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Freshly fallen snow melted under the heat of Shadow’s shoes, leaving a trail behind him. His chest felt tight, seeing the obvious divots that marked his path, but that was something he’d have to worry about later. The city was dangerous enough without snowfall; he needed to get as far away from all the buildings as possible. Ideally, he’d go somewhere warmer, somewhere he’d have a better time hiding his tracks. He wouldn’t be able to hide from all of them, but just finding a less populated area without snow would do wonders for staying hidden.
He still had about an hour of daylight left, which should be more than enough time to leave the city before night fell. He could find another apartment to hide in, he supposed, but he didn’t want to risk wandering into another active nest. His arm was still scarred from the last time.
He should stop at a grocery store before leaving. He was running low on food; low enough that breaking into one of these stores would be worth the risk of running into nesters. They’d still be asleep right now anyway. Well, most of them.
He stopped in front of a store, pleasantly surprised to find that the doors were still intact, sliding open when he approached. Half of the city’s power had been out for several weeks now.
He deactivated his air shoes to eliminate the hiss of the jets, then walked through the store slowly, keeping his footsteps silent. He didn’t see anything immediately out of place, other than a slight flicker to the lights. None of the food on the shelves had been tampered with, looking like it had all just been restocked. All of the produce was fresh, and the packaged meat was still sealed, looking spotless, not a hint of rot on any of it. Shadow refused to touch any of it; he didn’t know why it was still fresh, or why nothing else had grabbed it. If even the nesters didn’t trust it, why would he?
He searched the aisles for foods that shouldn’t yet spoil; boxes of cereal, canned goods that didn’t need to be cooked, even a box of small plastic-wrapped cakes. They were chocolate in the center, with white frosting and drizzled chocolate over the top. Rouge used to like them.
He used his claws to silently slice open a large pack of water bottles, carefully peeling the plastic away until he could grab a few individual bottles. He could only fit so much in his bag.
Something creaked on the far end of the store, sounding like an old door getting pushed open.
Shadow returned his bag to his back quickly, then ran out of the store in the blink of an eye. He’d gotten enough for the next few days. He could leave the rest for them.
The sun was starting to descend in the sky, turning darker as it gradually transitioned from light blue to orange.
He kept running, eyes landing on the edge of the city. Cars were piled up on the road, their owners nowhere in sight. None of the doors were open. There was no evidence to suggest that the vehicles had been fled quickly. It was like everyone disappeared in a single moment. No warning, no reason, just gone-
Shadow passed all of the cars, forcing himself not to search for even a hint of familiarity. If he found something, it would only bring more pain.
At the very edge of the city was a thick forest, spanning hundreds of miles. Somewhere within this forest was a village, one that he’d visited hundreds of times before…
Before.
Deep behind the village was a secluded house, containing an abandoned workshop and a most-likely defunct plane. Shadow doubted Sonic would mind him hiding out in his house. It wasn’t like the blue hedgehog was using it anymore.
Shadow just needed to get through the forest, which would have been an easy task, if not for the sunlight gradually dying. He briefly considered spending one more night holed away in an apartment, but quickly abandoned that idea when he remembered his tracks in the snow. They would know where he went, he couldn’t risk it.
Heart stuttering, he begrudgingly headed for the woods, hoping he’d make it to the village before it got too dark to see. He hated using his flashlight outside, knowing that it was practically a beacon for anything nearby.
He skated through the trees, already losing a worrying amount of visibility from the dense leaves. He barely had enough light left not to crash into anything. He had to keep moving.
He had to reach the house.
***
Shadow let out a shaky breath, pulling his flashlight out of his bag. He couldn’t even see the trees in front of him anymore, the sun had dipped too low.
He clicked the flashlight on, relieved to find the batteries still working. He had spares, but he couldn’t afford wasting time trying to change them in the dark, especially out in the open like this.
After a brief moment of consideration, he grabbed his handheld radio as well. He hadn’t seen or heard any sign of life within the forest, but he didn’t want to give anything a chance to sneak up on him.
He turned it on, and immediately heard the groaning wail of a nearby nester. He flinched at how loud it was. Holding the radio out toward the trees, he searched for the direction the noise was coming from, heart stopping when he realized it was coming from the direction he’d just come from. Something followed him out of the city.
He started running again, using his flashlight to dodge trees, trying to put distance between him and whatever was following. All of the nesters, he could easily outrun, only failing to do so when he was trapped in a confined space.
Well, all but one.
The trees seemed to close in on him, threatening to press down on him, suffocate him, leave him broken and vulnerable on the cold forest floor. Even as the nester’s wail retreated, growing further away the deeper Shadow went into the trees, he knew that it didn’t mean he was safe.
He ran in the direction opposite of the nester, hoping that meant he was growing further from the city as well, but it quickly became apparent to him that he wasn’t getting any closer to the village.
Had he taken a wrong turn? Had he just forgotten how far the village was from the forest’s edge?
He kept going, unable to stop here. Days of exhaustion were forgotten, pushed back by adrenaline so potent it made him sick. More wails began showing up, far away, but in the direction he was running.
Multiple nesters meant one of two things; either he’d finally found the village, or he’d stumbled across an active nest. It wasn’t worth the risk of checking, not when he was already struggling to pass through the trees. His Chaos energy had become so weak recently, he couldn’t keep pushing himself to his limits. He didn’t know what he’d do if it finally gave out.
He decided to pass the potential nest. If it did happen to be the village, then he’d have to pass it anyway to reach the lone house.
Snow falling off the leaves around him left him flinching at every little noise. He kept glancing around every few seconds, expecting to see something double his height standing over him. He resented how easily the nesters frightened him now.
In the first couple weeks after the world went quiet, the nesters had refused to approach him, like they’d known he was different. Eventually, that wariness faded. He didn’t know why. All he knew was that, one night, he’d been restocking supplies at an abandoned store and got attacked.
He only got a glimpse of the creature before he fled. It was his first time seeing one of the nesters up close.
They weren’t human. They weren’t Mobian. He didn’t know where they came from, or why they were so horrifically tall, or why they looked like the distorted memory of a living being. The only thing he’d truly learned about them was that they wanted to cause him harm, but even then, he didn’t know what their goal was. He might have been seen as a threat to them, or food, or just a vile rodent that acted as a stain on their new world. He’d never know.
The nester wailing miles behind him suddenly vanished, most likely going out of range of his radio. He didn’t dare feel relief yet, not until he was out of the forest.
He kept running for… minutes, hours, he didn’t know. For all he knew, he was just running in circles, changing direction every time he heard a nester’s wail.
Eventually, he broke through the tree line and entered a clearing. He scanned over it with his flashlight quickly, double-checking for the presence of nesters. The only abnormality he found was an old blanket that had been left near a tree.
Far out into the clearing, he spotted a familiar house, and resting right next to it was a large red plane. Shadow could have cried in relief.
He rushed to the house, using the radio to check for nesters. They were silent when they slept, but they rarely wasted dark hours with sleep.
Once he was confident that the house was empty, he turned his radio off and slipped inside through a broken window.
He entered through the living room, finding it entirely untouched. There wasn’t even any dust on the floors or furniture.
He did a quick sweep of the house, searching the bedrooms, the bathroom, the kitchen, the garage-turned-workshop, the closets. He found no nesters, but he did find what looked like a dead nest. It held no possessions or food, only a torn up pillow and what looked like human hair. He didn’t know how it could have gotten here; ignoring the fact that he hadn’t seen a human in weeks, maybe months, the nearby village had been a place only Mobians lived. Humans almost never showed up there for any reason.
He went back out into the living room and began barricading the doors. There wasn’t much he could do about the broken window other than drape a curtain or blanket over it to try hiding the weak point.
With all of the entrances blocked, he let himself relax, exhaustion creeping up on him again. He set his bag down next to the couch and grabbed his sleeping bag, ready to roll it out.
A soft clinking sound made him freeze.
He shone his flashlight into the kitchen, eyes landing on the floor. A single blue quill rested on one of the tiles, dropping from somewhere high up.
Slowly, Shadow lifted his flashlight up to the ceiling.
He’d been wrong. That nest wasn’t dead.
The nester dug its claws into the ceiling, nearly flattened to it in its attempts to stay hidden. Its head hung limply from its slightly-too-long neck, staring at Shadow with unnaturally small eyes and a wide grin. Despite taking a Mobian-like form, it was easily twice as tall as Shadow, maybe more. Its quills were short and jagged, looking like many had been ripped out. Its blue fur was heavily stained with something that was too dark to be blood, but too shiny to be anything else. It didn’t have any visible ears, but Shadow knew that it had been listening to him.
It wasn’t Sonic. Shadow knew that Sonic was gone, dead or hidden away where every other person had disappeared to. This thing wasn’t Sonic. It shouldn’t know how to look like him. It shouldn’t have his speed either.
And yet, every time Shadow thought he was safe, it would appear. Watching. Waiting.
Hunting.