a snack(Big and Froggy had passed the house and were invited to join them.) "He just said that nothing could possibly happen since it was a 'sunflower'."

"That sounded wise to me," Cream remarked with an innocent face. "I mean, isn't that why it's called a sunflower?"

"It's… really not that simple," Tails tried gingerly.

"What a dick," Sonic sneered from his comfy position on the windowsill. "So did the thingy rot, or what?"

"Yeah, it did, so at least he came back to apologize to me the following day," Tails finished the story. "But he was kinda silly, wasn't he?"

"Totally," Sonic laughed.

"I feel bad that his flower withered, though," Cream sighed. "I don't like it when plants die."

"I know. But hey, I actually planted him another one!" Tails said encouragingly, and it made Cream smile and clap her hands before she took a cookie from the plate on the table and swallowed it.

"I love these cookies," she said as she chewed on another one.

"I know, they're delicious," Tails agreed. "And it was Amy who made them, right?" he added and turned to the pink hedgehog to get a direct answer from her.

"Rosey baked the cookies? Is Rosey alright?" Big asked in his incredibly low-pitched voice, when no reply came. "Rosey has been quiet for some time now."

Amy barely heard what he or the others said; she just stared down into her teacup, her thoughts foggy and her mind very distant…

"Amy?"

She snapped out of her thoughts and raised her head. "Yeah?"

She was surprised to find everyone else looking at her. "Amy, are you alright?" Tails asked. "You've seemed a little off ever since I called you this morning."

Amy looked at him with a confused look for a while; then her brain processed what he just said and she shook her head. "I'm fine. I've just not been sleeping that great last night," she said and gave her friends a reassuring smile. Which was true; the dream was still haunting her.

"You sure?" Sonic asked. "When I feel sick, I just go for a run."

"We're talking about people, Sonic, not you," Tails said.

"Ouch."

They burst out in laughter; even Amy chuckled a little. But she was very, very, very tired; that dream seemed to have drained all of her energy, and on top of that, it had given her a pair of awful and ugly bags under her eyes. And when her friends had carried on the conversation without her for yet another ten minutes, she rose from her chair. "I think I'm going home," she said as politely as she could. "I'm getting a headache…"

"Sure, Amy," Tails gave her a compassionate smile. "Take care."

"Tell me if you need company and I'll come over," Cream said as she walked to the door, and Cheese approved with a couple of chao-chao's. Amy smiled at them and waved before she opened the door and exited the house. Good god, she was probably gonna go straight back to bed as soon as she got home… even though she was only 18 o'clock.

As she got home, she immediately went to bed, but it took some time for her to go to sleep; she lay and wondered about that place… Fields, trees, a strong light; she was sure that she knew where it was, but she simply couldn't put her finger on it.

She thought about what Shadow had said before he left them on Angel Island: "I'll be back for the rest." That didn't really make sense though; he already had all the Chaos Emeralds, didn't he? What was he plotting? Amy sighed as she realized that she had no idea about anything right now.

"I think I'll just try to sleep," she mumbled to herself before she pulled up the sheets and buried her head in the warm soft pillow and let out a deep sigh, like a sleepy puppy, before she fell asleep.

Amy was standing on the grassy field again; she was in the same place as in the previous dream, with the forest to her left, stars above her and the light up ahead. But this time the darkness was all over the place. The weird thing was that Amy knew that she was dreaming, and yet it still felt so unbelievably real.

This time, she wanted to find out where she was; she set off towards the light, this time she was running. Just like in any dream, it still took her a painfully long time to reach the stone stairs, but as she started walking up on them, she noticed something that she hadn't noticed in the previous dream; the shining light was shaped just like a Chaos Emerald, just that it was ten times larger.

A large Chaos Emerald… That's when it struck her, and this place suddenly made totally sense: This was Angel Island!

Amy slapped her forehead; that's why she thought that she recognized this place. So obvious! She looked up at the Master Emerald as she approached the stone platform and listened to its whispers; but now, it sounded frightened.

"Are you scared of me?" Amy whispered, and she slowly reached out to touch the giant gem. But she froze; the atmosphere had suddenly gotten cold, or rather quite freezing. And as the sudden change of atmosphere had occurred, Amy realized that she was not alone in this place; a dark shadow was approaching the Master Emerald, slowly and unconstrained.

Amy felt like air; she felt like she didn't exist in that stranger's eyes, and frankly, she was quite glad that she didn't; the shadow sent anything but friendly signals.

The seven Chaos Emeralds…

Amy listened as the dark voice spoke, while the shadow moved closer to the Master Emerald.

The seven Chaos Emeralds… the Master of them all… the final word cracked as the shadow reached out for the gem's light; … Tonight…

Amy woke up with a gasp; she fumbled for the lamp, tripped and fell out of her bed, hit her elbow and snapped out of the dream. She sat up, eyes wide and sweat trickling down her forehead as she recalled the dream; Angel Island. That stranger was going to steal the Master Emerald from Angel Island, he would sneak past Knuckles and snatch his precious protégé right under his nose; or would he even kill him?

Whatever he was going to do, it was going to occur tonight.

Amy doesn't seem to be getting any rest or chance of recovery and relaxing anymore. The poor girl. The strong girl!

And sorry if this chapter was a little short; I'll make it up to you in the next one ;)