Chapter Text
It was dark... So very dark.
Shadow found himself somewhere he couldn't figure out.
The echoes of his steps rung in his ears, ruby eyes scanning his surroundings but... Nothing.
Just an empty space.
Shutting his eyes, he continued on into the emptiness, but soon felt the ground beneath him shattering like glass.
Now he was falling.
Falling into a red, warped space where everything was messed up. Only one person knew how to do that...
But he was gone, wasn't he? His time in white space made sure of that!
That didn't seem to be the case anymore... Suddenly, Shadow felt a stabbing pain in his head.
He wanted to scream, he wanted to yell out... But no sound escaped him.
Instead, he fell onto the floor with a heavy thud, gloved hands trying to grip onto something... Though the ground was completely flat.
He heard the haunting, demonic whisper of his name in his ears.
"Shadow... I will return. The promised time will not go unfulfilled..."
He couldn't stand. He couldn't even move an inch anymore.
Black smoke surrounded him, making his breathing falter.
Shadow tried to say anything at all in rebuttal, but still no words.
Although he was rendered speechless, he did feel a black, inky substance falling from his eyes and lips... What was happening to him?
The ground broke beneath him again... His body felt so heavy...
Shadow kept on falling, hoping for something to be at the bottom of this pit to remove his current pain.
Until...
CRASH!
The black hedgehog had accidentally broken a window. Well, more specifically HIS window. Darn it, he was going to have to fix that before Rouge finds out. But that... That wasn't a nightmare. He didn't really need to sleep in the first place and it all felt so... Real. What was it all about? A warning? No, couldn't be. Black Doom was gone... Right? He disappeared with white space ages ago. So then what else could it have been? Hm.
He still felt the pounding headache going at it, but it would subside eventually. He was the ultimate lifeform after all, nothing stayed longer than it had to. He'd figure that out later, right now he had to clear his head before more freaky things started consuming him. He grabbed a handful of coffee beans to just chew down in one go, grabbed whatever he needed, yes including his emerald, and walked out of the door to his apartment. Once outside in the cool breeze of the changing season, he took a deep breath hoping it would aid him in his stress relief before he sped off towards a field not too close to the city.
But he didn't realize that he was being followed.