All That Has Happened

For a long time, no one said anything. No one spoke. No one dared to show their faces outside of their homes.

After being dumped by Shadow, Amy committed suicide by jumping off a high cliff into rough ocean waters below. They found her body, beaten and battered and even discolored from being tossed in the current, the next day. Her red dress was tattered and torn, and a vein in her neck was cut open, showing that this was the way she died. She was so cold, the coldest she'd ever been.

We all thought she was a great friend, but no one was hit harder than Cream and Sonic. The poor little girl had loved Amy like a big sister, and was absolutely devastated, that for a time we thought she might not be far behind our pink-furred close friend. I think it was her mother, who kept her away from all cliffs and sharp objects, who encouraged her in these ways to live her life without Amy.

There was no way to console Sonic as easily.

Even if he didn't love her the way she loved him, she was still his friend, his nurse, and a source of joy. He loved her like a sister, even sometimes like a mother, and enjoyed her opposition. For she loudly disapproved of all his crazy, dangerous adventures, and he constantly laughed in her face when she did. He didn't want to be her husband, but he never wished her dead (except jokingly, when she was not around)!

Sonic had locked himself in his room immediately after the funeral, and had refused to emerge for weeks. In those days, our house was situated so that each of us had a private bath off our bedrooms. When I couldn't hear sobs or tears, I could hear the shower water running loudly, unsure whether Sonic was actually in there, or if he was torturing himself. For Sonic hated water, now more than ever.

One day, I decided that his moping had to stop. We'd been fighting many hard battles with the doctor lately, him in his nastiness taking advantage of Sonic's pain by exploiting our weak spots, and I was cut and hurting. It seemed a little selfish, I suppose, but I, too, wanted my big brother back. Even if he were to smile, I think that would brighten my world!

I tried the doorknob, but it was locked from the inside. Frustrated, I knocked. "Sonic?" My large ears pricked for any sound that might help me. No answer. I felt my large breakfast bubbling in my stomach. Sure sign of nerves. Here I thought I could be strong when Sonic needed me to be, and I found myself trembling with nervousness like a young fawn! I tried again, gaining a more definitive tone. "Sonic, it's Tails." I wrung my namesakes delicately between my fingers. "Can I—I'm coming in." I changed my words to command my brother to not only let me into his room, but into his mind. I tried the doorknob again. No luck. It was still locked.

"Sonic!" I growled. "I'm coming in! I'll give you to the count of three to open this door! One." I was amazed at how well I could do these things. I heard shuffling faintly from within. Someone turned the shower water on and off in the same second. "Two." I crossed my arms over my chest, prepared to look annoyed at the very least when he came to let me in. Someone threw something small and hard at the wall. It sounded like a shoe, because it made a sharp thud. "Thre--" before I could finish saying the word 'three', the door swung open, like it does in horror movies, as if by magic.

I gave myself a second to be shocked, and then I walked in. I'd forgotten Sonic had an automatic lock on his door, which could be operated by a control switch about the size of a deck of cards (he usually disguised it as such). It was very handy, because it could lock his door from the inside, and from the outside with just the click of a button. Of course he must be using that. I felt my chest rise with pride at the fact he was using it, because I had designed and made it for him.

Sonic's room was its usual, disorganized mess. Gloves and socks, both dirty and clean, lay strewn all over the floor, upon his desk lamp, and basically anywhere but in his dresser. The drawers of said dresser were pulled out all the way, some of them loosened from their sockets, and were filled with small collections of shells, rocks, branches, sticks (there is a difference), leaves, and wilted flowers all collected from his journeys. A plastic bottle of milk-white sand lay at my feet, and I bent to lift it up to get a better look at it. When I did, I found it wasn't sand at all. Rather, it was a strange, lacy handkerchief.

I placed the bottle absently in the single closed drawer and went about tidying his room unconsciously. The only thing that was constantly neat about the earthen tone carpeted, soft blue walled living space was his unbuckled shoes, neatly arranged side-by-side in the far corner of the room, away from the chaos, like a little oxygen bubble. I chuckled to myself.

Sickly white sheets lay strewn over the plush couch that, when sat upon, felt like a beanbag chair. When I had moved in with him, he had already owned the couch, so I could never be sure if it was supposed to feel like a beanbag or if it had gotten that way over time. His sheets were off his bed, a mournful rectangle hugging his wall. The curtains, a marvelous blue with shiny stars that were supposed to glow in the dark (I'd never been in his room at night, so I had no way of knowing whether they did or not), were drawn, but there was still a blue light in the room from the little amount of light allowed in.

I jumped when the door closed and shivered when I felt a gust of wind fly past me. I quickly deduced that since the windows weren't open, it wasn't really 'wind' at all. Upon closer inspection of the bed, I found what I came in here to look for. Under a barricade made out of blue pillows (he was smarter than he seemed, apparently,) I found my older brother, curled into a ball like a little cat. He winced, and turned away from the light as I pulled away the pillows, black nose darting between his folded arms. Sonic was a nocturnal creature by blood, and though he was up and active during the day, when he could condition himself, the light would begin to hurt his eyes. I heard hoarse sobs as I removed the rest of his barricade and pulled him into my lap. It wasn't much of a struggle. Sonic fell limp in my grasp, too weak or too light-sensitive to retaliate properly.

"C'mon now, Sonic," I began, holding him in my arms and rocking him. "What's the matter?"

Sonic's eyes opened, and he squinted. I saw a white film covering his irises, and knew he hadn't seen the light in quite a while. He was temporarily blind. I was not worried, for, as I said, the effects were temporary. But, Sonic's other senses were stronger, and he could touch, taste, hear, and smell things I could not. For all I knew, he was sniffing the history of the weeks he'd been hiding off my fur. Though I didn't look at him (to be honest, he looked rather spooky with a white film on his eyes), I could feel him groping, hear him sniffing at me. He was running his hands down my sides, and I refused the urge to squirm and giggle. I was quite ticklish.

"You had a big breakfast." He noted, his voice hoarse and raspy from disuse. It sounded like it was coming from beyond the grave. I shivered, and knew that he could feel it. How eerie! "What's the matter with you?"

"I need my strength." I told him factually. This was true. He nodded, running a cold finger (bare, as his feet were unsocked) down a scar on my arm.

"Sulfur. Iron." He muttered, rubbing at his nose. "You smell like war."

"Eggman hasn't been taking it easy." I answered him with an exasperated sigh, watching my breath stir his unhealthy coat. I was frustrated at how I came in here with questions, and now I was the one answering them. "But I came in here to ask--"

He shushed me with a finger across my lips and blinked twice. "Mouse." He told me. I was stunned. I was a fox, and I myself couldn't hear! Sonic slipped out of my lap and crawled across the floor. He was blind, but he could navigate through this mess quicker than I! When he came upon the place I had found the bottle, he frowned, placing his hand just over the spot with enough room for the bottle to be there beneath. He growled deep in his throat and moved on. I watching him make his way, as if he could see, across the floor to a pile of gloves and socks by the couch.

Instantly, he threw them aside. I saw a flash of brown fur, saw Sonic's hand dash after it, heard a squeak, a crunch, and no more. Sonic stood, the dead mouse tight between his teeth, and walked back to the bed without once tripping or faltering. As he got onto the bed, I watched in awed horror as, without using his hands, he made the rest of the body disappear into his mouth. With a sigh that could wake the world, he swallowed the body whole. I watched the lump travel down his throat.

He licked his lips, obviously pleased, and returned without hesitance to my lap, an air of superiority about him. His film was beginning to fade, I noticed. I could see the black of his dilated pupils behind the white gunk. "Where did you put my bottle?" He demanded, hurt.

I pointed, before forgetting that he couldn't quite see yet. "It's over-uh…in the dresser, in the top drawer."

"Oh." A beat, and then he looked up at me. "I'm sorry, sorry."

Before I could stop the childish words, I felt them coming. "For what?"

"For everything." He replied, coughing perhaps out of habit. His voice was slowly becoming more robust, returning to its natural, teasing, egotistical tone. "For hiding, for moping, more refusing to fight, for ever letting Amy down…" He trailed off, and I stiffened in shock.

Sonic didn't feel for Amy the way she felt for him, as I had suspected, but he felt…responsible for her death. Someone once told me that the life of a person means everything to a hero, if they're a person lost. He was mournful the way he was mournful about Cosmo's death after she…after he felt that he killed her.

"Oh, Sonic," Tears came to my eyes for the first time since the funeral and I hugged him tightly against me, crying into his soft, slightly damp fur. "How could you blame yourself? Amy was always one to act rashly! You know that!" I was embarrassed about crying. Sonic slowly lifted his arms to hug me back. "But how could you think that you…" Somehow, without saying anything at all, Sonic had told me to stop.

It was over.

He pulled me away from himself and looked at me. The white film was completely gone from his eyes, and these were wet from crying. "It's over." He said to me, assuming I knew what he was talking about. I did.

"It's over." I repeated, nodding and smiling.

He sighed and looked bashfully up into my eyes. Was he seriously blushing? I had no way to tell, no way at all. The blue light was not enough for me to see. "Let me get my shoes," he flinched, as if trying to get free, but my hands did not restrain him. In truth, they never had. I hugged him without warning, suddenly, and squeezed him tightly around the waist. He slowly hugged me back, and then pulled away.

"Let me get my shoes." He repeated, though he still didn't move. And then, with a new shyness in his eyes and a nervous trembling about his person, he inched his face closer to mine until our lips could almost touch.

My first reaction was to back away. I had no idea what he was up to, and I was quite nervous. His eyes flashed, but I couldn't tell what they said. All they held was…something I could only describe as love. "I love you." He whispered, before touching his lips to mine in the sweetest way possible before dashing away.

I watched him pulling his socks on and tugging his shoes over his feet. "I love you, too, Sonic." I answered.

End!