SSH - Chap. 11

     The small figure in the foggy mist of the early morning realized now that he was no longer floating in a dismal blackness.


Rather, he was standing there with his paws balled tight, his eyes shut hard, and his feet freezing in the snow.


Chip was mumbling to himself, as if there was someone in the distance that he was silently speaking to. If anything would bring him back, it was this. He could only hope for some kind of miracle, or all would be finally lost…forever.

The small dog felt ice beginning to form on the top of his glowing orb at his neck, and as it did, the warming green glow that radiated from it quickly and swiftly melted anything attached, using every last thread of its power for the task at hand. Even Chip couldn’t ever calculate the time span he spent standing there in the snow, with that standing slowly turning into kneeling as he grew weary, falling to his knees as he continued to mutter feverishly to himself.


In actuality…..he was afraid to open his eyes. He was afraid of what might happen. He didn’t know if it would work…..he didn’t know if it WOULDN’T. Yet…..he was scared.


Then again, deep down inside, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand there like that forever. Due to the fact that he was freezing on the outside, and exhausted on the inside, it showed that he wouldn’t be able to hold his already dwindling connection forever….

Finally, after what seemed ages, Chip tightened his grip around each finger in his small balled fists as he suddenly blurted out, unknowing that he was speaking out loud until he shocked himself into reality by screaming, “AWAKEN SONIC!!! AWAKEN!!!”

Then the small creature thrust his auburn eyes open, his jaws coming open a little bit as well as he panted, steam coming from in-between his teeth as the temperature steadily dropped in degree with the dark of night.

Then, Chip was stunned to the point of falling fully onto his knees, crystal-like tears glimmering and shaking in his eyes as he murmured, “That’s it then…..


“He’s gone.”


Chip couldn’t be further from the truth, and a literal truth at that.


Nothing. There was absolutely nothing in front of the purple dog.

Sonic’s body was gone,……..with only the lightly blowing snow in its place. The indention of Sonic’s frame still was present, as well as the ragged remains of that small flag, and dark red blood stains that scarred the snow a few inches beneath, causing it to have an eerie appearance as well as a somber one.

Chip had only succeeded in erasing Sonic the Hedgehog completely and utterly from the world…..


Oh how could he have been so STUPID!??

This voice rang out like a blaring siren in poor Chip’s mind as he slammed both balled fists into the snow that was banked up in front of him, causing a bit of snow to fly up from the effort he used to move it, and then Chip finally falling onto his chest in the snow altogether, the snow covering his back a little bit as he struggled to open his eyes, exhausted from the energy he had just used that was wasted.

Useless.

Was he merely useless? Was it all a waste!?

He figured it was as he lay on his stomach in the freezing ice, shivering with silent sobs that he forced back down his throat, gasping hard as the icy air was sucked in and out of his lungs.

Now, Chip had the horrid reality pressing upon him…..He had defiled Sonic’s grave, and now there was nothing left to remember of the blue hedgehog. All traces of him were completely gone, except for the small amount of already freezing blood in the powdery snow beneath his chest.

W-what……have I done?




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Chip lay there in the snow shivering for a few moments more…..not able to even find the strength to move anymore, his green orb glowing faintly, with a massive headache cutting through the small dog’s mind. His body was aching from the effort he used in hopes of bringing Sonic back….and for what? Nothing??







And then…..


Suddenly…….


Chip began to feel pressure around his tiny waist….and then the sound of snow crunching beneath him…..

“Whoa….” Chip silently murmured this to himself, to exhausted to feel surprise or expression. He WAS surprised however to feel his body being lifted slowly from his bed of snow, small droplets of thawed ice dripping from his paws as he was lightly shaken, snow and slush falling from the backs of his ears and his chest.

He blinked his eyes a few times to clear his tired vision, murmuring again, “Uh….what….”

Chip’s body was still freezing, but as he was hauled into the air, his entire lower stomach was filled with nothing but warmth, and he could feel his arms resting atop something he could not see, he only knowing by feeling it with the tips of his fingers that it was smooth and wet from the snow.

Was he dead?

No, no that was silly. There was no reason for him to be dead….was there?


Chip blinked again as he was able to see the snow beginning to lightly fall again, and the tips of the horizon dipped in pink, as the sun was beginning to show with dawn…..

Then he felt himself being turned over slowly in midair, brought forwards, or backwards in his perspective…….


And then have his face pressed against something he still couldn’t see, with pressure still being put along his back. “Wha….?” Chip didn’t struggle, only he placed a paw on the side of the surface he was being pressed against….

It was warm, and it was soft. His small paw sank into a short creamy fur that was gently being blown by the frigid breeze……


And then suddenly Chip knew.



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Chip pressed his face harder into the soft substance, letting his nose sink into it as his tears fell into the fur, rolling along the strands like miniature crystals. He let the fur intertwine between his fingers as he pressed his face into that warm shoulder….warm……

And Chip knew the hand that was pressing gently on his back, holding him in a warm embrace…..He knew that furry shoulder he was pressing his teary face into…..and he knew who it was as he turned his misty gaze aside, not at all astonished to see tears coming down the side of his face as well……




“Thank you Chip………..


Thank you.”


Chip smiled weakly as his tiny shoulders shook with sobs as he muttered, his voice dwindling into crying, “I….I can’t believe it……..I j-just….j-j-just……..I t-t-thought…..”

An all too familiar voice rang through his ears like the chiming of a bell, and while that voice softly spoke, his voice rising over the hills, he pressed his gloved hand a bit harder onto Chip’s back…..comforting him….

“No…..Don’t cry…….don’t cry………


Everything will be alright thanks to you………

I……. I am…………








Alive.”


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Sonic was now alive.


Alive and true….with a beating heart that raced with the wind……thumping feet that chased the sun…..a voice that rose to the sky…….

And he was here.

To stay.



Now, Sonic stood there with Chip in the snow, it steadily falling throughout the night, causing the entire face of the earth to be bathed in a deep blanket of snow. The hedgehog’s face was tightened with emotion, however, his entire body was shaking with an internal pain that he felt from the wounds his body was now enduring. He only had to use one hand when he hugged Chip, the small dog being so small to begin with.

Tears coursed from both of their eyes, with both of them in complete shock and disbelief. Both harbored an extreme exhaustion, but some kind of iron will from within kept them both on their feet, with Chip practically being held up by Sonic’s hand.

Then finally, Sonic slowly bent forwards with a grunt of effort, placing Chip on the mass of tattered moss and snow in front of his shoes.

Then, Chip jumped a bit as Sonic suddenly fell to the ground, collapsing with his head held in one hand, “Sonic!”

Sonic grunted, shaking his head lightly, “N-no…It’s alright…..Just got….a little lightheaded….is all…..” Sonic closed his eyes hard for a very long time, and Chip began to get nervous. Chip stuttered as the hedgehog sat there with his legs spread apart, his entire body shaking and convulsing, “Sonic……

I can’t believe it…………

…..You actually came out of that coma like state…..with the will to live greater than any creature I have seen in my life……


….a-and…..

S-Sonic? Sonic….are you ok?”


To be honest, Sonic was NOT listening to a word Chip was saying.




Chip’s eyes widened with a sudden lance of fear.

Sonic was alive….but only just. Who was to say how much life there actually was in the hedgehog!?

This is what Chip could see of him now, and that caused him to cock his head sideways a bit.


Sonic looked very drained. Pale was more like it actually. His blue hue was very paled, and here and there darker patches were there from places where deadly black ice had frozen on the surface of his skin. His face could not be seen as his white, dirt smudged glove covered half of his face, causing it to be darkened along with the grimace that was there upon it. His cheeks were also very red, and that pinkness disappeared underneath his eyelids. He was literally an image of a statue in the snow, with bits of snow sticking to his body that fell from the clouds, and a very labored stream of steam coming from his nose. Even now, the steam came out in short bursts.

Chip began to inch forwards a bit, placing a paw on the very end of Sonic’s vibrating shoe, muttering through a shaking voice, “S….S-sonic!?!?”


Then, Chip jumped back with shock and let out a small shriek of surprise as Sonic’s eyes suddenly flew open, the pupils dilating as a sudden gurgling sound came from the back of his throat.

Chip jumped aside and then lifted himself into the air by way of flittering about, a worried gaze cast on Sonic as he suddenly lurched sideways, pressing both hands deep into the snow as he retched, coughing as he struggled to breathe, water erupting from his jaws suddenly.

“Whoa whoa Whoa!!” Chip grimaced and closed his eyes tight as Sonic vomited, coughing up water as he choked, bending over into the snow as he tried to turn his violently shaking body away from Chip.

Chip silently muttered as Sonic coughed, the hedgehog trying to inch over into the edge of the woods as he coughed up water, “It’s alright…..gotta get that all out somehow.”

Sonic somehow was able to rise to limbs that were shaking uncontrollably, clasping a gloved hand over his jaws as he darted a few feet away and bent over the edge of a nearby bush, closing his eyes tight and retching again, his shoulders shaking as he held his lower arms over his midriff, his body taking on unneeded stress from all of this.

Since Sonic had breathed in a lot of water, in his coma like state, all that water was relocated into his stomach and well….you can probably understand the rest.


Finally, Sonic came limping from the brush, a hideous look on his face with his eyelids half closed and one arm still wrapped around his waist.

Chip smiled weakly, hovering a foot or two away from the shaking hedgehog, “Feeling better?” Chip was struggling not to lose his lunch himself as Sonic slowly nodded, shakily raising a hand and wiping his jaws with the back of his wrist, “Y-yeah…..better….”



After a while, Sonic was able to calm down enough to sit down in the snow beside Chip, who was trying his best to recount what had happened when Sonic went under.

Sonic had a look of pure disbelief on his face, “So your saying…..they buried me?”

Chip slowly nodded, folding his paws in his lap, “Yes they did Sonic…..and the only reason tat alone didn’t kill you was that they only barely put the snow atop you……as if….” Chip smiled halfheartedly, “As if they believed that you WOULD live again…”

Sonic nodded slowly himself, “Y-yeah…..but I still don’t understand….” Chip looked sideways at Sonic, raising his eyebrows before blowing hot air into his cupped paws in an attempt to warm them, “What about?”

Sonic chuckled weakly, “It…it’s stupid really…” “Tell me!”

Sonic let his head tip downwards a bit as he stared with an unwavering gaze at his shaking hands, and he fought against another wave of nausea as he spoke, swallowing hard, “I……I can’t believe that all this happens to me all the time……I mean……” Sonic slowly looked at Chip, tears glistening in his eyes,

“It’s as if the world wants me to die.”


Chip snarled lowly, looking with a silently blazing gaze at his friend, “Now you know good and well that that is not true Sonic. If you were supposed to be dead, wouldn’t you be before now!?”


Sonic sighed slowly, letting his heavy skull fall into one palm again as he groaned, “I-I guess your right….”

Chip then rose into the air again, laughing as he touched Sonic on the shoulder, “Well? Don’t you think we should show all the others that your still alive?” Sonic looked up at Chip with a coy smile on his face, rising to his feet as he snickered, “In a moment.

There’s something I have to do first.”




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Chip watched Sonic curiously as he slowly stepped up to his ‘grave’, looking at the pit for a long time……and with silent tears rolling down Sonic’s cheeks….


Sonic grabbed the headstone hard in his palms, grabbing a nearby piece of wood and pressing down hard upon it, scratching vigorously on the rock face as he used the side of his foot to kick the snow into a rough mound.

Then, with a grunt of anger, Sonic thrust the stone deep into the snow, using his left foot to press it down deeper as his gaze glared at it in rage, he snarling under his breath, “Now that stone no longer speaks a lie…..saying that I am no more.” Sonic spat into the snow beside the rock before turning to Chip, letting a thumb swipe under his jet black nose, “Let’s leave this place. I have had ENOUGH of this.”


And as Sonic and Chip’s figures disappeared into the trees…..the rock said….


’Life is a short thing to waste…
        
         Keep on running….live your dreams…

   ….with nothing but a smile on your face.’

Sonic the Hedgehog –


Alive, and still kickin’




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They all could no longer stay cooped up in that solitary dorm room…..it just couldn’t be done.


They all, ALL were grieving, and they needed a bit of fresh air to clear their minds….

And they all were in a different state…..

Knuckles was sitting on one of the many benches of the school’s courtyard with Abby and Rouge, both of them crying on each of his shoulders….and his own tears staining the front of his chest….

Amy, Cream, Cheese, and Blaze sat on the ground beside the bench, all of them silent and within their own pains of agony and torment….

Daggy, Scythe, Rainbow, Rockfire, and Spark sat with them as well, all of them silently sobbing…..

Emerald was standing up with Alex, both of them staring off into space, with the cougar most worried about Rainjha….who had secluded herself from them all on a bench, sitting with her hands folded in her lap and her long bangs covering half of her face…..

Silver, Dream, and Mist sat on a bench beside Knuckles, Rouge, and Abby, all three of them sitting there unmoving, and unable to look each other in the face…..with Mist finally placing a wavering hand on Dream’s shoulder and muttering as the young hedgehog turned his tear stained face away from his friend, “It’s ok buddy…..”

….Tails was nowhere to be seen…..

And…..


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Anita was standing with her back against the wooden rungs of the bench she had chosen to sit upon, hers a bit farther away than the rest.

She sat with one hand in her lap and the other hand balled and pressed against her chest as she tightly closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, sniffing as large tears rolled down her face….


Then she jumped suddenly as she felt the wooden boards underneath her bend as someone else sat beside her, speaking slowly with his voice harboring hidden pain, “What’s with you?”


Anita growled to herself and turned her head aside, her pink forelock hiding her left eye as she murmured, “You of all people should know…..j-just…..leave me alone…”

Anita tried to keep her hidden sobs down in the back of her throat as Shadow growled in the back of his own, narrowing his gaze as he glared at the side of Anita’s head, “You can’t hide grief for him forever. Yo-….” “It’s not that.”

Shadow’s left ear flicked as Anita spoke in a quivering voice, her ears pressed firmly against her head as he spoke again, the pinkness of the rising sunset reflecting off of his face, “Then what IS it?” Anita suddenly turned her face towards Shadow’s, growling in a low tone as her gaze locked with his, “Why would you even care!?”

Shadow almost had the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he grunted, “I don’t really. But I can tell by looking at you that you were going to tell me any moment, so I might as well go ahead and ask and get a head start.”

“You don’t know that!”
“Do I? You were going to ask that, weren’t you.”
“W-well….”
“I thought so.”

Anita hissed at Shadow, roughly pushing him aside as she hollered in his face, “Did you just come over here to make me even more miserable than I already am!?”

Shadow rolled his eyes and let his arms rest casually on the back of the bench, his eyes turning to the scene of the other creatures, “I only have because you made it that way. I never really intended to come and talk to you in the first place.”

Anita growled and shook her head, not looking at Shadow as he raised his head a bit, “Do you REALLY want to know?” “……..”

Anita sighed and turned her face back to her lap, bending her freezing fingers over the top of her corduroy skirt,

“I……when I was little……

I always dreamed big.


I dreamed of growing up…being successful…..maybe raising a family someday.” Anita chuckled weakly, “My dad always told me that if you don’t chase your dreams….they will become so fast that you won’t catch up with them.” “And your sad about this all, Why?”

Anita growled under her breath at Shadow’s remark, but continued as if he had never spoken, “Then…


My father passed away a few years ago due to an unexpected heart attack.”

Shadow was silent for a few moments before muttering, “I…I’m sorry.”

Anita continued, closing her eyes with hot tears coming from them, “Then….a few days after his funeral….mother told me something….something he had wanted to tell me before his death….only never got the time too……” Shadow’s ears perked even though he didn’t move as Anita kept speaking in a shaking voice,

“She said that he said that I had,......something.

Something the others did not…. Some kind of hidden power within my body….like Mist being able to control water…or Alex fire…

But not by any lab experiments.

I had this untapped energy within me when I was born…because…..” Anita slowly opened her eyes, her iris’s sparkling as the pink sunlight reflected off of them,

“When I was born….Mother told me that……


She told me that Sonic was there.”


“W-what!?” Shadow gave Anita an incredulous look as she nodded quickly. Shadow spoke with surprise in his voice, “That’s nothing but a lie! Your older than Sonic is!!”

Anita closed her eyes, “Hear me out Shadow. I didn’t mean literally….

Sonic was born a year after I was……but when he was….”

Anita closed her eyes, “That power held within me began to show itself.” Shadow was grimly silent as Anita continued her tale,

“Every year the feeling began to grow……and I felt it the strongest when I met Sonic for the very first time…..even looking at him I could tell that he and I were connected somehow…..” Then Anita sighed,

“Now I have learned that….


I have the abilities of a psychic.” “You mean like Dream?” “In a sense….yes. But I can’t see things like he does….at least not yet……


Father told mother that within each passing day the feeling and power would grow stronger….and now…..it’s finally coming to it’s full potential.”

Anita hissed to herself, “But Sonic’s gone now!!! How am I supposed to learn about ANYTHING now!??”

Shadow’s lip curled, exposing his fangs a bit as Anita harshly jerked her face down, letting her voice be succumbed to sobs, her shoulders shaking violently.

Shadow began to say something, but was taken and thrown for a loop when Anita abruptly interrupted him, turning her bared fangs toward his face, “Now that Sonic is gone, my powers will forever be unknown by myself, and I will NEVER be able to live out my Father’s dream that he never even got the CHANCE to live!!!”

Anita slowly continued, never taking her gaze from Shadow’s, which had oddly never turned away from her own, with an unreadable look spread across his face….and the red bands across his head spikes seemingly glowing in the light, “A-and….and….Now both father and Sonic are dead…..so what have I to live up to now!? What am I supposed to d----!”

Anita’s voice was suddenly stopped and cut short as it ended in a small and squeaky grunt of surprise as now she could only see Shadow’s face and the sunset shining behind his head.



Shadow,…..


Well,




Shadow just kissed her. Anita the cat, yes! Shadow kissed Anita.


Anita’s eyes widened for only a moment, and then they slowly closed as she kissed him back, feeling a tingling sensation running up her spine that shocked and kind of appalled her in some way….deep down.

Then, Shadow leaned back and out of the kiss, his eyes half open as he slowly rose to his feet, brushing his knees off as if nothing ever happened.

Anita sat there with her tail plastered between her legs, her jaws hanging open with the sunlight glinting off of them, and her eyes staring into the side of Shadow’s head, “C-care to explain what that was all about?”


Shadow was silent for a long time before he grunted to her, just before walking off while he tugged at the golden bands around his wrists,


“I had to do something to get you to stop.”





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W-…..Would anyone ever find out about that?

Probably not………..then again……..



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Tails was alone, and he didn’t know whether he wanted it that was or not.


The young fox’s golden yellow fur was turned a blazing color in the light of the rising sun, it reflecting off of the snow as well as the tears in his eyes as he stood underneath a massive oak tree, small and dainty snowflakes falling around him, and the winter wind blowing gently at his two tails and chest fur.


His eyebrows were turned down and his gaze was narrowed as he stared over the end of the hill, watching the ice cycles on the trees drip as they began to melt in the rare heat of the oddly bright sunlight that was being exposed to them.

Now, his small black nose twitched as he struggled to keep himself from crying again, tears welling in the corners of his eyes as he almost was able to imagine….and actually see he and Sonic down on that hillside pelting each other with snowballs….then the blue hedgehog rushing past the fox and sending ice crystals playfully into his face…..and both of them collapsing into the snow with laughter rolling along the valley….

But as Tails blinked, the voices and that image disappeared altogether, and nothing was left except the sight and sound of a few stray snowflakes being blown over the ground….

Tails sighed hard as steam billowed from his jaws and he balled his fists, looking up into the cloudy sky with the tears in his eyes finally spilling over and relieving themselves of their positions….

Gently sliding off of his face and melting into the snow beside his shoes…..






However……….all of that changed in one instant.




Tails could only remember feeling something slam hard into him, sending his body careening into the mass of snow underneath him, causing him to let out a shrill shriek of surprise as he could also feel something smaller whizz dangerously close to one ear.

Then……..


A large hand enveloped the top of his head and rubbed it, Tails’ tuft of hair being ruffled gently as a long and loud laugh erupted through the schoolyard…..

Causing everyone….whether they be on benches….or sitting in the snow….


To raise their heads………


And suddenly feel their bodies rising unknowingly to their feet and begin running towards the scene……..


And Tails swiftly felt his body be pulled up as he hugged him, both fox and hedgehog hugging each other tightly with their tears running down their shoulders…..


Tails’ cries were the most audible as he cried…..and cried……..and his best friend in the entire world hugged him warmly as the rest of the gang gathered round…..their tears of joy mingling with the fox’s………..and Tails continued crying with his shoulders shaking as he pressed his face into his blue fur, letting his tears melt into it and disappear………

….and he could hear above all of the cries….the shouts…..the laughs…….



The friend he never thought he would see again hug him tighter than the rest and mutter gently into his ear……




Don’t cry anymore………everything is ok……………



















Just Smile.