(There will be no "last time on In the Dark" intro this time. You'll just have to go back and read! ;)

This is in Sonic's point of view.)

Suddenly, everything felt different.

The first thing I felt was warmth. Whispering voices no longer filled my head. Only a single, weak presence inhabited my mind. Even though everything felt somewhat normal, I was afraid to open my eyes.

All that had happened…it didn't feel real. As if it was all distant memories or a bad dream. Maybe I had just woken from a very intricate nightmare. Yeah, that must be it. All the horrible things that had happened were just figments of my imagination. Besides, if it were true, would I even be here?

In the silence, I heard muffled voices from below me. They sounded familiar, so I cautiously opened my eyes. I sat up and stretched, then looked around at my surroundings.

I was safe in my bed in my own home. I sighed when I saw everything familiar to me in my room, in the one place I always felt safe. It must have been a dream. The azure curtains hanging from my window were drawn, but the light coming through was pale red. Though the clock had frozen at 15:28, the light told me the sun was setting.

I stood up and went downstairs, pausing before the doorway to the living room. I pressed against the wall and listened.

"—Mobiums in damage," a male voice was saying, "plus over 9,000 people missing."

I frowned. What was he talking about? I pushed open the door and crossed the living room to the kitchen, which was connected to it. Officer White, chief of the Mobian Police Force, was standing at the island counter in my kitchen. Also, with her back to me, was Sally.

Officer White stopped talking when he saw me. He looked up and smiled. "He lives."

Sally's head whipped around and her eyes widened. Then she ran to me and hugged me tightly. I was too taken by surprise to hug her back right away.

"Hey, take it easy," I said. My voice was hoarse and my throat was sore, as if I'd been screaming.

Sally released me. "Sorry," she said, and I saw tears in her eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She looked down and stayed silent.

"Sal, please," I coaxed. "Talk to me."

"…Don't you remember any of it?" she asked quietly, looking up at me.

I gave her a confused look. "Any of what?"

Sally glanced back at Officer White, who gave her a sympathetic smile, but gestured for her to go on. So she explained. She explained it from the beginning, when Tails's death set me over the edge, all the way to the final blast that had defeated Dark and knocked me out. She told of everything she and Amy had done to try to help me, with assistance from Shadow. She highlighted events like her getting sent to the future, Amy getting captured, and meeting up with the Refugees.

"After Shadow killed Dark, you both passed out," Sally continued. "I was able to get my team out of the treasury where they were trapped and brought you both to the Refuge. After a few days, Shadow regained consciousness. It took a few days after that for the streets to clear of Exes. Then we brought you back here."

I was speechless, my mouth slightly open. I sat on the couch, stunned. Everything in my nightmare had been true. I had senselessly murdered thousands upon thousands of people and turned the whole world into a living hell. I would've hurt my best friends without a second thought. My head felt like it was spinning. The guilt was overwhelming, gripping my heart like a vise.

"How long was I knocked out…?" I asked in a choked voice, not looking at either of them.

"About two weeks," Sally replied.

"And how many are dead?"

Sally hesitated. "…over half the population of the country."

My breath caught, and I put my head in my hands for a long time.

"I'm going to help the community clean up," Officer White said. "I'll leave you two to…catch up."

"Okay," Sally replied quietly. I heard some shuffling around, some goodbyes, and a door opening and closing.

A few minutes after he left, I spoke.

"So…who that we know are dead…?"

"Rotor…Rouge…Geoffrey…and Eggman." she said after hesitating again.

My throat tightened. "I've murdered some of my best friends…and my worst enemy…"

"Sonic, don't blame yourself," Sally said, sitting beside me. She tried to calm me by massaging my two back spikes. "It wasn't you who killed them, it was Dark. It wasn't you."

"I should've been able to stop him…"

"No one blames you, Sonic."

I said nothing for a minute. "I want to see the town."

"Sonic…"

"I want to see the destruction I caused," I said firmly, looking at her.

She hesitated before nodding and led me out of the house into the streets.

The roads were almost deserted, with only two people outside; one taking out the trash, another painting over the bloodstains on their house. Everything seemed to be bloodstained. It was actually noon, but the sky was still a pale red, having not turned back to blue yet. In the distance, smoke rose in wispy curls into the air.

"I'll be right back," I said before speeding off, leaving Sally in the dust.

I ran through the town to the city. The destruction got worse closer to the heart of the metropolis, and I followed it. Once in the city, I saw just how bad things had been. Entire buildings had fallen and most were abandoned and crumbling. There were dried puddles of blood in potholes on the streets, but bodies had been picked up. The whole place looked like Crisis City, but without the fires and more blood and body parts. There were already people rebuilding their lost businesses, but otherwise the city was oddly desolate. It wasn't long before I reached the other side and ran into the countryside.

A graveyard in the suburbs had expanded into it. Now, the freshly dug grave sites stretched across hills of dead grass, and there were already several funerals going on. I saw large, stone pillars as grave markers and small stones with little marble angel statues for the kids…

I couldn't stand it anymore. I put on a burst of speed and raced home. Once there, I fell face-first into the couch, burying my face in a pillow. These signs of sorrow and weakness were not common with me, but I no longer cared. I already didn't deserve the title of "hero."

"Now I have a question for you," Sally said I hadn't even noticed she had stayed. "Did we really destroy Dark?"

I hesitated a moment before shaking my head and heard her gasp.

"All that time being out of power gave me time to think," I said. "I could tell that this wasn't going to go away. Dark wasn't – isn't – going to go away. I'll have to deal with him for the rest of my life, probably."

"So…all this could happen again?"

I shook my head. "This time, I won't let it. I'll find a permanent weakness for him, we already know he hates light energy, and that weakens him. But it's still not strong enough."

"How weak is he?"

"Weak enough that he won't have enough power to torture me to madness like before for a long time."

"Mmh…"

I sighed and kept my eyes shut.

"Do you want to be alone...?" Sally asked.

I nodded a little. "I'll call you."

She nodded and left.

Now, I was alone with my thoughts. Dark was now a part of me. Heck, Dark technically is me; the darker side of me who's personality is completely opposite of mine; greedy, lustful, selfish, uncaring, and all he wants is power and destruction. He got a taste of all of that for about a month before he fell. Maybe next time I'll be strong enough to hold him back. Maybe I won't. If the latter is true, I can count on others to defy Dark and work for peace. They'd give their lives to improve the world Dark created, just as I would give mine.

Now my only question is why. Why me? Why must I be cursed with a little bit of Hell inside of me, always struggling to break loose? No, everyone has that. Everyone has that darkness inside of them, and that's what compels them to lie, steal, cheat, and kill. Mine was only much stronger and a person of its own, just trapped in my mind, the only thing restraining it being my conscience. Currently, he didn't bother me. He was too weak to taunt me. I could barely tell he was there.

However, now with Dark weakened beyond help, and me being alone, I had nothing to distract me from the grief that threatened to swallow me whole.

(The end! So, what did you all think? I'd love to hear what you have to say, and how I can improve on later stories. Soon I will be starting on Sonic '06 Bloopers. In between writing that, I will be adding bonus chapters and epilogues. Here's how that is going to go. I will take readers' suggestions on different characters' point of view on different events, or what the characters were doing after Dark was defeated. I will NOT be using OC's. I will be posting those chapters within this story, but they will have a * before the chapter title. The chapters will probably be short, like under a thousand words. If you make a suggestion and I use it in a bonus chapter, I will say whose idea it was for the chapter before it starts. Please review your suggestions or PM them to me! Greatly appreciated, thanks!

Here's a disclaimer. (I have to do it, sorry, if you don't wanna read through it just skip to the end. ^^;) I do not own anything in this story; Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog characters belong solely to SEGA Inc. and is copyright SEGA Inc. I have used some names of random people that are not copyright SEGA but those characters are kind of unimportant.

So…that's about it for this story! Stay tuned for Sonic '06 Bloopers and bonus content on In the Dark! Peace out!)

~SonicTheHedgehog-Nerd