Chapter 12

"I found this between two of the books in that office," Knuckles told Sonic. He held up a key. "Maybe it's for one of these doors."

"Oh, cool!" Sonic replied. "Which one do you think it goes in?"

"Well, the door at the end of the hallway, at least in my experience, is always the door you're supposed to go in last... so let's try the one over there." Knuckles said, gesturing towards the door to the right side of the room from the entrance.

"Good thinking!" Sonic agreed. "Let's try it out."

Knuckles, inserted the key and then turned it. He opened the door to what seemed like a child's bedroom. There was a dull pink coat of paint on the walls, a desk with a powered off lamp and stacks of papers, a plain white bed, and a scratched up mat with some sort of dark green stain that depicted cartoony, pastel colored farm animals such as cows, pigs, and sheep playing on a landscape very reminiscent of a planetoid of the Lost Hex.

Sonic opened his mouth to talk, but then, he felt a cold breath go down his shoulder. He turned around, but Knuckles wasn't there. Shrugging it off as some wind trailing into the house, Sonic turned once more to see Knuckles examining the bookshelf. "Come look at this, Sonic," Knuckles said.

Sonic zipped over to the bookshelf. Children's story and picture books and some old manga, much like that from Japan on Earth or the Dragon Kingdom region here on Mobius. The books were arranged neatly on the shelf. However, there was a piece of lined paper stuck out from between the books. Sonic grabbed the outlying, loose leaf of paper and pulled it out from the shelf.

"What does it say?" Knuckles asked, looking over Sonic's shoulder. Sonic began to read it aloud.

"'Saturday... I've finally done it. My masterpiece is complete. With this invention, I'll be revered across all of mankind!'" Sonic read, in a voice mocking and imitating Eggman's. "'Just you wait, Sonic. You can't outrun fate!'"

Sonic and Knuckles exchanged glances, then laughed.

"So this IS Eggman!" Sonic cackled. "He really thinks... he really thinks he can beat me! You and what Infinite?!"

Knuckles' laughter abruptly stopped when he noticed that Sonic's laugh was tinged with something else, a darkness. Something was wrong with Sonic. Knuckles wouldn't show it, but he was very concerned. This was the second time Sonic had mentioned the events of the war since since it had ended. Sonic kept on laughing, though. Knuckles felt it best to keep looking for clues.

Knuckles checked another desk drawer, and immediately, his pupils shrank. A drop of sweat made its way down his face. "Uh... Sonic? You should really see this."

Sonic wheezed from laughing and then stopped his now nearly hysterical laughter and walked over. The color seemed to drain from his face as he looked at the paper Knuckles was holding up.

"Oh... um..." Sonic fumbled his words.

On the paper was a crude charcoal drawing of someone... hanging. They were facing the other way, and messy, seemingly greasy hair ran down their back. The only color on the paper was the yellowing edges and messy black lines.

"Who could have drawn this?!" Sonic blurted, a worried expression on his face. "If someone's in here besides Eggman, we need to find them and get them help!"

"There's more..." Knuckles muttered, looking at Sonic. Indeed, he lifted the piece of paper, and revealed a stack of drawings much like the first one.

One drawing was of a girl, the eyes scratched out. Literally. There was a tear in the paper across where the eyes should be. It seemed to have been done with ones nails. A fully shaded in mustache similar to Eggman's was drawn across her upper lip. The text on the top read "I'm hideous."

Another. This one was not of a girl. At least, it didn't seem to be. It was of a grotesque monster with a circle-shaped head, actual BURNS on the paper with a dark red streak that had made its way down from one of the burns and long since dried up. It read: "Eyes on the walls and windows. They never blink."

"This is starting to get weird..." Sonic said, with a tremor in his voice. He held onto his chest. Knuckles looked at him worriedly.

"Should we keep going?" Knuckles asked, fearing for his friend.

"Yeah, yeah... just caught the willies..." Sonic said, almost apologetically. "I'm fine."

"If you say so..." Knuckles said. He lifted the paper and showed Sonic the drawing

A sharp pain made its way into Sonics chest. This drawing one was done neat and precise, as if done by a professional. It was of a girl in confinement behind lines and shading that depicted steel bars. The same monster from the drawing before this one stared in on her and clenched onto the bars from the other side.

Sonic nearly stumbled back, but caught himself before he fell, though the sensation of falling was more present than ever. Those bars. He suddenly felt himself reliving every horrible experience aboard the Death Egg. He lost control of his balance once more. He fell to the ground, hitting his head on the edge of the bed. When he looked up at Knuckles, no one was there. Pitch blackness covered his vision.

A maniacal and sadistic, yet calm and confident laughter boomed into Sonic's ears. The laughter soon died.

"So, Sonic... it seems you have met your end..." The voice said. A completely different environment from the house made its way into Sonic's vision as if it were being suctioned through a funnel. Through this narrow vision, he saw a horrible demon from the aforementioned Lost Hex. With a red exoskeleton, like a bug, and horns protruding from his skull. The monster came up close to Sonic. Yellow eyes, purple fractals for pupils.

Sonic found he had no control over his body as he stood up, as if he was attached to strings or being forced by momentum to grind across a set rail. Then, his mouth moved. It took seconds for his own voice to echo on after.

"Zavok. Heh... man, all this talk about me meeting my end?" Sonic chuckled, his voice bounced off the walls and back into his ears. It was quiet, almost unhearable. "Who hurt you? Oh wait I almost forgot. I DID. All that blunt force head trauma from the falling blocks in Lava Mountain, the lava burns... I thought you were down for the count. No matter. I'll be out of here in no time!"

Sonic tensed as if to charge up for a dash, but the strength never came. Instead, he tripped and fell on his face. Zavok burst into laughter.

Sonic rolled over and tried to pull his arms apart. But something was holding them together in front of him -- a holographic but still very tangible and real ring. Not like the Rings that helped him, no. This was a special Eggman brand inhibitor ring that he got after researching Shadow while he was comatose right before the Neo Period of Mobius. While Shadow's inhibitor rings helped him control his power, these ones were meant to contain any movement from Sonic.

Zavok laughed. "Very funny, you insufferable rodent," Zavok bellowed. The smile from the pure joy he took away from seeing Sonic suffer faltered. His face was now dead serious. "You like jokes, don't you? How about this? I'm sure it will be good for a laugh."

With a raising of his hand, Zavok, making an upward swiping motion with his arm, commanded the robotically wired bars of the prison aboard the Death Egg to open instantaneously. Which they did. All metal could be manipulated by a Zeti's will, a race which Zavok was one of the last survivors of. "You will pay for the humiliation you brought upon my greatness in my own home. The home of my people. The ancient home of my kind, the remainder of which you killed in COLD BLOOD." With his gigantic hand, Zavok grabbed a hold of Sonic's head. Finding he couldn't talk, plead, or beg for mercy, Sonic did the only thing he could think of. He kicked and screamed and sharpened his quills, which went through Zavoks hand with a stomach churning stabbing sound. But no blood came out. When Sonic's quills retracted, there were six holes in the Zeti's hand. He didn't scream in agony. He didn't even seem bothered. Instead, he chuckled.

"Tickles," Zavok growled. "Now, how does this feel?"

Zavok picked Sonic up by the quills, making for a rather unpleasant feeling in his head as the extra layer of skin peeled off of the skin underneath. Then, with all the force the Zeti could muster, which was somehow even greater than usual, he slammed Sonic's head into the cold, hard metal wall of his confinement cell. Laughing and feasting on Sonic's suffering.

Sonic could feel his skull crack between Zavok's palm and the pressure of the wall as he was pushed against it further. Then, Zavok stopped laughing and instead smiled genuinely as he turned him around so that Sonic could face him. Sonic thought, with the good and innocence in his little hedgehog heart, that Zavok had had a sudden change of his own heart. Sonic weakly smiled back at him. But Zavok's smile kept growing, until he grinned from horn to horn and extended his teeth through a line of holes in his gums and licked the areas around his mouth with his awful slimy tongue poking through his fangs. Zavok slammed Sonics head into the wall again. And again, and again. It felt like an eternity of the pain. But finally, he threw Sonic to the ground with a disgusting splat. Sonic was now a bloody mess of wobbly flesh and quills. His skull was broken. But he still held onto life. Grasping it in his gloved hand. He would not die today. For his friends, his loved ones, his planet, he would keep his strength and live another day. He could not talk or move. Only breathe ever so slightly. He held onto every breath sacredly, drawing it out as long as he could, as he knew no matter how willing he was to live, every breath could be his last.

"Hilarious," Zavok muttered, although there was no sign on his face of any sort of humor or joy. He banged his fist on the wall. "Did you really think you could ever defeat me again?

Sonic wished he could say something.

"Don't be ridiculous. Get off the floor, it's a bad look for you. And take this."

Sonic closed his eyes and braced himself for the pain. No matter what, he wouldn't give up. He had an indomitable will. But instead, he felt sudden relief from his pain. He felt warmth and a sense of safety. It was almost maternal to him. He had obtained a Ring. He could tell as soon as that all too familiar jingle and glistening entered his ears. He stood up, feeling all of his strength returning to him in an instant. But... where could it have come from?

Looking at Zavok, he saw the bars had now closed between them. Zavok held a Ring between his thumb and pointer finger. He grinned evilly. The blood and color along with it drained from Sonic's face. Then, a dark purple light enveloped Zavok's hand for a fraction of a second, with a fragment of a sound that felt like it had no identifiable origin point playing in Sonic's ear. He had heard that sound during his face-off with Infinite. Zavok's smile extended further as his puncture wounds healed, until his face seemed separate from his mouth. Zavok grew taller and thinner. His eyes turned hypnotic. His horns extended further. He then walked away with a thump in every step he took. The entire Death Egg shook beneath him.

For the next six Mobius months, once every space day, Zavok would return. He would torture Sonic and break him down both mentally and physically. Sonic had to live through all of it again. Every second of it. Sometimes, he'd dig his hand into his stomach and tear apart his organs. Sometimes he'd crush anything that wasn't vital to life in the palm of his hand. Sometimes, he'd just stare at him and talk down to him, making him fear for the safety of himself and everything he held dear. He knew, soon, he was going to die. Zavok told him of how after the Eggman Empire reached its goal, Sonic would be forced to see what had become of Mobius and his friends. He would then be thrown into space with the trash and waste of the Death Egg and its inhabitants. He would suffocate, and die under the pressure of a thousand stars. Every time Zavok came back, he would return grosser and more frightening than the last time. He would always heal Sonic when he was done with a singular Ring.

There was no escape. He could not break through the bars that confined him no matter how hard he tried. He could not burrow through the ground and blast out of the Death Egg to save his planet and friends. He could not eat anything other than trashy food such as Egg Dogs, Egg Candy maybe, and if he was lucky, a serving of Egg-squisite Lunch. With Poppin' Eggcorn to wash it all down as he was to watch any organic life from the planet he loved die and be replaced by terrifying robots. Never again was he to crack a joke, never again was he to jump for no other reason than the pure joy of it, never again was he to run.

That is, until the Death Egg was liberated. By the Resistance under Knuckles' command. After six months on Mobius but what may very well have been a few weeks in space. Sonic's suffering was over. Zavok had disappeared into nothing in what was at that point the most satisfying battle of Sonic's life. It turned out that this Zavok was an illusion made by the Phantom Ruby, along with all the other forces under Eggman's control. With the Resistance and a new friend by his side, Sonic saved the world and life went on.

But Sonic never truly moved on. Something snapped in him during that time. Though he continued to wear a smile, the Sonic that entered the Death Egg that day never made it back. He had died in there. His spirit had, anyways. Everything Sonic had done from that point on was disingenuous, it was all a lie. A lie of his very doing. He smiled and laughed, played and ran through a free and celebrating, albeit recovering Mobius, but deep down, he was broken and traumatized. He would never show his friends. He could never show his friends out of fear of what they may think, how worried they might be. He would be forced to live a lie until the end of his natural born days.

Sonic snapped back to the present. He shook in a pool of his own sweat. Still in that same room. Unaware of the fact that Knuckles had completely vanished. A trail of scratch marks covered the floor from his knuckles that were his namesake. These gradually transitioned into a bloody trail when his knuckles dulled out and became nothing but nubs on his fists.

Sonic rocked back and forth, damn close to urinating himself from pure fear. He babbled nonsense and gibberish to himself. But soon, he got up and screamed...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Continue to Chapter 13