Chapter Text
It happened when Sonic was getting home after finishing his part-time jobs on the other side of the SeaSide Island that is undergoing urbanization, plenty of labor tasks for quick cash grab, if not to help him be productive in an otherwise boring week. It so happened that he was lackluster enough to take a shortcut of running straight through the island's jungle instead of the main road. It was a pain to veer around the trees and have mud sticking to his shoes, but it saved the blue speedster a whole 5 minutes shorter so it was a huge win. And as he was speeding, Sonic felt an invisible sharp tug and his head instinctively turned toward it, catching sight of something out of the ordinary among the sea of trees.
A thing that resembles a cottage.
Skidding to a halt and almost tripping over the mud, Sonic’s eyes widened at the body of the mysterious structure coming more and more into view.
It's a cottage-like structure occupying the rare space between the trees, small in size and seems to be made of distinctive reddish brown wood, unlike the surrounding greenery. It has thick walls, a raft foundation, a triangular thatched roof, and, strangely enough, boarded windows. There are strange, glamorous markings decorating its walls, carved directly on the wood. Sonic couldn't make out what they meant; nonetheless, they passed as innocent-looking enough to ignore. The cottage has an air of a witch's hut, and it sticks out like a sore thumb in the surrounding context, clearly fashioned to endure harsh winters rather than the equatorial climate. Sonic himself also knew very well that the mysterious cottage was not there the last time he ran through here.
Curiosity peaks, Sonic inch closer, scanning the view of the cottage's unassuming porch; a faded red painted door with no address or mail box, a white grandma-looking rocker chair lodging a bundle of clothes and blankets with a strange transparent orb at the center, a small round table next to it, and a row of pots housing either dead or shriveled up plants. The blue speedster‘s mouth formed an ‘o’ when he realized there might be a person hidden in the clothes stash. It was hard to make out, but he could partly make out a hand peeking under the hood. Sonic wondered, for a nerve-wracking moment, whether there was an individual deliberately hiding under those clothes or if he was sweating over a mannequin. Muscle coiled, Sonic opened his mouth to give a forewarn shout when the orb thing glinted, and he instantly zeroed in on it.
The orb that he deemed transparent earlier was exhibiting a lucent greenish emerald color. A yellow circle blinked into existence, and while it is not as big as the orb's width, it’s more luminous and bright. It is eerily similar to an eye, and Sonic’s spine stands on end when he feels like it is looking at him.
Sonic took a step back unconsciously, and barely held back a shriek when he felt he brushed over something. Jerked down, the blue hedgehog jumped out of his skin when he saw an orb that looked exactly like the other ones right next to his left foot. Magically untouched by the mud, its gleaming circular eye gaping up at the blue speedster. Sonic raised his foot, ready to kick the freaky thing to kingdom come. impulsive decision be damned.
“Don’t kick it.”
A voice warned, and Sonic didn't need to look to know it was coming from the cloth heap.
Spinning around, he saw the pile had straightened itself and, from under the hood, revealed an anthropomorphic face. young and definitely male, he has piercing yellow eyes that are similar to those orbs and a prominent scar that etched between the eyes down to the right corner of his mouth. The stranger's expression was calm, if not dazed, and Sonic could see frame by frame his gaze slowly moving from Sonic to the freak orb beside him.
“Come back.”
Before the blue hedgehog could question just who the stranger was referring to, the orb beside him started to slide toward its presumably owner. So naturally and unceremoniously that Sonic almost kicked it again out of sheer reflex. Seemingly floating, the globe rolls on air while the yellow circle stays fixed on the stranger. It goes up and over the porch, retreating to the chair's side in the manner that could be described as a chastised dog. Another one peeked out from the fabric, likely having been hiding between the person’s legs, and Sonic suddenly found himself being stared down by a pair and 3 extra eyes.
Chill ran down his spine, Sonic gulped, and offered a little wave, “Uh, hi?”
“Hi,” echoed the stranger, his expression crossed between cheerful and melancholy. A pair of hands came out under the blanket and started petting the orb on his lap.
“These little guys are very precious to me. Please don’t kick them.” says he. His voice is low, raspy, and boyish, and has an unidentifiable accent.
“Oh! Yeah, sorry about that. They kinda startled me.” Sonic hurriedly explained, not discreetly gawking at the other’s face.
“They do that sometimes. Rather cute, isn't it?” The stranger chuckled, a wan sound. He seems very tired.
“So, uh, what are they?” Sonic ventured, gesturing at the 3 glowing balls. Their yellow eyes fixed on him, unblinking and unreadable. Suppressing an involuntary shiver, the blue hedgehog eyeballs them closely. They seem to be some kind of service robots like Orbot, or Cubbo, or at least something more advanced, considering how simple and imposing they look.
“These are my little assistants, gifts from a late friend. They are made to connect only to me.” The stranger says, dropping his gaze to the orbs, emphasizing. “Even the technology behind them is unknown to me, so I’d appreciate no harm coming to them.”
“Uh, noted.”
The pile of clothes laughed. fabrics, clothes, and scarves disturbed and partly slip off as he leans forward, giving out more of his youthful appearance. Something about his face that rings familiar, intimate enough for Sonic to know those half-lidded gold eyes should have a lot more fire and vigor. The stranger, a boy, smiled with his eyes, and the exhausted lines on his face moved when he spoke.
“How did you even find me?” he asked, light and quizzically, like they were friends catching each other in holiday plans and not strangers in the middle of an uncharted jungle.
“Honestly? I just happened to cross by your…cottage? Well, your house caught my attention. I swear I wasn't snooping or anything! Just got curious. Your house wasn't here the last time I went here.” Sonic admitted. meeting the other boy’s eyes, and put on his signature charming smirk.
“I’m Sonic, by the way. Sonic T Hedgehog. Pleased to meet you.” He extended his hand from where he was, a friendly gesture, and unruffled when the other boy didn't return the courtesy. “I was going home from the other side of Seaside, doing some part-time jobs here and there. Mr. Mayer is opening up on that side, he’s aiming for that sweet leisure industry. I rarely go down this route, though. Too many trees, and mud.”
“That's too bad, the jungle is rather beautiful.” The boy says, and, for a brief moment, he seems genuinely despondent, presumably by Sonic's lack of nature appreciation. which is crazy. Ducking his head to hide his expression, the boy hugged the globe and asked quietly. “So, it was purely by chance you found me?”
“Pretty much it.” Sonic nodded and added a slight snipe. “You seem oddly worried about this. Are you, like, in hiding or something?”
“No, not currently.”
“Interesting. So what are you doing here then? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Resting, or a getaway,” the boy sighed and leaned back the chain. A look of utter exhaustion crossed his face, and his voice was laced with bitterness. A sharp contrast to the lighthearted temperament earlier. “It has been frustrating; everything was confusing, nonsensical, and all my hard work up until now hardly amounts to anything. wasted. I…I want to get away from it, just to get my head clear for a while. That's why I’m here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Sonic offered a sympathetic look. “That sounds like a good plan, I hope everything turns out okay for you.”
The boy pursed his lip, grimly nodded, and said nothing more. Thus, they lapsed into a momentary silence. The boy looks at the orb, Sonic looks at the boy, and both are uncaring about the dying sun casting a great shadow at their feet, and the sound of wildlife awake for the night despite the absence of the animals themself. The blue hedgehog gawked at the other’s limited face, trying to decipher the sense of recognition that goes beyond the superficial he has toward the peculiar stranger. His searing yellow eyes, the jagged scar marked in the middle of his face, his strange and untraceable accent, and his dreary and sluggish demeanor. Sonic just knows for a fact that this boy should be a lot more vicious and intense.
“Hey, have I met you before?” Sonic wondered idly. “I can’t place it, but you're kind of familiar.”
The boy looks at him sharply with a flick of his eyes, unreadable emotions flash through his face until it settles into a grimace, and he lets out a haughty laugh. Sonic’s has found it rather offensive if it hadn't sounded so miserable.
“How could it be? We, by all means, shouldn’t have met yet.” The boy mocked, huffed, and fumed further. “How could you possibly find me familiar? Tell me, Sonic, what do you even find in me that rings a bell?”
“That attitude,” Sonic teased, a touch more gleeful at the other’s stumped expression. “I’m eighty percent sure we have never met before, but I just know you have a lot more bite. Not in a weird way, of course! How should I put it? I was expecting a lot more shouting about how it's no use, and you started magically throwing cars everywhere.”
“...What?”
Eyes wide and mouth agape, the boy stared at Sonic like he had grown a second head. The blue speedster could understand the reaction; he himself had to pause and think about the nonsensical claim he just spouted out. The boy stared and stared some more until he let out an incredulous chuckle, which escalated into a fit of uncontrolled laughter. It was a throaty and generally unpleasant sound, and the boy had never looked so alive during their interaction. The orbs start gleaming as well, resonating to their owner’s laughter, and now they all seem to be laughing at Sonic’s silly remark.
Flushing red with embarrassment, Sonic hissed through his gritted teeth. “Hey! That’s not nice! Stop laughing!”
“How, how did you even remember that?!” the boy giggled, almost feverish. “By the Spirit, I can't believe it! Did you seriously still hold a grudge that hard? I already said I’m sorry!”
“Wait, what? So you did throw a car at me?! What the hell, dude!” Sonic gasped, flabbergasted, and pointed his accusing finger. “Also, wait a minute! Where is that apology? I didn’t get any apology from you! This is why I remember you, isn't it? You were plotting my demise!”
The boy snorted. His eyes were red, breathless, and it was hard to tell if it was sweat or tears running down his cheeks. Despite all of that, the boy's expression was a thing of joy. A twinkling light in his yellow eyes that wasn't there before. He looks at Sonic like the blue hedgehog hung the stars.
“That,” he started, openly shedding big tears as he leveled Sonic a faraway look. Laughing and sobbing. “That was a lifetime ago, Sonic…Spirit, how did you even remember it? What else do you remember?”
Sonic opened his mouth to demand more answers, but faltered at the boy's hopeful and urging expression. The blue speedster bit his lip, took a deep breath, and racked his brain to recall any shooting car accidents. The strange cottage, the yellow-eyed boy, the aforementioned car, and the apology were all blank spots in his memory. He couldn’t recall anything, only the slightest idea, only intangible concepts. It doesn't make sense. How could he possibly make an accurate remark if he doesn't have any prior knowledge about it? How can he know what this person should act like? How does he know that this boy was once full of anger and grief?
Bewildered and deeply perturbed, Sonic shot the boy with a suspicious glare, his fur bristling. “I don’t remember it. I don't remember you or any car that was thrown at me. At all. Did you do something to my memory?”
The boy looks at him, his hopeful and encouraging expression melts into understanding. He smiled sadly and wiped his tears with the back of his hand, the orbs around him gone dimmed with their circular eyes focused on the boy as he pressed his palm to his cheek, visually gathering himself before speaking.
“You shouldn’t have known about it. By the Spirit, it should have been impossible. I, I don’t know about this either. I thought it was all lost when I woke up here. Maybe that's still the case, but…I'm glad. At least, I can still have this. An echo in your memory.” The boy trailed off, his expression turned wan and his eyes glossed over.
“What are you talking about?” Sonic interrupted hotly, raising his voice. Rattled and infuriated, he hates how discomposed he’s feeling right now. Hating the pained look the boy has. “You are not making any sense! Why don’t I remember you throwing a car at me? Why do I know what you’re like, but couldn't remember it? What is happening?!”
Snapping out of whatever trance he was in, the boy shook his head, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his gaze was clearer, sharper, and with a newfound determination. Then, he rose from the chair, legs unsteady beneath him when he stood. The clothes slipped off him along with the orb, exposing the boy fully undering the dusk dying light. He looks to be an anthropomorphic hedgehog with thick and overgrown grey spines, round and fluffy ears with the left one missing the upper chunk, the wild and unruly mane spouting out from the chest and even shoulders, the long and spearlike chestnut snout that is akin to an echidna, but a nose is of a hedgehog. He was also fully clothed like a human would, coat, shirt, pants, and shoes, and all of them were dirty and had worn edges. He looks like he just walked straight out of a post-apocalyptic TV show. He looks familiar.
Sonic stared wordlessly, heart pounding, and unconsciously took a step back when the grey hedgehog staggered to him, knees threatening to give with each step. In that heart-hammering moment, his molten gold eyes seemed to glow. glamorous and shimmering, they had Sonic rooted where he stood. Breathless and unable to look away.
“You’re right, Sonic. None of this made any sense. Everything stopped making sense a long time ago, so why would it matter now?” Says the boy, smiling wryly. Stopping only 3 steps from the blue hedgehog, his expression softened. “You couldn’t remember because it technically never happened, not in this timeline. Yet, somehow, you were able to recall that little portion. An impossibility by all meanings.”
He chuckled. Coy. “Well, you do have a record of doing the impossible.”
Sonic was deeply unsure how to respond to that, “Erm, Thank, I guess…?”
The younger hedgehog lets out a mirthful laugh, a much more pleasant sound than the hysterical laughter earlier. Unfortunately, like all happy things, it ended too soon and was replaced with a somber expression. Grim yet hopeful, like clouds hiding the sun, he started to explain.
“We did get off on the wrong foot, Sonic. I did throw cars at you, and I did try to kill you, but I was tricked. I was a fool, Sonic, a desperate idiot who believed in a baseless claim. Killing you would not save my world, would not save my family. It would only make everything worse. I understood that a long time ago. You were our hope. You were our absolute.” The boy chewed his lips and took another step, his eyes flesh with new tears and full of pleading. “You and your friend saved the world, Sonic! You changed the course of our doomed future. I, I owe you so much! You may not remember it, but I do. So please trust me when I say I'm your friend, Sonic. Your friend, your ally. Forever and always.”
“Please believe me.” The boy beseeched one last time, one hand to his chest, and another reaching out for Sonic but stopped midway and hung limply between them like his desperate ranting. groundless and unreachable.
Those words ring from Sonic's ear to the back of his skull, his mind reeling and his wit useless. The blue speedster couldn't bring himself to believe any of those heartfelt words, couldn't believe a maniac stranger spouting nonsensical claims about timelines, a doomed future, and he being the hope. It all sounds like a bad joke, and Sonic doesn't find it funny at all. Instead, he focused on something more tangled like the other hedgehog’s face. the determined furrow of his brown, his wide and vulnerable eyes, and the desperation stretching on his mouth. The strange hedgehog boy clearly is laying all of his heart in front of Sonic. Looking back, this person has not once displayed an ounce of hostility toward him, his haughty mocking was invalidated by how miserable he looks saying it, and even now, pleading and persistent as he was, he refrained from touching the blue hedgehog. For that diligence and integrity, Sonic supposed, was good enough to put in good faith in the boy. Besides, there must be some truth in that lunatic declarant, there are too many strange coincidences to push aside.
Sonic makes a show of thinking, scratches the back of his head, gives the boy a funny look, and, after a moment, a dastardly grin stretches out on his lips. “To be honest with you, I don’t believe any of that crazy rant of yours. Everything you said sounds too much like a fever dream, too out there to just take your words for it. Even if I do find you familiar, it borders on creepy territory. That, and not to mention you admitting you tried to kill me. It's not easy to let that slide, you know?”
“Oh,” the boy uttered, all the hope dropped into a void of disappointment. lip quivering, he retracted his hand to hold his other arm, and looked down at his feet, ashamed. “I suppose you are right…I shouldn’t have been coming at you like that. I really didn’t mean any harm. If it's any better, I promised I won't approach again. I’m sorry.”
“Whoa! What?! Hang on, let's not go that far yet!” Sonic exclaimed, panicked, and crunched down to enter the other’s field of vision. “I'm only teasing! There are, like, a lot of people out there trying to kill me, ya know? I’m friends with some of those. It’s not like you would be the first in line, so…Erm, no hard feelings?”
“...Oh, I’m glad to hear that.” The boy laughed wetly, sniffing a little as he hurriedly wiped his eyes. It made Sonic feel so bad, he inwardly swore to be extra nice to the boy afterward.
“I’m sorry, I was only teasing you. Please cheer up.” Sonic admits sheepishly and pats his hairy shoulder. The blue hedgehog waits patiently for the boy to gather himself before speaking, making sure to meet the other’s eye as he goes on.
“Let's be clear, I still don’t get what you were saying; nonetheless, it boiled down to ‘being friends’, right? You said you are my friend and you seemed to know me already, but I don’t know anything about you. So why not start at that?” Sonic smiled, extending his hand toward the stranger.
“Hi, let’s be friends! What’s your name?”
The boy looks at Sonic, eyes wide like he scarcely believes it until they curl up, and a smile blooms on his lips. Bright and tearful, he reached out and grasped the blue hedgehog’s hand.
“I’m Silver, just Silver.” Says the boy, Silver, squeezing his hand briefly. “Let's be friends, Sonic.”