There was once an old saying. A simple phrase, but many believed that it was true. In days of war and death, in times of pain and sorrow, these simple words would bring people back to reality.
Time heals all wounds.
A simple phrase that bound people to the realities of loss, and that with time, your pain will simply disappear.
To the rest of the world, those words were true.
For weeks, the world mourned for the loss of its greatest hero. They had always thought of him as being above death, like a god.
To the people of earth, Sonic had been their heart, and now…
It was if the world had screeched to a stop.
Memorials were built, ceremonies were held, and he received honors he would have never gotten had he not died.
And as time went on, the pain and scars of his demise began to heal over.
The days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, and time began to work its magic.
The world sped up to a pace that Sonic could never have kept up with. It simply picked off where it had left off and continued to walk forward. Sonic, who had once been a household name, was spoken of less and less, and soon he was nothing more than a memory. Had it not been for the memorials, the people of the world would have forgotten about their fallen hero entirely.
Time had helped heal the scars and wounds of the world.
But it had not helped heal the wounds of Amy Rose.
"….Amy?"
"Sonic….I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…"
"heh…I'm sorry….If I had just been faster…"
"Sonic, please don't leave me…I need you….I love you, Sonic…please, don't die…"
"I'm sorry, Amy…..tell the others…that I'm sorry…"
"SONIC!"
Amy awoke with a start, covered in sweat.
The same dream again…
The same nightmare that played over and over again, haunting Amy's sleep constantly. After a moment of shock, she sighed and got out of bed. After having the same dream over and over again, she had learned tactics to calm her down. She slowly walked towards her window and just stared into space. She sighed again, the sorrow she felt incredibly obvious.
Sonic…
It had been about six, maybe seven months now, since Sonic had died. Maybe it hadn't really been so long ago, but it felt like forever, and Amy had lost track of the passage of time. How long had it really been since she had last seen Sonic smile? When was the last time she had heard him laugh, or say something smug and cocky? She had lost count a long time ago.
She had seen a world changed by him. Amy had watched as the planet broke from its lost core, and she had watched it rebuild. The world was different now. It was tougher, darker, colder, and less open then it had been six months ago.
And she had watched herself change when she lost her core. The Amy Rose that had been the friend of Sonic, the enemy of Eggman, and the ally of so many others, was gone.
She had died six months ago in an explosion on the Egg Carrier, just outside of Station
Square.
The new Amy was much like the world that had risen from the ashes of it's fallen god. She was cold, uncaring, and cut off from everybody that she had once cared for. She rarely left her apartment and didn't communicate with anybody from the old days. Amy now spent her time reading books filled with her childhood memories, and staring into the vast emptiness of space where her love now resided. This was how she lived, day in and day out, simply waiting for time to take its toll.
She spent her days just waiting for her body to catch up to her soul and die.
Amy gazed listlessly out of her window into the dark depths of space, where the only bright light she could see came from the moon. A once whole and shining gem in the sky that secretly guiding and protecting the planet. The moon had been the keeper of the earth.
How had the moon been rewarded for its endless years of service?
It became the victim of an unspeakable disaster, and now all that was left was a battered and broken hunk of rock, ominously looming over an equally broken planet, casting an endless shadow of darkness onto the world.
This is what Amy has come to believe about the moon, and it is also what she believes about Sonic. A bright hero that had protected the planet for years, only to fall to tragedy, unknowingly taking the whole world down with him. She sighed once more as she gazed into the lifeless protector, and as she stared into the sky, Amy came to only one conclusion.
His life had been too short.
And indeed, too fast.
Amy looked at the moon one last time before returning to her bed. She knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep now, she had been thinking too hard. As she crawled back into bed, she reached for an old, large, and rather worn looking book that had been resting on her nightstand.
Fairy Tales of the Little Planet
When she had been little, Amy's father had read to her every night from this book, and just holding it brought back fond memories of her lost past. Despite the fact that he had always read to her, Amy's father had never told her every single story. There were stories in here that were inappropriate for a little kid, so he had skipped over them. After her father died, Amy had hidden the book, to avoid the then painful memories it gave her.
But now, Sonic was dead. Escaping to the memories of her past was the only way to avoid the pain she was feeling now.
Listlessly, Amy flipped through the book, looking for a story that sounded new or interesting. After a minute, she found one, near that back of the book. A story with a title she had never heard. Curious, she decided that this would be the tale she would escape into tonight. And slowly, Amy began to read...
The Girl who Challenged the Gods
Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived on the Little Planet with her mother, father and older brother. She loved her family very much, and if anything ever happened to them, she became sad, and would lock herself in her room for days. So, when her brother became sick, and eventually died, many people became worried about her. But instead of becoming depressed, the girl left her home and went on a journey across the Little Planet, searching for a legendary temple on the top of Mt. Itanichi, or Eternity Mountain, a holy place rumored to guard the entrance to the afterlife. She did what no other before her did, and challenged the temple guardians, who finally let her into the afterlife. She saw her brother once more, but was supposed to leave his soul. But, in an act of defiance, she smuggled her brother out of the afterlife. She thought she had gotten aw…
Without finishing the story, Amy slowly closed the book. Was it possible? Was there really a place where you could enter the afterlife? She felt a sudden burst of hope, only to realize…
The Little Planet worked on a different rotation cycle than the Earth. The chances of her actually ending up there were slim. Her hopes should have died right then and there, but…
And then, it hit her.
Rouge had once said, "When all seven Chaos Emeralds are gathered, a miracle occurs…." If Amy gathered all seven Emeralds, could she, at the very least, see Sonic in the afterlife?
Her hopes rose once more, only for her to realize that it was impossible to get to the afterlife. It was another dimension, right? How could you…
Chaos Control…
It was coming together. Amy's plan to her hero was slowly being pieced together in her mind. She knew that she was going to see him again…
She was going to bring him back…
And as her head hit the pillow for the second time that night, her dreams were of a small, green planet, a fashion challenged pink hedgehog, and her colbalt hero protecting her for the first time.