They said to write. But what is there to write about? I am empty. There is nothing inside or outside me. There is nothing before or behind me. Nothing but burning and emptiness. I don't know who I am. I don't know why I am here. I don't know why I am even alive. I cannot hold this pen anymore ...
July 15th, 3235
The doctor said that writing would help me recover, so write I must. He brought me this notepad and this pen. I must be left handed, because my right arm is in a splint, and my left hand seems to know how to hold a pen. My Keeper also thought it was a good idea if I sat and wrote. I guess it helps. But I am nothing. I can not remember why I am here, who I am, or even why I am burned. Perhaps through the course of writing in this journal, I will remember.
July 16th, 3235
Today I tried to eat solid food, and was violently sick. I was ashamed and wished I would die, as I watched my Keeper clean up the mess. I cannot eat anything but milk and soft grain, and I am too weak to do more than sit up and write in this notebook. My Keeper has promised to send for the doctor again tomorrow.
July 17 ...
Pain. Scalding pain.
July 18th, 3235
Yesterday the doctor came, and gave my Keeper a bottle of lotion to apply to my burns. When he put it on me, I was consumed with horrible pain as my seared flesh reacted. I took a sleeping pill, and woke up only once, to write the previous entry in my journal. It still hurts, but I can think today. If the lotion does its work, perhaps I will recover. I may even regrow fur again, someday. I cannot remember what it was like to have fur, or what color it was before it was burned off. I am not even certain of what species I am. I cannot remember anything.
July 20th, 3235
I am much better today. Yesterday my Keeper bathed me and applied new lotion, which again hurt, but not as much. Today my head is clearer than it has ever been, and I got up and walked around. I am living in my Keeper's house in the woods. He is a large cat who does two things--take care of me, and fish. There is a stream that runs past the cabin, and whenever he is not indoors, he is out there with his pole, sitting on the bank. Today I limped across the cool grass and sat down beside him, to watch. It was pleasent and cool there in the shade, and the breeze caressed my aching body. The birds sang above us. It was so pleasent and peaceful that for some reason it brought a lump into my throat. I felt I didn't belong there, in that quiet place. I don't know why.
Then my Keeper caught a fish, and I watched as he reeled it in. It flipped and flashed a bright silver, fighting for its life. I watched as my Keeper clubbed it, and the trembling body lay still. He held it up and showed it to me. A bass, he called it. It was green and silver and red. I have never seen anything like it. I watched him "clean" it, which is what happens when you take off its scales and take out the pink meat. I wish I was strong enough to eat solid food. I would like to taste bass.
July 21st, 3235
I dreamed last night of burning. I was on fire, my lungs were being consumed, and my flesh was melting. Horrible, yes, but I cannot help but wonder if it is a memory that has escaped the fog in my mind. If so, why am I still alive? The feeling of burning to ash was frighteningly real. I cannot help but stare at the back of my hand, at the naked, red skin, and wonder ...
July 23rd, 3235
The dreams persist. I told my Keeper, and he frowned and said nothing. I wonder if he is smart enough to puzzle out things of this nature. He seems quite simple. He never says much, but he is kind enough. I wonder who I was before I burned, and if he would have had anything to do with me if he had known that person. Was I was in some kind of accident? I still don't know why I am here in these woods, or why my Keeper is watching over me. It seems to impose on his solitary habits. Perhaps he views me as a sort of pet, like the frog who accompanies him all the time. The frog is friendly enough, and at times I think it is smarter than he is.
July 26th, 3235
It has been three days since I touched my pen. The doctor came again, and gave my Keeper a new lotion. It seems my skin is healing well, and it is time to apply a new mixture. It does not hurt, and when it does, it only stings. But it makes me sleepy, and I have done nothing but sleep since my Keeper rubbed it on me, waking up only for a meal now and then. Perhaps when this stage is over, my stomach will be able to handle solid foods. I am half sick of milk, boiled oats, and ground wheat. No, completely sick.
July 28th, 3235
The new lotion is working very quickly. Today my Keeper told me that I was beginning to grow fur on my back. I tried to feel it, but my fingers are still so dulled from the burns that I couldn't. However, it is a relief to learn that I will not be a naked rat forever. I still wonder what I will look like when it grows back. My Keeper told me the fur is red. I wish it brought back a memory--any memory. Perhaps I won't remember until I can see myself in a mirror. My Keeper has a small hand mirror, which I looked in once. I quickly put it away, because the horror staring back at me was unrecognizable, and hideous. I have no idea what I looked like before. Perhaps I don't want to know.
July 30th, 3235
I dreamed again of burning, but this time I was falling as well. Falling and burning, burning and falling. Maybe I was in an explosion that threw me into the air. But what exploded? I wish my dreams would be more specific. I can never see anything but white light, but my sense of feel works well enough. Maybe, when I get stronger, I can explore this area and find out what happened.
August 1st, 3235
Today I asked my Keeper where he found me. He was fishing, as usual, and motioned to a grove of trees beyond the creek, and said, "Back there." I asked if I might go look, and he said I could, so I waded across the creek and made my way up the hill. My muscles are weak and soft from the lack of excercize, and twice I had to stop and rest, before I reached the hilltop. My Keeper waved to me when I looked back, so I waved in return and walked on, into the trees.
I don't know what I expected to find, nor did I know how far I was to go. I simply walked in a straight line, looking for the remains of a fire. After all, if I had burned, my surroundings must have too. Or, perhaps something exploded, like a vehicle or a chemical container. Anything to jog my memory and stir the fog.
Suddenly I came to a swath cut through the trees. I stopped and gazed around--the trees had been splintered and broken as if a tractor had smashed through. As I looked, I saw a trench, which was deeper at the far end. I walked to it and looked in. The earth had been plowed away, although erosion had begun to soften the edges. The trench was only as wide as I was, though quite long. At once it appeared an open grave, inviting me to return. I turned and walked back the way I had come.
August 2nd, 3235
I have thought about that swath in the trees, that trench. Something had fallen at an angle and at an incredible speed. Surely it couldn't have been me. I stop and stare down at my broken arm. Surely not. How could I be falling, all afire, with the speed to cut down trees and dig a rut in the earth? I am still alive. Such a fall should have smashed me into a thousand pieces, even if I was not incinerated beforehand. Maybe my Keeper can tell me what happened.
Later
I asked him how he found me. He told me in his simple way that he saw something fall one night, blazing like a star, and heard it crash through the trees. He crept out to it, and found the crater. Lying half-buried in the loose soil was a body, badly burned, but somehow still alive. He carried me back to his house, and has nursed me ever since.
I wish I knew what it all meant.
August 4th, 3235
Today I noticed that my skin was no longer bare. I am covered in a very fine red fur, scarcely beginning to grow. It is a relief. In the back of my head are thicker hairs I believe are spines. I must be a porcupine or a hedgehog. I don't dare look at myself in the mirror again--not yet. I still quail at the thought of how I looked the first time. I wonder how my Keeper tolerates my monstrous appearance.
August 5th, 3235
I tried to run today and found I could not. I can walk, by placing one foot in front of the other. But when I run, my feet strike out on their own, and I stumble. What is wrong? How did I run before? I may have to teach myself how to run properly. But it is another clue to the memories locked behind the fog ... in the past, I moved differently, and my muscles and sinews have not forgotten.
Later
Tonight I ate my first solid food in two weeks, and it was wonderful. I didn't throw it up this time, and it was glorious to chew something that was not soft and runny. I have missed the simple act of eating. We had fish, and I would have stuffed myself if my Keeper had not intervened. It was delicious.
August 6th, 3235
It is raining. I am lying on my bed, and my Keeper is lying on the large bed next to mine, curled up and sleeping. All around us is the patter and drip of falling water, a beautiful, if monotonus, music. The frog is outside, enjoying his element. It is not cold. My arm is getting better, and my Keeper says it is time for the doctor to visit again and remove my cast. What a relief it will be to have it off! It is one more step on the road to recovery, which I must travel if I am to regain my memory. My Keeper says that once my cast is removed, he will take me on a fishing trip. I would like to catch a fish. I only hope I am strong enough. I think I will stop writing now and listen to the rain.
August 7th, 3235
Perhaps it was the sound of the rain last night, but I dreamed about something other than fire. I dreamed I was walking about the cabin, and there was a small, dark shadow following me. I somehow knew it was friendly, but I couldn't see it. Every time I turned around, it was directly behind me. Perhaps it means nothing, but maybe it does, so I'm recording it, in case I remember anything else about it. After all, that is what this journal is for.
August 8th, 3235
Today the doctor came and took off my cast. My right arm is weak, but knit. It doesn't hurt, but the skin is not as healed as the rest. My Keeper is going to put on the burn lotion soon, and I wanted to write this before I go out of my head with pain. I hope I recover soon. I am tired of pain.
August 10th, 3235
My arm is better today, now that the lotion has worn off. My Keeper is packing for a trip into the woods. We will live in a tent and eat the fish we catch for three whole days! He dug out one of his smaller rods just for me, and I have been casting into the creek all morning. The frog is coming, too, and acts as excited as I feel.
August 11th, 3235
The sun is setting behind the trees, and we are at the lake. I didn't know there was a lake in this forest, but there are many things I don't know. I am so tired I can barely focus my eyes on the page. We walked for hours. My Keeper had to carry me the last mile, because I couldn't force my feet to take another step. I am nodding off; I must stop here.
August 13th, 3235
We spent all day yesterday fishing, and came back just now to eat lunch. I have caught three fish now--two catfish and a trout. I caught the first catfish yesterday morning. I was standing on the bank, holding my pole and watching the motion of the water, not paying attention to my rod. I had been standing there for ten minutes or so, and I didn't expect to catch anything. A bird flew over, and I was watching it, when there came a tug on the line, and the tip of my rod bent right over. I gasped and clutched the reel. My Keeper yelled, "Reel him in! Keep your rod up!"
I started reeling with one hand while I clutched the pole with the other. I had never felt anything like it. My line was cutting back and forth through the water, as something alive and vigorous fought me. I braced the butt of the rod against my stomach to keep the tip up, and forced my weak arms to fight the fish. I winched in the line, inch by inch, scarcely able to turn the crank. Suddenly it went slack. "Reel!" yelled my Keeper, throwing down his own rod and running toward me. I reeled like mad, and felt the fish's weight hit the end of the line again. I yanked the rod back over my head, and the fish's pale gray body broke the surface in a bright splash. Then my Keeper was there, and we landed it. It was a five-pound catfish with long, drooping whiskers. I was trembling from exertion, but I have never felt so triumphant. I had done it. I had caught a fish. And even as my Keeper strung the fish onto our stringer, I wanted to catch another one.
I have only caught three fish in two days. After we eat, I'm going to try to catch three more.
August 14th, 3235
There was a meteor shower last night, but I was too tired to stay up and watch it. My Keeper awoke me this morning before the sun was up, and we lay with our heads outside the tent to watch the starry sky. I was still half asleep, and seeing the stars reminded me of something I have seen before. As I lay there, trying to remember what it was, a green star moved out of its place and shot across the sky, leaving a fading trail of smoke. I gasped. My Keeper grinned and said, "That was a nice one."
I have never seen a meteor before. But I cannot help but wonder if I looked like one of them when I fell from the sky and tore into the forest.
August 15th, 3235
We arrived back at the cabin this afternoon. I caught seven fish during our trip, but none as big as my first catfish. The last one was just a guppy, so we let it go. I am tired, but not as tired as I was the first day. In fact, I think my fur has grown another millimeter. I was tempted to look in the mirror again, but I don't want to. Not until my fur has completely grown in, and I look like a Mobian instead of some sort of half-dead insect. There is nothing more degrading than seeing yourself as a hideous monster.
August 16th, 3235
Today I re-read my journal from the beginning. In the first few entries my handwriting was so shaky I can hardly understand it. It is encouraging to see that I have improved, health-wise and communication-wise. It has only been a month. Of course, I was with my Keeper for some time before I was well enough to write in a journal. I just don't know how long. I hope I continue to improve. Maybe the rest of these blank pages will someday hold my memories, and my name, and the story of why I burned.
August 20th, 3235
This morning I was sitting in the sun, just sitting and thinking, when I found myself staring at my feet. I had an idea--a feeling--that they had once looked different. It took a while of mental groping before I came up with the question of shoes. I had once worn shoes. The longer I stared at my bare feet in the sandles my Keeper has given me, the more certain I became. Even if they had burned off, there might be fragments around the crash site. I asked my Keeper if I could go look around there. He asked me what I was looking for, and I told him I remembered I used to have shoes. He said that I didn't have to look for them, because he had them.
He led me into the cabin, pulled a crate of odds and ends out from under his bed, and removed two melted objects. I took them and gazed at them, trying to remember what they looked like before they were reduced to globs of plastic and aluminum. The tops had been cut open, I guessed by my Keeper, when he had stripped them from my feet. I turned them over and over. There were wires and bits of metal protruding, and they smelled of burned rubber. But they belonged to my other self, the one who had fallen all aflame from nowhere, and I was glad to have them. I asked my Keeper if there was anything else he had found on me. He shook his head. I guess these shoes will have to tell me their story without other aid.
August 21st, 3235
Summer is drawing to a close. The air is cooling at night, and the sun feels gentler. It is a shame I could not enjoy any but the last few weeks of summer. But autumn is coming, and I am glad I have lived to see a new season. I have lived, and I am healing. My fur is growing at a tremendous rate, and every day the thick hair on the back of my head is a little longer. I am no longer scarlet--my fur is darkening as it grows out. Perhaps I was maroon. My Keeper says that in another month or so I will be quite handsome. I hope he is right. I am still afraid to look in the mirror.
August 23rd, 3235
Today a strange thing happened. My Keeper and I had walked through the woods to a place where the creek pours into a deep pool, and he was fishing there. I was watching him and not fishing, because I was feeling lazy and sleepy in the afternoon warmth. Suddenly I heard distant laughter. I sat up and looked at my Keeper, but he gave no sign he heard it. I thought I had imagined it, and relaxed, but the laugh came again. This time I asked my Keeper if he heard it. He listened for a long moment, then said he didn't hear anything. He resumed fishing, but I sat and listened.
For a while I heard nothing but birdsong, and I began to think I had imagined it. Then it came again, louder and clearer than ever. I jumped up and ran toward it. The sound was familier, as if made by someone behind my mental fog. If I could find them, maybe they could tell me who I was! I still have trouble running, but it is easier than it was. But I am not fast, and the laughter seemed to move before me, distant and elusive. It was a girl's laugh, high and carefree. In it I sensed things I had forgotten, and things I have only lately learned. "Wait! Stop!" I yelled, straining to see through the trees. It was beginning to fade into the distance.
"Don't go!" I cried, slowing to catch my breath. I listened. The laughter was gone, replaced by ordinary forest sounds. I felt an overwhelming sense of grief and loss I cannot explain, and a lump rose in my throat. I sat on a stump and shed a few tears, then trudged back to my Keeper.
Whoever the girl is, I must have known her before my fall. I wonder if she was really there, or if I was only hearing sounds inside my own head. Perhaps my memory loss is permanent, and I will never regain it.
August 30th, 3235
It has been an entire week since I last made an entry in this journal. I have not had the heart to write anything, after hearing the girl's laugh. I wonder if she was my wife, or my daughter. There is no telling what ties I left behind in my fall, nor what loved ones I may have who think me dead. But if I don't know who they are, I have no way to contact them. Somehow the idea of having family seems strange. But why does it seem so alien to me? And if I fell from the sky, perhaps from a plane, why did I fall? Was there an explosion that threw me clear? Was I perhaps drenched in fuel? That might explain why I remember burning. And if there was an explosion, did it harm anyone I know and perhaps love?
I see why they gave me a journal ... it helps me think.
September 1st, 3235
I think that it was an aircraft. I was thinking about it, and I have a vague sense of being inside some sort of machine, high off the ground. It must have been a plane. Perhaps we were hijacked, or maybe one of the engines blew up. I must have been thrown from the plane and plunged, burning like a torch, toward the ground. It all makes sense. Maybe if I think harder, I'll recall other things about the plane. Maybe I could even try to find reports of a planecrash. They would have records of the passengers, right? Perhaps I could find out who I am.
September 3rd, 3235
Today I was throwing rocks into the stream, when I found a rock that was diamond-shaped. As I looked at it, I suddenly remembered standing in a wide place, where it was dark, holding a large gem in my hand. It was definately not inside a plane--it must have been from some earlier period. Perhaps I will never remember the plane.
September 4th, 3235
There is something horrible in my past. Something frightening and terrible that I cannot quite remember. It was cool today, and I felt chilled, as my fur has not grown in completely yet, so I was sitting on a boulder in the sun. My memories seem to come when I am relaxed and not thinking of anything. I was still and quiet, and saw something move with the corner of my eye. I glanced at it, and saw a small lizard run up the rock and sit near my foot, also seeking the sun's warmth.
But for some reason, the longer I looked at it, the more a cold horror grew inside me, as if I knew something evil and repulsive about reptiles. I knew that a small lizard couldn't harm me, but my stomach began to lurch, and I broke into a cold sweat and had to go inside the cabin. I am still trembling as I write, and my fingers keep slipping on the plastic casing of the pen. I wish I knew why.
September 5th, 3235
Is this what it is like to remember? This multitude of confused images? These glimpses of power and terror and alien shapes? The loathing I felt so strongly when I saw the little lizard seems to have broken through the fog somehow. Last night my sleep was tormented with fragmented images that make no sense. I poured through my journal, looking for something that matched what I have remembered already, but my thoughts are so scrambled I cannot make sense of them. I am afraid. What if I am losing my mind? It seems the more afraid I grow, the more my mind goes berserk.
September 6th, 3235
I am no better. In fact, I am worse, if that is possible. I wonder if this is normal. I have not told my Keeper, but he has been giving me strange looks. I am afraid of what the doctor may say if he comes to see me.
September 7th, 3235
Do I dare look in the mirror again? Do I dare think it might help? It will probably only make it worse, but I cannot help but think that seeing myself might give me a visual aid for sorting my memories. I do not have the nerve today. Perhaps tomorrow ...
September 8th, 3235
Early this morning, before I could talk myself out of it, while my Keeper was still sleeping, I crept to the bureau, removed the hand mirror from the top drawer and stared into it.
Gazing back at me was the reflection of a hedgehog with deep red-brown spines and fur. His face was still scarred from the burns, and perhaps always will be. His spines were scarcely six inches long, and the ones on the sides of his head curved out slightly. His eyes were long and slanted, and his irises were dark red.
I put the mirror back, scrambled back into bed and whipped out my journal to copy this discription down, while I still remember it clearly. Sadly, it did nothing to help my memory, but I am no longer afraid to look at myself. I now look like someone who is recovering from an injury, not a walking corpse.
September 10th, 3235
Perhaps my mind is settling down, but one image keeps reappearing above all the rest--a lizard. A reptile bigger than a house, without eyes, or lungs, or ears, but with a gaping toothless mouth. It pursues me endlessly through the swirling darkness, ever on my heels. In one dream I even grew wings and flew away, but the lizard was still there, bigger and even more horrible. I am almost afraid to go to sleep tonight. It seems to haunt even my waking hours. Perhaps I must come to grips with it to make it stop. But I wish I knew how.
September 11th, 3235
It must stop, it must stop! I can't take this! The dreams, they keep coming and coming and I can't stop them! I cannot distinguish between the waking world and the dream world, it is all insanity and darkness and fear and the girl is crying my name ... what it is I cannot tell, but it is driving me wild. Perhaps my Keeper should call the doctor. I am afraid of what is happening. I am afraid. I am afraid.
September 12th, 3235
Shadow. Shadow. My name is Shadow. Shadow. Shadow. Shadow. I must capture it. I must record it, where I will never forget it. I must not lose this precious thing, my name. For what is a person without a name, but a nonentity, a mere animal that creeps the earth without conscious thought or merit? This one thing has finally resurfaced. I was once called Shadow. What I am now is something new. The girl was calling me Shadow. Over and over she said it ... but who she is, and why she said it, I don't know. I only know that I am Shadow, a hedgehog who passed through fire and lived, a hedgehog who is trying to remember what he was before the fire.
September 15th, 3235
Even though I repeated my name, or what I think is my name, over and over to myself, nothing else made sense until today. Today I remembered falling, before I was burning. There was no air in my lungs. The sky was black, and I could see the whole planet spread out below me. I was falling into it at thousands of miles an hour. And then I struck the atmosphere, and I was burning, and screaming, although I could not make a sound, and it all went white.
...
By all rights I should have died. I was in space. I was incinerated. I can remember nothing between when I lost consciousness, and when I awoke and stared up at my Keeper through glazed eyes. Did I die, and somehow return to my body? What happened that kept me from dying?
September 16th, 3235
There was another hedgehog. He was blue. It's another memory that has surfaced from behind the terror of the giant reptile. I can only remember his color. His face swims in and out of focus--I cannot picture him. Perhaps he died, as well. My memories are still scrambled, and at times I still feel the overwhelming terror of things I cannot remember. They say ignorance is bliss, and I think I agree with them. It certainly is bliss compared to the Hell I am living in.
September 18th, 3235
The wind is blowing. I can hear it roaring in the trees around the cabin, and hissing through the shingles like an old man whistling with broken teeth. My Keeper is snoring on his bed, curled into a great furry ball. I am sitting on the floor with the frog beside me, writing. It is almost night, and we have already eaten dinner. The doctor came today, and for the first time I am at peace. I told him what I was experiencing, and he expressed approval. It seems that with the kind of trauma I have suffered, such a recovery is normal. The relief that I am not going insane is so soothing in itself that at once my mind slowed and calmed. It also brought a weariness, and the peace to notice my surroundings once more, and write of them.
All day long the wind blew, hurrying the white clouds across the sky, and tossing the trees to and fro. I went on a walk through the woods, just to watch the movement of the trees and feel the wind tug at my fur. I am not going insane, and my memory will return. My fur is growing back. My name is Shadow. I am at complete peace.
September 19th, 3235
Today it is raining. It is pleasent to sit indoors while the rain drums on the roof, and look out at the wind-tossed trees. The monster in my past no longer holds any fear for me. Well, perhaps a little, but not as much as it did. I am resting, and with the rest comes the memories in a steady trickle. But they are so painful to me I cannot bear to write them here, where someone may read them. Perhaps later. When their sting has faded.
September 21st, 3235
My spines and fur have gained another inch. I am distinctly dark--I am a black hedgehog. But there are stripes along the tops of my spines that are still red. I have markings! I don't recall ever noticing it before. I also remember that I had things on my wrists and ankles that are gone now. I remember them causing me a lot of pain shortly before I faced the lizard, but I don't remember what happened after that. I will, in time. I must simply remain paitent. I also examined my shoes again and recalled that they were hoverskates. I always skated everywhere I went, which explains why I still cannot run without difficulty. My muscles were not trained to run, they were trained to skate. The more I remember of my previous life, the more it feels odd to merely walk.
September 22nd, 3235
I will be abscent for a week. My Keeper is making his annual trip into Sapphire City, and I am well enough to go with him. We will be buying supplies and sell some of the fish he is always catching. I never thought about how he makes his living before. I am excited as I was about the camping trip, but in a different way. This is a city of humans and Mobians. A city in the human colonies. I will write a full report when I return.
September 30th, 3235
I should never have gone.
Our errends were done by the third day, so my Keeper, in the mood to have a little fun, took me on a tour of the city. I was amazed at the sheer number of people, and the height of the buildings, and the speed of the vehicles that filled the streets. It was noisy, and chaotic, and full of bright colors. The first day I tried to look at everything at once and wound up exhausted. But by the third day I had grown somewhat used to this big place and its sights, even if I still felt somewhat bewildered.
We took a taxi down the Speed Highway, and I had visions of running along it at night, pursued by screaming jets with missiles and bullets.
We went to a shopping plaza, and ate lunch under the sunny skylights, and watched the people go by. I am so accustomed to fish that it was a shock to try new food. After the initial disgust wore off, I rather enjoyed it.
After that we went to the beach and lazed around in the sunny sand for the rest of the day. I have never seen so much water in my life, and I played in it until the sun sank.
The next day my Keeper took me to the Chao Co., promising that it was always worth the trip, and that he came every time. I went along with him, not really paying attention--I was still rather tired from my sightseeing of the day before.
We bought day passes and were directed to Garden 5 by a small blue creature called a Chao. Apparently in this place the residents take turns managing guests. It struck me as odd, but my Keeper was not perturbed by it. Nothing else was strange until we stepped into Garden 5.
A chao garden is a grassy yard surrounded by a high stucco wall. There are many shade trees, often a fountain, and toys for the chao to play with. There are also benches for the visitors to sit on. We were let through the gate by a guard--they seemed to have tight security at this place--and walked out toward the brightly-colored creatures, who were delighted to see us. They were red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and combinations of all five. I saw black ones with stripes, and white ones with bright markings. There were horns and claws and wings, fur and scales, feathers and dolphin-like skin. They were all about a foot tall, and all quite friendly.
Then a black one with orange stripes on his head gave a strange cry. The other chao turned and looked at him, but he was staring at me with his little mouth open. The garden fell silent, as if the chao sensed something important was about to happen. They moved away from us, leaving a clear space between us. I looked hard at him. Yes, I had known a black chao, once ... but he vanished from my memory as if he had died.
Now he was walking toward me, and his eyes were filling with tears. "Shadow," he said. "Shadow ..."
"Yes?" I said, still trying to place him. What had that chao's name been?
He walked all the way up to my feet, tears pouring down his face. "Shadow," he said again with a quaver in his voice. "Shadow, you're alive."
I crouched down and stroked his head. I couldn't remember him, although I knew there had been a chao. "What's your name?" I asked.
His lower lip trembled. "Don't you recognize me?"
I shook my head. He peered up into my face, then raised a little paw and touched me. "You're hurt," he said. "But oh Shadow, you're alive!" He flung his short arms around my leg and burst into sobs.
It distressed me to see his grief, and distressed me even more that I did not remember him. I felt a lump growing in my own throat as I patted him and whispered, "Don't cry. It's okay."
"But you're hurt!" he wailed. "I didn't save you! I thought I did, but you were still hurt! Oh Shadow, I'm so sorry!"
I didn't know what he was talking about. "What's your name?" I asked.
He released my leg and looked up into my face. "Nox," he said. "You named me after Darkness, remember?"
I didn't.
He touched my face with both delicate paws and frowned into my eyes. "You're different," he announced, the tears still standing in his eyes. "Your soul is changed. You aren't the ultimate life form anymore, are you?"
I was the Ultimate Life Form.
I felt as if my heart were being torn from my body as I bowed my head. Suddenly everything in my head--all the mixed-up images, the sounds and sights and smells--made sense. My entire quest for revenge flashed through my head. My foolish, angry, self-centered quest that wound up hurting everyone around me. I myself should have lost my life in the undertaking.
"No, Nox," I whispered. "I'm not the ultimate life form anymore." And I wept.
Footnote
I found Shadow's journal in Big's cabin a year later. Big gave it to me, but he wouldn't say anything about Shadow. Shadow is gone. Nobody knows where he is. I really want to find him, and ask him how in the world he survived the fall and everything. I mean, I saw him die. Or I thought I did. I have to find him somehow ...
But as for how he survived the fall through the atmosphere ... we may never know. All we know for sure is that Nox had something to do with it.
Shadow, if you get this back, please don't get mad at me for reading and writing in it.
Sonic
Transcribed by NetRaptor