Spirit of the Phantom Ruby

Part 27 - Much Sad, Very Emotions

Beep... Beep... Beep...

Everything felt... sore.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

What was that annoying sound?

Beep! Beep! Beep!

It took him a moment to realize the beeps were in perfect rhythm with the beating of his heart. His heart...

The jackal's hand twitched. His fingers spread across the soft texture of the fabric draped over his body, and he scrunched up the cloth between his fingers. He had a body.

Infinite reluctantly squinted his eyes open, the room seemingly way too bright. His breaths were strained and dry, and when he painfully tilted his head, he saw his arm was hooked up to an IV drip filled with clear fluid. As his vision cleared, the jackal noticed everything in the room was tinted red. Judging by the equipment surrounding him, he felt he was in some kind of hospital room. The jackal blinked hard and looked the other way, seeing the sky outside his window was completely red.

"Phantom..." he rasped, lightly feeling with his hand the triangular ruby connected to his chest. "...Control?"

Suddenly his pained eased dramatically. His heart monitor's pace quickened, and the jackal sat up, still running his fingers down along the ridges of the Phantom Ruby. Just seconds later, the door opened.

"If I were you, I would be too sore to move!" Gadget posited, closing the door behind him.

Infinite blinked at the sight of him. "What do you mean...?"

The marmalade-colored wolf pulled a stool up to the foot of his bed. "Well that was quite the explosion you made, back at Eggman's base... The force of the energy blast split the ruby into pieces!"

The jackal stared at him. "The ruby I was in?"

Gadget nodded, sitting down. "The others were able to piece it back together and diffuse you, but... well..." He half-heartedly waved his hand towards him. "You were kind of a bloody mess when you came out of the diffuser."

Infinite's eyes darted down to his arms, and he stared at the numerous thin scars all across his body. The thin white lines swirled around his arms and encircled his exposed torso, as though he had been chopped into hundreds of pieces and put back together. He turned his arms over, staring the palms of his hands, and then squeezed them into fists.

"How are you feeling?" Gadget tilted his head, but Infinite evaded his gaze.

"Where's my squad?" The jackal asked, flexing his hands as he examined his claws disinterestedly.

"Not good, hm?" The wolf picked up a clipboard that had been concealed by the foot of the bed and looked through the pages. "Your friends are actually out in the hallway right now; I'm just checking up on you. On a scale from one to ten, how bad was the pain when you first woke up?"

Infinite traced the scars on his arm absentmindedly. "Zero."

"There's no need to lie, Infinite."

"About a nine, then..." The jackal frowned as he saw the pencil swerve against the clipboard. "Did you just write 'Compulsive Liar'?"

Gadget smiled, his eyes narrowing. "Live your own fantasies, Infinite... Any headaches? Nausea? ...No?" He jotted something down. "Where do you feel pain?"

"I felt it everywhere," the jackal replied, his finger trailing over his wrist.

The wolf looked up again. "Felt it, as in past tense?"

"It's gone now," Infinite replied, "The ruby ceased the pain."

Gadget lowered his clipboard, frowning. "Infinite, the Phantom Ruby's gone."