Story Tale

Chapter 5

From the corner of his eyes, Shadow can see Rouge growing as nervous as he is - her nails dug into her palms, teal-blue eyes darting between the two of them, white boots clicking rapidly onto the floor. Yet Shadow himself was no better. Sonic's grip in his hand tightened and he could not tell if it was by him or the blue hero. Sonic weakly pushes himself up with his other arm, and Sonic beams up lazily at Shadow once he's done. "Lance."

Within his mind, Shadow prayed to Chaos that Sonic is only playing an ill-timed joke on them. That this is his one of his little pranks he was so inclined to pull back when he was a mischievous teen. That Sonic is only messing around.

His hopes were swept away by a river of distress when Sonic says it once more.

Sonic repeats that name again. All the while his peach lips tug into a tiny frown, looking directly at Shadow with confusion written on his face. Identifying Shadow with somebody else's name. Shadow's muscles tense, his underlying fear that something is wrong only grows as this situation becomes even more bizarre.

"Lance?" Sonic says in a softer tone with his emerald green eyes becoming diluted in thinly veiled fear, "Love, it's me...Do you..." He pauses with bated breath and starts over again,"do you not recognize me?" He asks with nothing but trust and fear hidden in his green eyes - eyes that are staring right into Shadow and figuring out that who he sees isn't-

"-I don't know who Lance is, honey, because this is Shadow. Not... Lance." Rouge's voice wavers toward its end where her words trailed off into nothingness. Sonic kept shaking his head, his breathing turning labored and panicked.

"You're-" Stifling a sob - Sonic swallowed the lump in his throat and gazed frantically to the two Mobians with apparent tears pooling in his eyes, "Why? Why did you bring me back?" Different memories simultaneously clash painfully in his mind and Sonic's hands fly up to his head with a hiss and wince.

Sonic couldn't even look at Lance, yet his eyes still wandered and caught sight of the ebony hedgehog. His air suddenly left him, his breath became caught within his throat when the puzzle pieces of his scattered memories click into place.

And Sonic remembers.

Shadow's eyes are stubbornly set onto Sonic's form, he can see the vivid life in the blue hero's eyes - and Shadow witnessed that moment Sonic's eyes dimmed. That very second Sonic put two and two together. WHen he caught sight of familiar settings from his past, his memories becoming consumed in both the past and present. Shadow is stunned in place at Sonic's reaction. Because for mere seconds Sonic had gazed up at Shadow with genuine love and adoration - the amount of pure trust Sonic had in this 'Lance' perplexed him.

Who was this Lance? Another counterpart similar to Shadow?

Why had Sonic reached out to Shadow like he did. Why did his voice, his expression, and eyes all hold that look of love in them as he thought Shadow was Lance?

Rouge reaches her hand out slow and tentatively towards Sonic, as physical contact never bothered him in the past - which is why she hadn't expected to see him reject her hand, for him to flinch back with such apprehension and fear like a wounded animal. "Sonic." She said in a low, hushed tone to repeat what Sonic asked only moments before, "Do you not remember us?"

A fear bloomed in their chests from Sonic's reaction, this fear growing like a weed from within, it's roots wrapping around their hearts and squeezing with a painful thorn-ed grip.

Silence cloaked over them in a heavy, suffocating blanket.

Where their hearts skidded to halting stops in their chests.

Time ceased to exist in the span of these few seconds. Where Sonic's shoulders begin to wrack in choked up sobs. How tears ran down his face while he cries out in anguish. That broken look in his eyes were haunting. His expression was everything a broken spirit is.

And so Sonic cries to himself. "Why? Why?" He repeats. Sonic curls his arms over himself as his body shakes from his cries and panic. Rouge only stares in lost bewilderment.

"Shadow." Rouge said quietly to the striped hedgehog so that the other wouldn't hear. Not that it mattered anyways. Sonic was too distraught to care. "You need to get Knuckles. Now." There is a rough edge to her words when she speaks. One that only appears when not even Rouge is sure what to do.

Even after the expectant glance she shoots Shadow, it did nothing to stir him into immediate action. Instead of leaving right away, of dragging himself out of that bedroom and downstairs to Knuckles, Shadow's shocked in place.

Shadow could not tear his gaze away from Sonic even if he wanted to- the blue blur's cries and sobbing were echoing hollowly in his ears, the very sight of Sonic's broken state has already been burned into his head. "Please, Shadow."

Like a hollow soldier taking an order, Shadow did as Rouge said. He took one final glance at Sonic and Rouge.

Everything became distant to Shadow's ears as he processed this information.

. . .

Telling Knuckles was even worse than he knew it would be. The headstrong echidna could only stare at Shadow with distant violet eyes that did not hold that familiar spark of life in them like that of an emerald. Shadow was no better, he's sure that he looks likes he's seen a ghost. From a nearby reflection of a glass window he saw his normal tan complexion had become paler and the large alarm in his crimson red eyes. A ghost indeed...

Although, with Sonic and this situation. He may as well have seen one.

"He...? Sonic doesn't recognize us?" Knuckles says with a hoarse, rugged tone a desperate man would have. Then again, they were so desperate to have him back, only for Sonic not to remember. How ironic and twisted fate is. "He doesn't remember who we are?"

Shadow sighs and his shoulders sag in response, "It's complicated. Whatever else the fox's machine did. It's obviously affected Sonic more than that. Sonic...wherever he was at before. He's absolutely crushed to be brought back."

"Did that machine break his mind? Scattered his memories somehow? Why would he not want to be home?" Knuckles rapidly fired off his questions and Shadow's blank mask wavered in place, luckily Knuckles does not notice.

"I don't know." Shadow lied. His stomach lurched at the thought of lying to Knuckles about such an important piece of information. But how could he bring up Sonic's reaction? That Sonic may have behaved normally - or as normal as Sonic can be - up until that point he realized that Shadow and Rouge were not the people he believed them to be.

Shadow can vividly picture that moment when the light in Sonic's bright eyes dimmed as he connected the dots. Then there was the tears...the heart wrenching cries one gives only to a lost loved one.

Cries that Shadow can remember because of Maria's death and how grief-stricken he became.

Why does Sonic cry like he's lost somebody dear to him?

Even after wondering this. Shadow knows that he knows that answer: Lance.