In the time of my death I thought of what purpose would befall me. The night made thinking like this unfettered. The rooms perched with eyes that glinted harshly. I wandered to the cellar. Pulled the best bottle of red wine there. Sat in the rickety chair that popped its bones. Next to the table I grabbed the goblet from some time and place. I drank towards a time and place.

"You there?" I asked.

The blue hedgehog appeared from the lack of light. I had to gaze into the darkness and wait for his form to appear. It always started with his quills, but Sonic formed his nose last. Its black point always pulling the curve northward before completely forming. He wiggled it left to right two times. He cracked his knuckles, sauntered forward, and sat on the stone floor next to the chair. Sonic would hold his position. I wore bad tidings better than anyone. I would drink the entire glass of wine before offering him the bottle.

"Thanks," the hedgehog would whisper. His voice disparaged the use of speak. He had lost the lively tenor that had it once had.

We would pass the bottle back and forth a few more times to prepare for the conversation that would be welcomed. The mat had no footprints.

"Do you know why I did what I did?" I would ask this to get him speaking. Sonic enjoyed starting there because it reminded him of home.

"You did what had to be done."

"I did what had to be done?"

"You did it and it is over. That is all that matters anyway." Sonic said this with the voice of someone who understood his stance.

"Sonic, you should not talk of matter as if you own it."

"I own nothing."

"Except your words. You own those."

The hedgehog would at this point finally make eye contact with me. He never liked the idea of his own words. Sonic tended to action the way most tended to words. The problem begun with words. Words were the knife. I respected the knife, but more so, I respected the hilt that held it in place.

"What do you want anyway?"

"I want to know why you did it."

"Did what anyway? Win? Did I win?"

"You won."

"Won what exactly anyway?"

"You did what it took to survive. That is why you are here." I would say this to give him strength of mind. He tended to play dumb.

"I survived out of the love of myself. I love myself."

"You do not look like you love yourself! Besides, you walk now. I've never seen you run."

"Running and walking are the same thing anyway. Arrivals are the same thing."

Sonic loved talking in circles. I had never met a creature who loved deporting his own thoughts only to reclaim them seconds later. The idea of these late conversations was to try and bring the hedgehog back to life somehow.

"Sonic, do you feel that your life is a construct of something greater?"

"Life is boring anyway. That is a dumb question. Why would you even ask me that anyway?"

"You need to understand that there might be an answer for your consequences."

"There is an answer. It's called death."

"Do you feel like dying Sonic?"

"I feel like staining myself with more of that wine. What year is the wine?"

"2560. A good year. "

"For everyone really."

"Why do you say that?"

The rodent would get up and turn his back to me. He wanted to have leverage. Sonic crossed his arms in defiance. Everyone thinks they knew what defiance means, but all they really knew was spite. Spite is the initial reaction. Spite pretends to learn for some other purpose.

"I want to go home."

"Home is here with the wine."

"I want my friends to be real friends."

"Sonic, there are no such things as 'friends'. All anyone ever is, is a mirror to what you believe in."

"You say it like it is easy."

"Anything and everything is easy. Consequence and success are easy. We like to pretend it's otherwise."

He turns around to face me again. There are tears in his eyes. It is typical. He never exceeds an aphorism.

"Why are you telling me this anyway?" he asks.

"Because boredom is the father of invention."

"What?"

"Waste is success without thought."

The hedgehog just continues to stare like the dumb animal he always was.

"Youth is formless wisdom!" I yell. My voice rings off the glass and all the bottles. The part of me that understands better continues yelling. "Death is the only idea that life understands!"

Sonic blinks and says "I want to go home anyway."

"What is life to you?! What are you afraid of?!"

"I want to pretend I did not fail."

"But you did! I won and you didn't!"

"I want to go home."

"Can't you say anything of use to me?!"

My voice bellowed as I watched him turn away. He crept back into the darkness like some foolish bystander. I threw the bottle to the floor. The glass breaking always felt unknown and known simultaneously. A waste. It was always a waste to talk to him, but he existed. He existed for some reason.

I am starting to think it is defiance, but the defiance has always been mine. I have nurtured him that far.

The latch detaches Robotnik from the visor. The simulation stops. Robotnik goes back into the main hold of the command center. He moves his armies.

There is nothing to destroy, but he moves them anyway.