Chaos Bond

Sky Sanctuary

Pushing him back against the cushions, Amy tried waking him but he wouldn't respond. He lay there in silence, unmoving. Even his breathing was irregular. And his body... it was as though it had been frozen by ice. As though there were no warmth in him at all.

Like a dead body. 

"Someone get in here! Hey!" Amy called in a high-pitched voice, trying not to give in to fear and become hysterical even though the cusp of screaming was within reach.

One of the G.U.N. soldiers, a muscular hare, threw open the door and came in with a sour face and his weapon at the ready, likely anticipating a trick. 

"What's the problem?"

"The problem is Sonic is freezing cold!" Amy shouted at him. "We need heat and maybe, you know, a doctor?"

The soldier looked at Sonic. "...What's wrong with him?" 

"If I knew then I wouldn't be asking for a doctor, would I?" Amy snapped, furiously rubbing Sonic's arms to try and stimulate some warmth. She had another hand pressed against his chest, keeping an eye on his faintly fluttering heartbeat. She let her voice grow sharp as she spoke fast. "Would it hurt to move him somewhere more comfortable? I thought we were being protected. Why have we got armed guards outside our door?"

"It's a precaution," the Hare answered, "and I'm not authorised to allow you to move from this room."

"You know," Amy growled, a terrifying glare on her face, "I'm sure your boss is going to be REAL impressed with you when he finds out Sonic is in trouble. I know what he wants! He wants a nice healthy supersonic hedgehog to work for him and help deliver Eggman into the nearest prison but you're quite happy to have him sick and unhealthy, are you?"

The G.U.N. soldier swallowed uncomfortably and waggled his long ears. "I'll see what I can do."

"I'm sure you can do a lot. How about instead of seeing if you can do something, you actually DO IT?"

The door slammed shut as the soldier practically fled the room to escape the angry hedgehog woman's wrath. 

For several long minutes, Amy tried warming Sonic up the best she could, frantically rubbing his arms and legs and breathing on his stone cold fingers but her efforts weren't working. His breathing shallowed even more, no matter how tightly she wrapped the blanket around him. 

She carried on regardless and spoke to him constantly on the chance that he could still hear her.

But he did not respond. 

If not for the minute rise and fall of his chest and the occasional bump of a heartbeat, Amy would have been sure he was dead. 

Her eyes welled up with hot tears and she let them fall onto his chilly fur in her last futile attempt to get some kind of warmth on him.   

She now knew what this was like. It was like when a wild hedgehog slipped into hibernation; she remembered reading about it in textbooks at school when she and others in her class (ones that belonged to species known to hibernate) had to read up about it just in case. It sometimes happened when the temperature plummeted and the inexperienced child was caught unprepared in the cold for long lengths of time without proper warmth. Amy, thankfully, had been well educated on what breathing and physical exercises to do should she find herself in unexpected freezing temperatures but boy did it still use to frighten her.

But that couldn't be what had happened to Sonic, could it? It wasn't freezing cold so he hadn't slipped into hibernation, had he? 

There was no-one to answer poor Amy's questions. All the usual fears floated about her head like, 'what would she do without him?' 'Who would tell the others?' 'What about her children?' There were many times when they'd all been convinced that Sonic had died, or that Eggman had scored a point, and it had terrified her every time. She couldn't imagine living without him. She wouldn't imagine living without him.