Future-Past

The Second Hurts

The hotel room was quite other than the low buzzing of the cheap lights and the sound of someone tossing and turning endlessly. That someone being a certain dark hedgehog. He was having another nightmare. Considering he hasn't gotten sleep in a couple of days, it's understandable.

He's been trying to avoid sleep for this very reason. He thought leaving in the afternoon and coming back in the morning would make it less suspicious to what he was doing. Turns out it wasn't. Seeing as his leaving all the time upset Sonic, who thought he was being disloyal to him. It hurt him that Sonic thought that, but what was he supposed to think? And because Sonic was upset they got into an argument, again. They managed to work it out somehow. That was the night Shadow thought it would be okay to go to sleep.

He was wrong.

That night he had another nightmare. It wasn't as bad as his other nightmares, but it was a lot more confusing. He was seeing things he didn't understand. Like he was viewing the memories of someone else. Someone he didn't know but felt like they were important to him somehow.

He was having another nightmare now. It seems to be connected to the first one, but he doesn't know how.

There was a blinding white light. He closed his eyes and tried to block the light with his hand. But he couldn't move his arm. He couldn't move at all. He struggled against his bonds, trying to get free.

He heard a voice from his left. "Are you sure we should use this one? He's still kind of young."

Another voice on the right this time responded. "Yes, the others have already gone through this. All of them have died." Died? Who died? Was he going to die? "If he survives, then we will know that whoever conceived him can be useful to us."

"And if he doesn't?" The left voice asks.

"Then we get rid of them and start over." The right one said they sounded evil.

His eyes flew open after that. He ignored the light and tried to see who was talking around him. The room wasn't very big, surrounded by white walls and ceiling. There were many people standing around him wearing white as well. The two that were talking were two men. The one on the left wore glasses and had a red mustache and the other had an eye patch and a mechanical hand.

"He's awake." The one with the eyepatch said. "Do you know where you are?"

He tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth, no words came out.

"He can't speak?" The mustached man asked, giving the other a look.

"I guess not. That is not a problem though, is it?" The eyepatch man questioned.

"It does not matter."

They turn back to look at him. The man with the mustache smiled at him.

He didn't smile back. Instead, he felt like he hated this man, both of them. They were going to hurt him. He knew it.

The mustache man knew he didn't trust them. The man turned to the other people in the room.

"Let's start the test and get this over with!" The man yells at them. The people quickly start moving around, pressing buttons, pulling levers, and turning dials. The two that stand next to whatever he's lying on put on masks. With a low whirring sound, a machine lowers from the ceiling and points at his face. His eyes widen, he turns pleading eyes to the mustache man, hoping he would stop this

He only gives him a sad smile and utters one sentence to him. "If you survive this, remember this name. Gerald Robotnik."

Shadow wakes up in a cold sweat. He ran a hand down his face.

'Gerald Robotnik.'

Why does that name sound so familiar? And who was that other man he saw in his dream? He shakes his head to clear it. The alarm clock on the nightstand next to the bed read 4:37 am. That's the longest he's slept in a month. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and picked up his phone. There were thirteen missed calls, two from Rouge, one from work and ten from Sonic.

Sonic.

Shadow sighed into the dark room. The last time he saw the blue hedgehog and when he left the house. He can still remember the hurt look on Sonic's face. He was going to cry and it was Shadow's fault. Even though he had sworn the day they started dating he would never hurt him. That's exactly what he did. He noticed he had a few text messages, all from Sonic.

'When are you coming back?'

'Tails keeps asking about you'

'I miss you'

'Please come home'

'I'm not mad'

The last one made Shadow's heart heavy with guilt.

'I love you'

He stared at his phone. The background was a picture of Sonic smiling happily at the camera while he was holding a three-year-old Tails.

"I'm sorry."