((And so boredom has once more driven me to writing. Hello once more, everyone, and welcome back to another bonus chapter of In the Dark! I have once more turned to the reviews for ideas, and found one that I've been meaning to do for quite a while, as I've found the ending to my story quite...lacking. The suggestion came from SuperSonicBoom12. This is Sonic's Epilogue, otherwise titled Who I Am. Without further ado, let's delve back into the aftermath of Sonic's darkness.))
This chapter takes place soon after the events of the story and is in Sonic's point of view.
It's been a month, and I am still not used to the blue sky.
The sun glared down on the field in which we worked, and I leaned against my shovel, wiping the sweat from my brow. The hole I had dug had met the four-foot-deep quota after a good four hours. My body felt drenched and drained. With a sigh, I laid down the shovel and myself in the grave.
From here I could see the sky. The white clouds rolling past, the sun blinding. The earth cooled my exhausted body, the dirt collecting on my spiked, sweat-coated fur. I raised my shovel over my head and rubbed off the mud from the dully shining surface. In it, I could see my reflection. A reflection of a man who was lost to the world long ago. While it held the same bright blue fur and green eyes, part of me still saw myself as the murderous monster I had been just a month before. Part of me saw those white, merciless eyes, or the black fur that gave off the dark energy that this world was still recovering from. I closed my eyes, my shovel falling to my side. He always reminded me of those times when I was trying to relax.
Dark had become a part of me. A voice in my head as potent as my own thoughts, another soul in the same vessel. He was powerless without my anger to fuel him. Therapy had dulled the dangerous emotion. But no matter how many times a week I would walk into the basement of that apartment to start those therapeutic sessions, they never were able to shut him out. Not completely. He was my demon, constantly stirring up memories I had not experienced while protected by my own mind, even with him in control. He would start bragging about the horrible things he'd accomplished, or giving me excruciating detail on each and every person's death he had caused. These little pleasures he entertained himself with kept me awake late into the night and woke me early in the morning. He, much to his enjoyment, had changed me. He had wiped the smile from my face and kept me constantly in the shadows, where I received either pitying or loathsome glares from those lucky enough to have survived Dark's apocalypse. There was no in between, even from friends. My happy life as Mobius's hero was over.
In my heart, however, I knew I had not come out totally ruined. My will was stronger than ever, and getting stronger by the day as I learned to shut Dark out, including his gruesome thoughts. I was learning to ignore the glares and the looks that followed me everywhere. I was learning to cope with the losses I had faced, and the loss that had triggered my fall.
At first, everything good reminded me of the brother I had lost. My house, my friends, the sky and the clouds, and anything with a motor. I could not bear to burn the photographs. Tails was imprinted on the back of my eyelids.
At times, even if I was in public, I would break down and cry. Anything others saw as hope, if I saw a flower poking out of the bloodstained, brown grass, or the sun through red clouds, I would cry. Anyone around me would always give me looks. It was an action that I would have hit myself for in the past, when people's opinions mattered, when I cared about my reputation and my ego. That was the first few weeks. Going outside no longer brought tears to my eyes. Those tears were saved for when I had locked the door to my house and shut the blinds and turned off the lights. But the ache was always there, right there in my heart. It was an ache I could see never going away. Of all that I had lost, Tails was the only one I truly mourned for.
Not too far off, a dinner bell rang, calling the workers in the fields to eat. With a sigh, I pushed my aching body to my feet and climbed out of the hole I had dug. The field was lined with hundreds of identical holes, all in neat lines and rows, following the grid pattern that had been drawn out on blueprints of the field. As part of my therapy and my own friends' advice, I was now a quiet volunteer in the city's clean-up project, titled Operation Beacon. It was meant to be a sanctuary for all those affected by the darkness and a memoriam of the event. This allowed me to travel to the places that had been touched by the darkness, and it allowed me to help to cure the devastation I had caused. It supposed to help me recover and to help others forgive me. I was more than willing to help, but I kept to myself and rarely spoke to anyone unless it had to do with the job at hand. Today, we were making yet another graveyard. I could see a train of trucks, one after the other, driving along one of the dusty roads that lead to the cemetery, and in the back of each one were mounds of bodies rolled up in white sheets. The sight wasn't my first, but it always made my stomach twist.
I swallowed the knot in my throat and headed to meet up with the group of workers, who were all sitting at a long, tablecloth-covered table, which was really just a bunch of picnic tables pushed up against each other. There were a couple dozen of us, all wearing bandanas and minimal clothing in the summer heat. I took a seat next to Sally, who usually accompanied me when volunteering to make sure I was okay. Although, there was a seed of doubt in me that believed she didn't trust me, planted there by Dark. A styrofoam plate was set at my place with sandwiches, farm-grown fruit, and potato chips, such was our usual work meals. Sally rested her hand on my arm, a familiar gesture she often made when she hadn't seen me for more than a couple of hours.
"How are you doing?" she asked, her voice concerned. The dark part of me was sickened by the sound.
"Fine," I gave the usual response, taking a sip of my ice water. The cool liquid hydrated my sore throat, relieving a thirst I hadn't noticed I'd built up. I let out a crisp sigh, setting down the plastic cup. I could feel Sally's gaze on me, then it shifted away. She knew better than to press me on my well-being. I'd found out very quickly that any little annoyance that began to frustrate me was like fuel for Dark's flame. I could no longer have the temper I used to have. The risks were far too severe.
I ate in silence, not looking at anyone or participating in conversation. Such conversations used to revolve around me, people asking me questions only to get muttered responses from me in return. Now, they talked about me even though I was sitting feet away.
"It's been a month to the day since it ended," said one worker, starting up the conversation.
"I barely remember how it started," said another.
"It was a couple weeks after Dr. Eggman was captured by the Freedom Fighters, remember? He lost it at his friend's funeral."
"Of course… How could I forget? It just seems like so long ago… We've lost so many."
"I'm burying my sister and mother today…"
"I buried my whole family last week. I feel for you."
"How do you cope with it?"
"I don't. I just grin and bear it."
My hand, which had been lifting my cup once more to my lips, came down hard on the table, crushing the cup and sending water all over my gloved hand. My teeth were clenched, and I stared down at the table.
If there was one thing I would never get used to, it was hearing of the pain I caused others.
I could feel everyone's eyes on me without looking up, and I could hear some of them moving away. I let my head drop, closing my eyes and releasing a breath that had caught in my chest. Dark knew exactly who the workers were talking about. He had memorized the faces and names of all of his victims, and he replayed their deaths in my head one-by-one. Once more, through the haze, I felt Sally's hands on my arm.
"Sonic, relax," she said softly, soothingly. "Take a deep breath. You're okay. You're safe here, nobody blames you."
A silence followed her words from the people around us. It was the silence of disagreement, the kind where everyone knew somebody was wrong but nobody wanted to speak up. Stiffly, I rose from the table.
"I'm going home," I said in a monotone that did not convey my emotions. I walked away from the table, not looking back to see everyone watching me. The walking sped up to a jog, and I passed by the men unloading bodies from the parked trucks. The summer breeze happened to lift the top of the sheet of one of the corpses being carried off the truck, revealing the person's face as the sister of the worker who started the conversation. Dark's seemingly flawless memory played her dying screams in my brain, and I broke into a run.
The city I ran through was but a skeleton of what it used to be. The skyscrapers were encompassed with scaffolding and the cables of cranes dangling over their remains. Dark often changed this sight to a blood red sky and nooses hanging over buildings made of bones and covered in skin, eyeballs replacing the windows, looking in every direction. It brought bile to my mouth, and I forced my eyes down to gaze at the road before me, but even that was a view Dark could twist. I felt like I couldn't get into my house fast enough. I slammed the door shut and slid the bolt home, pressing my back to it and slumping down. I was acting like I was running from something when there was nothing there. I rested my hand over my chest and closed my eyes to stop myself from seeing the visions, taking slow, careful, measured breaths. It was a trick my therapist had taught me in case something were to trigger Dark's abuse. It worked every time. My will, the curtain between me and Dark, closed around me once more, protecting me. I took a minute, counting the seconds slowly, before getting to my feet and walking to my bathroom. I leaned over the sink and gazed into the mirror, my emerald green eyes, eyes that looked like they should belong to someone much older than I was, were staring back.
In total, it's been a year since I was first shot with the mind-control blaster that, instead of controlling my actions, gave me Dark. I've changed a lot since then. My enemies are dead, as are my closest friends. My carefree days going after robots for kicks are over. The adventures in which I took my brother to new places just to see the amazed look on his face had been torn away. Careless days in the sun would never be the same. Now, I had Dark. He was a part of me that I had to work to accept. The yin and yang. The darkness and the light. We were two sides of the same coin. Maybe one day, something will happen that will cause me to snap. The coin will flip, and he will be in control. Then the search for the light will resume, like the sun chases the moon. Darkness is a part of our world just as light is, and in time, it will conquer again.
But that is a bridge I will cross when I come to it.
((*sigh* Remember when this story was cocky and full of jokes and under-average writing? Good, me neither. I can't thank you guys enough for how much support this story has gotten. I could never have expected it as it was only my second story. Keep it up, and be sure to check out my other stories! If you want a dark story like this one where Sonic struggles with internal conflict, read Manipulation. If you want a lighter, more random, joke-filled parody story, check out Sonic '06 Bloopers! *plugplugplug* I'd love to see familiar faces in the reviews for those two novels!
The bonus chapters for this story are coming to an end. If you would like to see more, please leave a review on what kind of bonus chapter you'd like to see.
Thanks for everything, and remember to FFR&R! Until next time!))
~SonicTheHedgehog-Nerd