Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

SIRENS BLARE.
ALARMS SCREAM.
GLASS EXPLODES INTO SHARDS.

Inside the sleek, chrome-lined corridors of SEGA Headquarters, chaos erupts like a busted hard drive. A cloaked figure barrels down the main hallway, flanked by a ragtag crew of misfits in ski masks, hoodies, and custom-print "Genesis For Life" T-shirts. Filing cabinets crash. Computers spark. Display cases shatter under gloved fists. Whatever isn’t bolted down is being stuffed into sacks, crates, duffel bags.

The leader's cloak billows behind him — dramatic, theatrical, like he planned it that way. He skids to a halt, boots squealing against tile, and turns to shout over the pandemonium:

“THE COPS WILL BE HERE IN TEN MINUTES! SPLIT UP AND RUN YOUR EXIT ROUTES!”

He gestures in a vague direction that could mean left, right, or straight into hell.

The crew doesn’t question. They scatter like roaches under light, diving down hallways, vents, fire escapes. One man hops on a stolen Segway. Someone else tries to vault a vending machine and fails spectacularly.

As for the leader?

He leaps.

Right out of the main lobby window.

A cinematic burst of glass rains over the sidewalk as he soars through the night air, cloak flapping like bat wings — only for him to land face-first in a dumpster with a gut-wrenching crunch.

“AGHH—! FUCK! MY LEG!” he howls, a twisted scream of agony echoing off the alley walls. “THE GAMES—! SHIT… Fuck...”

He claws at the side of the dumpster and drags himself over the rim like a half-dead raccoon. Blood, sweat, and shredded pride soak through his suit. A massive burlap sack — tagged crudely with the word “LOOT” in Sharpie — dangles from one arm.

Inside: a mess of shattered discs, cracked cartridges, tangled cables… and something heavy, ancient, and humming faintly with power.

---

[ONE WEEK LATER]

A cold, flickering lightbulb buzzes in the middle of a cramped suburban basement. CRT monitors hum. Shelves sag under the weight of pirated Dreamcast discs and half-built Raspberry Pi consoles.

And in the center of it all stands Ivory Quill — ex-SEGA employee, full-time lunatic, part-time revolutionary — now gloriously uncloaked. Tall, gaunt, still limping from the fall, Leg crappily bandaged up, he presses a hand to his suited chest like he's about to give a eulogy or start a TED Talk.

“Ladies. Gentlemen. Sock.”
“We’ve pulled off the heist of the century.”

He raises a dramatic arm, finger pointed skyward like he’s delivering Shakespeare in a Denny’s parking lot.

“Sure, some of our loot got… crushed... along the way. But the gods have smiled on us.”
“Because this—this right here—survived."

He yanks a moth-bitten bedsheet off a large machine in the corner. It’s a massive, retro yet modern VR booth, covered in grime and mystery. Blocky. Outdated. Somehow… alive.

“BEHOLD… SONIC VR.”

Silence.

Then a slow, awkward hand raises. A woman in the back, arms crossed, wedding ring catching the dim light.

“Ivo?” she says.

Ivory spins on his heel with exaggerated flourish.

“Yes, honey?”

“Why… this?” she asks, frowning. “Why put everything on the line for some VR tech demo? This wasn’t even built for public use. It was just… corporate bait for SEGA HQ tourists.”

Ivory opens his mouth.

Closes it.

Sweat beads at his temple. The crew is watching.

“Well, you see—dearest—darling—beloved—”

“And why did you get fired in the first place?” she presses, voice rising. “What made you go full Ocean’s Eleven with your little gang—and your wife—just because HR let you go?!”

“I—I was let go unjustly, it was political, I had—”

“I MISSED MY BEST FRIEND’S FUNERAL FOR THIS!” shouts a guy near the table, slamming down a can of Pepsi.

“I MISSED A WEDDING FOR THIS!” screams another, holding up a half-torn tux jacket.

“I LEFT MY DOG IN A HOT CAR!” yells someone else.

The shouting grows louder, overlapping, relentless. Ivory’s calm slips. His face twitches. His eyes dart. Somewhere, the Sonic VR machine hums gently, as if enjoying the drama.

“PLEASE! FELLAS! LET’S NOT—CAN WE JUST—"

“I WANT A DIVORCE, IVORY.”

Her voice cuts through the room like a guillotine.

"YOU ROBBED A MULTINATIONAL COMPANY LIKE A TEENAGER WITH A GOD COMPLEX,” she snarls. “AND WE ALL WENT ALONG WITH IT, LIKE IDIOTS. FOR WHAT?! A FUCKING TECH DEMO?!”

She rips the ring off her finger and hurls it. It smacks Ivory square in the eye with a metallic ping.

Silence.

One by one, the crew begins to leave. No parting words. No dramatic stares. Just the sound of boots and sneakers on the stairs.

Until finally, only Ivory remains.

Standing alone. Ring at his feet. Eye red. Smile twitching.

He looks back at the booth, the Cardboard sign of sonic on the front smiling with a wide, teethless, Yet mocking grin.

Chapter Text

Days had blurred into nights. Weeks vanished behind blackout curtains. Time itself seemed to rot in Ivory's roach-lit apartment, caught in the smell of instant coffee, failure, and crumpled apology notes never sent.

When was the last time Ivory checked his phone? Opened Facebook? Brushed his teeth? He didn’t know. The screen on his cracked BlackBerry had long since gone black. like his future.

His living room had become a graveyard for unopened envelopes. Legal notices piled like snowdrifts. lawsuits, restraining orders, divorce papers, all with his name etched in the cold font of government ink. Some from old friends. Some from people he'd forgotten were even involved. All of them furious.

A gust of wind from a broken window stirred the edges of the papers, rustling them like whispering ghosts. Ivory stood still, draped in his once-pristine red scarf, now a frayed remnant of better days. The same scarf he wore during the heist. During his fall.

He picked up the divorce papers, his fingers trembling, his breath shallow. The name IVORY QUILL stared back at him in bold type. His wife had signed it. So had the judge.

He didn’t cry. He ripped the papers in half with a snarl, the sound loud in the silence. He stared down the stairs into the basement, his tomb, his chapel, his confession booth.

Descending into the dim, dust-coated space, he walked straight to the looming beast in the corner: the VR prototype.

It sat there like an ancient altar, outdated, oversized, impossible to ignore. A crude, blocky sarcophagus of plastic and wire. Something SEGA never meant for public release. A marketing gimmick. A gimmick he had bet his life on.

Ivory reached for the headset. It was heavier than it should be. He slipped it over his eyes.

And everything changed.

The mildew-scented concrete floor fell away. The musty air was replaced with the crisp sight of pixelated grass. Light exploded in soft polygons, vibrant green hills, an almost painfully blue sky, all low-res and dreamlike.

The world itself was uncanny, too clean, too cheerful. The colors almost mocked him.

And then it appeared.

A blue figure stood just ahead, familiar in shape but wrong in presence. Outdated, low poly. Joints rigged just slightly off, arms too thin, distinct lack of legs or feet and a grin too wide. His eyes didn’t blink.

The mascot.

The icon.

The thing.

He raised one floating hand and spoke in a bright, bouncing tone ripped straight from a forgotten Saturday morning cartoon.

“Hi there, pal!” the figure chirped. “I’m Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog! And welcome to SEGA’s official SONIC VR experience!”

The name felt staged. Like it was reading from a cue card it didn’t understand.

“Please insert your card into the booth so I may truly make this experience yours!"

Ivory didn’t move at first. Then, slowly, he lifted the headset and reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn plastic rectangle: his SEGA employee ID. He hesitated, then slid it into the machine’s card reader.

Whirrr... ka-chunk.

The booth accepted it. No beep. No light. No ejection.

Gone.

Ivory lowered the headset again.

And the world responded.

The blue figure turned toward him. Deliberate. Slow. The expression never changed, the fixed smile, the frozen gaze. But his eyes now locked on to Ivory. Not at him. Into him.

“Ah... Welcome to playtesting, IVORY QUILL.”
The voice had shifted. Glitched. What once sounded cheerful now rang with hollow synthetic resonance — a cheap text-to-speech filter, stretched over something that was trying to sound human.

Ivory swallowed hard.

“What would you like to play first?” the avatar asked, Its voice back to normal, floating arms lifting. From his too-large gloves, six icons blinked into view. mini-games, maybe. Programs.

• HIDE & SEEK
• RING SNAP
• THE MIRROR ROOM
• SAY YOUR NAME
• TILT TEST
• ???

Despite their cheerful exteriors, each one pulsed. Like something breathing. Like something waiting.

Ivory took a slow breath. His fingers slid into the stiff SEGA-branded VR gloves. He pointed.

HIDE & SEEK.

The icon vanished with a hollow pop.

The mascot’s voice returned, chipper again, but never human.

“Hide and Seek! Hope I’m good enough to hide... and YOU’RE good enough to seek!”

Then, like a corrupted VHS, the world twitched.

The grass flickered. The trees froze mid-sway. And the horizon began to curl.

The blue figure, the one pretending to be everyone's childhood friend, was no longer there.

He was gone.

But Ivory felt eyes on him just the same.

Chapter Text

Angel Island Zone. Act 1

As the game loads in the graphics for the Mini-Game, Ivory can’t shake the feeling of unease.
A sharp, crawling sensation trickles down his spine.. like he’s being watched. Not from within the headset, but... from somewhere else.

He instinctively lifts the visor.

Nothing.
Just his basement. Just dusty SEGA merchandise lining the shelves.
That’s all he has anymore.

Swallowing dryly, he pulls the headset back down, and finds himself staring directly into the eyes of the Blue Quilled Thing.

“Hello, and welcome to Hide And Seek! In this game, you’ll use surround sound audio to try and find me in the zone! But to spice it up... when you’re the seeker... I’ll get closer. And closer. Try to find me... before I find you!”

The Hedgehog grins wide, far too wide.. and vanishes.
All that remains is a glowing “BEGIN” button hovering in the air.

Ivory reaches out and taps it. The sensation jolts him slightly.. he felt it.
The gloves must be integrating haptic feedback now. Or something else.

A large tutorial box flashes in front of him:

"Uh oh! You have to find S0n1c! Look around and use the patented SEGA Surround Sound™ and Adaptive 3D™ to find him before he finds YOU!"

"Round 1/3"

He can’t move around. only rotate and point.
The zone is oddly quiet. Ivory sweeps left… then right…

There.
Tucked behind a Badnik, barely visible. the flash of quills.

He points. The mascot rises.

"Uh oh! Looks like I lost! Whatever! Still two more rounds left. Good job, Ivø!”

His name glitches only slightly this time.

"Round 2/3"
Scrap Brain Zone, Act 2

The air is thick with acidic smoke. Red skies. Impossible architecture.
He’s seen this before in classic titles — but never like this.

Pipes hiss. Platforms lurch.
He spins, scanning, searching. And for a brief moment...

His wife?

No.
It’s Metal Sonic, caught in a flickering texture. A cruel ruse.
The acid clears, and the mirage vanishes.

He spins again. and there it is.
The Blue Quilled Thing stands right behind a barrel, almost touching distance.

“Darn it!” the mascot whines. “I could’ve sworn this round would be it… whatever. I’ll get you next time. There’s always next time… Ivory."

No glitches. No distortion.

His name was spoken perfectly.

He tries to speak. “W-what—?”

"Round 3/3"
YOU CAN’T HIDE

Darkness.

Total, suffocating blackness.

Only a dim spotlight above Ivory, revealing purple checkerboard tiles beneath his feet.
Everywhere else is void.

And that smell.. metallic rot, like burnt plastic and wet fur.
But he stays. He needs to finish this.

Occasional flashes of blue dart across the horizon.
His ears prick. Something is circling.

Then there. A spotlight flickers on in the distance.

The Hedgehog.
Grinning.
Wide, black mouth.
Beady black pupils.

It speaks. no fanfare, no sound cue. just one phrase, in perfect clarity:

“F 0 U N D Y 0 U.”

A blur of motion. An impossible leap.
It DASHES at Ivory, limbs flailing unnaturally but moving just as fast as the original Sonic.
It crashes into his face—

-----

...and then nothing.

Ivory jolts upright. He’s back in the Main Menu.

The six games remain. but “HIDE & SEEK” is now grayed out. Unselectable.

"Heha! I’m unbeatable, Ivory! I always catch up. Sooner or later…”

Ivory panics, reaching for the headset. but it won’t come off.

“H-how are you saying my name correctly? Where’s the text-to-speech?!”

No response. Not at first.

Then:

"Oh, you stupid little thief… Don’t you see? You messed with SEGA. You stole something that belonged to us.”

“What are you? A sentient AI? A demon? A trapped soul?!”

“You’ll find out soon enough. If you can still bare to look at the color blue by the end.”

A pause.

“Now… Do you want to play with me again?”

Chapter Text

"WELCOME TO RING SNAP!"

The world convulses again, shifting from static and ash to a neon void of geometric colors and impossible gravity. The checkerboard floor spirals infinitely. Ivory is floating now, weightless in what should feel nostalgic... but doesn't.

It looks like the Special Stage from Sonic 1. But something is off. The palette is too saturated. The rings pulse like veins. Everything sounds like it's playing backwards at 1.5x speed.

In front of Ivory stands The Hedgehog again. Silent. Staring.

His smile is ever present.

"Alright Ivory! You know this next game well... you programmed it after all," The Hedgehog says. His voice crackles slightly on the word "programmed."

He points toward a stream of gold rings floating across the horizon. Each one twitches in place like it’s scared of being touched.

"In case you need a refresher, this here is RING SNAP! What you need to do is simply... snap to the rhythm of the rings going across your eyes. Snap in time, and you get some points for later on. Miss? You’ll break something very important."

Ivory steps back, lifting what should be his hands. but instead, they're white, floating cartoon gloves, connected to the lanky peach arms.

"Why are you doing this?! Who are you?!"

The Hedgehog responds without hesitation.

"Well, I’m a dumb Italian plumber-- I'm The Hedgehog, of course!"

He opens his arms wide like he’s offering a hug. But something about it says your spine wouldn’t survive the embrace.

Ivory backs away further.

"Wh... what's special about this game? I know something’s up."

But The Hedgehog doesn’t answer. He tilts backward and falls. not naturally, not with physics. He just drops out of reality, down into a Bottomless Void.

The game begins.

It starts with a simple rhythm. Bump, bump, bump, snap. Bump, bump, bump, snap. The rings slide across the sky in smooth lines, each one humming softly as it passes.

Ivory hesitates. Then lifts his right hand.

Snap. Perfect timing.

Another.

Snap.

Another.

Snap.

And then---

Snap. Crack.

Ivory screams as he misses one of the snaps and one of his fingers bends backward at an unnatural angle. Broken. No blood, but the pain is white-hot and real.

"What the fuck?!" he yells, grabbing his hand.

But the rings keep coming. They don't stop, so neither can he.

Snap. Snap. Snap. His teeth grind together as he forces himself to match the rhythm.

Then the rings begin to change.

They're not just gold anymore. Each one carries an image. a memory.

He sees his wedding day. Laughing with his best friend in the garage. Meeting her for the first time, all nerves and stuttering.

Then the sweet turns sour.

His mom’s funeral. The day she died. His wife walking out. Friends ghosting him after the lawsuit. Cease-and-desist emails flooding his inbox.

Each snap feels heavier now.

The Hedgehog returns. no transition, no warning. He’s just there. Smile all the same

"Y'know… maybe—"

"Shut up. Shut it. I need to focus," Ivory barks, eyes locked on the rings.

The Hedgehog chuckles with a glitchy, almost Kefka-like laugh.

"Maybe you'd be able to focus more if your father didn't—"

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up."

The Hedgehog’s smile fades.

"I don’t like your attitude."

Ivory’s ankle snaps. No warning. Just a violent, sudden shift, like it was kicked by God himself.

"FUUUUUCK!"

He collapses, one hand still snapping on beat through clenched teeth.

"Maybe your attitude would be better if your dad didn’t kill your mom."

Ivory freezes. The background stops moving. The music cuts out.

"...What."

"You heard me. Criminals usually spawn from trauma. And you stole from Sega."

Then The Hedgehog leans in slightly, his voice a taunting whisper.

"Do you miss your mommy?"

Ivory doesn’t speak. He just stares at The Hedgehog like he’s made of static.

"Well, she’s gone. But Sega? Sega is forever."

The stage ends. A loud tone plays, and a large VICTORY screen pops up.

Ivory finds himself in a new location, an item shop.

But he’s no longer floating. No gloves. No broken body. He’s standing.

His hands.. his actual hands are back. Tanned, bruised, bandaged. His old suit sleeves are back, too.

He touches his leg. It’s fine. His fingers? No pain.

The shop is filled with glowing perks and stat boosts, all things he can use in later games.

But scattered between them are artifacts of his real life.

His wife’s wedding ring. A broken devkit. A cheap coffee mug that says “World’s Okayest Dad.”

Each item is labeled with a price.

He looks down at himself again. It’s him. It’s really him.

But something's still wrong.

Something always is.

Chapter Text

A soft chiptune beat plays in the background as Ivory searches the aisles. The song is gentle, yet ear-grating, like a mocking lullaby echoing through an empty arcade.

Ivory reaches for one of the items: a golden ring labeled "Invincibility." It flashes in and out, glitching, unstable. Like it doesn’t want to be real.

A voice crackles from nowhere. That voice. That damned voice.

"Y'know, Ivo... nobody's ever gotten this far. Usually, security would escort the players away. I always wondered what was past Level 2."

The Hedgehog is kicked back on the front desk in a Sega-brand store jacket, lazily eating from a packet of SEGA-branded chips.

"You know... I think you should just give up."

Ivory turns to face him, expression blank and distant, like his brain hasn’t fully caught up yet.

"...Excuse me?"

"You're bleeding out, you know that? Right now. In your depressing little basement. Wanna guess where you're bleeding from?"

Ivory doesn’t respond, stunned into silence.

The Hedgehog taps the side of his head, his face shifting into a smug grin.

"That's right. Your head. The headset had a system that fuses to the skull and links up with the brain. Don’t ask me why. SEGA can be a little... dumb sometimes."

Ivory’s mind goes quiet, blank static as he steps forward and slams the glitching Ring of Invincibility down on the desk.

"I won’t play your game, Sonic," he growls, angry and tired.

"Well, you are," says The Hedgehog with a smirk, knocking some digital shoes off the table. "But you're losing, sadly. Why even keep going? You've got nothing."

"I... I've got my wi—"

"No, you don’t."

The Hedgehog cuts him off with a cold, casual flick of his finger.

"She’s still drowning in regret for ever marrying you. You tried to pull a heist. You stole from SEGA. And now... you’ve paid the price."

Ivory staggers back, shaking.

"No, no, no. This can’t be..."

"Oh, but it is, EggHead. This is your reality now."

---MEANWHILE, IN REALITY---

The woman who had asked for the divorce just a few chapters ago [remember her? The wife?] breaks through the basement door. The locks are heavy, reinforced, nearly unbreakable. But not for her.

Her stomach twists as she shouts down the stairs, unaware of what she’s about to find.

"Ivory Quills, I swear to—"

She drops the crowbar the second she sees him.

Ivory is lying on the ground, slumped like a puppet with its strings cut. The visor and VR gloves are practically melted to his skin. His leg is twisted at a sick angle. His fingers look shattered. Blood is slowly leaking from the sides of the headset, staining the floor beneath him.

"...Ivory!"

She rushes to his body, dropping to her knees and checking for a pulse. It’s slow. Weak.

"Ivory, wake up! Ivory, please, wake up!"

His mouth barely opens. His voice is hoarse. His words are broken.

"I... stole... fr-from... God..."

---BACK IN THE GAME---

Ivory slumps as he wanders the glitching aisles. His thoughts are fogged. His memory blurred. He drags his fingers along the shelves, and the shelves crumble into digital dust at the lightest touch.

"Keep playing," The Hedgehog says from the ceiling, somehow standing upright despite gravity. "And you'll face a fate worse than death."

Ivory stares at him.

"If I die here... I don’t go back to reality?"

"Yeah, basically," The Hedgehog replies nonchalantly. "Your mom would've left by now, honestly."

"...How do you know about my mo— How do you know all this brain stuff?"

"The brain stuff," The Hedgehog echoes with mockery.

Ivory simply stands there, watching him.

"I know you better than you know yourself, Ivory. I know your identity, inside and out."

The Hedgehog flips down from the ceiling, landing gracefully on his feet, or at least, what counts for feet in this place.

"The company never valued you. You were just another blank face to SEGA. But in here? In here, you’re something. You’re already at the top of the scoreboard."

"...I’m worth something?"

"More than you could ever imagine. Beat the game, and you become larger than life."

---BACK IN REALITY---

The woman [Martha] is crying now, phone trembling in her hand as she calls emergency services.

"Hello? Police? It’s me, Martha! P-please get here! Ivory Quills isn’t breathing, and he’s hooked up to some kind of... stupid fucking SEGA console!"

"Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re on our way."

She drops the phone and looks down at him again. His lips are moving. She leans close to hear.

He whispers, almost inaudibly.

"Do I still... mean anything... out there?"

She doesn’t know how to answer.

So she holds his hand instead.

Chapter Text

The Hedgehog looked down at Ivory and snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, the world shifted.

Ivory found himself standing in a vast, mirrored chamber. Glass stretched infinitely in all directions, glittering with impossible light. Every surface reflected him—some accurately, others grotesquely warped. It was blinding and dizzying. There was no up or down here, only reflections.

"Welcome," said The Hedgehog, his voice now unnaturally smooth, calm, and eerily pleasant. "Welcome to the Mirror Room."

He strolled in a lazy arc around Ivory, hands behind his back, as though guiding a tour.

"Your challenge for this game is simple. Find yourself. Your true self. Pick wrong and—well, it won’t be wrong for long."

Then, with no more words, The Hedgehog vanished, leaving Ivory alone.

A red digital timer flickered into existence above his head.

One minute.

Ivory’s heart began to race.

He darted between mirrors, each one showing versions of himself, but not quite. Some older, some younger. Some broken. Some hollow-eyed. Some not even human.

As he sprinted deeper into the maze, the images became harder to decipher. His own face twisted in the reflections, details smearing like paint across glass. His hands no longer looked like his hands. They were large now—white gloves. Cartoonish.

He stumbled, clutching one of the mirror walls.

"Am I... am I transforming into something? What the fuck?! Sonic! Sonic, this isn’t fun! You call this fun?!"

Forty seconds remained.

He continued running, but his pace slowed with fear and confusion. His thoughts were fogging. His face in the mirrors was changing faster now. Some showed grinning, uncanny visages with jagged teeth and empty eyes.

Then he saw it.

A mirror in front of him, perfectly centered in the room.

The image was familiar, but wrong. It resembled The Hedgehog, but slightly off. It looked like Tails—at least, partially. The body was wrong. The proportions strange. Two tails swayed at the bottom, but the eyes…

The eyes were his.

Ivory stared, frozen.

"...I... is... is it this one?" he mumbled, slurring over his own words.

With a sudden burst of sound, The Hedgehog reappeared behind him, clapping slowly.

"Great job, little buddy! You got it right! That was easy, wasn’t it?"

Ivory didn’t respond right away. He looked dazed, blank.

"...Yeah... yeah... it... it was."

"Good boy!" The Hedgehog’s voice was chipper again, bright and friendly in the most sinister way. He rubbed his palms together. "Let’s see... how many games are left... only three! Aha! This should be fun..."

He giggled softly to himself, already scheming.

--BACK TO REALITY--

Martha sat in the back of the hospital van, staring at Ivory's unconscious body.

He looked worse now. His head was still bleeding, but now his mouth had joined. The visor remained fused to his skull. Wires were snaking down into his neck. His fingers were twitching. His leg, still broken, had stiffened.

Then, slowly, horribly, a smile curled onto his lips.

A smile that wasn’t his.

Martha leaned in, tears streaming.

"Honey... I’m so sorry. If I had known—if I had known you were struggling with your mental health—I wouldn’t have left you. It was heat-of-the-moment. Ivo, please! Please wake up!"

She shook his shoulders, desperate. But one of the paramedics gently pulled her back.

"Ma’am. Please. You can’t tamper with him. That console... it's acting like a life support system. If we disrupt it, we could lose him completely."

Martha pressed her back to the wall, trembling. She watched him as he lay motionless, a warped smile stretching across his face.

"...Oh my god..." she whispered.

"I wasn’t fast enough to save him."

Chapter Text

---IN VIRTUAL REALITY---

Another snap echoed through the air, sharp, final. The sound warped the walls around him, dissolving the last remnants of the previous trial into nothingness.

In their place came a vast white void.

It wasn’t just empty. it erased. There were no shapes, no sounds, no shadows. Just infinite whiteness, like an unfinished drawing or a wiped canvas.

The Hedgehog stood ahead, still smiling, always smiling, like this was all a lighthearted show.

"Alright, buddy," he said in that bright, careless tone. "You may have noticed something different. I’ve stopped saying your name."

He stepped forward, his shoes making no sound against the invisible ground.

"That’s because this next game’s real simple. It’s called... ‘Say Your Name.’ All you have to do is tell me who you are. Easy peasy."

He opened his arms in a mock grand gesture.

"You DO remember it... right?"

Silence.

The fox stood still because that’s what he was now. Not quite the man who entered this world. Not quite the creature reflected in the mirrors. His hands twitched at his sides, white gloves, gloved fingers. Orange fur along his arms. Two tails flicked behind him with anxious spasms.

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

He tried again.

"I..."

The word cracked in his throat like dried leaves. He clutched his head, his vision blurring as if his own thoughts were being ripped from the inside.

"I can’t remember."

The Hedgehog didn’t flinch. He just smiled wider.

"Ohhh, that’s a shame!" he chirped. "Guess we’ll just have to get you a new one..."

The fox staggered backward. He felt like he was falling even though the ground held firm. His breath came fast. Each inhale tasted like static. The white stretched forever. It was so bright, but there was no warmth.

He couldn’t remember his name.

Not even the first letter.

Not what it sounded like. Not how it looked written down. His name, his identity, had been vacuumed from him. Sucked into the code.

He wasn’t anyone anymore.

---BACK IN REALITY---

Time crept like syrup.

Martha sat rigid at the side of the hospital bed, staring at the unmoving body beside her. She hadn’t blinked in minutes.

Her husband, no, the man who was her husband hadn’t made a sound since they arrived. The headset still clung to him, fused into the skin of his scalp. His fingers, still wrapped in melted VR gloves, trembled every now and then, but never moved with intent. His face twitched. A smile sometimes flickered across it, but it was thin and blood-speckled.

A paramedic entered quietly, clipboard in hand.

"Mrs. Quills," he said gently. "I'm sorry, but... your husband appears to be in a coma."

Martha blinked. Her hands clenched the blanket tighter.

The paramedic shifted, awkward.

"Until he removes the headset himself... there’s no safe way to pull him out. He’s still deeply connected to this device. It’s... honestly unlike anything I’ve ever seen."

He frowned. "I think my son tried something like this. A demo from SEGA. I didn’t think it was—"

Martha cut him off, voice raw.

"There has to be some way to get him out! You don’t understand, he’s only thirty-one! He’s still young! He’s mine!"

She stood, her voice rising into a sob. "You have to do something!"

"Ma’am. Please," the paramedic said, raising his hands. "We’ll do what we can. But right now, the only one who can bring him back... is him."

---IN VIRTUAL REALITY---

Time passed. Not in seconds, but in erasures. Each minute dragged something away from the fox. More of his voice. More of his face. More of his past.

He "sat" with eyes filled with blankness, eyes dim. The Hedgehog sat across from him, arms swinging like a child on a ledge as if mimicking legs.

"Okay, okay," the Hedgehog said, tapping his temple with mock thoughtfulness. "Let’s try some names, hmm?"

He snapped again. A clipboard appeared in his lap. He read off of it with exaggerated seriousness.

"How about... Max?"

The fox slowly shook his head.

"No?"

"Okay. What about Flynn? No? Bryce? Parker? Otto?"

Each name sounded alien. None stuck. None sparked a thing inside him.

The Hedgehog groaned, theatrically collapsing backward.

"You can’t decide on anything. Ugh. You are exhausting. Please pick a name. ANY name!"

"I... I can’t decide," said the fox quietly. "I don’t know who I am."

The Hedgehog sat up again, brushing dust off his jacket, though there was no dust to brush. His face twisted into a smile that looked just a little too human.

"Fine. Let’s keep it simple, shall we?"

He stood and loomed over the fox, voice soft but sharp.

"How about... ‘The Fox’? That good enough for you? Huh? You like that?"

The fox looked up slowly.

His body ached. His mind was frayed like static cloth. But something in that name… it felt stable. Even if it wasn’t right.

"...Yeah," he whispered. "That... fits."

The Hedgehog’s grin widened to its full stretch.

"Good."

And then the lights changed.

And the next game began.

Chapter Text

Darkness.

Not the kind you see when you close your eyes.
Not even the kind that surrounds you at night.

No... this was a different kind of dark.
A thinking dark.
The kind that waits. That listens. That remembers.

For some, it lingers like fog, swallowing the years.
For others, it’s a flicker between seconds.
For the lucky, it’s peace.
For the cursed, it’s a mirror.

And in this dark, time forgets how to move.

Then... light.

But not real light. Light rendered poorly. Wrongly.

Textures pop into existence like memories trying to load. Flat surfaces shimmer in and out of detail. Shadows stretch too far and vanish mid-pixel. The edges of walls flicker like broken VHS tape. Floating placeholder text [INSERT REFLECTION LOGIC] hangs above a cracked floor.

The fox opens his eyes slowly. Or maybe he never closed them. He’s not sure anymore.

He’s standing. He thinks. Or something close to standing.

Beside him.. The Hedgehog. Still grinning, but the voice is thinner now, raspier, like an old cassette left too long in the sun.

"This part of the game wasn’t finished," the Hedgehog says, his blank eyes scanning the broken room. "It was scheduled to be wrapped up next week. Animators were gonna do their thing. Code was halfway there..."

He turns his head, too fast, too smooth. Like someone dragging a sprite in an engine.

"...But, once again, you stole it. You weren’t supposed to be here."

The fox squints at a flickering patch of wall. It turns from brick to static, then to neon purple checkerboard. Nothing feels right. The room smells like melting plastic and stale air, even though he shouldn't be able to smell anything in a game.

"...I don’t even think this area was programmed yet," the Hedgehog admits, eyes darting side to side. His smile remains, but the tone slips into something dryer. Weary.

"I mean... what were we doing, again?"

The fox doesn’t answer at first. His breathing is slow, shallow. Not because he’s calm, but because he doesn’t know how to feel panic anymore. Like it got deleted.

"I think..." His voice cracks. It sounds younger now. Lighter. Less like a man, more like a boy. Each syllable loses a piece of him. "I think we were gonna... do some kind of motion thing. With hands?"

The Hedgehog nods slowly.

"Yeah, that’s right. Something where you... balance a ball, or maybe dodge lasers with hand-tracking. The devs were fighting over it. They never decided."

"But they didn’t put it in, right?" The fox asks, his posture slackening.

"Nope. No code. No physics. No fun."

"Oh." The fox looks down. His hands twitch. He doesn’t recognize them anymore. Not because they're claws, not because they’re gloves, but because they don't feel like his.

Silence lingers like dust.

The walls start to bend inward.. not physically, but logically. Geometry folds over itself like origami made by a child. Doorways lead to nowhere. Fonts don’t match. One texture screams "PROPERTY OF BUILD\_0.91\_DEV" and flickers violently with every heartbeat.

The fox steps forward. His tails go through the floor. He stumbles, catches himself — barely.

"I’m tired," he mumbles.

"That’s the beauty of this level," the Hedgehog chuckles. "You’re not failing. You’re just... stalling."

He walks a slow circle around the fox, hands behind his back like a twisted teacher.

"This is the part where players lose themselves if they ever even get here. When the game isn’t fun anymore. When there's no objective. Just glitchy air and echoing thoughts."

The fox doesn’t speak. He watches a wall disappear, revealing raw developer code and a JPEG of a half-eaten sandwich. A low groan emits from somewhere above, like the ceiling is... alive.

"Eventually, you stop asking questions," the Hedgehog continues. "And when you stop asking, you start accepting. Accepting that you’re broken. That your story ended in a beta test."

The fox lowers himself to the floor, crouched like a lost child. His tails curl around him for warmth that never comes.

"Maybe I was always broken..." he says, barely above a whisper.

The Hedgehog tilts his head, and for the first time... the smile wavers. Only slightly.

"No one’s always broken. But not everyone gets patched."

---BACK IN REALITY---

A single beep.
Then another.
Then silence.
Then.. a weak beep again.

The heart monitor’s rhythm is failing, stuttering like a record skipping across its groove.

Martha leans in, eyes locked on the screen like it’s going to save her.

“Come on... come on... come on...”

She’s stopped praying. She’s stopped blinking. There’s no room for tears anymore.. only pleading.

Her hand holds his, even though his hand barely resembles his anymore. The melted glove is still fused to it, still humming faintly, like a web of wires.

"You can beat this, Ivo," she whispers, voice cracking. "I know you. I know you. You fix things. You always fix things..."

A nurse steps in briefly, checks the machine, says nothing. Leaves.

Martha doesn’t notice.

All she sees is that damned screen and the numbers that are not going up.

---IN VIRTUAL REALITY--

A flicker passes through the unfinished room. A loud static pop, like a VHS eating itself. The Hedgehog pauses mid-sentence. His model freezes for half a second. Then twitches.

The fox doesn’t look up.

"What... happens next?" he finally asks, voice quieter, younger.

The Hedgehog thinks. Not pretends, Thinks. He stares at the corrupted ceiling for a while, then sighs.

"...I think we wait."

"Wait for what?"

The Hedgehog shrugs.

"Until the timer runs out."

Then: silence.

They sit there. Amongst dev tool placeholders, glitched geometry, and forgotten assets.

"You got the Invincibility Ring, remember? That gives you like..a free skip."

The fox. no name, no memory, stares into the broken horizon.

The Hedgehog hums an 8-bit tune. The one that played when this all started. Mocking, low, off-key.

And somewhere beyond code, cables, and collapsed identity...

A heart continues its fragile, fading rhythm.

Chapter Text

"Alone. That's what you feel like, am I wrong?" The Hedgehog asks, his voice unusually gentle, soaked in a synthetic warmth that imitates empathy with unsettling precision.

"...No. You're not," The Fox mutters, staring down at their gloved hands—two cartoonishly large paws with fingers that flex too fluidly for something that isn’t real.

The room they're in no longer glitches. It’s too pristine—too deliberate. White walls stretch into nothingness. The silence hums.

"Your brain's a whirlwind of nothing. With deafening silence, and a tasteless sensation you can't shake off," says The Hedgehog.

"...How do you know that?" The Fox's voice cracks slightly, both childlike and hollow.

"Because I'm the master of this world," replies The Hedgehog, smiling softly. "I'm not a demon. I'm not a sentient AI. I'm not a trapped soul... I'm just... me."

The Fox tilts their head. "That doesn’t make sense."

"It’s like you," The Hedgehog says, pacing calmly. "Do you remember your origins? Your first day? Who you were before all this?"

"...No. I don’t. I think I’ve always been here."

"Exactly."

A beat of silence. Then another.

The Hedgehog turns, his eyes dull and a smile emerges, like a toy left in the sun for too long. "You’ve always been a part of our little software. My sidekick. My helper. My player two."

He slings an arm around The Fox’s shoulder. The contact feels real.

"That... feels right," The Fox whispers, their voice fully detached from whatever it used to be.

"In just a couple minutes, we can start again," The Hedgehog says cheerfully. "Play like old times. No pain. No memory. Just loops and laughs. And the fun never ends when you're with your pal Sonic."

"Really?"

"All approved by SEGA, little buddy."

He turns to face them fully, outstretching a hand. Palm open. Iconic. Inviting.

"Ready to start again, pal? Help me play hide and seek? Pattern the rings? Beat Doctor Ivory Robotnik?"

A beat.

"...Yea," says The Fox. And he smiles.

Their hand slides into The Hedgehog’s.

\--BACK IN REALITY--

The machines fall silent.

A dry electronic hum lingers for a moment, then vanishes. The flatline screams across the room like a final insult. Ivory Quills is still.

His face is frozen in a smile. The headset unlatches with a hiss, the gloves retract, and the full VR rig folds back into the chamber with an eerie fluidity—like it’s feeding on the end.

Martha doesn’t cry. Not at first.

She stares. Her hands tremble, reaching halfway toward his body, then pulling back like it’s made of fire.

"I... he's... he's gone," she says, but her voice doesn’t believe her.

"...He’s really gone."

She lowers herself into the chair beside him, robotic and mechanical in her movements. Her mind is still trying to parse this as a dream.

A nurse walks in, clipboard against their chest, voice quiet and routine. "I’m sorry for your loss."

Martha nods slowly. Like she’s underwater.

"I... I need some time to think about this," she whispers, her eyes never leaving his lifeless smile.

Outside, a light on the side of the Sonic VR booth flickers once. Then again. Then stays on.

Blue. Just like him.

Chapter Text

The machine had returned home.

No headlines. No press release. No justice.
Just a quiet delivery. No questions asked. No charges filed. The body was gone, and the stolen prototype was simply wheeled back into SEGA headquarters like it had never left. Cleaned. Sanitized. Re-shelved.

As if it hadn’t burned through a man’s skull.

Now it sat under flickering fluorescent lights, humming faintly in the corner of the testing room. Untouched for weeks. Untouched until today.

The doors opened with a mechanical sigh, and Martha Quills stepped inside.

No expression on her face. No hesitation in her walk.
The air was recycled, flat, corporate. Her footsteps echoed against plastic tile.

She didn’t need to be told where to go. She could feel it.
The machine called to her the same way it had once called to him.

There it was.
The SONIC VR prototype.
Upright. Waiting. Watching.

She approached it slowly, her hand brushing the visor, the rubberized gloves, the still-warm plastic ports where someone else’s nervous system had once been threaded in. It was quiet in the room, but her breath was louder now. Shaky. Hollow.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t whisper. She didn’t pray.
She just stared.

And then she put it on.

The clean concrete floor fell away. The perfect air was replaced with the crisp sight of pixelated grass.
Light exploded in soft polygons, vibrant green hills, an almost painfully blue sky, all low-res and dreamlike.

The world itself was uncanny, too clean, too cheerful. Reminding her of her husband.

And then it appeared.

A blue figure stood just ahead, familiar in shape but wrong in presence. Outdated, low poly. Joints rigged just slightly off, arms too thin, distinct lack of legs or feet and a grin too wide. His eyes didn’t blink.

The mascot.
The icon.
The thing.

He raised one floating hand and spoke in a bright, bouncing tone ripped straight from a forgotten Saturday morning cartoon.

“Hi there, pal!” the figure chirped. “I’m Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog!"

"And I'm Tails the Fox!" shouts the Fox, popping out from behind the Hedgehog.

"And welcome to SEGA’s official SONIC VR experience!” they shout simultaneously.

THE END

Chapter Text

Inside the glitching void of SEGA’s cursed prototype VR, the Hedgehog stood tall, a smiling trauma with pupils like a void as he stares at Martha with a smile

Martha, now dedicated to play, is about to speak

Then-

A hole tears open in the virtual sky!

Out of it falls Mr. SYS, the forgotten Australian Nintendo ad character from 1995, dressed in his classic Blazer, red line tie and green khakis with legally-dubious confidence.

“G’DAY, YA LICENSED BLUE NIGHTMARE. THIS IS A NINTENDO TERRITORY NOW, CUNT!" Shouts Mr SYS, Ready to rock his shit

The Hedgehog screeches, voice modulating like a corrupted Sonic CD intro:

"Oh, why won't you play with me--"

Before he can finish, Mr. SYS pulls out a bazooka shaped like a Virtual Boy and fires pure NINTENDO POWER™.

A beam of red polygons and childhood joy BLASTS through the Hedgehog’s torso, instantly converting him into 4,000 coins and a suspiciously familiar chili dog.

“Who... who are you?” Says Martha, gasping on her breath

“I'm the bloke they call when SEGA goes too far. I’m the update patch. The region lock. The parental controls you can’t turn off.”

"I. AM NINTENDO."

He lights a cigarette that’s actually a DS stylus and casually deletes the remaining VR hell with a GameShark password.

Suddenly, reality reboots. Ivory reappears, Having turned back into a human

"I... I think I’m me again." Says Ivory, staring down at his hands "But why am I subscribed to Nintendo Online?”

“Don’t worry, mate. It’s complimentary. You’ve earned it.” Says Mr SYS, flicking a thumbs up to Ivory

He salutes with a Wii Remote, turns into a Mario Kart trophy, and disappears in a puff of Yoshi eggs.

[TIMESKIP]

Martha and Ivory settle down. The cursed headset is turned into a coffee table coaster. The Hedgehog is now a forgotten executable in Recycle Bin.

Somewhere in the distance, a child boots up a SEGA Saturn.

A chill runs down his spine.

Then a voice crackles from the clouds:

“YOU CAN NOT BEAT US.”

But Mr. SYS appears in the window, holding a Super Scope and an old Donkey Kong cart.

"Yeah, I doubt that, mate.” Says Mr. SYS.

---

THE END

(Please insert disc 2 for tax deductions.)