Yes sir, today is officially my one-year anniversary of making up stories for your entertainment. How to commemorate? More chapters, that's right!
The servers are the seven Chaos.
Chaos is power, power is enriched by the heart.
The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos.
I've heard this poem/prayer/whatever over and over. I don't know where it's coming from. Every moment feels like an eternity...
I can't feel a thing. I won't be surprised if I wake up in a state of utmost pain... if at all. How I even ended up here in the first place is all a blur. Hell, everything is a blur. All I understand is this mythical voice trying to talk to me...
"Your time to shine is soon," it says.
These visions are flashing in my head, visions that I strangely remember, that I have no clue how, or even why.
Visions of running from the goofy man with the gun alongside an animal.
Visions of pulling the lever to launch the escape pod to safety, then the crashing noise.
Visions of the .22 poking a hole through my chest. The life is slipping from me all over again...!
Shadow, are you there? I know I said I'd still be with you if I didn't survive my illness... perhaps we'd see each other again someday... but now I realize that I haven't even done that! I need help...
Today I show my face and whispers turn to screams...
Visions of what might have been and what will never be...!
I don't realize how long I've waited for anything to happen. I don't realize how long I've felt like the guy who lost everything in a battle for democracy. Not like his life, but everything else. His arms, sight, thoughts, the like. I swear, I've heard something like this before, but like everything else I've lost, it's all such a blur. Questions rain down on me like these forgotten memories, racing in my mind too fast for me to pick up from all this commotion.
Where am I?
Am I alive and dreaming or dead and trying to remember? I'm constantly plagued by these visions throughout every second I have to "live" like this. Somehow, it feels more "real" than a dream.
I'm feeling a strange force pulling me within its grasp. I can't just try to run away from it! I don't have anything to help me resist its pull. I'm about to fall into pure nothingness, or so it seems. It's bad enough that I've had the "dead" feeling for so long, but it's all the more frightening to think what's becoming of me!
Faaaaaaaaaaaaaalling...
PANIC ATTACK!
"SHADOW! I NEED YOU! I HAD A TERRIBLE NIGHTMARE!" Wait, what did I just say?
I'd been asleep for two hours in an abandoned alleyway because I had no place to stay. The pain came rushing back in my veins as I unsuccessfully tried to keep my cool after that backflash.
"I'm so lost... I don't feel like myself..." I shuddered. "I'm missing my left glove...!" Wait, my left glove?
I abruptly stopped in my speech. I wasn't really bothered that much by the missing glove. What was a glove doing on my hand when I'd never worn a glove in my life?
I noticed that that the tip of my nose had a dark hue on its small, rounded design. Already puzzled, I tried to scratch my ears, but when I felt nothing where they should've been, I almost freaked out. Eventually my gloved hand motioned itself to my hair line, where I felt a pair of triangular, slightly pointed structures that were somehow a lot easier to move around. A preposterous idea came to me, and sure enough, I nearly groaned in agony after having almost ripped off (wait for it...) the Mongols!
No wonder I didn't feel like myself.
It's a psychobilly freakout.
I'm a hedgehog...
The cold sense really stirred within me when I realized what happened. Not to mention that it was legitimately cold, the chilling symbol of death lurking everywhere — above me, below me, around me, within me...
The opening to my left led to a graveyard, the stereotypical dark landscape plaguing every turn one could possibly make. I didn't think to mindlessly wander there at first, but as I stared into the night-ish, a sinister voice seemed to call me into the night-ish. I'm hallucinating.
A numbness in my legs didn't want me to leave the only place in this town where I felt reasonably safe. But then again, I would've preferred to sit here and not worry about this "Shadow" person. The problem was, he was the only thing I could think about for the last thirty minutes or so. Was this guy really something that I saw in my nightmare? Did I actually see him? I wish I could talk to someone...
As I looked out blankly into the graveyard, a figure of short stature suddenly caught my attention.
It was the black creature. That dark fur, those flaming eyes were more real than real could possibly get. I knew that sinister look.
He sat motionlessly in front of one stone in particular, his cold stare perfectly in sync with the gravity of death.
Beep beep beep.
The impulsive decision nagged at me further. Go out there and talk to him. No, it's not safe out there. But you know him! But what if he doesn't know me?
Beep beep beep.
Is there a bomb in the house? Or is is just my heartbeat?
I had to watch him. I waited for the longest time, my vision almost burned by the crimson in his eyes, to see if he'd notice me.
He didn't.
"No!" I scolded myself, though as quietly as possible so as to keep myself in low ground. Admittedly, it was rather easy to spot someone in an alley from ten meters away. Or thirty-three feet. Whatever.
Beep beep beep.
The creature propped himself to his feet and dragged himself out of the haunted mansion that was this cemetery. For whatever reason, a sense of relief struck me almost as hard as the bullet that rendered me lifeless.
As I relaxed my focus, that mystic voice returned to haunt me. Great, he's gone. Now you don't have to worry about him killing you because he's a big time skeptic. Do you still wanna mindlessly wander into that death pit? Yeah, I thought not.
But I had to. The thought of where the black hedgehog had been just thirty seconds ago made me consider the possibility of a connection between the two of us. If only I knew...
Given that I had no way to keep track of the time, I walked ever so slowly, pacing each step as if it were my last, as my feet felt an almost crippling sense with each step. There was no fire, and there were no flames... until the sight of that stone caught me by surprise, obliterating my sanity.
As I gathered myself in front of the clarity of my name written all over the death symbol, I couldn't help but stutter, "That's me..." Correction, that was me from the past.
"I don't want anything to happen between the two of us..."
"You'll never know... but you have to!"
"I feel like it's my duty to protect your future... but if that's the way it goes, then so be it."
"I wish you'd know what I'm going through... can't you hear me?"
"But I could've very well heard you, Shadow..." Psych.
After a thirty second period of glimpsing back and forth at the open field to my left and at my grave in front of me, I gazed upwards, where the afterlife might've been located. "What do I do now?" I said mindlessly.
"Quit talking to yourself," someone scolded behind me in a cold, stale, orderly tone. After five seconds of me hesitating to answer, the same voice stated, "You from the past will never answer you."
"Who said that?" I asked on instinct. The moment after I reacted, the dark voice came to me; it suddenly sounded so familiar.
"That doesn't matter in the slightest," replied that same cold voice.
In an irrational fear of an ambush from this guy if I turned around, I persisted, "But I wish I knew... it felt like an ageless sleep... no thoughts, words, deeds..."
"Ok, now you're creeping me out..."
At that point, I needed to get to the point. "Who are you?! How do you know about my past?"
This guy took my inquiry with a grain of salt. "Geez, get ahold of yourself. I was only teasing. It's not like I'm just gonna go up to some random girl and she'll look just like... Maria?"
He stopped in his speech as I jolted my view towards him to find out the answer to that nagging question. I definitely knew that voice.
"Shadow?"
He just stood in front of me for the longest time, the streak of flames in his eye(s) twitching like a beast, as if trying to not let his imminent reaction get the best of him. I briefly considered backing away ever so slowly. However, from the fierce look he bore through his entire body, I figured it was easy to really light him up.
Suddenly the expression on his face changed to a hard sense of contempt. "I don't believe you."
"What do you mean?" I asked, obviously hoping he wasn't about to blast me into last night.
"Exactly what it sounds like," he said coolly, folding his arms to maintain a badass pose. "I do not believe you!"
"I'm sorry... I don't understand what you're talking about."
"Idiot!" He was spazzing himself crazy. "Maria's freakin' dead!"
"But, I'm..." I started.
Shadow went on ranting over my paranoia. "Girl, I don't know who you are or how the brick you know my name, but you can't be that one girl that got herself embedded into my memory when that soldier murdered her! And I swear, I saw that happen!" Now he was just talking nonsense. "You just can't be Maria... She's dead!"
I just remained where I was out of total paranoia as he raged in his nervous breakdown. In fact, he seemed uber-paranoid himself. Please let this drama cease. Let him see the real me before he goes berzerk...
Beep beep beep.
The moment the crashing bang rung through my digitally enhanced ears, I felt a sharp force pierce my right forearm so hard that all I could think about was the nothingness. Or, the sickness. Or, the Il-ness. You know what I mean. It was happening all over again...!
Suddenly the crazed ebony hedgehog was right on top of me, a pistol in his left hand, ready to strike again. Where did that pistol come from?!
"Any last words... poser?" he sniggered. His finger slowly pulling back, I watched as my imminent doom unraveled before me... sort of.
I smacked the (maybe, sort of) symbolic pistol away from the gloved hand's grasp and made a run for it. I hadn't tried to dash like that since who-knows-when, but in this particular case, I found myself going at a speed at which if a lightning bolt were to strike me by the time I figured out the amount of time it would've taken me to hit 88 right when I got hit by a car going at the same speed, the high voltage would've fused with that of the car, and the resulting total power would've killed me in an instant!
I need to get used to this speed...
Unfortunately, I faltered in my short discovery, enough for the crazed freak following closely to nab my shirt and pin me to the GROUND! "Maria's freakin' dead! Duh!"
And then he killed me.
At least, that's what it felt like at first.
As quickly as he secured me to the ground, he let out a second fire, deafening to my ears, agonizing to my nerves for a split second until they shut down on me, entirely cutting off my limbs and sight and hearing and movement. Somehow, I still had my thought bubble left. It was the Johnny Got His Gun episode all over again. What do I do now?
"Wake up," a voice that had to have come from within me ordered.
Help me... where am I?
This tone had a feminine-ish ring to it, a ring so indescribably unfamiliar due to its deepness. "Wake up..."
Are you there? I don't want to live like this! Tell me that the afterlife exists...
"I said, wake up!"
PANIC ATTACK!
"NO! DON'T KILL ME! I NEED ANOTHER CHANCE AT LIFE! I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!"
I continued to stutter hopelessly after having escaped that bastard of a nightmare. I must've dozed off or something.
"Ok, ok, ok. Just relax... You're gonna be fine." I didn't notice the freak in front of me, wondering what in the hell I was blabbing about, until she said that stuff to me in a comforting tone. "There's no one here that can hurt you." Noticing a pair of black, totally not angelic wings sticking out from her, I was left second-guessing if this was a good idea.
She went on trying to alleviate my state of paranoia, holding me gently by the numb, ungloved hand as we both stared at the madness that literally had my name on it.
"I'm Rouge, by the way. So who's that right here?" she inquired, obviously referring to the stone before us. I was afraid she'd ask that.
There was a tiny voice in my head going, "This is a bad idea." But I could barely hear that voice because a much louder voice was screaming, "TELL HER EVERYTHING!"
"That's me..." I stuttered.
My left hand now uncontrollably shaking, I wiped off the puddle of sweat from my forehead (and the water works subsequently pooling around my eyes). "I'm sorry... I've been nothing but nervous all day. Earlier today I found myself thrust into a literal dog-eat-dog world, and just eight hours ago, I almost got sucked into a black hole that was eating up the whole game... This kid was in there with me, and he managed to get the both of us out..." At this point I debated going on.
She eyed me suspiciously. "You're not from here, are you?"
"No, I'm not." I got all teary-eyed again. "I'm as lost as lost can possibly get... I don't have any friends..."
"Oh my..." She gave me a funny look when I felt the urge to get a tighter grip on her hand (of course, still out of paranoia). "What's up with your paranoia?"
"I died in my nightmare..." Now I was about ready for a nervous breakdown. "There was a black hedgehog..."
Evidently I'd enlightened Rouge to the point where her face really lit up. "Shadow?"
"Yeah, Shadow."
"That Shadow?"
"Affirmative."
The expression on her face morphed into one of disgust. "I'm sorry... it's my fault you got in this mess."
I knocked three times. "Tails." I knocked three more times. "Tails." I knocked three more times. "Tails."
"IT'S OPEN!" yelled an even more girly tone than I'd ever expected to hear.
"No it's not!" I yelled back, clutching the doorknob as hard as possible, trying to wiggle it from its firm position.
All he bothered to yell back was "Yes it is, Zenith! Now open it!"
"Quit playing with me, Tails. Either your head isn't on right or this lock is jammed." Three seconds. "I'm going home."
Before he could interject, I pulled out my phone and began to push fake buttons. The screen had just come into view when he reacted: "Good!"
I stopped. "Good!?"
"Yeah! Good riddance, whatever the Green Day song is. Time Out For Life."
"Time Of Your Life!" I yelled back.
"My whole life is ruined!"
I had no clue where that came from. "No hablo español. Run that by me again, please."
He re-iterated his statement, accusing tone and all. "It's all your fault!" he yelled, no doubt from frustration over failing to beat The Game. "You made me..."
"I made you?" Really. "I made you?!" Even more accusing than the aftermath of Generations. "I made you what, a girl?"
His reply was unintelligible. He sounded like he couldn't get it through his skull or something. In fact, that's how he sounded for ten seconds until I yelled over his yelling: "I'm going home." And this time I really did leave him to openly complain without anyone listening to him.
Hardly.
He just busted through his door and followed me around, bringing his (more like hers) constant snapping with him-or-her. I wanted to cover my ears.
"Shadow was right! You were the loser who put us through all those hard times! I can't believe I never listened to him all those years!"
"Please leave me alone," I snapped through his yelling.
"No, I won't leave you alone. Sonic was right. Amy was right. Knuckles was right. Tails was right. Even Cream was right! You don't deserve to talk to us anymore! You never did!"
My hands missed my ears. Again. For like, the 1063rd time in five years.
So in the midst of her yelling, I dug through my pockets, pulled out an Easy button, and bitch-slapped it on the GROUND! "I threw the voice chip too! That's what she said, jackass!"
Not really. I just pushed it hard enough to activate it, because you know how hard the Easy button is for us Mobians.
"LIMB HACK!"
Yes, my button was secretly a life hacker. Giving Tails no time to interject, I reached over to the back of my shirt, took out a big shiny ax, eyed it for a split second, and just let it come down.
I forgot which arm I sliced off. Both of them still looked totally intact, so the severed arm that lay in horror on the floor looked like it might have belonged to someone else. Tails screamed like a girl during the time it takes the average reader to read this sentence. Right when she picked up the severed arm, her screaming just waned off in one second and examined it carefully.
"Ohhhh," she started, seeming to get it just now, "limb hack! Now I get it! Good one, bro." I high-fived the severed arm like a boss. After that she seemed to have lost track of what she was just talking about.
"So you are a girl," I pointed out. "Now what should we talk about?"
"Awesomeness," she randomly interjected. "Oh, sorry. I just remembered that Knuckles asked me to guard the Master Emerald while he went with his date."
"Knuckles has a girlfriend?!" I interjected. Right when she nodded, something else from her last quote caught my attention: "What's a Master Emerald?"
"What?!" she snapped. "You've never heard of the Master Emerald?!" She sounded really insulted by my lack of enlightenment on everything that wasn't human. "Ok, it's shaped like a normal emerald, except..." She looked like she'd lost her train of thought again. "Actually, it's bigger than the four of us put together. Five, actually."
"What four-or-five of you?" I asked, considering no one else was in this conversation.
"Me, Knuckles, Sonic and Shadow. And Silver to make five." She gave me a long, expressionless look. "And you to make six."
"Oh, please. I realized a long time ago that I still have a long ways to go, after that stupid display in that stupid video game..."
"Speaking of, what was it that Shadow did in there that he came to regret and want to kill you for?"
I spoke of the first thing that came to my mind: "I don't know. I heard that he and everyone else who played that game were encouraged to act totally different from their real life personality. And I probably never got that memo."
The later part of the content in her speech bubble struck me harder than THUNDER: "Wait, he wants to KILL me?!"
I could tell that the fear written all over her face intensified as I shot her a look of absolute rage, almost ready to totally blow up. After all that time, there was no denying that he wanted me to drop dead. But when I noticed that I was about to take it all out on Tails, I forced myself back at the last second, before I could so much as make a scratch mark on her whatsoever.
"Fuck it," I said, the rage still glued to my face as I stormed away. "I've wasted too much time already." Just get it over with, Shadow. I don't ever wanna run into you again, but if I do, then may it be the last time I ever do, or so help me...!
She must've noticed that I'd bailed from the hospital room without that wheelchair. But to tell you the truth, I looked like a potato with purple hair with that thing. Plus I could still walk fine. It was only my running that I had no clue about.
"Oh my gosh, what's that?!"
Those words echoed recklessly in my head as I walked ahead of her. I didn't even notice how far ahead I was until I jolted my view in reverse for the umpteenth time in a week.
"What's what?"
"Out the window! There's a force field expanding, and I can't tell..."
"AGAIN?!" I snapped. "Dude, it's like the game's still out to get us! Ever think of that?"
"No..." she muttered, seeming to not get my drift.
"You're still clueless, eh. I might be breaking about a million copyright laws with what I'm about to say here..."
"Hurry up and say it already!" she yelled while still frantically pointing out the window. "It's getting closer to us!"
I leaned over a bit, and in a loud whisper, I softly yelled, "The game has entered the real world!"
"Did you just come up with two oxymorons?" Yes, yes I did.
Now I randomly asked, directing my finger at the force field, "Ever wonder what's actually on the other side of..."
"Dude, if we don't start running now, we're gonna get sucked into the other edge of the multiverse!" She was practically screaming her lungs out by now. "DUDE, RUN!"
So I did.
But then I tripped over something and fell. The numbness in my legs struck back harder than an arrow to the knee.
"DUDE, GET UP!" But I couldn't.
The last thing I felt occurred right after something huge and perhaps ball-shaped busted through the walls right behind me.
"DUDE, IS THAT A BOMB?!"
"Doesn't matter..." I coughed. "Save yourself!"
The last thing I felt was my nervous system attacked by the debris from an unquestionable explosion.
"Oh gosh, that did not just happen."
Tails was practically shaking in anxiety after having witnessed a mortifying blow that took away a maybe-sorta-possibly pal of his. Oh wait, Tails is a girl? Oops. ._.
He was gone in an instant.
"Yeah, that did not just happen," she stuttered. "I have no clue. Someone clue me in now. Oh no..."
Suddenly a pretty logical idea came to him-or-her.
"Maybe it was a Chaos bomb?"
She looked left and right, up and down, back and forth, over and over, the panicked look still frozen on her face. Epic face #4.
Her expression suddenly morphed into one that you'd likely see on the boss character in those Kellogg's Crunch office commercials featuring Johnson.
"YES!" she celebrated. "He's gone! Johnson! He's gone! Yes he is!" Insert random lyrics to the Johnson Gets Fired bit because it was overdubbed by both the crunching noise and that announcer guy from the movies.
A maybe-sorta-dark-colored pincushion rushed into the affected area in the apartment building where much of the damage took place. As the exact shade of cobalt came into the foxey lady's view, he asked all concerned, "Tails, are you ok?"
"HE'S GONE, SONIC!" she screamed ecstatic. "NOW WE NEVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT NASTY LITTLE RODENT AGAIN!"
Sonic just shrugged and subsequently folded his arms like a boss. "Are you possessed, Tails?" he asked a little more concerned. "I understand that your personality may have changed a lot in light of recent events, but what has gotten into you? And what kind of rodent do you speak of? Eggman? Or wait..." The pincushion in cobalt understood at that moment: "You finally got that rat control service, didn't you?"
"Yep! Now my apartment is finally free of that cheese-stealing thief."
"I see." He was looking impatiently back and forth.
"But really," she went on, "I'm told that that creeper died in a bomb incident and we never have to deal with that Dick Van Dyke ever again!"
"You mean that Princess Daisy?" Sonic immediately followed up, now tapping his foot.
"Exactly," confirmed the fox. "She was a total loudmouth, hard to get along with, and altogether just crazy."
"Not that there aren't — or, weren't — any worse nuisances that had to get crammed into our already crazy-driven lives, you know what I mean?" His foot was now tapping at a speed of 1337 beats per minute.
"Oh, I know what you mean." Tails was practically sassing at that point. "Like when Princess Elise made love with you, or when I became a girl."
It didn't take long for the blur to realize that he'd now heard everything. "That explains your... you know what, I'm gonna get you an outfit."
Right as Sonic was about to speed right through the doorway, Tails interrupted, "By the way, guess who finally left our world for a (hopefully) worse place?"
"I GET IT ALREADY!"
You see what happens when I give the plot to a fan character? The actual characters get jealous and go as far as murder to take it away. I hope she's happy.