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It was too hard wanting to keep his eyes open anymore. How the world looked cut and bled too much in his eyes, his irises reflecting its stolen life. Her stolen life. He shouldn’t forget. God forbid it was something he ever had to forget.
He didn’t want to look at the outside world anymore. It was disgusting. Vile and wretched, built entirely by blood-stained hands. All the lovely colors it once proudly displayed via fanning peacock tail had its feathers plucked and torn by the greedy and damned. Because everyone it was around only knew one thing, and that was to take, and take, and take…
Corrosive darkness overtaking his mind and soul, his body too cumbersome to even inch himself out of bed. It felt like a blindness of the heart, yet he still could see. The ugly, dying world he couldn’t bear to see die with him anymore.
He wished he was blind. Because the world looked exactly like him.
“I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.”
A drop of water from the leaking faucet was the only response he got. The only sound reverberating through his entire home. A home full of no one. A home without love. No one else could hear him but God, and God didn’t want him.
God didn’t even create him in the first place. His own creation that he likely grew to regret, humans, did. His hands were already full of their own sins, and even his own son died for them. There was nothing he could do for him even if he wanted to. His hands were already soiled with the scarlet red paint of his creations.
Why did she have to die? Why couldn’t it have been me instead? These questions, no matter how much he allowed them to burrow deep within his mind, they still persisted, emerging from his sickened head whenever he felt these prickling thorns deep within his heart. It should’ve been him. Those bullets were mainly reserved for him, to be stained with his unnaturally green blood, rather than the vivid red of the innocent. He was the mistake. He was never meant to be here. Maria was. Maria was made with love, the coupling passions between two human beings whose hearts could still beat without the subtle pang of regret and their naturally built malice. It was unfair. Unfair! Completely unfair! They shouldn’t have taken her! No, they just should’ve taken me!
Shadow couldn’t cry. A mantra kept replaying inside him like a faulty tape player. The Ultimate Lifeform couldn’t cry. He was built to not have emotions. Despite his inherent anatomy, it was written, but never spoken, that he had to suck up every single bad feeling he had inside of his ribcage like a sponge, and pretend they weren’t poisoning his veins at all. He had to just be quiet, keep his muzzle stitched with an always snarled scowl and be a man. Any tear he shed was a sign of fragility, akin to blood dripping from his flesh. Every time he cried, it felt as if he was rending and tearing through his organs, his entire inhumane body. They were even spelled with the same letters. There was no reason he had to admit weakness, display to the callous world how broken the Ultimate Lifeform truly was. Why should he? He knew God never existed as soon as a real angel like Maria was mercilessly gunned down. If there was truly a God, it never would’ve happened. Angels would never have their own feathers from their ethereal wings plucked, their halos down and their own shining eyes brimming with tears of their own.
He was supposedly the Ultimate Lifeform, the greatest achievement human hands toiled over. Yet as soon as he was discovered, their immediate reaction was one of disgust and fear, sealing him away for what was supposed to be an eternity, until he was released again, purely out of selfish greed and a thirst for power they knew Shadow had.
Why should it matter? He wasn’t even meant to be existing among the same plane with those who once despised him anyways. Those fifty years were meant to last forever. It was even a stroke of luck and natural human stupidity that he was even freed.
“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t.”
It was too quiet inside his home, deafening to his discordant mind. There was nothing here, and that was what hurt him the most. Dragging his dying body, trying to protect those who his personal angel still loved and adored despite their many abhorrent flaws, and there was no one back inside, reminding him of why. Why he continued to breathe, even if his lungs couldn’t take in any more of the toxic air the earth’s atmosphere only seemed to have in offer for him. Why did he still desire love from those who always displayed distrust and hatred for what he was? Born a weapon, always a weapon. Born from the most disgusting aspects of the very humans who molded him, always a reminder the public didn’t want to look at anymore, conveniently placed aside to where no other prying eyes could prick and prod him anymore, like the many needles the bigger ones always seemed to carry. Sometimes to him, their proboscis stretched on for what seemed miles, always poised to incise and drink in more of his life. They’d tell him it was for testing, but he never believed them. Those needles always came back when they told him it was all over and they’d never do it again. Humans were natural born liars.
Shadow sighed, closing his eyes as he filled his murky cup with equally as murky water, gulping it down before he could breathe another sound from his mouth. It was all he could manage to do, wishing his lids were permanently stitched closed, the wretched world that looked too much like his decaying alien innards. All he wished for was just to not wake up again. Drowning the same inhabitants and earth in darkness to where they no longer could hurt him again. Sealed off inside his capsule for all eternity, like they all wished him to be.
Hunched over, his body almost seemed like he was a few inches smaller, unable to grab onto the handles of his cabinets. He couldn’t help but think his specialized air shoes were much bigger than he originally thought, his feet plodding as he brewed yet another cup of boiling coffee, wafts of silver steam emanating from the corrosive black liquid. Shadow soon decided he didn’t even want it anymore. It tasted bitter and reminded him too much of his perforated heart. The only word he could use to describe it would’ve been…
Blucky.
Blucky. A combination of possibly “bad” and “yucky”. It was a word he felt that never truly existed until his lips formed it as he witnessed the coffee slowly dripping from the ominous machine, having something more in common with the many tall and lanky shadowy figures that dominated his life. He created something. Something that was mainly useless and trivial, but he gave life to it like they once did to himself, and for some reason, he felt like it still mattered.
No, coffee simply wasn’t going to do. He needed something nicer. Sweeter. The dark brooding hedgehog wasn’t sure why, but it sounded far more nourishing to him. Maybe he was bordering on another nervous breakdown and was craving orange juice again. He heard that when the body was under too much duress, it for some reason would attempt to force him to drink orange juice. Maybe it was him really needing the vitamin C.
Pausing his torrent of thoughts mid-sentence, his hand shook on the handle of his refrigerator, realizing he didn’t even want orange juice. Warm milk sounded far much better.
When was the last time he willingly forced himself to drink milk? He couldn’t remember of a single moment in his life when he did, his hybrid body still carrying some aspects of a normal hedgehog and his stomach sometimes unable to handle lactose. The only time he ever wanted his tongue to touch upon that infernal liquid was…
“M-M… Maria …”
The letters of her name almost felt too big as they tumbled abruptly out of his mouth, unable to keep his stoic composure as he could only feel the world growing taller around him. His little paws reached out to the air, but he couldn’t hold onto his reality anymore. Those familiar, seemingly spiteful shadows loomed over him, his sanguine-tinted eyes quivering as his tiny heart full of thorns thumped and pained his frail body, the seams of his chest unraveling before someone he didn’t want to see him this way. No, no…he couldn’t be like this. Not in front of him. Shadow was the one who was supposed to trail behind him, letting his warmth that imbued from his comforting darkness protect and guide yet another blue angel God felt he had to pluck away from him too. He had to be the bigger one. The stronger one. He was the Ultimate Lifeform, he couldn’t be so small, so pathetically weak and mewling softly for his attention. Weapons and human-made ingenuity never did these things. Why was he going against every foundation he was built upon?
“Hey there, champ. Looks like you’re havin’ another one of those days, huh?”
The dark, violent-shaded hedgehog wasn’t able to determine why, but Sonic appeared taller, graceful, his eyes almost appearing in a different shade of green. These were things he knew occasionally happened to Sonic. His therapist told him, even if he still wasn’t sure if he could fully trust her, her light fawn skin cut of the same cloth of all those who once attempted to extinguish the embers from his wrathful lids. Yet there were so many things Shadow has still yet to fully come to terms with, for as long as he survived on this planet. Seeing Sonic as someone he recognized wasn’t really Sonic was something he thought he’d never had to experience, but life was funny like that sometimes. Every side he witnessed of him he soon learned of their every name, exactly like the tears that fell from his eyes, remarkably shaped like raindrops.
It was too hard for him to talk. As if some mysterious magic spell was casted by some unknown force (who knows, maybe it actually was from this God figure he began to forsake) and was woven into his diminutive form, the words that flowed into his head too heavy for him to carry. He could only signal to Sonic of his many needs and wants by primitive snuffles and snorts, a juvenile habit most hedgehogs learned to grow out of. Juvenile and immature, he knew, but what else could he conceivably do as the thumb of one of his paws was slowly inching closer to his mouth without his active consciousness knowing?
He was Sonic, sure, but his voice felt lighter, the wind that he breathed from every word he spoke to him gently brushed against his ears, his turgid heart feeling brighter and warmer. He looked like Sonic. His fur was colored the same as Sonic’s. Blue. That lovely, saintly shade of cornflower blue that brimmed and seared through his vision, almost appearing as a hallucination. None of it was real, he acknowledged it all, but even Moses sat and spoke to the burning bush, wondering why this chimerical image was conjured up from his brain. After all, maybe it actually had something very important to tell him.
“You don’t have to talk about it you don’t want to, dear. I understand. Do you want me to hold you to help with those bad feelings, honey? Or would you prefer…”
Before the one who still considered themselves Sonic, they weren’t even fast enough to keep asking Shadow what he wanted, his paws immediately surging in the air for their radiant kindness, to feel himself bigger than what he really was inside. They chuckled mirthfully as they tenderly lifted him to what almost felt like the vast, expansive sky, nestled closely to their soft, tepid chest.
“Oh, looks like our little guy really wants some snuggles today! There there, let’s give some much needed love and attention to ya. Brave, strong little guys like you deserve it, coming so far yet continuin’ to keep truckin’ on…”
Her warm gloves caressed her dark and red bundle of fur tightly, an unrestrained, emphatic purr crackling from Shadow’s throat. There was no reasoning why he allowed himself to do this, but none of it really seemed to truly matter. It felt… good to allow himself to be loved like this, to be known he was appreciated and cherished like the lone angel he was once blessed with in his past. It was good to feel so adored. For so long, Shadow almost believed throughout his entire forlorn creation, his body was meant to keep fighting and clawing through his life without a heaping spoonful of balming love whenever his soul felt he needed it. Yet, there was no denying that, exactly like Sonic, he craved and hungered for it until his stomach may as well be ready to burst. Shadow said nothing but snuffled noisily as an alter that he soon came to recognize that inhabited Sonic’s body on some rare occasions, named Lily, embraced him tighter against his peach chest, the outlines suddenly contorting in his fanciful illusions into an innocuous heart shape.
To Lily, the noisy, yet content snuffles emitting from her precious, beautiful hoglet that reminded her of the very eclipse of the moon spoke much louder than any words he could’ve said.
“That’s quite all right, baby. You can stay here for as long as you need to, safe and sound, in my arms. I’m here now, to make all the dark scary things go away for you…”
There was almost no weight to his entire body as his limbs dangled from Lily’s hold, his chirping and purring only rising as high as he believed he was, mentally imagining his tiny paws fully outstretched towards her, wanting her brisk sunshine to imbue himself completely in her light.
It was really the only thing he wanted. He would still become blind through the bright white sheen of her godliness, but it was a better blindness. Because through her, he wasn’t able to see, but he almost felt whole; brand new and unmarred, his passionate ardour rekindled by her love.
Smoothly jostling her personal ultimate lifeform up and down, cooing and whispering nothing but sweet saccharine words into his pink-tipped ears, he wished she would never have to let him go. The yellow, sunlit hues of their home popped vibrantly as he allowed her gladness to be absorbed by his pained heart, each reverberation inside of his brittle shuddering frame not as hurtful as it once was. Lily’s glittering smile refracted from the creeping sunlight overtaking the once disconsolate eclipse of shadows that surrounded his living space. Everything she touched, the space inbetween where her words melodiously uplifted the world Shadow no longer wanted to witness again, Lily just made his life more incandescent, reminding him of the same lessons he tried to instill in Sonic’s younger ones. Rain made all the pretty things in life grow faster. Stars shone the brightest when the celestial night was at its darkest. Lessons he could’ve told them an angel taught him many years ago that he, too, needed some assistance in remembering.
It was funny to him sometimes to think of himself, his mental state much like it was all those decades ago, timid and believing the various screeches and sounds the space colony made on occasion were from a monster that roamed around the halls, one that he believed could only be more fearsome and wicked than he was. His angel wrapping her radiant arms and wings around his little self as she let his eyes gaze at the many galaxies and twinkling stars that smiled back at him, the porcelain glow of the shining moon casting the observatory in an eerie blue glow. Blue, his favorite colour. The same colour he always associated with safety and another odd word he soon learned to piece together that he once believed was something only he made up. Love.
Born of insidious ideals, the self-evident flaws and folly of God’s mistakes, yet it was what his entire self was entirely molded by the very moment he saw the starlight gleaming from her eyes, what his ribcage was built with and housed. Love. Yet he thought he still wasn’t nourished with it enough.
One of his little fingers would slip away from his lips, pointing directly to his open mouth, wanting Lily to see how empty he was. So hungry, a shadow so devoid of light, he needed her to sing once more to truly believe he could see what was clearly in front of him again. The opulent beauty of the world that Sonic helped him realize was always there for him to come back to, if he wanted to take a step back and look for it.
“Hmm…sounds like your little tummy is rumblin’, and we certainly can’t have our brave lil guy stay hungry! I’ll make you something you’ve always loved, every time you’ve needed some extra love to help you keep pushing forward…”
Lavender wafted in the breeze, a small silver pot simmering as Lily hummed and stirred, Shadow silently watching as he babbled in her arms. A mental image spilled forth from Shadow’s fantastical visions once more, the frills of a dress Lily was swathed in bubbling the floor below them in a mist of seafoam. Inserting his thumb into his inquisitive mouth, a hint of sugar seemed to seep in everything Lily was encompassed in, somehow tasting sweeter. It felt so sweet to blink, to breathe. It felt so sweet to have his heart beat again without the many thorns tearing through its skin. Life was so much sweeter when he felt he was alive.
Recognizing the very same bottle Shadow himself used, the very same recipe he assembled himself whenever he heard the tiny thumps of Princely’s tentative footsteps beside his bedroom door, he still felt like he really didn’t want to, but he was afraid, and the world was so much bigger than he initially thought. He didn’t want to cry, to show that even someone who was labeled as a weapon, as a strong formidable man, could be easily taken apart by their own emotions. However, even human men who soon immortalized their unspoken rules never took into account how powerful emotions could be.
Shadow gave Sonic, and the rest of them, the gift of his love, wanting nothing more but to witness Sonic growing back to his former brilliantly shining glory, without his ugly scars of his past burning too much to allow him to be the wind to their planet. He only wanted to see Sonic smirk and chuckle again, his smile blinding him as much as the darkness once did before he dashed into his life, interrupted. Nothing more, nothing less.
And tears slipped down his cheeks and pooled below his muzzle, being fed the ambrosial fragrant creamy mixture as it balmed and flooded through his icy, weighted body. Lily and Sonic took the love that even they felt Shadow could never give them and returned it tenfold, her eyes that were entwined deeply into Shadow’s wet, blurry gaze transmuting into a different shade of green. A beryl-tinted shade of blue. Emerald-shaded blue. His favorite color.
“There, there…drink up as much as you want. Drink as much as you can so grandpa and I can see you big and strong, okay?”
Recognizing the very same bottle Shadow himself used, it was now being held in the hands of the one he once nourished and nuzzled into his own arms. But it was too hard to think about these things anymore, Shadow thought. It was hard to think like he once did when his heart felt bubbly with these strange, yet soothing feelings, the lavender and French vanilla milk making his eyelids heavier; his heart and mind drifting off as he watched the scintillating lights of the absconded stars burn and fade. Their glow stretched and glimmered as Shadow closed his eyes, the familiar blue starlight taking him back to a much simpler, safer time and place. A time where Shadow believed that angels were actually forbidden to truly die.
“I believe in you, Shadow,” Maria said to him. “I believe you will actually lead us to save the planet we both love. Earth’s savior…my blessed, fallen angel.”
Even with his eyes shut, the darkness blanketing his sight, he still could sense her shining light, even with his sacred, guiding blue star, gone.