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Even during Shadow’s worst days on the ARK, when he’d spend the whole day writhing in pain and screaming himself hoarse, he still felt like his life had meaning. He had a reason to wake up in the morning, a reason to bear the burden of his creation. He was the Ultimate Lifeform, a weapon, a cure, created to be a perfect being.
But all of that suffering had been for absolutely nothing. His creators used him, his sister died because of his own failures, and now, he was little more than G.U.N.’s errand boy. No matter how much he hated following every little order, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. What good was he, if he wasn’t obeying humans?
At least, when G.U.N. kept him busy with too many back-to-back missions, it gave him something to fill his empty days with. When he wasn’t working, running, fighting, bleeding for the organization, he was in the apartment he shared with his teammates, doing nothing.
Well, not nothing. He was sleeping, or staring at his walls, or playing meaningless games on the phone Rouge forced him to buy. He’d go through spells where he’d either eat too much junk food just to give him something to focus on, or lose his appetite entirely, eating the bare minimum to keep his stomach from cramping.
The worst part of it was that he did want to do things. There was this show that Amy had been begging him to watch for weeks now, and he really did want to start it, but he didn’t. He could text Sonic right now and challenge him to a race, knowing that it wouldn’t even take a minute for Sonic to respond, but he didn’t. He could walk out of his bedroom right now, cross the hall and talk to Rouge, even just for a minute, just to get out of his own head for a bit. Still, he didn’t.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t. He knew he could. There was nothing physically stopping him from doing these things, no visible restraints keeping him tied down to his bed or locked in his room.
He wanted to do things, but he didn’t, at the same time. It felt easier to just keep lying there, unmoving. He wasn’t even tired. He never really felt ‘tired’ with how often he slept, yet he also felt impossibly exhausted. Nothing made sense, and he didn’t want to think about it.
He just felt… numb. To everything. All the time.
He didn’t know if it was normal or not. It didn’t really feel abnormal. Nobody was happy all the time, but shouldn’t he at least be happy sometimes?
No, maybe he didn’t deserve that much. Just the fact that he was still alive was more than he deserved. Every other monster of his species had been eradicated; what had he ever done to deserve getting spared?
***
“C’mon, hon. You’ve been in here too long.” Rouge said, pointedly (but gently) pushing his shoulder.
“Go away.” Shadow snapped, though it came out weaker than he intended.
“Not happening. Get up.”
Shadow didn’t move an inch.
Rouge sighed, putting her hands on her hips. “What’s going on with you? We don’t get a new mission in a week and suddenly you’re all mopey.”
Shadow’s ears flattened against his will. He turned his gaze back to the wall he’d been staring at before Rouge came in. He wasn’t tired enough to sleep, but too tired to do anything else, so he’d settled for lying down, which felt like all he’d done since returning from their last mission.
He felt like he was wasting time doing nothing, but there was nothing else to do. There was too much to do, and he couldn’t bring himself to do anything. He felt like such a waste of space.
Rouge must have seen something change in his face, because she sat down on the edge of his bed, speaking softer than before. “You know you can talk to me if something’s wrong. Right, kid?”
He hated when she called him that. He wasn’t a kid. He’d never been a kid. His supposed age just gave the ‘real adults’ around him a reason to talk down to him. None of them took him seriously; not his coworkers, not strangers, not even Rouge’s friends, and half of them were closer to his age than hers.
How could he be expected to talk about anything when everyone refused to take him seriously? Did Rouge even care, or was she just worried that his current state would affect his ability to perform on missions?
He should have been open about all of this, should have told her how he felt.
Instead, all he said was, “I know.”
Rouge frowned, watching him, silently analyzing him. Eventually, she reached over and squeezed Shadow’s arm lightly, having learned by now to ignore the way he flinched at first contact. It wasn’t personal. She’d never hurt him, but his instincts didn’t know that.
“I’m… here if you need me, alright?” Rouge told him, sounding somewhat awkward about it. She was about as used to comforting people as he was, and it showed.
(He used to be better at it. He used to have a reason to care about another person like that.)
It was another opening; a second chance to tell her that he felt stuck in place, limbs heavy and immovable. He could tell her that he’d spent the entire time he’d known her feeling like his life had no meaning, just going through the days feeling empty. He could tell her that he only ever felt alive when his life was being threatened, adrenaline forcing feeling into the emptiness.
He could talk to her. She was right there, waiting.
“Okay.” Was all he could bring himself to say.
Rouge stood up, wings flapping lightly, like she could physically shake off that brief moment of vulnerability. “Make sure you eat something. If you don’t, I’ll have Omega drag you out of here.”
“Fine.” Shadow would have rolled his eyes if Rouge had been looking. With her back turned to him, he didn’t bother wasting even that small amount of effort.
Rouge walked out of his room, closing the door behind her. He didn’t even consider calling out to her. She shouldn’t have to deal with him.
When his arm started falling asleep, he turned onto his back, watching the ceiling. He didn’t know how long he stayed like that for, just… zoned out, thinking about nothing, thinking about too many things he refused to ever voice.
He wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted to seek out Rouge, or Omega, or Amy, or even Sonic, and just listen to them talk about anything so he didn’t have to fill the silence with his own anxious thoughts anymore. He wanted to take a shower, and finally wash away almost a full week’s worth of sweat and shedded fur. He wanted to eat something that didn’t taste bland. He wanted to finally drag himself to the bathroom and deal with the painful ache in his bladder. He wanted to stop waking up in the morning; not death, not necessarily, just… not awake. He wanted to sleep for so long that he forgot what being awake felt like.
There was so much he should have been doing. He didn’t do anything.
Well, he did one thing.
He grabbed his phone off the nightstand, and for a few more hours, he stopped thinking.