Shadow: The Origin Of A Legend

Chapter 26

I smirk to myself, thinking about Rouge, and the last time I saw her. Rain pours down, huge buckets of it, clattering against the roof of the train car loudly. A drop splashes on my ear; I glance up just in time for another drop to hit me right between my eyebrows. "Oh, great," I complain, "now it's leaking." Scooting over, I sigh. "Guess that's what I get for being a stowaway, huh?" I say to the spider in the corner. For around a month now I'd been hitching rides from trains, usually by running alongside them, then ducking into a storage compartment. This was a produce train, particularly wheat and hay, moving through the countryside. I was just fortunate that I wound up in a wheat-bearing car--the last time I was in a hay carriage I couldn't stop sneezing.

Humming softly to myself, I look out the open door into the rain. We've been going through farmlands for quite a long time, past rolling hills and cows. I had no idea how much farmland there was in this country, but maybe all of it is right here. Who knows? I haven't even seen a map of this place before. Rain whips in as the train turns suddenly, and I'm soaked by it. Spluttering, I get up and shut the door, shoving it back into place. It really works more like a slab of slightly rusted metal that I shove over the opening to cover it. Darkness descends; it's pitch-black in here without any outer light. Only a few holes in the roof let in light, and even then that's hardly anything. Grumbling, I fumble around for a match, picking up the lantern I stole from my last train ride. After a few tries, the lantern's candle is lit, and an orange-yellow light washes over the cart. I set it down gently, far enough away from the wheat to avoid a fire.

"Man, this is the third time this week that I've gotten soaked like that." Sighing again, I shake myself off, the water splattering everywhere; afterwards, I proceed to run my fingers through my fur, trying to squeeze out the water. After about fifteen minutes, I'm a little dryer than I was before, but I can't say the same for the wheat. It's pretty damp. "Well, that's a problem, but it's not my problem." Turning around, I face the door, inspecting it as I've done hundreds of times before. Corrugated iron, rusting a bit, cheaply made, clearly not meant to be looked at an awful lot. Not glamorous at all. Not even mediocre. I grimace. "Ugh, that's it. Next city we stop at, I'm getting off." Stretching with a yawn, I crack a few bones and smirk to myself. "I'll find my way to The Heaven-Scraping Mountains by myself from there." Hitching trains was really only something I did to move across large swaths of land without lifting a finger. I'd always known that at some point I'd have to go back to walking, trekking across the land, all that.

Rubbing my face, I look around, trying to remember the last time I'd slept. It seems to me like the last time I'd actually, really gone to sleep was while I was still sick; the first night I ever had in a train. I'd almost gotten caught because of it, too. Fortunately, in order to sleep, I'd burrowed my way into the wheat, and the unloaders had decided to quit early that night rather than go through the cart I was in--the end cart. They'd woken me up, though, which wasn't a bad thing since it gave me time to figure out an escape route. I shudder to think of what might've happened had they not decided to quit early...pitchforks are sharp. Trotting over to the corner, I crouch down, picking up the now-tattered white paper bag I'd been given back at G.U.N.; I open and look into it. I still had a few of those candies Doctor Medusa gave me, but lately I've been more than a little suspicious of them. They soothed my throat while I was still sick, but most of the time after taking one I'd have flashbacks to the horrible things Robotnik had done to me. I can't explain why that happens, since cherries have absolutely nothing to do with the atrocities I endured. Despite the obvious correlation, I was still tempted to eat one...

"Gah!" I throw it across the cart, shrinking away. "No way. It's absolutely not worth it!" I yell, leaning back into the wheat. No way, I repeat mentally, rolling onto my side. Besides, I need to take a quick nap to keep my strength up. Curling up a bit, I try and make the damp wheat a bit more pleasant to lie on, but that's easier said than done. Ugh, whatever... I think as I drift off.