Not Yourself...?

Panic (12)

POV Sonic

I woke up in a cold, closeted state. My head hurt and when I tried to move, I heard metal rattling. I peered over my shoulder, I was chained up. I looked around, almost losing consciousness again. Until I saw...Shadow? He sat down, huddled, slouched, and surrounding his arms around his knees and with his face tilted diagonally to bury against it. He leaned in front of what seems to be the basement stairs. But...what happened? I-I don't remember much..I can't comprehend...anything?

I saw Shadow open his eyes, his face lit up and his head rose. I saw him stare into mine, his eyes wide and sharp. He scooted towards me, cupping my face with his furrowed eyebrows, he kept on looking into both my eyes, so intensely, and so intently. "Green..." He muttered out loud. Green...?

Shadow unlocked me from out of these wretched chains and helped me up. Why do I feel so weak? He decided to carry me amidst the walk to the stairs. "What..what is going..on?" I asked softly as I felt my breath was being held back. "You're back. I know it's probably a lot to process, just take it easy." Shadow murmured words of reassurance to ease me. It's strange though. His words felt so heavy on my mind, I could hear but not quite yet understand. Everything sounded, looked, and felt muffled.

He placed me on his couch and I heard distinctive and faint voices, coming from...somewhere. I looked around as I saw him walked away. My vision turned to the TV, displaying the news. A lady, speaking, talking, showing, describing, a sick, insane, mad man who attacked common civilians on the street. He appeared to be blue, fast, and quite hard to fathom with his immaculate speed. That...that blue creature...was me?

My breath hitched and my eyes widened. I heard a ring in my ear and I swear, someone, maybe even God himself was hanging me by a thread, wrapping it around my neck and head, pulling it tightly to squeeze inside and cut me to pieces. My hands shook, my ears rang and they felt like they bled from the wind of Shadow's voice when he spoke to them. Everything shook along with me. My fingers curled as tears of acid flowed down my muzzle and onto Shadow's burning hands trying to calm my aching body down.

My hand reached for my heart, I wanted to take it apart. Throw it someplace else for it was no longer pure. I hurt people. Children who do not understand why I hurt them, why I made them weep. I remember now, a little bit. A kid laughed when he saw me run, and cried by the time I ran away.

I sobbed into someone's body, sinking what felt like my own claws within their skin. I couldn't breathe but I couldn't feel my breath leaving either. I just couldn't feel. Shadow began humming in my ear, he caressed my hand, holding it tightly and he begged me to look him in the eye. So I did, and he calmed me down.

I heard the faint voices stop and I looked at that box of light, now a sleek, dim and dark screen. It was quiet now. The ringing stopped, the beating of my heart was no longer intensifying this rhythm of industrial drums. It was just quiet noise that felt so full of the loud.

"Hey. Listen to me, Sonic. You need to go back to sleep, or else you'll have another panic attack. You are okay. You feel like this because of the cure. Go back to sleep." Shadow muttered into my ears. Cure?

——————

I fell asleep like Shadow asked me to and I woke up in his lap probably an hour later. I felt guilty for what I have done, that I don't remember thinking anything while doing it.

Shadow looked at me, his eyes sharper, like he hated me. And a little while after, he picked my head up, moving me gently to the end of the couch, his body warmth no longer attached to me. A bright fox with yellow fur greeted me as he peered over my sight. "Hey Sonic!" Tails said with the most precious smile on his face, like flowers beginning to bloom with ease. I smiled and my ears perked up at the sound of his voice. "Hey budd!—-"
...
My gaze met his arm, the bandage seemed to cut a deeper wound on my soul. "Buddy...? D-Did...I?" He glared back at his arm, looking at it with pity. I wanted to believe it wasn't me, that he tripped and fell and wounded his arm; but there's a memory in the back of my mind that knows it was me. "I-It wasn't you." He lied, I stared at him with remorse, sorrow, guilt. "It wasn't you! It wasn't..let's just go back to the house, where you'll be okay." He yelled at me with a more demanding tone, clearly indicating that I was right.

My mind was full of emptiness, my head dragged down low, like carrying thoughts that weigh more than my heart. I could tell Shadow was tired of me. I turned back to him, he sat down in the sofa with the palm of his hand pushing back onto his forehead, representing the signs of distress.

——————

"You know that psycho that injured those people and the kids? The news said that they like stopped searching for him because supposedly he was poisoned or something." They were talking about me. I heard them all around. I hear them like echoes inside my mind, like the dirty drums of my heartbeat, like the sound of insufficient amount of time, I hear them hate me.

"Isn't that him?" I heard a teenage girl say to the other, I didn't bother batting an eye at her brown narrowed ones, at least not long enough for me to crumble down into pieces. Tails held my hand as my half closed eyes almost shut close and my slouched body stared at the ground in shame and anxiety and fear.

Tails whispered in my ear, that I'm still in a state of shock and I might be really tense, vulnerable, and emotional. I believe him. I've never felt so scared. "I'm sorry I didn't ask Shadow to just teleport us home so you wouldn't have to deal with this Sonic. It completely slipped my mind." Tails said to me as he glared at the two girls engaging in a conversation about me.

I hummed in agreement, or forgiveness, just aching to get home.

I heard the sound of a picture snapping. I turned around and they ran away. They didn't look like they feared me, they just disliked me, they stared at me in hatred.

——————

Tails and I arrived home and we sat down on the couch. I saw the remote lying on the coffee table and I grabbed it. I turned on the TV and switched to the news channel. I hate listening to what they say about me, but I still wanted to hear them.

Pictures of me from this evening walk to my house have already been published.
...
Published like a book, a horror book.
...
There they go framing me and blaming me and shaming me for being wronged. There they go posting media content about their unfair opinions about someone they rarely know. Taking pictures of me and posting them, adding a tragic caption to make me seem cruel. They called me a horrible person, with a horrible heart, a person far from sane and that I deserve to rot in a cell. People like to assume and they also like to label, I've known that, but I've never figured the assumption and the label would hurt so bad.