Just a little nitpick of mine, but I don't like it when people point out the most blatantly obvious references. Try to dig in deep. Hell, I lost count of how much stuff Sonic spouted simply because no one would be able to get it.

CHAPTER 33: DREAMS DON'T MEAN ANYTHING

Sonic laid there in the comfy bed, thinking.

-This is really too much.

Tails called the Neon Knight thing off because of Mephiles, which may be plausible, but then suddenly Murdoc, a bassist of a band I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN LIVE, is Mephiles' next victim? A wizard just HAPPENING to know how to make portals? Me sending Merlina to the moon? All the knights, except Gawain, easily getting up to follow me?

Did I ever leave that dream?

Am I still in a coma?

What if I was? What if I wasn't?

Whatever. Only time will tell. Just roll like how I normally would.-

Seconds later, Sonic drifted off into sleep.

Black.

Nothing but black. Sonic couldn't tell if he was having a dream or not. The possibility of him not having one was debunked when colors began to form. There were solid, dark colors, making everything a silhouette, but colors regardless.

Looking around, Sonic figured he was in a dark room of some sort. No walls. The ceiling was held up by pillars. Everything seemed two-dimensional, lacking depth perception. While looking around, his stomach growled. Even after eating well cooked chicken, dozens of fruits and plenty of milk, he was still hungry. He looked to his left and saw a cake, with lit candles, sitting on a tray on the floor.

Cautious, he looked around. He saw nothing but darkness outside the circle of pillars. He also saw he was wearing a necklace. It seemed oddly familiar, but he couldn't place it as anything he had actually wore or seen in person. He tried taking it off, but it the string didn't have any sort of way to put it on or take it off. He tugged at the object dangling from the necklace itself, but it neither the string or the attachment broke off.

Shrugging it off, he walked over to the cake and bent down. He saw twenty candles on it, though he was not to be twenty in five or so years, all lit. Without a second hesitant thought, he blew out the candles.

The room went pitch black due to the lack of light. He could feel the presence of someone else fade into the room as his breath knocked out each candle.

Sonic closed his eyes, for a moment, and opened them. He had activated some sort of night-vision, so he could see the cake in front of him now, although everything was still not much more than a silhouette, and he could feel the presence of the person behind him even more. He repeatedly chanted the words "Oh god oh man oh god oh man" in his head as he realized that the person behind him wasn't a few feet behind him, more rather inches from his back quills.

He quietly debated whether or not to turn his head around and look at what exactly was behind him as he kept turning his head, never enough to see who it was. He was shaking.

"Someone ELSE is there, someone ELSE is there, someone ELSE is there, someone ELSE IS THERE..." He pleaded in his own thoughts. "Hopefully someone who can do something. Like, fuck him up. Or get me out of here. But hell, ANYONE would do."

A moment later, he felt a big round flesh against his.

"Oh God damn it, Big, I don't have your frog." Sonic thought, dismissing the large, fat cat whom Sonic believed had mental problems before he said anything. "Someone that is USEFUL in this problem, please."

His mind didn't stray too far from the topic of cats. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Blaze's silhouette. "Definitely would have preferred Duke Nukem or Jackie Chan, but you'll do." Sonic rambled in his head.

Sonic, unable to tell if she had a mouth, or if she could tell his was moving, mouthed the words "DO SOMETHING."

Sonic heard electricity bounce around, almost sure it was coming from him. Other than that, nothing happened. -THANKS FOR BEING USEFUL. I WISH BIG WAS HERE.-

A pitch black hand lowered on her shoulder.

Thinking he'd have to do something in order for her to help him, Sonic rose his shaking hand and smacked the arm of the mysterious man off Blaze's shoulder.

There was silence as the mysterious man took in what Sonic had just done.

He lowered his hand.

And then exploded into a monster, emitting dozens of extra features Sonic couldn't place whilst his body turned much more demonic. One of them tore straight through Blaze's chest, sending blood all over Sonic's left side, from his lower leg to his head. Sonic shot his hands up to his face in reaction, but by the time they got there, there was nothing to block. He could feel blood trickling into his eye. It wasn't his blood.

Sonic looked at the piece of cake in his hands. It wasn't safe from the blood splatter, either. Looking at the now gory piece of cake, he became sick of it. -ALL I WANTED WAS THIS CAKE.- Sonic, now for a lack of better words "scared shitless," stood up and ran from the monster the man had become. He turned around to face it, seeing that it vaguely resembled a king or a noble.

With a powerful swing of one of it's tentacle-like features, it slammed into the floor, breaking reality. Pieces of the room began to fall into a pure white background. Sonic fell into the pure white background, and crashed through the floor.

Sonic smashed onto the next floor, his arms quivering as he realized he was beginning to bleed himself from somewhere. It was probably coming from somewhere there was already blood on.

In frustration and anger, he tried yanking at the necklace again. Then, he tried to muster up the thought of someone else being there with him. He switched between the two frantically, unable to do anything.

Sonic, at a complete lack of better ideas, decided to try to take control of the amount of singe color blood he had at his disposal. He drew his face on the wall, and began to limp away. For the first few steps, he left blood on the floor, but after that there was none. Not that he had much of a place to hide, though. Unable to find a better place, he sat in a corner.

Abruptly, the monster burst through the floor. It in fact was a king or a person with regal power by the way he was dressed. He was totally black, other than white clothing details and glowing, full blue eyes and a blue diamond on his chest. He had a crown that was noticeable, but it blended in with his head. He did nothing but give a blank, unsettling stare at the wounded hedgehog.

He then heard voices, from no where. They were commenting on his actions. -Just... who are...?-

"This is pathetic." One complained. "Go fight or go home."

"Rise up. Ride out the storm, Sonic. You will survive this nightmare, and you will be stronger for it." A second one ordered. "And have some pride. You deserve it."

"You can win this because nightmares can't hurt you, no matter what it tries to do to you."

"I don't know who you are, and thanks, but I don't need prep talk!" Sonic proudly thought, trying to communicate back to the voices. He slowly began to stand. "Do you know who I am?"

He looked at the king, still staring blankly, waiting. He gritted his teeth. He clenched his fists. He could feel the blood rushing through his veins. He rose his shoulders, making himself square and tall, screaming like a banshee at the monster as he became prepared for anything.

"I'M SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, THE FASTEST THING ALIVE!" Sonic screamed for all to hear. The king, the voices, the cat girl he almost completely forgot about that was in the room, everyone. "~WHAT IF I SAY I'M NOT LIKE THE OTHERS, WHAT IF I SAY I'M NOT JUST ANOTHER-~"

The king began to morph, and many claws suddenly erupted from the floor. They shot themselves over to Sonic.

The first claw lifted him off his feet, and pinned him to the wall, effectively stabbing him in the process. The second one slashed at his midriff, tearing it open. Another came, dug in around his insides through the enormous gash the second one had left, and violently ripped out his intestines. The last one went behind his neck, caught the string of the necklace, and sent it toward the wall, closing his esophagus as effectively as a noose. Sonic could feel in full detail the blood trickling from his spine, out and down his back onto his legs, as well as it splattering onto the walls. Sonic tried to scream, but the necklace was stopping him. He couldn't do anything. Couldn't fight, couldn't yell, couldn't breathe, and he couldn't even open his eyes.

He couldn't do anything. He felt like a doll, being dissected by a little girl's spoiled older brother. The fabric being torn, the cotton spilling out, ripped to pieces by a person who was probably enjoying himself from it.

And the king probably felt the same way, but in the position of a brother, Sonic had figured. Crazed with power, he assumes living people are his playthings. If he doesn't want them, he could just throw them out, but what kind of spoiled brat wouldn't just love tearing them limb from limb? At least that's how Sonic had imagined it. He never had problems with his family.

And, just like the mean brother would do to his sister, if they aren't afraid of him, he'll give them a reason. He'll change, becoming more powerful. And he will continue to do so until they all eventually get scared of him. If anyone tries to fix him, he'll only get worse, stooping to even lower levels than last time. It's a painful cycle until they're locked under the corrupt man's grip, whether it be the king or the brother, simply because he wants dominance over people.

Whether it be in the hands of a boy or a king, he felt like a hopeless, helpless toy.

Sonic could tell most of his insides were not insides anymore. He could feel the cold air whisk through the now enormous hole in his body. Painfully, Sonic tried to peel open his eyes. He didn't know why. He just felt like he had to.

Sonic couldn't see anything other than what was right in his face. Staring back at him was the King's cold, pitch black appearance. The black skin. The black hair. The black crown. His frown and the entirety of his eyes were a glowing light blue. Unchanged from the moment he began the slaughter. Uncaring for the fact that he had just gutted out almost all his insides.

Uncaring for the fact that Sonic was a living, breathing, person.

He didn't care at all.

He shot upright. He swore he was sweating bullets. His heart felt like it would pound out of his chest any second now. He never had a nightmare that hit him as hard as it did like that in months, perhaps year or so. The last one he had like that was that one time he went to sleep listening to "Blood Upon the Risers". -~The risers swung around his neck, connectors cracked his dome! Suspension lines were tied in knots around his skinny bones! The canopy became his shroud as he hurtled to the ground, AND HE AIN'T, GONNA JUMP, NO MOOOORE!~-

Everything is fine now, he told himself. No murderous power-crazed royalty looming behind him. No friends impaled. Internal organs where they should be, in a pile in his midsection. No spectators watching him, though he thought that might actually be cool. He's not bawling. For sure he wasn't in a coma by now, that was just some self-induced attempt to be deep, or something along those lines. Everything is fine.

He felt something hard against his back. Curious, he stuck his hand back there, and pulled it out.

He had been sleeping on the Scabbard.

Sonic gently lobbed it off the bed toward the side, where it rolled off and onto the carpeted floor, silencing the landing. After doing so, he scooted to the other side of the bed, away from it.

Sonic began to think of ways to ease himself. He was a bit hungry, but he was too tired to get up, and he was sure he could sleep with it. He had to find another method of calming himself down.

-~... He hit the ground, the sound was SPLAT! His blood went spurting hiiigh! His comrades, they were heard to say "WHAT A HELL OF A WAY TO DIE!"~ Ok I need to stop that now.-

"...~I can't tell you anything... you don't already know... I keep on tryin'... I should just let it go...~"

He continued to sing, his shaky voice giving it an effect that he liked and seemed fitting for the song, for a moment, before realizing what exactly his dream was. When he realized this, it degraded into humming and it died down quickly. He was surprised how much something that seemed so little at the time influenced him so much he not only had a dream about it, but a nightmare that hit him hard.

He took one deep, shaky breath.

"... That slut from Hammerfell."

You can tell where I get my inspiration from for shock/gore chapters now.