Still trying my best to get stuff out - heres something short with a bit of world building
It only felt like he had blinked before Silver realized he was slowly waking up. The steady up and down movements of Shadow's stride jostled the dazed hoglet to full awareness. Hazy vision clouded the young hedgehog's sight, revealing nothing but dark tones and spotted lights blinking about at random. Where were they?
With a yawn, Silver let go of Shadow's shoulders to rub his eyes. Blurred vision cleared to reveal more trees - except, he was in a different part of the woods this time.
The forest was more gray than brown, looking extra dead in the clouded light. Looking down revealed nothing but a sea of hardened stone, the likes of which Silver had never even dreamed of existing. Not a stick or pine needle was in sight - like the forest had been dead and petrified long ago from some unusual force that was beyond this world. Where were they?
"You're awake." Shadow mumbled, hiking Silver up to avoid dropping him.
"How long was I sleeping?" Silver groaned, voice croaking from extensive rest.
"I'd say a good 18 hours." Shadow answered, jumping over a massive crack. "It's well past noon."
"Oh…" Silver sniffled, blinking away the rest of the haziness. "Sorry…"
Shadow didn't respond. The environment he navigated was… tricky to say the least. Below his feet laid broken earth as far as the eye could see. Where grass should have been, laid slabs of stone - dead trees poking out between large cracks like nails in a board. This place was... bizarre, to say the least.
A rock floated past them, seeming to ignore the laws of gravity as it tumbled by. Silver had seen such stones before, but never on this scale. It must have been at least the size of a small cat - not a tiny pebble like the hoglet was used to. How long had Shadow been walking? Where were they?
With another yawn, Silver leaned his head against the adult's shoulders, body still tingling from the lack of movement. With a half-lidded gaze, he stared at his distorted reflection in Shadow's shoulder guard. Twisted golden eyes stared back, circling around and flashing with every subtle movement.
Shadow jumped over another crack, feet landing softly on the other side as not to disturb the young hedgehog. Silver bounced slightly, head knocking against the armor with a quite clunk. Lazily, he shook his head - trying and failing to fix his quills without touching them.
Without warning, Shadow stooped to the ground. Leather gloves pressed against the stone floor and brushed, feeling grooves in the ground only barely visible to the naked eye. Silver looked around the forest, the leafless trees growing denser than before.
Getting up, the adult started to jog - crossing the alien landscape with precise movements. No matter what he was doing, Shadow was making sure he was facing one of the four cardinal directions. The hoglet grew confused. Shadow's navigation behavior had randomly changed, but there was no explanation as to why. Golden eyes darted around, looking for a marker or something to make sense of the impractical methods Shadow had opted to use.
Looking ahead, Silver spotted a peculiar sight. The trees, in the most interesting way, had made a clearing. Even more peculiar was how the clearing looked. All Silver could think to even describe such an odd place was if someone drew a line in some dirt; but instead of a line, was the absence of trees.
Before Silver could even think about the corridor more, the adult had walked to the middle of it and stopped. Turning around, Shadow looked up and down the clearing - calculating the direction with careful eyes. The leather clad fingers tapped at Silver's boots, rolling through each tip as his wheels turned harder.
"Hold on tight." Shadow commanded, gripping the hoglet's legs with his gloved claws. "I'm going to go fast for a second."
Looking at the adult he was attached to, Silver tried to make sense in his head of the situation. Missing trees? Strange directions? What could have even made such a uniform clearing? And what did the ranger mean by "Go fast"?
"Do you hear me?" Shadow asked, wiggling the tiny leg in irritation. "I need you to hold on tighter."
Silver mumbled an apology, wrapping his arms around the adult's neck with a confused sigh. What did Shadow mean by fa-
Wind blasted by his face roaring in his little ears as a slipstream started to form. The hoglet screamed, feeling the air slam against his fur with such force he thought he'd fall off. But the grip of the adult never faltered, keeping the tiny hedgehog glued close to his back like a barnacle on a whale. Silver felt his stomach turn, its miniscule contents jostling around at speeds previously thought impossible. Shadow was going too fast…
The environment whipped by, leaving little to the imagination as details were lost in the endless smudge that was the world. Stones and other floating objects zipped by the slipstream, narrowly missing the hedgehogs as they went. Dizziness pelted through Silver's head, leaving him faint and droopy as air refused to enter his lungs. Surely he would pass out from it all…
"Here's good." Shadow mumbled, half talking to himself and half talking to Silver as he ground to a halt. Leather boots made a sickening scrunch as pebbles and dust alike flew beyond them - momentum carrying the objects away with loud clacks and clatters. Silver half melted off the adult's back.
"You…" He gagged, dry heaving from the slowly fading nausea. "You went too fast…"
"Too fast?" Shadow asked, seeming genuinely surprised. "I was only going three hundred blocks an hour."
"Three hundred?" Silver gasped, unable to believe what he had just heard. "Three hundred blocks?"
"I slowed it down for you significantly." Shadow sighed, rolling his eyes. "Don't act like it's the end of the world; I didn't even come close to breaking the sound barrier."
"Slowed it down?" Silver parroted, flabbergasted. "Three hundred?"
"Yes." Shadow frowned, crossing his arms in frustration. "It's not something to drop your jaw about. "
Silver shut his mouth, suddenly aware it had been hanging loose. He looked at the corridor of stone, and back at the adult. They had traveled so far in such a short amount of time. How did the adult manage to do that? Was Sonic that fast? Sonic was said to have moved as fast as the wind. But who knew the wind was that fast.
"Stop thinking about it and pick yourself up." Shadow grumbled, turning and walking away. "We have places to be."
The ranger disappeared back into the petrified trees, walking slowly so the hoglet would have a chance to catch up.
"Why don't you do that all the time?" Silver asked, scrambling off the ground and after the adult. "It would save so much time."
"It wears down my boots." Shadow answered bluntly, not even turning to look at the hoglet. "And I happened to find an old highway that would be easier terrain for your body."
"Highway?" Silver asked, clambering over a fallen tree.
"A road where lots of people would travel at once." Shadow answered, adjusting his direction. "It was good for fast travel."
Silver didn't know how to respond. Shadow knew a lot of things about the past. Almost everyone, especially adults, either didn't know, or refused to tell him anything about history. It was almost like people were intentionally trying to forget the world behind them.
It was almost a shock that Shadow was so open about this "forbidden" information. Most adults got angry at him for even asking. Shadow was closed off about a lot of things, but he answered a lot of questions about history.
History was a tricky subject in the young hedgehog's perspective. There were so many questions about why the world was the way it was and almost no answers by the people he knew before. To make things worse, the only two people he had heard anything about anything from, was Fliss and Shadow.
To basically, in his own head, sum up everything Silver knew about the world before was simple. What Fliss had taught him was that the world was once super advanced with people being able to talk to people on the other side of the world through a brick - which was mind boggling enough - and even travel to the stars. She had also taught him that Sonic would protect the world from all harm. Sonic, of course, had died - as people often do - and left the world to fend for itself from the Demon that wrecked it all. Everything broke and now they all had to survive until someone could reinvent everything.
Now Shadow had taught him that Sonic had won a fight with an evil Doctor, as little sense as that made, and in response; the medical professional had unleashed the Demon on the world as revenge. He also had told him that people had rejected their own super advanced life to protect themselves, and intentionally put the world back into the "dark ages".
Those two stories were conflicting, and it left the young hoglet confused. Were they both correct? Silver had to know, curiosity was burning at his young mind and information was to be learned. But first of all, the question of his favorite hero.
"Why was Sonic so important?" Silver sheepishly asked.
"Why are you bringing him up." Shadow grumbled, a growl tingling in his throat.
"You said you knew him…" Silver mumbled, turning red in the face from the adult's unexpected reaction. "And… Fliss said he was really fast…"
"Speed has nothing to do with highways." Shadow groaned. "I told you this world's history, why are you still interested in that blue faker."
"Well…" Silver shyly squeaked. "I've heard so many stories…and…he seems so awesome…"
Shadow let out an almighty sigh. With an inaudible grumble, the adult slowed to a stop, face in his hands muttering angry words in a language Silver was not even aware of.
"I suppose one story won't suffice for someone as young as you." Shadow sighed, adjusting his hood. "We're a few hours out from the Gravity fields - I could tell you a story or two to inform you of the past."
Oh. That was easy.
Silver had honestly expected Shadow to put up a fight with the tone of voice he used/ But as it turned out, Shadow was remarkably easy to convince. Or so it seemed. Regardless of the situation, Silver was always happy to hear a story.