Chapter Text
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound of a soft, trickling rain filled the room as a pair of small, round ears of a wombat pricked to the sound. At the same time, a large black nose – belonging to the same animal - wiggled in the air, taking in the fresh scent of oil and rotten eggs.
She scrunched her nose at the scent.
Disgusting.
Her eyes felt like they were glued shut. She wanted to open them to gauge the source of the foul scent, but nothing happened.
The soft feeling of her own fur brushed against her muscles as her body twitched. Her muscles were taut and tight. It felt like she hadn’t moved in ages. Her legs felt stiff and she tried stretching them to relieve the tension, but only her toes wiggled.
No , she thought, trying to will her legs to move.
With a literal second thought, the wombat’s legs finally moved. She groaned, feeling the rough surface of... something beneath her. But her bare palms recognized the uncomfortable the numerous grooves and intricacies of the screws beneath her. She had been laying on something made out of metal.
The wombat wriggled her nose again, the second whiff of eggs filling her nostrils. She squeezed her eyes shut one last time before her eyelids released, popping open for the first time.
Unlike she had expected, the room was bright – a little too bright, actually; she had to fling an arm over her face.
“What the-” she stopped almost immediately.
Wait. She could speak?
“The.” She blinked, removing her arm from her face, not caring about the light bulbs dangling at her side. “Where.” Without finishing the partially formed question, she looked around the room, taking in the sights and sounds it held.
As she looked around, she noted the foul-smelling air once again. It felt stale and humid, yet she shivered. There was rust covering the metal walls – it almost felt like a prison cell, and it could have very been one for all she knew.
As her eyes slowly began to adjust to the darkness, she noticed multiple robots of all shapes and sizes lined against the walls of the room.
Red, green, blue, yellow, purple.... She tried counting all of the colours she saw but the clattering of someone’s shoes on metal interrupted her.
Her ears pricked again. They were coming down the hallway.
The next thing she saw was a tall shadow lingering in the doorway for a few seconds, fumbling with the lock on the barred entrance.
The wombat froze in place, glued to the makeshift bed she had been laying on. There was a dirty, uncomfortable blanket placed beneath her, but she’d only noticed it when the stranger entered the room. She clutched it tightly beneath her fingers and her gaze was trained on the human standing before her.
The man who’d entered the room was tall – much taller than the wombat who only stood at about three feet. He was uncannily shaped like a literal egg, his head a little too small for his body, yet he didn’t seem disproportionate. He was wearing a strange red outfit with white and gold in multiple places. He also wore black fitted pants and long black boots that made him look a bit taller than he already was.
Noticing she was gaping at him, the wombat’s gaze slowly dropped to study her hands. Her fur was a light blonde and her fingers were tiny. So were her legs. Covering her legs was a blue skirt and she was wearing a long sleeve shirt and a dull blue jacket placed over top.
She didn’t remember picking out the clothes herself. She didn’t even remember falling asleep in such a scary room.
She swallowed the lump of fear growing in her throat and eyed the man, again. He looked strangely familiar but she couldn’t put her finger on where she’d seen him before. Or maybe her mind was just playing tricks on her.
“This isn’t the ARK... Is it…?” She wasn’t really asking and her ears flattened against her head.
The egg-shaped man smiled. The wombat didn’t know what was so funny, but she smiled back to be polite.
“No, my dear, this isn’t Space Colony ARK,” he told her, folding his arms behind his back as he spoke. His shoulder straightened and she tilted her head to the side. “Tell me exactly what you know about yourself”
She tilted her head to the other side. Her ears twitched. “Uh… I’m not sure what you, uh, mean,” she said awkwardly.
He stepped closer. “Before I explain, just answer my question.” His voice is calm. He didn’t elaborate any further.
“Uh... I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Take your time. I’ve waited years for this moment, I can wait a few more.” His grin didn’t leave his face.
He seemed satisfied with himself.
Satisfied with what? The wombat didn’t know.
She lay her palms across her lap and stared at them for a minute. They felt weird. Strange. Like they weren’t supposed to be there.
Suddenly, she was struck with the feeling of longing – this wasn’t her body. Or, it wasn’t supposed to be.
Space Colony Ark?
Did she know that place?
Was she supposed to know that place?
Funny. She could remember those words, but not her own name.
What is my name?
She squeezed her eyes shut again, concentrating. Her shoulders tensed and she pressed her fingertips into her closed palms, curling her toes as she physically scrunched her body. Moments later, she released the tension building inside of her and sighed.
Her shoulders drooped. “I don’t remember anything,” she told him. “Not even my name.”
His grin didn’t falter. “That’s all right. It will all come back to you... eventually.” Maybe his tone wasn’t meant to sound the way it did to the wombat, but his words sounded weird. Ominous, almost.
“Can you... can you at least tell me my name?” she asked, remembering to keep her voice as polite as possible. Again, she didn’t know why, but she knew that’s how she would have talked if she were... a human.
A human? Was that what she used to be? She had a vague feeling that was right.
“Maria.”
Her ears pricked at the sound of the name, twitching as he repeated it.
“Yes, Maria. Your name is Maria.” His smile hadn’t faded, yet it had changed. He looked sinister for a moment, but Maria blinked and the brief reflection of malice was gone.
“Maria,” she repeated the word to herself.
It was a name. Her name.
Another smile spread across her lips and she said it again.
“Maria. That’s my name. My name!”
He nodded briefly before placing a hand on his chest. “And my name is Doctor Ivo Robotnik,” he told her. “You may call me Doctor Robotnik.” He sneered to himself. “Certainly, do not call me by that blasted rodent’s nickname... Eggman.”
Maria nodded eagerly. “All right... Doctor.” Her gaze lifted to the ceiling as she caught the sight of a water droplet plummeting from the loose pipes. It plopped down onto the floor of the cell. “Is this... uh... where...?” Helplessly, she gestured around herself at the room.
Eggman chuckled to himself at Maria’s gesture. “This is my laboratory, Maria.” He took a small step forward and placed a hand down on her left shoulder. She didn’t twitch or move away. “Please think of it as your home.”
Maria’s grin returned, wider than before. “Home?” Her sorry stub of a tail wagged as best it could as she leaned forward, her ears pricking with interest. “This is my home?”
“Of course,” Eggman answered promptly. “And you are my assistant.”
“Assistant?” she questioned, unable to mask the curiosity echoing as her voice bounced off the thin walls of the room.
“Yes,” he said softly. “You will help me with my plans to catch Sonic and destroy him once and for all.”
She frowned slightly. “Sonic? Catch?” She tapped her chin, trying to think, as if her memories were betraying her.
Suddenly a flash crossed her mind and she saw a black hedgehog with red stripes appear beside a human girl inside her vision.
She wasn’t in Dr. Robotnik’s lab anymore. Instead, she was watching a scene unfold in front of her – one she had visited before… a very long time ago.
The hedgehog had his arms folded over his chest, gazing at a large window as he stood inside a bare, dome-shaped room. Far below outside there was a blue planet with green spots flecking it.
Maria knew what it is.
“Earth.” Her heart clenched as the word parted her lips and she clutched a hand to her chest as if she were in pain.
But she hadn’t escaped the recesses of her memories just yet.
The hedgehog scoffed as Maria’s human self approached him, laughing at his stubborn attitude.
“Come on, Shadow. I know you want to go to that planet as much as I do.” She laughed again as the hedgehog – Shadow — turned away from her.
As if she’d been in that moment right then – reliving it – Maria knew everything about Shadow.
He was considered the “ultimate lifeform” by her grandpa and he was Maria’s best and only friend in the entire world.
The scene was erased by another flash of white, blood splattered everywhere.
It only took Maria a few seconds to remember whose blood it was. Her own….
And there Shadow stood, placed in some kind of tube; an escape pod, maybe?
She couldn’t remember right for sure, but Maria (the wombat, not the human) was sure she’d remember soon.
“Goodbye, Shadow,” said the human version of Maria as her hands gripped the lever, ready to pull down. Mustering all her strength, she clenched her teeth and forced the lever down, then the pod clicked into place and ejected itself from the space colony.
Then Shadow and Maria heard a loud bang.
A sharp ringing filled Maria’s ears and she fell to the floor, watching as her best friend fell into space, right toward the blue planet she’d only heard about in stories.
“Earth,” the animal version of the girl once known as Maria repeated to herself.
It seemed like such a wonderful place. A place filled with people just like her.
But it was all too late. She was going to die.
And she had to relive it all over again.
In real-time, Maria the wombat sat with her head in her hands, whimpering to herself as if she were in physical pain.
“Make it stop,” she said, her voice quivering as the words left her lips.
The room was still once more; nothing but the dripping of the rain falling through the cracks in the ceiling against the dirty floor and the sudden wave of emotions making her heart beat louder and louder inside her ears.
“Make it stop,” she repeated, again, gripping the animal ears on top of her head. She brought her knees up to her chest, burying her face from the outside world; the darkness, the smell of rotten eggs, all of it.
Her words reverberated off the walls of the lab, echoing back to her. They sounded like they were coming from someone else.
~
That night, she stayed alone in another room – her room... probably. At least, that’s what the doctor told her.
It felt strange, though, and, as she looked out the window of her room, the same feeling of dread filled the pit of her stomach. Her intestines knotted together, twisting and writhing at the thought of being stuck in an unfamiliar room. One thing was clear in Maria’s mind: she needed to leave. Now.
Her ears pricked for sounds in the hallway. All she heard was the creaking and groaning of the lab’s metal floorboards and the stomping of the robots guarding the hallways. She could slip past them easily. They weren’t very smart.
Cracking the window open, she let the salty sea breeze fill the room, inhaling the scent. Somehow it felt strangely familiar, though she’d never smelt that scent before. Not now, and not back when her memories belonged to the human Maria.
Nonetheless, she slipped out into the rainy night, manoeuvring passed the incompetent aerial robots Robotnik had stationed outside the lab. She rolled her eyes as she finally came to the head of a forest.
“That was too easy,” she muttered to herself, carelessly stepping into the thicket of darkness.
The forest wasn’t as scary as Maria could have imagined – if she had been in a forest before, maybe it would have been a different story. But she felt calm and relaxed in the presence of the darkness and strange noises. Unlike the lab, it was exhilarating!
But she couldn’t bask in the adventurous tone for long. Before she knew it, her feet had left the rough branches of evergreens and entered an expansive clearing at the seaside.
Maria’s ears pricked at the sound of crashing waves. Instinctively, her nose wiggled, inhaling the scent. A small grin pressed her lips back and she continued forward, refusing to stop until she toed the very edge of the cliff.
“Careful,” she warned herself in a quiet voice, “you might fall.” Strangely, it sounded like the warning had come from somebody else even though Maria knew she had said it herself. Not to mention there was nobody around.
She cautiously raised herself up onto her toes, peering over the edge. She noted the beach far below and nodded as if it meant anything. She definitely wouldn’t be going down there any time soon.
But where was she going to go exactly?
She was stumped.
Falling back onto her heels, she stood in a wide stance, staring out at the never-ending sea. It was so vast... stretching on forever and ever. She wanted to stay there...
Suddenly, the ground beneath her shifted; and so did Maria. Again, the dirt shuffled beneath her feet and before Maria knew what was happening, the earth gave way beneath her, sending her tumbling over the edge of the cliff.
Maria fell down, knocking against the rocks on the cliff's edge. Of course it hurt like hell. But even pain was also a new sensation for her – at least, for this Maria it was!
She didn’t know how to react, and her voice caught in her throat, her heart clogging it as her brain told her to scream. She couldn’t. Instead, her eyes instinctively snapped shut and her body curled into a protective ball, preparing herself for impact.
Maybe the beach wasn’t as far as she’d thought. Or maybe she was just really, really lucky... because, when the stinging sensation of pain and the wretched smell of blood came, she was very much alive. As she slipped off into the darkness, she wished she was dead. Maybe then she’d be with Shadow... whoever that was.