A Ghost's Pumpkin Soup; Dive into the Mellow

DAY X, 2 HOURS AGO…

Knuckles stepped through an abandoned railroad track during the witching hour. Since finding all the shards in Wild Canyon, he had stumbled into a ghastly orange gorge only known by the people of Shamar as Pumpkin Hill. They had described it only through whispers, a remote burial ground to hide bodies so the government would not mandatorily cremate them. It bordered on United Federation territory, so some of their citizens would appropriate this sacred place for their own burials. Despite the UF allowing proper burials on their own patches of sacred soil. Knuckles found this disgusting, on every level. On the side of the creaky old railroad, protected by rusty spiked fences, were simple shrines. Ordinary stones stuck into the ground to mark graves. Those homesick feelings of anxiety were at an all-time high. But he had to keep his head up and stick to his guns to save his picturesque island from crashing into this decayed, rotten, terrifying world he found himself stuck in.

Knuckles searched and he searched as he climbed up the wall towards a Master Emerald shard poking out from it like a knife from a body. He finally reached it, and tugged on the shard. The rock around it cracked. The piece of emerald came out without any effort, as well as a few ordinary rocks. Knuckles gazed to the shard, smiling. Until he felt something touch his shoulder. He jumped away, punching his fist into the other wall to avoid falling a long way to the ground. Looking back, he saw bones spilling out of the hole he made when he pulled out the emerald piece. Knuckles looked down in shame as the bones fell to the ground, some breaking.

Knuckles climbed down, and began to silently dig into the ground. "That was no place for you, my fallen neighbor," Knuckles grunted, placing the fractured female skull into the makeshift grave. He then did the same with the rest of the human skeleton. "I do not know you, but I hope this can make up for my crime against you." Knuckles whispered. He brushed the dirt over the bones. "Rest in peace." Knuckles walked off, further down the tracks. He knew this encounter would haunt him for a long time. He held his own hand, pretending there was someone else there to fight back against the fear and regret in his mind.

After collecting all the shards in the area, Knuckles heard the sound of an old decrepit train heading right towards him. He instantly spun around and punched the locomotive, knocking the whole train back. He walked around the train. There was no visible conductor. Knuckles jumped into one of the windows. Nobody was in there at all. Odd. Knuckles reclined on the seat, and just when he was able to relax, he felt the air turn from decently warm to freezing cold. Two transparent white shapes took form. They looked like humans. One a soldier, the other a scientist.

"Hey, you surprised me!" Knuckles gasped, scuttling over to the window. He was planning to jump out, but he only then realized that the train was already moving full steam ahead. Since Knuckles didn't want to risk being buried in a foreign graveyard, he stayed practically glued to their shared seat. The spirits blocking off Knuckles' escape looked like they didn't even notice him, that or they didn't mind his presence. The rest of the train was now packed full of specters, varying wildly in how bloodthirsty they appeared. Some were so far gone that they didn't even have any humanoid features. Knuckles wrapped his arms around his legs, and tried to make as little noise as possible as he watched Pumpkin Hill speed by.

"So what was your life like?" The soldier asked the scientist. His voice was rough and deep.

"Good until the day I got shot in the neck," the scientist replied. His was quiet and raspy, he sounded like a stoner. "You from GUN?"

A brief pause.

"Yeah," the soldier replied. "I have quite the legacy. My family, my friends' families, they remember me for my many accomplishments. I 'was' a so-so dad, a good granddad, and an excellent soldier." The soldier chuckled, and looked down. "And what 'am' I? Just some lowlife GUN pulled off the streets to raid the ARK." The soldier put his head in his hands. "I killed so many people." Knuckles looked over to him nervously.

"Ah, right," the scientist whispered. "Maaan, that was you who put a hole in my throat?" The scientist laughed, letting his back slide down the seat. "Crazy."

"Shoot… uh… you don't y'know, hate me?" The soldier asked.

"Oh I would'a killed you if we were both alive," the scientist crackled. "But that won't really work now, will it?"

"Fair enough," the soldier laughed. "I'm… sorry…" The scientist and the soldier noticed Knuckles, and finally reared their heads to him. "Hey, red guy." Knuckles glanced to them, their heads were still spinning complete circles.

"Yes?" Knuckles asked. Their heads stopped spinning and they stared him dead in the eyes.

"Thanks for giving that little girl a real funeral," both the ghosts said in unison. The train jerked to a stop at the end of the line, and all the ghosts in the train piled out. The soldier and the scientist left too, the train seemed a lot more dark without the faint blue glow of the ghouls. The hard-as-nails chief of the Knuckles Clan sat there in the train, alone, bewildered, maybe even a little spooked.

Knuckles scampered out of the train, immediately stepping foot into a huge flooded cave. Bobbing his head in the murky water for shards and pressing unknown buttons to reveal new pathways, he had to wonder what the people of the Lands Below had to do to get their water so dirty. He had to wonder why they would dig such a large hole in their own planet just to abandon it. "They literally left it to the GHOSTS, Rouge!" Knuckles shouted into his phone, which had a symbol of a grape on the back. "What are you guys DOING?" He threw a minecart to the side and picked up a shard from underneath. He could only imagine supernatural forces brought the shard there.

"I have no idea," Rouge groaned, all the way from a collection of artificial planetoids hovering around Space Colony ARK. They all had their own gravity, so she was able to be upside-down without having to worry about falling on her head like she had many times. It's surprisingly comfortable for bats.

"You said we would meet up in Pumpkin Hill Zone. Where are you?" Knuckles asked.

"Honestly, Knuckles…" Rouge mumbled, her face wrinkling in sorrow. "I messed up bad. I did something horrible." She fell onto her back. "It's all my fault…"

"What did you do?" Knuckles asked.

"I don't want to talk about it," Rouge sighed, hand over her eyes. "I can't look for shards for a while."

"Why?" Knuckles asked. "It might make you feel better."

"Does it make YOU feel better? I mean, it's not your idea of fun, is it?" Rouge asked.

"Hell no! I hate this! I'm not even halfway done, I think I'm being haunted, and you're not around so it's kinda pointless," Knuckles snapped. He heard something fire from the other side of the line. Followed by a loud BOOM from the sky! "What was that?!"

"I have to go," Rouge whispered, hanging up. Knuckles looked to his phone as it returned to a blank screen. He sighed, and continued his hunt.