AN: I am sorry for my meltdown earlier and I have gained back my writing ability after a brief psychotic episode and have finally completed this chapter.

Chapter 8 will be next.

His wings glimmered in the red outcast sun that was lying in the waste of the horizon, with the blood of its face traveling towards the edge of the sky into the knife edges of the sea. The blood was mixing in with the gray Seattle sea, the drips from the sword staining the tears of the sea dragon, as it cried over its lost meal that was now free and flying in the sky. The sky looked much like the red screaming face of a baby, as it sat wavering over him, believing that his wings would melt like the story of Icarus where he made his wings out of wax and feathers.

He kept hearing the sad melancholy voice of Miles Prower, the child that claimed that his mother and father didn't care for him, that the other children teased him, that he constantly drew pictures of a lemon yellow sun over the bladed mountains, but it still wouldn't shine brighter, it was still dark and faded, and the child wished he had a sun that would shine over him in his life, the child that constantly cried and constantly reached his arms towards God, but God forsake him, and never wanted to pick him up. He was never picked up into the sky, into the soft clouds with the stars that rested their points tucked into their sides, as he saw and kissed the moon, the one silky eye that constantly watched over everything, the eye of God, the eye that he wished would look upon him with love.

The benevolent hands. The benevolent face. Sonic realized it didn't reach for Miles at all. The child continued to cry, with a voice that reminded him of his brother's, back when he used to be a child, calling for him to help him, calling for a bigger brother to read a story for him into the night, the blue lonely cold gaze of the sky and the one bright white eye that watched everything but only granted him one wish that there could be a god to watch him, and nothing more. Sonic's wings shined like silver, the sky bleeding from his sharp blades, the bright red pitiful mouth of the afternoon sun. He thought he could see the white teeth of the stars and the yellow tongues. And he flew, above the Seattle streets, to see the child, to make him happy, to make him warm, to make him protected and loved, like the brother he used to be, the brother that was inside him, sick, wasted inside, wanting to type more of his stories, but Sonic told him to shush, even if the constant pit and the constant running animation of his stories was inside his head. He yearned for a typewriter to scream out his words and his plots and his sagas, but Sonic told him the stories inside his soul, the words of his heart, had to wait.

Sonic's godlike sense of direction had told me that the child lived on South Jackson Street, the busy highways of Seattle that even if there were so many people who walked by his home, Miles had always felt utterly alone inside his world, the gray sea and the gray sky the only friends he had, but even they weren't so comforting to him. He wished he could see the blue pastel face of the sky again, but the rainy days had made it hard for him to breathe, always smelling the salty sea that he grew to hate, the sounds of his elementary school he despised, simply because the children had hated him because he was so different, so strange, with his two tails and his intellect and how the colors of his pictures never seemed to shine so much more for him, and he wished he could live inside his pictures, to get away from the gray skies and the gray sea and the sound of children laughing without him, into the world with the mountaintops as sharp as pointed needles, the snow always seeming to stop with sharp white teeth, and the sun that shined a glazed lemon yellow. The sky was gray there too, but on top of those mountains, he felt like a Buddhist monk, meditating on how he could end all the world's suffering, reaching his zen on top of the arctic tops, and he drew a small golden yellow figure with two tails, meditating, as he wished he could reach the ozone of the world and never be seen by anybody else except God and the birds that could reach the apex of the mountains, with the crows that waited on his body to drop dead any minute, that he knew he could simply "accidentally" fall off the the brown and white needles and fall to his death, and his eternal suffering that zen couldn't even wash away would end, but Miles heard of all the rumors that when you killed yourself, you would automatically be sent to Hell, that his God would forsake him, despite his suffering reaching as high as these mountaintops he drew with crayons, but he thought God was simply a cruel god, one that preyed on the children who wished that someone out there in that wide green and blue world that he remembered coloring with his crayons would love him. Even if there was one god who was flying away to meet his prayer, he thought his prayer was simply a hopeless one, that no one was going to love him, and he would be as lonely as the mountaintops, with only the snow hugging them, with only the gray skies adorned with ravens waiting for someone unlucky enough to fall off the peaks, and the lemon yellow sun with that golden eye that simply saw all the suffering in the world and sighed, as it transformed into a silver moon on a royal blue sky adorned with tinsel colored stars, and continued to watch the child cry into the night that he thought was benevolent, as his tears were suddenly wiped away by white bladed wings that didn't care to cut into his face, and the god with the blue fur, the green eyes, the scar on his cheek and the hands that were still bruised underneath, he reached to the child's home in as quick as a few minutes, and he covered him with the feathery blanket, with the cooing of his voice, with the comfort of his eyes, and he said, "I'm here now. Whether God is benevolent or not, I'm here. I'm here to make everything better."

The house was covered with thick red carpets and thick red curtains and with thick red walls. There were no doors that weren't broken, and the kitchen was as lemon yellow as the sun in the mountaintops, but even if it reminded Miles of such a soothing color, his parents were often in the kitchen, ignoring him and not even realizing that he existed. They simply thought of him as an afterthought, and he rarely saw them as he rarely if ever ventured out of his room except in the morning to go to school, and his mother would always leave a couple of dollars for his lunch money, and she would leave for work, and his father would sleep and never think of how his son felt. Rarely were any words exchanged between them all, and Miles often thought that they weren't parents at all, but just lonesome spirits who haunted the house, who reminded him of their presence by the smoking of Newport's and the laughter that rang throughout the halls that reminded him of the same laughter that he thought the insane held in their chests, and he could hear them doing their drugs, the snorting and the cutting and the crushing and the powdery white mess that remained on the kitchen counter that Miles thought could've been in his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he made in the Saturday afternoons when his parents never thought of taking him out anywhere to eat or to even give him anything in their fridge that wasn't strawberry jelly or a half jar of natural peanut butter that he hated, but sometimes even if the residue was on his sandwich, he ate it. Because it made him feel numb. It made him forget the pain that was inside him. Only painkillers could take it away. Only Roxy's could do that.

Everything was red inside his home, as his parents often thought it was the color of royalty, the color of richness, the color of splendor and passion, but to Miles, it was the color of violence, the color of blood, as he often drew himself bleeding after many knives entered his small paper stomach on his drawings. The knives were only made of lead and crayons. They couldn't hurt him in this world. Until he could have the razorblades that were used to cut up the Roxy's in small thin little white lines, and he thought he could make small little thin red lines on his body, to give him his own little painkillers. The pain inside his mind, anyways. He wasn't so sure about the physical pain he would harvest.

But he felt so comforted by his wings, by his voice, by how everything around him made all the threatening red turn to a bright shade of pink. He wondered if God really was benevolent to send him an angel to help him. He wondered if God never turned a blind eye towards him. Sonic knew all about younger children by just taking care of his brother a long time ago. He would rock his crib and read him all the stories that soon inspired him. He remembered he read to him Where the Wild Things Are possibly a hundred times, and his brother never grew tired of his voice telling the same story, the trees that soon grew in his room that soon grew around them, and his brother who was now inside him wished that he would let him type out his stories, but even he was quiet as Sonic lifted Miles and kept telling him that everything was okay now, because he would love him forever, and his parents would soon disappear at the snap of his fingers, because he could do anything he wanted, he could make his life a brighter shade of colors, he could make him reach his zen that he thought only existed in the mountaintops, he could make the sun, the golden eye of God, see him and realize that he would be happy, he would be loved, which was the only thing that Miles truly wanted in the end. For just someone to listen to him, to understand him, to hear his words and never mind them as the only thing important to the spirits that haunted the home was Roxies and their television and their Newports and their plastic face that was melting a little by each day that passed, but they didn't think of their child that roamed the house like a spirit too, their Miles. But they didn't even remember his name. They only called him by his true name, "The Boy", and nothing else. But this guardian angel that was here with him, he would never call him "The Boy" or "It" or any other variation, but just simply Miles.

He didn't know where his parents were at this time of night, at 11 PM, even if it was a school night. They were possibly out to get more Roxies. More pills and more alcohol. Sonic cradled him close to his body, and simply whispered sweet words to his ears. He never felt this safe before in his life, not even when he was born, possibly not even when he was in the womb. Even if he stayed up this late drawing all his emotions out, that he didn't even plan to go to sleep until possibly 1 AM in the morning like he usually did, he soon passed out in Sonic's warm arms, as he looked out in the waning stars, the waning moon that was one of God's eyes, the silver one, and he simply sighed as he carefully and gently laid him on his bed, tucked him in, and heard his parents coming back from their drug expedition, as they shook their little baggies and he could hear them taking their prescription pill bottles and crushing the pills into snow, gathering it all with their silver bulldozer, then snorting it into their brain veins, and he wished that Miles never had to hear this ever again in his life. And soon they talked in slow slurred voices, while the wafting smell of cigarettes filled the kitchen, and they laughed like the insane and soon fell asleep on the same chairs they did their drugs in, while Sonic knew they would never see him because he was invisible. He knew that people like Miles' parents never believed in any other god but their drugs, and he wondered if there was a god of painkillers and heroin and cocaine, but Chip would never appoint anyone as a god like that. But he knew they would never die because their folklore would constantly be replenished.

And he soon sat on the edge of Miles' bed, and he soon fell asleep, as God's golden eye soon shot up into the sky and made the stars invisible in the sky, and the sky became as bright and as bloody as Miles' pictures, his suicidal dreams and wishes. And he thought the sky must've been suicidal to die every night and to let its spirit rest until it was revived the next day, with wombed blood.

—

Miles soon awoke to the electronic green lights and the siren sound of his alarm clock, as he knew even his parents didn't give a shit, he had to go to school, simply because he felt obliged to it, simply because even if his parents were committing illegal act upon illegal act, he never wished to be truly alone in the world, without his spirits to slightly recognize him as "The Boy", while the children constantly hated him for being who he was. But maybe the teachers cared. They called him by name. They gave him a good lunch even if it was considered unhealthy. They gave him knowledge. And that was more than this home could ever do for him.

He saw his guardian angel sleeping upright on his bed, with his wings at rest, with his arms folded, snoring. He thought that last night was only a dream. But it was truly real, as real as this guardian angel was, and he gently shook him, as he lifted one blue eyelid to open one jaded eye, and he smiled, and said, "Good morning Miles."

"Is it really true that I'm not dreaming? Is it really true that God did answer my prayers and gave me a guardian angel to help me and love me? Be honest please. Because if you lie to me, you're not an angel. Because angels don't lie."

Sonic gave a small chuckle, as he ruffled his hair to form more yellow soft splinters on his head. He didn't even remember when the last time his father spirit had done that. It seemed to be so long ago since the spirit actually loved him, and not the drugs that made him function through his life. Without the Roxies, his father wouldn't even live anymore. Even if he had his own child to raise, he would possibly commit suicide, just like Miles was wont to do.

And he thought he wouldn't even care if his father was gone, but he wished that Sonic could replace him. Because Sonic seemed to be a father figure, someone who could take care of him, someone who would love him and nurture him. A real father from above.

"No, of course I'm not lying to you. I heard your prayer, because you see, I'm a god, and it's my job to make as many people as I can reach happy, and your prayer interested me. Because you see, I used to have a brother, who was as teased as you, and even if he was close to death, no one seemed to respect him. No one seemed to realize that with very little time, he was going to die. He was going to be free from my grasp."

He paused. Even if he wished to Chip that his brother was alive in flesh and veins and blood and heart and mind, he wasn't. He was instead inside him, a small, weak heart that was closed in the door of his bigger, more healthier one. He inhabited his soul, his body, his warm home, and he was a spirit himself, like Miles' parents. He still yearned for the typewriter, but he still had to wait. The typewriter was soon going to rust and fade away into dust, he thought.

But still he loved him. He still wanted to carry his light heart inside his. He still wanted to make him alive in any form he could. He touched his chest with the palm of his hand, continuing to speak.

"And when I heard your prayer…I wanted to protect you, Miles. I wanted to be a bigger brother to you, like how I was a bigger brother to Wind. Your parents clearly don't seem to care about you but their drugs, and I remember I had a relative who abused that…Oxycontin. But you don't have to worry about being ignored and hated anymore. I'm here. I'm here to be your friend, your protector, your ally, your god. Because I am a god, not a simple angel. I can make things happen for you. I can grant you any wish. I can shake the earth, I can make your parents suddenly die, I can make the whole world drown, I can give you the skills of Michelangelo in your art pieces. I am Yahweh, and I will make everything better for you. With the palms of my hands, you will see the sun, and the moon, you will see the past, and the future, and I can make that future bright for you, I can make the past disappear."

He lifted his palms, the gloved hands that were still injured underneath, as Miles could see a big ball of flame burst from his fingertips, and an emerald green knife of ice emerge from his other palm, the great oxidizing sun and the cold blue torturous moonrise. Miles' eyes were large, and glossy with surprise, and he thought that the real god of his world was truly a splendid being, to give him a god to help cure and soothe his pains and sorrows, the one little pill that was greater than the Roxy's that would cure of everything. He imagined that his sorrow was also a big flaming pit inside him, a hell that his body made up, of his organs being little prickly devils, the ribs barricading all the prisoners, the heart being the igniter of these fires. The pitchforks sometimes poked through his skin, and made him rot and bleed, but he was willing to believe in Sonic's truths. And lies.

Sonic couldn't bring everything to him. Chip only allowed what he thought would help flow time like fluid through a tube, without any clots or bubbles in the way. The flow of time had to be perfect, perfect like the flow and color of blood that Miles grew to love, but Sonic said this anyways, because he wanted to tell the child that there would be no need for regrets or warranties. He was his own gift, no matter how flawed it truly was, no matter if his toy needed batteries, if the skin and fur was corrupted with the wrong paints and the wrong stitches and the wrong declaration of love every child made until they found a new toy, something better.

His palms closed. The small little sun and the small little moon were no more. And he closed his eyes. And he swallowed. Took a deep breath. Heart beating fully. The machines inside him all set in motion.

Sonic's body felt raw, unpolished. Even if it was healthier than his brother's, there was something wrong. It wasn't fine-tuned. It belonged to someone who stole his original body. The body with a stature of his brother's.

Thinking of it, it made him think of the Buddhist monks on top of those white fanged mountains. He knew of a little something that apparently they could concentrate on their suicidal thoughts so much they could make their heart stop beating. He wished he could slip his finger inside his body and squeeze his heart until it was shriveled.

The scar on his face. If only it was bigger. If only it was a large gaping hole. It would be a hole to another dimension, another universe, the needle in the galaxies.

And he took another deep breath. And continued.

"And I can do anything, Miles. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. Just to make you happy."

But Miles felt like there was nothing more he needed.

—

The next day was cold, frosty with the clouds of dawn, but the sun was free from the pinioning clouds, as it stretched its long spindly arms towards him, the warm fingers making him sweat as he entered the school building, with Sonic in tow, wrapping his hands around his, the other children unable to see him, as he was invisible, Miles' own little spirit. His own little guardian. His own angel. He watched as the children surrounded him like walls, as they inspected him, tore through him, the child who was supposed to be so smart but yet no hope, and no normality. The children were much like a pack of wild animals he surmised, much like him, as they picked the weakest of them, their own little victim, and like lions, they would leap and scratch and claw at him with their words. But yet the children said nothing, as they continued to play their little games, as the recess lady continued to watch over them in their little kingdom, with the castle jungle gym where all the little girls claimed they were princesses and that a prince had to save them, the forest that children played in and pretended to slay dragons, and the lake where they caught salamanders, frogs, and fish, and fiddle with them for a few minutes before the teachers would see their discovery and tell them to return it, as it was disgusting, filthy, as dirty and as sick as him.

The lake with the glass green water, ready to be shattered by his own body, to throw himself into his own watery demise, his cold, liquid hell, and sleep with the fishes on the sea floor, sway with the seaweed, and watch as the children would gaze at him with interest and regret, wondering what possibly made Miles go this far, what made him so sick and desperate, what made him decide to kill himself, as after all, Miles had everything: drugs, food, education, and parents who barely recognized his own existence. His parents had long white spindly legs like the sun, as they walked among the kitchen, as they snorted their pain pills and as they called Miles "The Boy" and only give him enough to eat, plain boring food such as peanut butter and bland macaroni for every day for the rest of the year, but yet Miles couldn't had any qualms about it, as after all, there were so many children that must've had it worse than him. Children who were raped. Who were actually abused. Who never got anything to eat at all everyday. Who didn't even had the privilege to go to school to get an education and to have children maybe give a shit about them, even if they smelled rancid with the smells of death, with the smells of non-working bath water and shit and piss, as even their toilets wouldn't work. There were children like that. And he thought even if he wasn't like them, it didn't matter, because his problems were his own, and they were enough to commit suicide, to give himself the happy ending he always wanted. Preparing to die was the hardest part, he thought to himself. But as he sat, staring at the emerald water, watching the fish skit across and eat the small gnats that gathered near the water's surface, he thought that once you were fully prepared to die, the rest was easy. Dying was actually such a simple task. All he had to do was make the knives not paper, but made with silver teeth, and put them inside him, make him bleed, let the red river flow out to the world, make the world see how much he was truly suffering, how much he was truly dead inside. And the children didn't know. The teachers didn't know. His parents, the spirits that roamed across the waking world without a care or any knowledge of their son being there with them in the same world, they didn't know either. And the funny thing was, that no one seemed to truly care for the poor fox. Oh woe was him. Oh woe to the poor little boy who wanted to jump into the water, to suffocate with the water's hands, to be eaten away by the fishes and to let his soul drain away by the gentle wafting hairs of the seaweed.

They were the fine green needles that would seep into his skin, to let everything out, everything he ever wanted, and the entire school, his parents, they would all know what truly went on inside his fucked up little head.

The lemon yellow sun would no longer shine for him. It was simply a sharp, jaded, bladed black star that would suck up everything in his world, to make sure there was no happiness or joy left inside him. The students would make sure of that. And the Roxies that commanded his parents to be lowlifes and to live the life of spirits.

He lifted his arms in the air, pretending that they were wings. That he would gracefully land in his own private hell.

One foot in, one foot out. Shake it all about. And lift the other one. Fall to his death. And no more school. No more Roxies. No more lemon yellow sun drawings with the pin needle mountains. No more of pretending to be a Buddhist monk. Because he wouldn't need to concentrate to stop his heart. The lack of oxygen was going to make his heart stop, the lack of love, the lack of recognition except that he was also referred to as "The Boy" by his fellow students.

The Boy Who Became a Fallen Angel, and Drowned Before He Could Regain His Wings.

And he was going to let the sky and sea swallow him, in 3…

"Miles…"

2…

"Are you okay? Miles? Listen to me!"

1…

"Hello Miles! Are you ready to do some math today? I'm sure you are! You're one of the most bright, most intelligent boys I ever had the pleasure to have in my class."

Ms. Ruth. His favorite teacher. The only teacher who seemed to care at all about him. Her bright, radiant smile and her kindness and wisdom always shined so bright for the little boy who had no hope. Even staring at her face gave him a small glimmer of what it was like to have hope. What it was like to have someone love you. Even if Sonic was sitting next to him, he forgot that he existed, as he was a spirit who could only watch him, give him advice and comfort, but couldn't interfere at all with what the other humans were doing, as Chip had implanted those rules. Break them, and his godliness would soon die away. And Miles would too.

Sonic was able to reach inside his mind for that split second before Ms. Ruth called him and suggested for him to do some math. He was thinking of the "s" word that he soon learned to despise, ever since he decided to do it, ever since his brother had died that fateful day of February 12th, 2012, the day where he thought all of a sudden that it was going to be a good day for the rest of his days if he committed suicide. Miles was only a little boy, but yet he wished for death, he thrived for it in his veins, and he wanted nothing but his little star inside his chest to stop, he wanted nothing but for everyone to look upon him with pity, as the boy was never known in the world, and the only way people would notice him was if he was gone. But as he examined inside the thick wires inside his head, he soon learned that he had no feelings towards his parents, no love or hate, and that his parents felt the same way towards him. A relationship of indifference, where they simply thought of each other as everyday things they saw that had no impact on their lives whatsoever, that Miles didn't care at all that the white powder would sometimes be all over the counter, that he didn't care if he was alone in the home, and it was quiet and silent and all he could hear was the thrumming of his breath, as he would sit in the royal red room and clasp his knees, and appreciate how quiet the world was, because from the sound of his parents laughing with up-roaring mouths with bleeding noses and the Newports drifting from those same nostrils, and sometimes he honestly appreciated the silence, and he wished that his parents were never around, simply because he savored it. He worshiped it. Other than Yahweh who appeared to him so suddenly, silence was his god. Hearing his own breathing, his own heartbeats, they were the only things he wanted to hear anymore in the world, and as he finished the problems the teacher wrote on the marker board, he wished that the other students were gone, and that he would hear his own heart beat again, because how small it was, how timid it was, and how much it was bruised and sore.

He wasn't sure why he wanted the taste of suicide. He wasn't sure why he needed that very bitter medicine called Death. Dying just seemed suddenly peaceful. To rot in the ground. To wait for the worms to crawl through your body and make little tiny holes where their little heads would wriggle through. And like worms, Miles was simply split in two, because someone took that knife to his body, and watched him rejoin together as two separate entities, the Happy Boy named Miles, and the sad miserable, naughty boy named simply The Boy. And Miles and The Boy sometimes fought. Miles wanted to live, and The Boy wanted to die. And how he wanted to practice religion and to pray to God each night that he got a full meal everyday and that he was thankful for all the things in his life, while The Boy simply wished to be godless and forsaken. And as the school day droned on in the winter's breath, the death and the scratching hands of the trees, as school was so close to finishing and Miles would be alone in his own home for the day, he simply waited for the children to stop their whispering comments about him, how his parents were probably crack addicts, how he was so poor he could barely afford his own lunch, how he smelled and how he spent his life in books and violent, grotesque drawings. And he sat in his desk, listening to the sound of his own breathing, his own heartbeat, as he listened to Sonic's, and realized how strong it was, how flowing with life it was, and that he wished he could have a heart like his, not beat up and torn. Sonic simply stroked his hair, shushed him, and held him close, while his brother continued to want to type out his own stories, and even if his brother was as sacred, with the crows and ravens begging him to belt out the words to his tale that needed to be told, Sonic ignored him again, as he imagined himself facing the typewriter, and waiting for him to type out the keys, but they couldn't as if they were made of lead and iron.

Another schoolday was laid to waste, and Miles returned home, wondering if he learned something, and he thought he didn't. He watched as the lions ran from their jungle, and he wondered if there was anyone else they attacked, because he was lucky, and lions didn't attack anyone if they had a full stomach, or if they were all alone.

Even if the schoolday seemed to be so short to Sonic, he learned many things about his patient, his client. He wished for black death. He felt hated and scorned simply for being alive. His parents knew he lived in the house, but refused to talk to him. And sometimes, the lions attacked him, and they would do anything to provoke him simply for their own amusement, such as steal his lunch money that was only about a dollar and fifty cents, tease him that his mother possibly sold her soul just to get crack, that she sold her body and let any man do with it what they pleased, and that his father simply stole money from hapless passerbys and beat them with baseball bats until they pleaded to take everything in their wallets and let him enjoy the crack entering through him, and that he would even sell his body too for crack, if anything had to come to that.

And Sonic learned the only time his parents ever cared about him was when he was a baby, when he was first pink and bright for the world, only to be tainted by time. His parents soon grew tired of him, and turned their attention to drugs, their own new baby, their own new combination of their life, their sacrifices to the world. His father actually had a moderately successful business at a young age until his girlfriend, who was at the time 17, became pregnant, and they quit school, quit the business, and raised him for a while, until they possibly grew bored with him. They needed new thrills. They needed more strummings in their chests. And they forgot about poor little Miles. Woe was him. He got more privileges than any child, to stay up, to eat all the sweets he wanted, to watch all the TV and to play all the videogames he wanted, but he wanted none of that. They were useless dreams that children often had. The only dream he wished for was to truly be alive and free.

And as the winter's pale blue snow oxidized in the golden eye of God, it soon grew cloudy and black and dirty and cold and sad. It soon snowed again, as the snowflakes were stuck to his window panel like the spray bottle that contained the fake powder (a perfect scene if it was around Christmas, which it came and went already) and he watched as the lakes soon froze again, that the trees branches that were clawed and like sharp nails were now covered with thick white fuzzy blankets, and the frozen landscape didn't look so threatening and scary anymore. A perfect, cold scene for a child, to realize that sometimes, death was beautiful. But Miles didn't care at all, and only drew his pictures, of the hot white sharp knives he so wished to put inside himself.

Sonic watched the snow. He watched as they piled on top of each other, until they grew into round large lumps that suddenly reminded him of pregnant women's stomachs, with something inside, with the green and colorful baby of Spring, as their wombs would suddenly make the world burst into color, and birth the life and fullness again.

And as he drew his knives and guns and ropes and razor blades, he simply clicked his tongue, and uttered, "Poor Miles. A child like you shouldn't have to go through this pain."

"But I am and nothing can cure it. I am simply soaked to the bone of black misery. None of my teachers want to help. Neither do my parents, or any of the children that inhabit the school like the roaches they are. I simply want to die, to breathe no more, Sonic, and guardian angel or not, I wish that you will grant me that wish, because there is nothing more that I want and nothing more that I can say."

"But you are breathing right now, and that's a sure enough sign that you still want to live. Everyone wants to live Miles. Preparing to die isn't easy, and it never was, because even if you're so close to hell you wish you can go back to the world you were leaving, because I'm sure you'll miss it here. I'm sure you'll miss your drawings, and your…and your…"

And he simply couldn't think of anything more to say.

Was there anything more to say about Miles? His life truly was miserable. And his only solution was death. But he knew there was a better solution, one where he would soon grew to love life and love everything about it, and he would appreciate nature and appreciate everything that God gave him, and he wished, oh so very much that he wished, that this child would be granted happiness again, the golden glowing soul that all the Buddhist monks had, but Miles possibly didn't want to achieve religion and godliness, much like Sonic had. He simply wished to be loved and appreciated. And the only one who wanted to do that was Sonic, and no one else seemed to want to volunteer, to appreciate how skilled and smart and kind Miles was, but he sat in his royal red chair, stared at the bloodied wall, and wanted to hear the silence become so loud that his ears were deaf and somehow, it would cause his eyes to burst from his skull from how numb he felt, and he would be blind too.

How they felt like needles to his eye sockets.

With white pearly sheath of his wing, Sonic covered the little fox with it, completely warm in the cold, frigid house with no heat, feeling the warmth emanating from him. He thought he could feel his love beating inside too, as his wings were his second and third hearts, with extra veins, the tree of life, the forest of love among the gods, and Miles felt comfortable. He felt like his troubles were melting away from his protector telling him there was more to life, that maybe suicide was ultimately a useless tactic just to survive the numbness, that even a thousand knives inserted deep beneath his skin wouldn't drain out all the sorrow, but in fact, only add to it.

"Because even if they never met you, there will be people out there that will love you, Miles. There will be people who would do anything for you. And they are in the future. They will come to you. You just need to survive this. You just need to realize that living through this will ultimately make you stronger. As you experience this pain, your soul adapts to it, it becomes much stronger, it gets bigger, and soon…you will be loved. People will recognize you for who you are. There will be more people like me Miles, who would want to help you. Don't you think your teachers want to help? Any kind children who know what it's like to live this way? There are people who do want to help you Miles, you just gotta…you just gotta let them help you! Give me everything, give me everything I can to save you Miles, and I promise you we will get out this. We will become free and safe and happy. And as you can see, I used to be not happy. I wanted to kill myself too, because I thought I couldn't live without my brother. But…I solved that. I can live without him. It's making me stronger, because our souls and hearts can take a lot. Pain only makes them stronger when we live through it. When we live to tell our friends our story."

He was lying, of course.

He brought his brother back to life. Simply by taking the easy way out.

He thought signing up to become a god who honestly didn't know what to expect of the job was a much worse ordeal than suicide.

But his brother was surprisingly quiet. And his conscience was too.

"This is the start of a new beginning, Miles," he said, as he wrapped him thickly with his silky wings, bringing him close to his body, as they both smiled and laughed and he ruffled his hair, hoping he never had to let go. Because from now on, he was his son, the son of a god, and he was going to make him happier, fuller, richer, vivid. He will shine in brighter colors than yellow. He will shine with gold.

"Will…will everything change, Yahweh? Will I start to be loved in school? Will the teachers finally understand me? Will my parents stop taking Roxies and begin to treat me like I actually was their child? Can you do all that for me?"

"Please." He smiled, gazing into his blue eyes. "Just call me Sonic from now on."

"Okay, Uncle Sonic." And he hugged him tightly, nuzzling deep into his wings and fur, as they both lied on the bed, watching as the snow drifted from the silver clouds to the earth, creating a winter scene that Sonic thought he always saw in the small winter towns that his parents tried to collect several Christmases ago. With the little people running in circles, with the small yellow lights brightening down to their boring, sugar-dashed, artificial lives…but the lights soon stopped working and the animatronic people no longer moved, and it cost too much to get them fixed, so they gave up on their dream to collect the entire snowglobe village.

He wished the entire world was exactly like a snowglobe. Where no one had anything to do. Where there were no wars, no evils, no sins and no sadness and no pain. Only nothing but snow falling in clumps on the small cities, while everyone walked around or sat still unaware that there was someone outside of that glass ball that there was someone out there that was controlling the weather, that was watching it snow, that they created this entire world in the first place, and they loved their innocent people so much that they would display them on their desk in winter, and show how their world was just as common as the world they lived in.

God was just as human as anyone else, he thought. After all, he created man in his own image.

And he wondered, even if he was a hedgehog, as he stared out at the milky snow and the silky skies, holding onto the child as he slept in his arms, that he was as human and as kind as God.

He hoped so, even with all his hypocrisy.