Alone, in the house that was cold, desecrated, fetid with the smell of loneliness and piss and fear. Sitting in the corner of the room, he rocked back and forth, watching the tiles crawl like insects, eating every last bit of sanity he had. The black hedgehog's fingers held aloft on the cutting moon, and he felt the blood rush down, the light rush down his eyes. His voice strangled, pinioned by chains, the irises begetting the rise he once had in his dogma, his power, his ability, but they were only torn poinsettias, and he gazed at the broken fingertips, fluid with the red release, and he wondered if he still had enough power to reach the chimney, to fire the wood like a grill, to hear the sizzling of his own enemies in his mind.

He dragged his corpse around the room. His legs might as well been fractured, broken, fragmented. A slug that was carrying its slimy entrails, leaving behind a viscous path. He wasn't sure how he got here. He wasn't sure how the events all went down that caused him to be in this house, to have his only friend die off, his arms bruised, as broken as his mind, in several different pieces of colored glass.

The voices continued to speak, with their sharp, shrapnel words.

You're never going to survive…

You're a piece of shit!

You should kill yourself now!

Mommy, are we going to be okay?

He managed to sear the chimney on, the fire reflecting the glass inside him, the Others' eyes glowing like pieces of tourmaline, topaz, and sapphires. He wanted the jewels gone. He wanted their eyes to pluck off, to be worn by anyone who could love them. No one could. No one could love The Others!

He heard the door open, a man wearing red, with a white wise beard, a man from the legends of Mordor, and he smiled, his bright red cheeks so prominent in the dark, as he said, "Merry Christmas, Sonic!"

Sonic…

I'm not Sonic…

I'm Shadow…Shadow the Hedgehog…

And I'm Silver! I have come to take away the Iblis Trigger!

Shut the hell up, all of you!

His eyes of tourmaline had sparkled again, his fur blue, ocean-soaked, and his body was so beaten, scarred, and he wasn't sure why the fat jolly man was here, or what he wanted to do with him. He had other problems to think about. The Others. They constantly beat in his head with their multi-colored fists. And his lips, so ashened with scarlet puss, he opened the gift he gave him, as the red man went to his sleigh, with his many reindeer ready to take him away.

The gift opened, revealing a note written in barely legible handwriting, from his son, Tails, and his wife, Amy:

We're looking for you. We want to spend the holidays with you. We hope nothing bad is happening.

Love,

Tails and Amy

He fell asleep. He soon woke up in his bed, dreaming a wretched dream, a dream that he hoped would never happen. Never to his family. Never to his son, his wife.

As he slipped on slippers as the Christmas tree dazzled in the light, he heard voices whispering in his migrained head, telling him that The Others were just born on Jesus christening day, and they were ready, any time, to come home for the holidays.