Chapter 13

He punched through the wall, leaving his arm red and aching. He Spindashed around the room, up on the walls, and across the ceiling. The room was torn apart, as if by a tornado. Everything was utterly destroyed. When he ran out of energy to Spindash, run, or destroy any more, he crawled on the floor like an infant in some form of limbo between mindless dribble and full, wanton, aware lust for destruction. It was awful. This entire time, something in his mind screamed to be let out. DEMANDED to be let out. He couldn't tell if it was the remnants of his spirit, the Werehog by some ludicrous and impossible chance, the mask he had been putting on this whole time, which he imagined was long-faced, had a black mustache, voided eyes, and gray skin. Or maybe something deeper and darker.

Then, Tails called. The Miles Electric played a 16-bit, sharp chiptune ringtone. It came out muffled as if through a paper bag. Sonic shook his head and got up onto his shaky feet in an unnatural way, his legs nearly falling out from under him. He smiled his signature smile, and if you looked at his face, you couldn't even begin to assume that the events that had just taken place had ever truly happened. He sure couldn't remember. He became fully aware of what he was doing, as he took out the Miles Electric and tapped a button on the touchscreen that read "Accept call". He had to tap it multiple times, as it didn't register his finger through the fabric of his gloves.

"Sonic! I've been trying to reach you for hours!" Tails immediately shouted as he popped up on the screen. He seemed panicky. "Where's Knuckles?!"

"Wait... where IS Knuckles?!" Sonic asked, looking all around.

"Agh, we'll look for him later. Bad news! Really bad news!" Tails followed up. "The storm is growing!"

"What?!" Sonic asked. He ran outside, paying almost no mind to the scratch marks on the floor and carpet. He looked up, and saw that indeed, the storm was darker and now covered a big portion of the sky.

Far away from the mysterious mansion, Resistance members boarded battleships in a blind frenzy. Fauna and locals grabbed onto strands of grass to avoid being swept away, but their efforts were fruitless for the most part. Even the bravest leaders across South Island panicked as they tried to account for everyone, while still getting the accounted for out safely. People huddled together and cried out for help. Some resigned themselves to their fate and made no effort to get away. Brave, supernaturally powered heroes not unlike Sonic and his friends, with the same powerful substance flowing through their veins made it a point to get everyone out with their superpowers.

As he raced towards them, even from afar, Sonic could hear their screams. Then, he saw them clear as day as they all fell into the void above. For many, Sonic is a beacon of hope, an everlasting light in the darkest storm. So when they saw him, they pleaded for help. Sonic tried to jump, tried to run up the walls of the skyscraping mansion. But no matter what, he couldn't save a single soul. It was when he was running on the walls trying to make another futile, yet admirable attempt to save anybody he could, that he was knocked down by the smallest of rocks, moving at incredible speeds from behind. The rock took down Sonic and then continued up into the storm.

"Ow!" Sonic yelped, as he fell down. Luckily, he wasn't too far up the wall. Had he been any higher up the wall, he would have gotten seriously hurt. He recovered during his fall, did a backflip, and landed on his feet. He felt like his ankles had shattered, and that's saying a lot. Sonic can usually manage falling great distances from the ground. But he felt weak. For the life of him, he couldn't remember why.

"Sonic!" several civilians cried out, begging for help from their greatest hero. But he couldn't help them. Their hopes were crushed into pieces that dissolved into the storm.

Sonic reached out to a lone Flicky among the empty air, who flapped its wings as quickly as it could, in an effort to escape the pull of the vortex. This was the last living thing that Sonic could see. Everyone else had been taken away to some unknown fate. Sonic had to do something. If Sonic couldn't save this one poor bird, well, what kind of hero was he?

His thoughts were a jumble of incomprehensible dribble as he made a mighty jump onto a windowsill to come face to face with the Flicky, knocking over a flowerpot holding a long decayed sunflower with some sort of tag written in English. Sonic couldn't tell what it said, as he was focused on saving at least this one Flicky.

The Flicky was giving it its all to fly towards Sonic, but you could tell it was getting tired. Sonic thought: If this Flicky is giving all it has, I damn sure have to as well! Sonic, lost in his own thoughts, fell off the windowsill but latched onto it by the tips of his fingers. He was high enough now, that, if he fell, it would be curtains for him. He dared not look down as his vision became blurry and shaky. He was so high up that the air was thin. He could hardly breathe.

The Flicky fought just to stay conscious, as it also gave every last drop of effort to stay in flight towards Sonic. But the Flicky's strength was slipping away ever so slightly by the second. As its wings came to a stop and its eyes closed, Sonic pulled himself up and made one last mighty jump, which didn't bring him close enough to grab the Flicky even if he stretched his arm so far that it began to ache. And now, he was going to fall.

He was going to die.

"NO!" Sonic shouted once more as he fell.

But in the distant sky, in the slightest fraction of a second, he saw the outline of a squid-like creature making its way through the storm and towards him at speeds unprecedented for any other. As it came closer, he saw one huge eye that took up most of its face. A little squiggle came from its head, along with two antennas. Sonic couldn't believe it.

"YACKER!" Sonic exclaimed.

Indeed, the White Wisp known as Yacker, who Sonic had met aboard Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park during the Battle of the Rainbow, merged into Sonic's body through his stomach, and filled him up with a power equal to that of 7 Super Emeralds all together!

Sonic felt like he could do anything at that moment. But what he had to do was save that Flicky. He had never done anything like this before, but he knew he could do it. He was truly confident in his power for the first time in a while. He looked up at the Flicky, who was being sucked into the vortex at blinding speeds. However, no matter how fast you are...

... Sonic is always faster!

Sonic boosted directly upwards, making him feel like he was flying. He reached his hands out to the Flicky, ready to embrace it close to him to make its worries wash away. But a rock flew in his way, having other plans. And Sonic blasted right through the rock, blasting it into little pieces. As his breath drew thin, Sonic grabbed ahold of the Flicky, hugging it close to him. He overpowered the pull of the storm with a special type of strength powered by love. Love for anyone who walked or flew across Mobius. Including this Flicky.

As Sonic ran out of Hyper-Go-On energy, he began to fall, with the Flicky in his arms. However, just then, several Wisps, all different colors, caught him and carried him down slowly and safely. As soon as he set foot on the ground, Sonic ran as fast as he could and the Wisps flew off in a chorus of colors and incomprehensible sounds.

The Miles Electric began to load something, and then, a message appeared onscreen. Sonic looked down at it as he ran out of the area the storm was in.

It read... "From Planet Wisp to Mobius, we'll always be here when you need us."

The sky was now a dull blue above him as the sun came up over the horizon. Sonic found himself gaining speed by the second as dolphins jumped in and out of the water behind him. The Flicky came to, as Sonic came to a stop on Cocoa Island.

Kneeling down, he let the Flicky onto the ground at its own pace. Sonic smiled genuinely, for a change, at the pure innocence that was this Flicky as it hopped out of Sonic's hands and took off into the sky. The Flicky looked back and smiled.

Not a word was exchanged between the two, but Sonic already felt like he had made a new friend. Another day saved by Sonic the Hedgehog.

Sonic checked and saw that the Miles Electric was still without a connection. Cocoa Island was still pretty remote, it was one of the few locations completely untouched by the Eggman Empire during the war. The only thing the locals had to worry about was the Battle Kukku Empire that periodically attacked the island and its people. But the Kukku weren't much of a threat, and Tails' many defenses, coming in the form of what Sonic liked to call Goodniks, kept the island safe.

Sonic looked back towards the distant South Island, and decided that he at least had the little power needed to do this. He would figure out the mystery to this mansion, and stop the scheme of whoever was doing this. Be it Eggman, or whoever. Sonic would do it.

So he ran. He ran across the ocean, and soon the Miles Electric regained its internet connection. Tails immediately appeared onscreen.

"Sonic!" Tails cried.

"Hey, Tails!" Sonic greeted. "Any updates?"

"Yeah, the workshop is being ATTACKED," Tails warned Sonic. "Badniks are trying to break down the walls, so I'm gonna be taking the Tornado. I could meet up with you at Green Hill Zone if you want."

"Great! I really need it right now..." Sonic sighed and walked into the house. They needed to look for Knuckles now. Sonic called his name into the empty house. "Hey, Knuckles!"

Something on the ground caught his eye. Four lines of carvings throughout the ground that soon turned into barely visible scratches, and then bloody trails.

"Knuckles?" Sonic asked with worry in his voice.

"Is that... blood?!" Tails asked. A loud crash emanated from above Tails. He ducked and covered his head. "Agh! Gotta go! I'll be there soon! Don't move from where you are!" The call ended.

Sonic, panicked, looked everywhere. Then, his eyes fixated on the door at the end of the hall. It was open. It stretched forward into the distance. Strange. This one hall seemed longer than the entire exterior of the house. Without thinking, Sonic bolted down the hallway.

"Hey, Knuckles!" Sonic bellowed. "Knuckles!"

Sonic held his hands up to his mouth as he ran. He wasn't looking ahead of him, and he tripped over a floorboard that stuck out from the floor. With the momentum he had built, he rocketed forward into a door, swinging it open and continuing to be launched. He quickly realized he was headed straight towards a table, upon it, an hourglass. If he knocked it over, it would shatter and leave broken glass waiting for him upon his impact with the ground. So, he did the only thing he could think to do. As if he was performing a quick step to the left, he shifted to the left in the air, spinning like a drill in that same direction. He ended up knocking into the wall, and bouncing off.

"Ouch!" Sonic exclaimed, as he held his aching forehead.

As soon as the pain subsided, Sonic got up on his feet. Looking around, the room he was now in appeared to be some sort of study. In the middle of the room, was an impressive hourglass on a pedestal. The walls were covered, ceiling to floor, with paintings and photos, but they were all heavily plastered with blackout. If it was a painting or photo of a person, the blackout covered only their faces. The people all wore lab coats, but the names were scratched out. There was a window, but it was broken and boarded up. An arctic breeze blew in from outside. Sonic took a step and spun around slowly, examining the whole room. He noticed the uneven floor under the rug in the center of the room. He lifted it, to reveal a blank canvas beneath him. There was a mud print of the lined underside of his shoe on the canvas now. Sonic had the feeling of being watched. He looked at the window, and thought he saw a humanoid figure peeking through the hole in the glass, but then he closed his eyes and sneezed. When he opened his eyes again, the hint of a figure was gone.

Interestingly, the room had a narrow door, framed by two imposing shelves of books.He turned the door. Jammed. Sonic did not feel he should try to break it down. It looked sturdy, unlike everything else in this place, which looked as if it could fall apart at any moment. Which brings up the question, why wasn't it also being swept away into the vortex? Sonic could only assume there was some sort of spell casted on it, like in troll stories of days yonder.

"Well that's fun," Sonic sighed. "My friend is missing, there's no way forward, and I'm now in this dimly lit room with a quite foreboding hourglass. What a strange thing to have in a study." Sonic eyed the hourglass. Something about it... something about it felt enticing, almost inviting. The voice inside Sonic, the voice that tells him to run and fight, now told him he should reach out and touch it.

"Well you know, it's really a beautiful hourglass..." Sonic mumbled to himself. "Not foreboding at all..." Sonic bravely reached out his hand and his finger barely grazed the glass, he immediately jolted his hand away. He didn't even feel it, it may have just been his glove. The sand inside seemed to shake around inside upon his touch. Strange. Sonic then got hit with an immediate urge to take it with him. Without a word to himself, he walked closer, and extended his arm. His heart rate sped up as his hand came ever closer.

Wrapping his arm around the hourglass, he picked it up and held it close to his side. He looked around. For some reason, he felt something should have happened upon him picking the hourglass up. Usually when he so much as touched one of these, a door of some kind opened. Or sometimes day would turn to night. But nothing had changed about the room. He checked. The door was still jammed, the paintings were still blacked out, and the window was still boarded up. The window. Something wasn't right about the window. Then, he realized.

The breeze had stopped.

And then it happened. The dim light bulb hanging over him from the ceiling fan shattered, leaving Sonic in the dark. Only a small amount of light poked through the boards from the window now.

Sonic, startled, nearly dropped the hourglass. He fumbled it, and every time he thought he had caught ahold of it, it bounced right off his hand. One of the red spikes on the bottom, which resembled upside-down devil horns, poked into his hand, leaving a small puncture in his glove. It wasn't enough to break the skin, but it was enough to send a jolt of pain rocketing through his hand and stopping at his wrist. Sonic, holding his own hand to ease the sudden pain, inadvertently let the hourglass drop. He then kicked it from its gold-lined bottom gently, and it bounced onto his other shoe. Which he then kicked back up to arm reach. He grabbed onto one of the angel wings that adorned the top, the top also being lined in gold. For some reason... he felt he shouldn't let the hourglass break. He felt that if he did, something horrible would happen.

"Gotcha!" Sonic exclaimed. He then held the hourglass with both hands. Examining the hourglass, he saw it. The Yin and Yang. There seemed to be a round rock painted and cut in the image of the Yin and Yang that was covering the little tube that the sand was supposed to fall through. "Hmm... this symbol is everywhere in this place." Sonic stated to himself. "Now, what's with the light shattering? It felt like it was on some sort of-"

The door behind Sonic slammed shut with a locking sound following suit...

Sonic, turning around, had a mixture of fear and shock on his face. He then realized. There was a lock on the OUTSIDE of the door. There was no lock on the inside. Immediately, he put the hourglass in his bag and sprinted towards the door. He tried turning the knob, but it was, as he feared, locked. "No, No!" Sonic blurted as he desperately tried to turn the knob. "This can't be happening!" He shouted, his voice a mesh of anger and despair.

Sonic began to pound on the door with his fist, hoping someone would hear him. "Someone help! It's me, Sonic the Hedgehog! I'm stuck!" Nobody came to his aid. All he heard was a far off giggling. With the giggling, his heart skipped a beat. Somebody had done this on purpose. "Hey! This isn't funny!" Sonic squawked, his voice cracking from fear. "Let me out!"

Sonic pounded the door more intensely, making a loud wooden banging sound. Against his better judgement, he revved up a Spindash and tried to cut through the door. But he just bounced off of it like he was nothing. He fell to the ground and skidded on the carpet, giving him some nasty rugburn. He clenched his eyes shut and screamed through gritted teeth.

He stayed like that for minutes on end.

"You know you won't find your friend, right?" A girl's voice said, calmly. Sonic opened his eyes. All he could see were two white slip-on shoes, with the tops showing through, revealing white socks that went up to the figure's knees. The skin above the knee-high socks was a dead, dull brown. As Sonic looked up, he saw the figure was wearing a faded purple dress that was covered in dirt and dust. Her arms were behind her back. Then Sonic saw something you don't often see on Mobius. The figure had a neck. Above it was a face, which was the same dead color as the figure's legs. Dark brown hair streamed down her back, almost touching the ground, it was messy and unkempt. Oddly enough, this figure was not Mobian. It looked more like an Overlander or a human. Only problem was, humans and Overlanders have pupils.

She didn't.

Sonic gathered his bearings. Someone was here. Again, I can't stress this enough, nobody could see his mental state for what it really was.

"Who are you, exactly?" Sonic asked, looking up at her eyes. He didn't want to get up, he didn't even want to bother staying awake. He wasn't even concerned with the fact that she had no pupils. It wasn't even close to being the weirdest thing he's seen today.

"I don't think that's important right now," The girl answered. She sat down on her knees, bringing her to eye level with Sonic. "What's important is that you get out of this house. Now."

"But my friend is missing!" Sonic shouted. Then, he realized something. Without thinking, he started speaking again. "Hey, you're the only person I've seen in this place besides he and I. I bet you took him and locked me in here!"

The girl groaned. "Enough of your whining," She demanded. "I did not take your friend, nor did I lock you in here. In fact..." The sound of a door unlocking made its way to Sonic's ears from down the hall. "I just unlocked the door for you. You're welcome. Now leave."

"Uhh... thanks?" Sonic jeered. "Look, I don't know if you can tell, but I have someone to save. I can't just leave them behi---"

"Ah ah ah!" The girl shushed Sonic. "Leave. End of story."

"Hey, miss, do you know who I am?" Sonic questioned, conceitedly. "I'm---"

"Sonic the Hedgehog. 'Eater of chili dogs. Goer of fasts'. Yeah, I've heard of you before," The girl interrupted Sonic once again. "Yeah, you sure are a big time hero. Only able to save one measly bird, nearly pissing yourself while rocking back and forth on the floor like some kind of animal. Oh wait, I forgot. You are an animal."

Sonic's ear bent downward in irritation. "You're better at interrupting me than SHADOW is," Sonic quipped. "Yeah, tell me one I haven't heard before."

"How about this one?" The girl snapped. She took a step closer to Sonic. "You will DIE if you don't leave this place. Everyone, everything that you know and love will perish. Your world will cease to be if you don't go running away from here with your tail between your legs."

"I may run fast, but I never run away when I need to save my friends," Sonic told the girl off. Then, suddenly, the girl reached for his bag. He jolted back, the hourglass nearly falling out of the bag.

"Oh, of course," The girl said, in a calm and collected manner. "You already have it. The hourglass. Never mind. Ignore what I said. You can keep going forward. Just know that you will die, a horrible, horrible death. You have no hope now. And neither does your universe. Also, get off the floor. It's a bad look for you."

"I think I will," Sonic groaned. When he got up on his feet and dusted himself off, he looked back at the girl. She was gone. It then occurred to Sonic that, with one door locked, the other one jammed, and the windows boarded up, there was no way she should have been able to get in.

Continue to Chapter 14