Morning awoke, the dawn broke in the sky, and Sonic continued to clasp himself as he choked and sputtered on the mucus that was clinging in his throat, in his nose. The illness seemed to get worse, it still continued to clasp him with great wicked black hands as he fought to breathe, fought to conceive of why he was sick with this cystic fibrosis, much like his brother who died of the same illness, who died of the same wicked monsters named Fate and Disease, who wanted Sonic to rot in the ground with him. Of course, as long as he kept battling demons he would still be able to live (although suffering from the wretched disease), but if he caused the same errors as his brother, he knew that that would be it. Even if his brother's typewriter beckoned him to arise and write more elaborate stories about crows, even if it beckoned him to fall into the details of the worlds he described, of the creatures and characters he devised, and of the situations he planned, he was dead, to return to it, no more. His lungs were so filled with soot and thick yellow slime that he couldn't breathe anymore. And this would happen to Sonic too if he never fought the other gods for their demon eggs, to replenish his folklore. But how he got it was the question. He remembered about asking Chip to raise his brother from the dead, to cure him of his illness, but he didn't know where his brother was at. He knew he couldn't return home, as he wished to remain missing, to not have his mother and father to realize of their sins in raising a child and to lock him in the house. He realized if such a thing had happen he would be able to get out with his godlike powers, but he didn't believe in breaking the promises of caring parents, of his brother, if he was there at all.

But everything crumbled apart after his brother died. His mother drank more as if she was always dehydrated to decay, and his father continued to sit in the den, watching the news, paranoid of the world. They always acted like this to a certain degree, but it worsened when the news of the only son they cared about was gone, the only son that they praised, that they noticed that wasn't hiding in the linoleum and the papered flowers in the walls, and their hearts blackened, rotted away, and now they only cared about the other worlds that lied awake for them, the world of having a delirium, the world of terrorist attacks and explosions and the rotting flesh of the men who wished to protect a country that lied to them about saving a land that was pitiful and nearly beyond repair, and Sonic himself thought that he was the same. Pitiful. Beyond repair. There was a pile of broken, dirty dishes last time he looked at the sink as he left his house. His mother said she was doing the dishes with bloody, cut and serrated fingers, and as she stumbled in the drunken morning with her case of Merlot by the fridge, Sonic didn't even say goodbye. He thought it didn't matter to either of them. It was Wind they cared about. It was Wind they talked to. Ever since he was alive, his mother and father only exchanged a few words, a quiet, solitary childhood except he exchanged stories with his brother, and even with his childish and stumbling-with-the-keys-with-his-small-pudgy-fingers finesse, they typed out a story on his father's old typewriter (as his father used to be a reporter back in the 60s, a time where his father actually went outside of the house and was remembered as a intelligent, bright man with many friends). And Sonic wished he could remember what the story was about, as it was a fond memory of how much him and his brother bonded over that chilling afternoon in September, in the arctic sunlight as it glazed over their father's desk, as the trees were turning fiery orange and his father was preparing to make a bonfire, the smells of burning leaves as it sapped all their dew and rain as they curled up and turned black as the fire devoured all the orange like an eater of colors, and he wished he could have those better times with his brother again. Even if he stole all the love from his parents, he realized that he stole the love out of him too, and even if there were times where they fought, times where they cursed and screamed and called each other obscenities, they were tight-knit, a woven thread of red.

And he carried out his illness. He carried out everything that made his brother dead. He coughed again, as the sunlight reached out to him with a golden palm, and he thought he could hear his brother's voice echoing inside his head, wanting him to remember of the other times where they were friends, not a carcass that looked frail and white, not a broken brother who no longer knew what was wrong and what was right.

Remember the time…Remember the time where we went to the beach, and we collected a lot of seashells? I liked some of them because they looked like opals when the light refracted them, their pink and green and purple coated hides, and I wondered if we could live like the hermit crabs that had shells like that, to have a house like that, to live on our own except with each other and just write stories all day, without anyone bothering us. All I ever wanted in life was to be a hermit Sonic, to write my stories all day and think about them without anyone bothering me, and even if no one reads them, I'd have lived out my dreams, my fantasies, my world as I want it to be, as I create all these characters and they all do my bidding, you know, like a god. I can live like a god in my own little home, my own little shell, without mom and dad telling me I have to go to soccer practice (you know how much they wanted to be like the all-American boy) or that I need to go to school learning things I already and don't need to know. Sometimes my stories are all I need in this world. My characters only understand me, and maybe you do too, Sonic. Maybe I shouldn't have become a god. Maybe I should've just got a meager job like everyone else and just lived out in an apartment away from them (but of course you can come visit any time you want Sonic), and just write in my typewriter, the same one dad used back when he was a man, not a slouched beast watching the news all day and wondering what these reporters have got more than him. I got support from my illness on the Internet from strangers who expressed their apologies on how fragile people can be, but the only one who truly wanted to listen to me was the typewriter, and you.

You're listening, right Sonic?

Right Sonic?

Are you there?

With eyes full of tears he wished the world would never see, he slammed the payphone on the receiver and sobbed, on a day that rained like last night, blue and gray and white like Seattle usually was.

Please insert 25 cents if you wish to make a call, the phone droned on and on. Please insert 25 cents if you wish to make a call. Insert 25 cents. 25 cents. 25 cents…

His brother was in a hospital, as blue and gray and as white as Seattle. He was bone-thin and small and hooked up to so many wires and tubes, like a child's doll hung up with strings, as the child didn't want to play with it anymore and the spider soon made a web in the concaves of his shelf. He couldn't imagine that such a thing could happen to him. Him and his brother, they were always the only friends they had in life. Sonic never bothered making friends with anyone as he deemed them boring and flat, his brother was always teased and picked on on how small he was, how much of a "nerd" he was because his face was always hidden by a book. Always something by Dickens or Steinbeck or Thoreau. His brother was such a genius with words that he was considered a prodigy, as he read classics as early as age 9. And because he never fit in with the other children, he was always the target of bullies. But Sonic knew it was because they were jealous, because his teachers had him picked out for a soccer team as a goalie because they felt sorry for him, because they wanted to please his parents as they would say it was one of his dying wishes. Sonic was an outcast, never being liked much by the other kids, but he requested to his principal that he wanted his brother to remain in the same school as him no matter how smart he was (even if he missed a few assignments due to his illness), because he was his protector, his guardian from the bullies. Even if Sonic was never noticed by other kids like his parents, bullies feared him, because he considered himself stronger and fitter than them, and he could throw a good punch if he was angry. He made them cry and promise to never pick on poor Wind ever again, because he was his brother, and they would always remain friends who would stand by each other.

But he couldn't protect his brother from a disease he had since he was a baby. He couldn't protect him from having the wrong DNA, the wrong genes. He couldn't protect him from being in a hospital about to die. And he felt helpless. He felt as helpless as this phone, that wished for him to insert 25 cents into its slot, the operator who told him over and over again there was not a single person who was called God and no he had to use prayer to talk to him, not a simple phonecall. Please insert 25 cents if you wish to make a call. Please insert another 25 cents if you wish to talk to one of God's advisers.

So he inserted another 25 cents.

The voice on the other end sounded sweet and melodic, but yet it belonged to a man, as he said, I know someone you can talk to when your brother dies. You'll have to be willing to make a deal with him. Because if you really wish to bring your brother back to life, it's going to cost you a life of misery, a life of pain, a life of guilt and regret.

"And what's that going to be?" he asked, his voice sullen and hollow. "I'd rather have my brother have a happy life than me living out my life without knowing what kind of a man he could've been if God gave him another chance at life."

Well, here's the kicker: you're going to have to become God yourself. Have a life just like the big guy. And you know how much He suffers? Hoo wee, you should've seen Him when His son died. He was all tears and sweat. Of course, some say that God has multiple personalities and that His son was another form of Him, and in a way that's true, because God suffered so much He split into three people, if you know what I mean.

"Wait…" Sonic held the phone away from his ear, his eyes trying to see through the man at the other side, what he looked like, and why he was telling him these things. If only voices you didn't know contained the images of the person saying it.

"Who the hell are you? Why are you talking to me? You're saying you can bring my brother back to life, but…"

But what exactly, my little man?

"But you're…you're…"

I know exactly of what you're saying, and unfortunately, I think your time ran out. Got another 25 cents? This is a payphone after all. And turns out this is a tolled line. Unless you want to hear that woman's sweet voice telling you of putting another 25 cents in, I'm afraid that I'm…

"I don't got another 25 cents! Please tell me what you-…"

Goodbye.

Please insert another 25 cents if you wish to remain on the line.

He could hear the droning beeps, the droning wet sound of the cars as they drove on by, their wheels hitting puddles and gravels, their red lights swiveling and fading into the star-studded night, as the amber lights awoke, as he could see the buildings and the people flicker to light as if someone hit a switch on the world's panels.

And he placed the receiver back on the phone, silent, wondering if the whole thing he experienced was actually tangible or just a dream, just a psychotic hallucination he made up from the trauma of his brother dying.

And it was raining again. The nights turned from blue gray and white to black gold and red. He opened his umbrella and walked back to his parent's apartment, looking to see if he could find the lights from the Harborview Medical Center from the distance, seeing the one room his brother was in was flicked off, as he was sent to the world of dreams, the world of forgetting.

And he told his parents the tears from his eyes were just the raindrops that gathered on his face.

He could see the cityscape before him in the golden mouth of the sun as it drew its tongue on everything, the lights weren't as bright as they used to be as the red green and yellow became only shrunken silhouettes of color, as the sun outshined everything, as the people went back to bed, as some were ready for work, ready for church, ready for chores and errands and not the temptations that night brought. The sun was holy, and everyone now had to do holy things in front of the holy sun, because the sun was God's golden eye that he used to see everything that happened in the streets, and as Sonic's shadow grew long and lanky, his throat was still clogged and his nose was just getting used to the warmth of the day, as he sneezed and hack and felt himself as frail and as swollen as the streetlights, and he thought he could hear his brother's voice again, as he stared out into the horizon.

Sonic…

It's…

Me…

It's me, Wind…

I'm inside you…

You're sick with my disease…

I gave you the illness, I gave you the reason why you're coughing and hacking…

I'm killing you my brother…

I'm killing you…

He wished he could pull the voice straight from his head, to see who it was was speaking to him.

He heard the phenomena of schizophrenics hearing voices in their heads. And he thought he could've been one of them. He's been hearing this voice that sounded like his brother for all of this time he's been a god, and he wondered if the god business was going to make him insane. Make him as sick as his brother, except it would all be in his brain, not his lungs. His genes cursed him too. There was a schizophrenic in their family, and he was their father.

Sonic, never mind that. You're not schizophrenic, I'm sure you're not! It's just me…inside your body. I was revived, but I was put inside your body. I don't know why, but I guess Chip has a thing with me being alive in the world, especially that I didn't obey his order of fighting those demons like I was supposed to. And…I think you're sick, Sonic. If Chip isn't merciful, that…will kill you. And I'm sorry about that.

His eyes grew smaller the more his brother spoke. It couldn't be, could it? That his brother was stuck inside him? That he was a hedgehog with two halves, one belonging to his brother? He couldn't possibly be, especially that his brother was still alive somewhere, in his parents' apartment, writing out his stories. He couldn't be…

No Sonic, it's true. I am inside you. We are two hedgehogs in one. Like God actually was three people in one entity. Chip revived me, only to put me in your body. I'm pretty much the stuffing inside a toy, to make you more alive-like, I guess. Which means you have my illness. This is why you're sick right now, Sonic. You have cystic fibrosis and it's all my fault for giving that to you. I'm the one who got the bad genes, not you!

"I already knew that, Wind," he said softly. "But I'm wondering right now if I'm crazy. You know how our father was. He used to be a respectable guy before, until he started to write reports on the men who were coming to get him. He even once had plans to assassinate the president and the FBI put him in a high-security mental hospital, one for the criminally insane, remember that? And sometimes I think I'm going to end up like him. My mom even said when she was drunk I was going to end up like my father. It's…"

No Sonic, that won't happen. I won't make it happen. We're a team, right, like you said? That we're going to defeat anyone who says otherwise? I will try to protect you like you tried to protect me, Sonic. Back when those bullies wouldn't leave me be. When you shoved them away and showed them that you weren't going to have them touch a finger on me. I…really wished we could go back to the way it was before, Sonic.

"What do you mean? You became a god before I knew of this mess and dad and mom were always acting weird when you got even sicker. I don't want to go back to the times where you were going to die. Not now, not ever. I couldn't imagine myself to be in my life without you, you made dad and mom's rantings more tolerable…"

I'm not talking about that Sonic, he said with a whisper that Sonic's mental ears could barely discern. I'm talking about the good times we had. You can't be thinking of the times where I was really sick all the time! If all you will remember me by are those memories, then you won't remember me fondly. I remember actually one night, Sonic…you were only two, but when mom laid me in the crib, and we were alone, you rocked it to get me to sleep. You sung me songs. You read those books by the hamper and I swear that was when I got the passion in reading and writing stories, Sonic. Because you read them with such excitement and emotion in your voice that even when I was a baby I thought of making stories in my head. And then when you were 4 you heard my stories, and then we used dad's old typewriter to type them out, you using the keys while I just dictated them. And even if it wasn't the best story, that was a moment where I knew we would help each other, always. But I knew I should've never became a god, Sonic. Because I didn't know what I was getting into. I realized with all that writing, with that gift of madness both Chip and our father gave us…it pulled me away further from you.

"I know."

He reflected on what his brother said, his eyes dulled of listening to the milky memories of "The Good Times", back when their parents weren't insane and his brother wasn't as sick as he used to be. Though what came out of that memory he knew was the pure white and blue tiles from the hospital room in Harborview, where his brother struggled to breathe, surrounded only by the plastic arms of tubes, and even if he told his parents he wanted to be there with him, they advised him to only watch behind the glass, as Wind asked why God forsake him and why he was so ill as a child. And from then on, it was his brother constantly trying to keep himself above the surface, of diving deep into the sea-colored wallpaper of the hospital, and of being on dry land with him and their school life. And soon, his brother's wallpaper was the same color as Harborview's. He wasn't sure what the purpose was, other than to remind himself that he was going to die soon, and that he only had a limited amount of days before he could finish his stories.

His brother spoke again, as he watched the reddened sky change to a pale pink, then to a turquoise blue, like the sky was just an infant, then it grew to what the sky was supposed to be.

I didn't want to be like typical writers, Sonic. Like Hemingway and Bukowski and all those other guys who drink so much and fuck women and snort cocaine like the world was going to end tomorrow. I wanted to be a true to honest, pure to the soul guy who writes all he can and either warns or charms or delights or shocks people with the words he just birthed. Just a guy who wants to tell stories and hopefully people can learn something from them. I don't want to be rich. I don't want to live the big, fancy life. Just as long as I had books, and you, and my typewriter and laptop, that was all I needed in the world. Sex, money, fame…those are all illusions the writers made up so more people could be storytellers, but only shitty storytellers could come of people who only wished to write who wanted all those things. Writing is about extracting from your heart with a scalpel, and letting your heart bleed as you wrench it out and show it to the world. That's what I wanted to do with my heart before I died. I wanted to make my own death. Not succumb to this cystic fibrosis bullshit. I wanted to tell the world of my heart, my story, but I never finished the one I was really set on before I died, and that really blows. I hoped I could write it again, Sonic. You're a god, right? Can you make a typewriter appear out of thin air?

Then he remembered his story. The black binder he carried that drifted down the city streets of Seattle, and he wasn't sure of what his brother would think, that he forgot his life story, his bleedings, his carvings of the heart.

"Shit, I just remembered something, Wind. I was attacked by Quetzalcoatl two days ago, and when he attacked me, I forgot about your binder to the story you gave me. I know you're going to be mad when you hear that, but…I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been careless with your life's work. I know that…"

That's okay, Sonic.

His ears pricked open, his eyes became swollen and big as the sun glowed defiantly on his face, midst the clouds that were gathering near it, preparing for the rain parade.

"What do you mean 'that's okay'? That was…your life's work, Wind! How can you be so…so…"

I can be a better writer with you around Sonic. We can just simply make a much better copy. We can make a copy that's going to be very important, because it's written by you. And I was always inspired by you, Sonic. You were the real reason I got into this mess. I guess this was the reason you got into it too, because you wanted me back. Maybe we can even make a new story Sonic, about you, about the battles you faced when you were a god, the world around you being so different when you can see everything and hear everything and have all that power. I don't care if this story never reaches to the shelves, this can be our story, and it shall be. It will be our testament as brothers, one sick, and one a god. What do you think? Think you can lend the morning and afternoon to writing? You can just press the keys of course, while I tell you the story.

"I don't know, Wind. If Shadow gets another reporting of a demon egg, I'm going to have to leave. After all, if I don't get any of my folklore filled up, then I could die from your illness. So it's important I see every demon egg that's laid in the city, so I can stay alive. Remember what happened to you? That you basically wrote all day and all night and you didn't faced any demons at all? How can you write your novel when you know that there are people who are suffering out there because of the demons that are running loose in the city? Did you ever consider that?"

No Sonic…there was more of a reason that I didn't fight the demons like Chip asked me to. Not only did my novel compelled me to write more of it, especially when it was really getting good and the words pumping from my veins were made from gold, there's something about…that furry guy that you ought to know. Chip isn't the guy you really think he is. He is a timekeeper, but not a…not a…

"Not a what?"

Not a…

The word echoed into his mind repeatedly as Shadow landed near him on the building in a sudden display of black, metallic feathers, and he prepared to light his first Marlboro in the morning to fight against the chilly morning. He protected the flame with a palm as he lit it up with a small flickering orange flame, the silver smoke pilfering from his nose and mouth as he thought of all the bizarre things he was seeing today, which was Sonic talking to himself, talking to an invisible person who was made of glass.

He looked in the mirrors that Sonic would display around his wings, and as he stared at himself, the bloodied hedgehog who was injured and torn and abused, he thought he could see someone else in the cigarette's fog. Someone half Sonic's size looked up to him, with green eyes that flickered like his lighter, telling him of secrets, of hushed memories, of times long past. Shadow assumed this was a child, but on closer inspection, he revealed that he was actually 14 years old, and his nose constantly ran thick rivers of yellow white mucus, and he seemed to always have a problem with breathing, as he tried to heave his chest to suck in all the air, especially from Shadow's smoke.

"And who are you talking to, Sonic? Yourself? As if you'd be interested in anything you'd have to say about your life? You tell me it's so boring that you wanted to be a god in the first place."

He eyed the small hedgehog that looked up to him, once with brave, pointy eyes that would stab his skull, and then it seemed to want to hide behind Sonic, as his nose and lungs shriveled from the running, from the inhaling of the smoke.

Should I tell him that I hear a voice in my head that's supposed to be my brother? And that we were going to discuss on who Chip really is? My brother wouldn't lie to me about all those things, wouldn't he? That there was more of a reason he chose to read and write his novel than fighting demons and keeping his life in balance, right?

No. He would never lie to me about anything.

Sonic's face was solemn in the glare of the sunlight, as Shadow thought his eyes were hidden again, as he could see his lips, pale and his fangs showing a lustrous gleam as he boldly spoke to him, to keep the secret of the Little Hedgehog intact.

"Shadow, is there more to Chip than I know of? Is there something…wrong with him?"

He inhaled his cigarette, his chest expanding as he breathed in all the tobacco, all the sweet nicotine he needed to get through all this nonsense, especially from this Sonic that he didn't want to become a god in the first place, and he breathed out, the great exhale of smoke drifting off to the city, mixing in with the smog of gasoline down below, as the cars shrilled their horns as they tried to get to their jobs before 8:00.

"He's a little weird, and that's it. All timekeepers are a little weird. Because they worry so much on the flow of time. If any minute or second didn't get through in this river, they go ballistic, because they think all it takes is just that one second, just that one minute, and all that time blocks so much that the river overflows, and suddenly time runs too fast, or too slow, or seems to freeze altogether. He makes sure each human life has used up all the allotted time on this planet, each making a slight imprint on the world, before he either sends them to heaven, purgatory, or hell. In a way, Chip is God. Or as I like to think of it, God's secretary who tries to keep the doors flowing. All timekeepers do that job for God."

"But…I heard something. That he's keeping an agenda here. That there's more to him than we think. That despite his cute looks, he's…"

He dropped the used up cigarette stick and smashed it with his foot, the ember ebbing away as he rubbed it against the concrete. "There's nothing more to him than you need to know. Just do your job and don't question anything, Sonic. You're a god. You're a worker in the beehive. If one thing goes wrong, the queen doesn't get to feed, and she doesn't give birth to more shriveling white maggot babies, and the whole hive can't work anymore because none of the workers are doing their job and always questioning why bees have to do this. Sometimes if you just do something and don't ask anything of it, you can get some honey out of it. And this hive will continue to pour sweet golden honey unless one of you has to…"

"But questioning was all I ever did, Shadow. Of why I was born into the fucked up family I was, why my brother seemed to be so sick, of why no one seemed to know me or even hear of my name, and if I'm not going to question the boss and his background, then…"

"Then you die. That's all there is to it. You question, you don't work, and you die. Sometimes life isn't full of questions. It's full of actions. Question everything, and do nothing, and you won't get your answers. Can we agree on that?" Just the thought of him asking more of these questions was making him want another cigarette. The gods always complained of him chain smoking, wanting a cigarette after every five minute interval in the day, but he truly loved the calming effect cigarettes had after dealing with these idiot gods who knew nothing but yet wanted everything. It simply never ended.

"So if Chip told us to go jump off a bridge, would you do it? Would you not question anything, on why he wanted you to do that job, and suddenly you're dead because you were stupid enough to listen to every word he said?"

"If we went and jumped off a bridge, we wouldn't die. We would simply use our wings and land safely, whether we were thinking of it or not. Dipshit." He wanted to reach for another Marlboro, but he tried to hold it off. Hold it off until another dangerous situation arrived, until another half hour reared its ugly head. "And who's your little buddy you've been talking to? I can see him with both my godlike abilities and inside your mirrors. You're talking to someone about our godlike life."

"It was because he used to been a god, Shadow. And he's stuck inside my body. He's my brother, Wind."

"Your brother, huh? The same one you wanted to revive? And now you have his illness, and if you don't get any folklore in time, you will die a slow, miserable death like your brother did moments ago. Dumbass." He flicked his lighter on, watching the blue lady inside the flame contort and sway to the wind. It was hypnotizing, watching flames dance.

"And this is exactly why I'm asking you if there's something wrong with Chip, because he didn't fill out my wish. He made a twist of it. Is it simply because he didn't fight the demons like he was supposed to? Is that it? Or is it because Chip seems to have some kind of agenda against me and you?"

He opened the lid to his lighter, over and over, delicately with his thumb as he thought over his words. "Part of it. He always has an agenda against those who don't listen to him. And that's part of why he hates me. Because I tried to warn you of this whole business and I did a couple other things that he didn't like in the past, and that's why he tells all the gods of how much of a bad god I am and how good they were for being obedient. And I guess I'll learn my lesson. That I should listen to a man and not question anything, because if you don't, it only leads to misery, because this man is most likely in charge of your life."

His ears straightened, poked through the air, as he could hear the sound of demons having sex. Heaving and grunting their heavy red bodies together, screaming and shouting and scratching and biting and kissing passionately and the demon man simply wants nothing more with the demon woman when he's done, and they leave the egg lying in the streets, ready to kill so many people. Having a screaming, shriveling, white maggot baby that was crying and crying its little red shrunken head, ready to destroy the entire city, ready to destroy people's lives, because his mom and dad abandoned him simply for the pleasure of sex and nothing more.

"Shit! Sonic, this is an end to your questioning, because I can hear a demon egg being laid at EPM, and if we don't get there before that egg hatches then something…terrible will happen to the humans in there. And you know how Chip doesn't like the unnecessary deaths of human lives. We have to hurry, and you better bring your little brother with you, so he knows exactly what fighting a demon will feel like, not the constant rattling of your brain as you try to find the next few words in a story no one will ever read. Maybe you can even help your brother out, teach him the abilities you used to know when you were Anansi, Wind. Even if you seemed to have no abilities at all except your tongue could sew words."

Sonic heard of the place called EPM. It was a music concert hall and museum about a bus drive from his apartment, with the building decorated with metal that shone in so many vivid colors of the spectrum, according to the show that was playing inside the glass heart-shaped building. He never has been in there, as it was simply too expensive for him to see anything worth viewing, but it was a popular spot, to veterans and tourists and newcomers alike, and the death toll that could arise from a demon awaking from its egg…it would be massive. And it would be something plastered on all over the media. That his father would watch with sleep-deprived glassy eyes, knowing that the world was full of terrorists, and they were striking here, and soon they would strike him. And soon, his CNN watching days would be over, as he was right all along, that the terrorists hated America, and they hated him, for simply knowing of their hate, and knowing that he hated America too, but yet he didn't want to die.

And he knew he simply couldn't let his father sink deeper into his paranoia, even if he cut all ties with him. Even if his brother was inside his body, it was what he would've wished. Sonic cared little for his family, but Wind loved them for everything they did to try to help him, before they both succumbed to their respective insanities. And he thought he would try to pay them back as much as he could, even if it was something small, even if it was just making sure their father wouldn't dive deeper into his psychosis coated pool.

With another sputter and hack, and more spitting and coughing more yellow stringy mucus, he made his white, clear, effervescent wings rise, and the sun made it shine like the glass in the EPM building, glowing a violent violet as the clouds rolled on by in its skin, and he could hear the demon child crying, wanting its mother and father to come back, about ready to deal death with the palm of his ruddied and stone-like pointy fingers.

And they could still see the golden bird in the air, staring into their wings deeply with his emerald studded eyes.