Chapter Eighteen: Survivor's Remorse

Run—run and don't stop running.

I have become Sonic. The thought alone makes me nauseous. But I awoke nauseous. I am anything but myself. But I am trapped in my own skin. A life I should not have. I should not be alive. I don't deserve to be alive.

Why am I the one left alive?

Nova didn't look back at the ship behind her. She paid no stray thought to question where in the universe she was. It didn't particularly matter. Little did anymore.

Rain collapsed in sheets on top of her. There hadn't been rain when she started running; she'd run into the storm. It didn't pour down on the Blue Typhoon she fled but only on her. It was fitting. The water drowned her knotted curls and plastered them to her cheeks. It soaked her fragile wings, not that it much mattered. It wasn't like they worked anymore. She felt every single stitch holding them together like each was an individual spark of pain in her mind.

But still she ran.

She weaved through tree trunks as she sprinted away from the Blue Typhoon. Wherever she was in the universe must be on one edge or the other of winter because the tree branches reaching up above her head were barren rather than clothed with leaves. Which was only significant in the fact that this meant they allowed the rain to make it through to Nova's shivering form. Blood ran down the inside of her arm from where she had yanked out the IV. She couldn't bear to think too much about that. Her trauma haunted the edges of her mind, close enough that she felt its breath.

Her lungs refused to fully fill. They ached and screamed with every gasp. The ground shook beneath her like an earthquake, but she knew it was her damaged body rather than a natural disaster. Branches and brush tore at her bandaged skin, tearing open new and old injuries alike. But still she ran and she ran until—

—she couldn't.

Eventually, Nova's willpower was not enough to outrun the limits of her body, brought upon by Airin's—not to mention the battle against genocide that had taken place just before her body failed her. And now again, it failed her.

Her knee gave out mid-stride and she collapsed to sprawl in the dirt. She smarted against the impact, forgot how to move for a moment. When she remembered, she spat out the dirt in her mouth and turned her head so her cheek pressed against the ground. But when she tried to command her body upright once more, her limbs refused. She shook too much. After a long moment, she urged her arms at least to cradle her head. A new wave of pain shot through her wing with every drop of rain that hit her wounds—of which there were many.

Nova gritted her teeth and tried to bear it. She didn't deserve even the small relief tears would bring her. But tears welled in her eyes anyway. She choked on the air she tried to breathe. She shivered in the rain, though her skin was too warm for her to feel this cold. Her body was a mess of contradictions. But she'd woken up.

Even though Nova didn't think she should have.

"Nova."

Her body stiffened. Even as weak as it was, her body still tried to protect her. Still readied to make her a smaller target, since she could no longer run from whatever might attack. Even as her mind crawled so slow that she failed to recognize to whom the voice belonged. At least until Shadow the Hedgehog knelt down beside her.

He reached out, presumably to help her up, but then Nova snapped, "Don't you dare!"

Shadow's hand froze in the space between them. His eyes widened. But even after his initial shock, Shadow held still, not violating Nova's command.

Nova's anger, thankfully, gave her shaking arms enough adrenaline to shove herself up into a seated position. Mud slickened her front, including the oversized white t-shirt Shadow or someone else must have put her in while she was still unconscious. Her damp hair was more helmet than hair by now. She knew she looked a mess. A child. A monster.

And still, Shadow held still and silent. And waited. Even as the sky continued to pour the contents of an ocean down upon their heads. He allowed time to hang between them while Nova's damaged soul found her way to the words screaming inside her.

"My people are dead, Shadow!" Her shout stole the air from her lungs and she had to gasp desperately for more air before she continued. All the while a sob building up on the back of her tongue, threatening to choke out all her efforts. "All of them are gone. The Metarex killed everyone."

She drew her shaking, dirty hand toward her mouth. Though the strength to hold it there for more than a second failed her. The strength in her wrists disintegrated, and she just managed to catch herself on her forearms before she collapsed face-first to the dirt once more. Shadow jerked forward but he caught himself short.

Nova took a second to capture her breath again. Even so, she could only whisper when she said, "It was my job to protect them. But they all died, and I'm still here."

Nova's fingers curled into fists. Her back arched ever so slightly, as if she was going to curl into a ball. But the sobs racking silently through her body stole all the energy it would take to do so. Her body was falling to dust while Nova was still inside, and all she could think was that she wished her body would make quicker work of things.

Shadow's hand brushed against Nova's neck as he pulled her soaked hair away. Nova said nothing; she had no strength left to protest the comfort she didn't deserve. One half of her energy was being used to keep her alive, the other half was consumed by grief. There seemed to be no room left for anything else, save for the war between the two halves of herself, the war only one of them could win.

"Why?" The question was more sob than word. "Why am I the one spared? I should have fought for them until my last breath, but I didn't. And now they're gone. And I'm still here—"

Shadow's arm shot out to catch Nova a split second before her strength gave out. Her shoulders fell to his arm instead of the ground. She gasped for air as the sudden bit of pressure of Shadow's arm against her chest was enough to expel the little air she could gather in her lungs. Shadow helped her shift back into a sitting position with his arm behind her shoulders to hold her upright. But once he did, even though Nova had snapped at his help before, she turned in toward him.

She didn't deserve him. She didn't deserve his comfort. She knew that. But like in so many other ways, her body betrayed her in this way as well.

"I'm the last of my kind," she breathed. Her voice broke.

Shadow said nothing, still said nothing. But he did slide his arm beneath her legs and lifted her off the ground. Nova offered no protest. Her head spun. She couldn't feel the rain smacking against her bare skin anymore. Even the sharp pain in her wing had faded to a dull buzz against her skull. Her eyelids slid closed against her will. "Shadow, what do I do now?" she asked. She felt awfully floaty for a fairy with stitches in her wing.

Shadow said nothing. Nova swayed like she was on a ship. For a moment, she could almost pretend the world wasn't real. That all of this was nothing more than a very bad dream.

"First, you survive," Shadow said suddenly in a quiet voice. But even though it was quiet, Nova clearly heard it above the rain. Like the words vibrated inside her. Like they were the truest thing inside her.

"Then," he continued, "you do as your people would have wished."

"Destroy the Metarex?" Nova mumbled. Consciousness was just about to drift out of reach now.

"No, Nova," Shadow said. So gently. Not admonishment but leading her toward an inevitability. "Perhaps you do that as well. But most importantly, you live. Your people would wish you to live. For there is no greater defiance of those who wish you dead. You live a long and beautiful life."

-X-X-X-

Sonic's View

Darkness. The world was mostly darkness now. It was easier that way, being unaware of what the Metarex demanded of his body.

But that was before he saw the video feed.

When his eyes drifted to the screen and recognized what he saw, Sonic woke up.

And so it was Sonic—and not just his body—that saw Tails and Chris on the video feed being displayed on the screen.

"You know what you need to do, Blue Seed." The voice behind him didn't quite belong to a Metarex. It was more alive than that. Like a female voice with a modulator on top of it. Was it another Metarex like him? Another creature in a Metarex skin? But he couldn't be sure; he had never heard himself speak as a Metarex. And then there was the fact that the Metarex skin refused to allow him the autonomy that would enable him to turn around.

No, instead all he could do was stare at his friends on the screen in front of him. Knowing what the Metarex expected him to do.

Sonic wished the darkness would take him once more.