Author's note: Written for the Kelviniana forum Dark Waters of Halloween challenge. The challenge version was lighter and shorter, but I have since expanded every scene for you to enjoy the story in its full bloom.

Reviews are greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog, related characters and locales are copyright SEGA.

VOICE OF THE NIGHT

Tails checked his radar. They were definitely heading in the right direction. Had Sonic not stumbled at every shallow mud puddle, the two would have been out of Lost Jungle by now. Traversing unmapped territory was more difficult than the twin-tailed prodigy had predicted. With nightfall nipping at their heels, he couldn't help a sense of urgency crawling up his throat.

"C-come on, Sonic. We're almost there!"

Sonic stepped into something ugly yet again. Those shoes weren't made for rainforest exploration, which seemed to interest his friend more than finding Shadow. He knew about Tails' ambitions in disciplines more complicated than building planes. Professor Pickle's influence on the boy burdened him to a raging crawl. Sure, Sonic tried his best to avoid sudden death in unnaturally large puddles, but was it really necessary to gather samples from every seedy tree?

A fungus was a fungus any way you turned it. To think some people felt proud from having their name written in fancy italics next to a picture of a slimy glob... Tails had to stop fooling around; he could have mucked about in the Mystic Ruins with equal usefulness to the world. He picked the wrong time to find a distraction.

The black hedgehog disappeared two weeks ago. Even though he was a loner, a close circle of people had limited means of contacting him. When everyone admitted simultaneous failure to do so anymore, alarm bells rang in Sonic's head. But it wasn't until Rouge's tracker vanished that they considered looking for him. Tails knew the tech behind the device. It was neither destroyed nor switched off. Just…gone.

Their only clue was a Chaos Emerald Shadow kept at his side. Eggman tipped them off about its presence in the jungle. He wouldn't say more about the gem's location despite being threatened with a moustache clipper. Apparently, his robots tried to nab the jewel, but fell to an unknown enemy. The doctor refused to discuss the matter any further. As soon as security bots broke into the improvised interrogation room, the kind doctor's disposition changed in favour of killing bipedal forest creatures.

Tails could work things out from there. The giant frogs that inhabited the jungle caused local weather anomalies when startled, so Eggman's noisy robots didn't stand a chance. He knew someone more resilient would rescue the jewel. In a twisted way, Sonic was doing the villain a favour.

The man's story must have had a lot of truth to it. One of Sonic's missteps splashed him face-down into a sheet of vines. Rather than soften the fall, the plants fell apart, revealing a deep watery sinkhole. Had the hedgehog been alone, he would have fallen into the pit like a pawn.

"Marco!" Sonic hollered down.

Tails sighed, pulling his friend back up. "Polo. Be more careful, Sonic. That rucksack I gave you has sensitive gear."

The fox walked behind him to check the clasps. Thankfully, everything was in good shape. Sonic hated water, which made him the best bet on keeping the equipment dry.

Sonic hummed amusedly. "I was careful till the food you put inside mysteriously disappeared."

"What?"

Blue Blur patted his stomach. Solving mysteries had always given him a generous appetite.

Tails frowned. "You were supposed to share!"

"Relax. You did say we're almost-"

The fox put a hand on Sonic's mouth to keep him quiet. Tails' ears were better at catching faint sounds. The fuzzy tips twitched to find the culprit, a giant frog. They couldn't risk a single croak while on the jungle floor, surrounded by tiny leaves just waiting to turn into fox squashing trees. Pieces of mangled robotics lay in the wet sinkhole, a good indicator of how unstable the soil around hypertrophied plants had become.

They stood silently for several minutes. Mosquitoes made the experience an abhorrent one. Sonic wanted to squash some bloodsuckers, but Tails warned him about the slightest wave.

Frogs or no frogs, his life depended on whacking the bugs off his body. No chance the little monsters would live after a taste of hedgehog blood. His friend was inclined to agree by whirling the tails to blow them away. Mosquitoes thrived in still water, which made opening the sinkhole a bad idea.

"Let's get moving."

It was music to Sonic's ears, yet he chose to stay behind. Tails wanted Sonic to lead him further into unadulterated foliage and was ready to usher him onwards. When he turned around, though, he immediately realised why the hedgehog had frozen in place.

A pair of yellow eyes stared at him from the hole's edge. They blinked once before the owner emerged fully, churning air in its bubbly cheeks. The giant green frog opened its mouth and levelled the nostril caps. A soft croak reached the explorers' ears.

Tails shot his head up. Clouds started forming. "I have a bad feeling about this."

The frog croaked again.

"Enough frogwatching, Tails. Let's get out of here!"

Sonic grabbed the fox for a quick dash through the bushes. By the time they rustled past, the frog was already jumping mad. Old vegetation grew ten times in size while tiny shrubs popped into great branches right before their eyes. The jungle maze wanted to imprison those trampling over its children.

What used to be a simple curve became a multi-layered zigzag. Sonic had to jump onto rail-like vines to slide through the gaps while avoiding hazards trailing from behind. With so much green all around, the blurry trip lasted until the first tree trunk pushed Sonic onto the unstable floor.

Tails caught him at the last heartbeat. Even though his tails had insufficient room to boost, they softened the fall enough for their equipment to remain intact. Sonic wished he could have said the same about his throat: he must have swallowed enough mud to bake a pie.

"We're here!" the fox exclaimed. The dirt covering his namesakes muted excess enthusiasm. It'd take hours to wash off…

Sonic coughed. He tore a large leaf out to wipe his mouth. "Happy for you. Where's here?"

The genius flushed with embarrassment. He was so busy paying attention to the emerald locator that he forgot to log the route. Then again, the way forward was contrived enough to make mapping useless. Vegetation behaved too unpredictably on ground level. Last time Tails visited the jungle, he stayed in relatively sparse areas cleared by Eggman's forces or high in the crown. The wilderness managed to surprise them even then.

"Shadow's Chaos Emerald is here, somewhere. As for our geolocation…" he paused. Tails took his rucksack off to rummage for a sat nav. "There we go!" The fox turned it on to tune into his favourite GPS network. An expression of glee melted in his mouth, leaving a sour aftertaste. He didn't expect a gadget to reject its master. Not even a petty loading screen. "Hmm…curious."

"Is that genius for 'bad' or 'very bad'? Curiosity kills."

Tails scratched the back of his head. "That's superstition. And it's nowhere near bad. I just need to replace the dead battery."

"For the battery, it is very bad. It's dead."

"That's not how…" he mumbled, fixated on the device. Tails looked up at Sonic, who was grinning cockily, and just took the hedgehog's supplies. "Alright, you win this round. But, I've got a spare, so we should see what's what."

That time, the device booted up. The manufacturer's logo zipped by in record time, which allowed Tails to enter his username and password. Once he clicked the confirmation icon, the prodigy flipped his toy backwards to share the success with Sonic.

"We are here," the fox said, tapping the rim, careful not to leave prints on the surface.

Sonic blinked at the pitch black screen. "Looks like where Eggman's plans end up, the gutter."

His friend hesitated to check the front again. Sonic's expression had more disappointment than the situation had warranted, in Tails' opinion. The sat nav worked perfectly throughout their flight to the jungle. Special precautions like hermetic anti-static bags had to protect the gear from environmental hazards. Tails realised dismantling the gadget would only invite the humidity inside. Though, he had to take the risk with the navigation tool. A technical survey would help him understand the extent of the damage. Several quick pokes with a multimeter delivered only more bad news: he was holding a paperweight.

The hedgehog kept poking his head behind Tails' shoulder during the process, but he didn't need to know the details. Tails sighed, clearing his thoughts. Explaining the situation would take too much time. Sonic was better off ignorant about the state of tech affairs.

"I need to unpack the big computery...stuff now. Why don't you search for the emerald without me? I'll be done in a minute."

Blue Blur had no objections to that plan. At least, he could have a free look around. They landed next to a clearing. A stadium-sized lake made it impossible for bigger trees to cover the view. Sonic hated water, yet he was dirty enough to consider a small wash. An ant colony may have snuck inside his shoe. In fact, Sonic was hoping it was just an ant colony. Did scorpions inhabit jungles? They better have not curled around his toes or something…

Sonic pulled a tree trunk closer to the lake and dropped a pair of fresh shoes next to it. The new socks were still connected by a label string, so he bit it in half before putting each in the shoe for safekeeping. Tails could amuse himself with spare power cells and whatnot all he liked; it was the shoes that handled the heavy lifting throughout the trip. The hero eyed the lake suspiciously as he sat down on the log to dispose of the old shoes.

His feet looked like a biological weapon of mass destruction.

Sonic almost giggled from what he was about to do, and shoved the naked feet in the water. "Oh, yeah…"

The pleasure was unbearable. Sonic wiggled his toes to make the gunk float away. He felt cool and fresh for the first time in the jungle. Not a care in the world, just a hedgehog and his peachy footsies. The dying sun gave the water a pink hue, a romantic colour that reminded Sonic of his objective. He would have washed his face as well, but Tails forewarned him about infectious critters that prowled in still ponds. Sonic shuddered from the thought.

Once protected by a pair of new sneakers, his feet were ready to dash around the lake. They weren't even close to the heart of the wilderness. Further into the distance, the trees looked downright scary. Not just because of weird shapes or narrow corridors in foliage that would squash an unwitting traveller on a whim. Those plants were alive, ever-changing because of those frogs. Sonic saw it before: supercharging one part of the jungle drove balance bonkers in other areas, and it was just the green frogs at work.

Thankfully, they hadn't seen the black variety yet. Traversing via a low route could easily turn the dash into a logger's nightmare with wood falling left and right. Sonic had the speed to make do, but not Tails. That's why he was happy to reach a clearing. The boy would be safe for a while.

It didn't take long for him to find the Chaos Emerald Tails was talking about. He wanted the fox to look at it himself. Sonic had a firm reason to.

"Minute's up, buddy!"

Tails ran towards him with a droopy nose. His machines must have played a trick meaner than Metal's usual knackering of Eggman's hairline.

"Ta-da!" the hedgehog exclaimed while gesturing at the find.

The boy's eyes lit up in a flash. The Chaos Emerald! They've found it! Miraculously, the mud didn't swallow it, so all he had to do was push some foul-smelling jelly off the tip to get it out. It took him a few good seconds to identify the goo. Frogspawn.

He shuddered, but remained positive about the prospects of gathering samples. "We did it!" Tails smiled at his friend. As he cleaned the emerald, the fox continued: "Humidity broke most of my gadgets, but I think I've found Shadow."

Sonic's grin crashed in no time. Shadow was in the lake.

"Don't you have a remote-controlled submarine or something?" he asked, and heard the obvious. "We can call Knuckles. He likes swimming."

"I told you. There's too much interference caused by weather anomalies."

Sonic was desperate enough to suggest asking Eggman to level the jungle and find Shadow's dead body. Rainwater must have pulled him down to the bottom many days ago, anyway.

Despite such theories, both of them knew Chaos energy levels inside the lake were simply too high. Tails felt a powerful presence in the depths. Sonic sensed it as well, only he could identify the source, having sparred with him many times before.

"Alright, why don't you do it?"

"I need to monitor the equipment. Plus, we have minutes till sunset. If you don't do this now, we'll need to camp out with those egg-laying frogs."

The hedgehog stomped his way back to Tails' knapsack. He had seen the fox put diving gear inside, completely disregarding Sonic's opinion on the issue. The little genius helped Sonic pull a mask around his quills and offered him a mouthpiece with a medium air cartridge.

"Should last you. Also, take this light." Tails clicked it on and off pedantically to make sure it worked. No hiccups. "Curious."

Sonic had his mouth full, so he couldn't interject.

"The good kind of curious. We're doing great!" Tails exclaimed louder than intended. "Sorry."

The diver had to bid his clothes adieu in exchange for a Chaos Emerald. Tails warned him about decompression if used deep underwater, but he could do with a backup plan.

"That son of a Robotnik owes me big time!"

The fox ignored the muffled snark with a thumbs-up.

Sonic's first steps as an aquatic being had a bumpy start. Who knew water made distance look funny? Annoyed by the medium, he swam onward, eyes wide for ultimate angst.

Alone on the shore, Tails had a moment to pick specimens of leftover frog eggs while taking quick glances at the water to check on Sonic's progress. The water-proof flashlight moved deeper at a healthy pace. What he didn't tell Sonic was that the handheld light also worked as a camera. The fox didn't know how long the signal would remain strong enough, but it offered some consolation following rejection from most of his electronic mates.

Sonic dismissed walking after the soft and sludgy ground let his feet sink ankle-up. Floating too close to the dirt caused it to mix with the water, making it impossible to see into the distance, but a higher path opened him to attack from all sides. Sonic really-really hated water. He needed special gear just to survive there while millions of harmful creatures felt right at home in the stuff. The hedgehog shuddered at the thought of what floated between his hairs.

Underwater weeds fortified a feeling of unease by casting blurry shadows when exposed by the light. Darkness would befall the jungle any second, but it felt way past midnight in Sonic's mind. At the rate he was going, he could have sworn the weird-looking brown strands of vegetation rarely saw light of day the way he knew it. Once he passed a wall of grimy plant life, Sonic had to turn off the light.

He would be blind without it, Tails thought.

The azure hero wished he was. Something moved in the distance. Threatened with drowning on the spot, Sonic didn't want to bump into a hazard. Whatever lurked out there obviously knew the place better than he did. Unless it was Shadow. In that case, he'd strangle him for the scare.

Humour helped his heart slow down a bit, yet only temporarily. Gushing sounds distorted by the water pummelled his eardrums. The pressure was enough to make him forget which way to inhale. Sonic coughed from the bitter water he swallowed by accident, realising it made him lose the oxygen tube. Squirming to grab it in the dark raised a blanket of dirt that lined the bottom. Sonic puffed up his cheeks and looked wearily at the light source. He had no choice. Sonic turned the torch on.

He grabbed the air supply when it was revealed by the glare, making whatever he had only alerted earlier fully aware of him. Sonic glanced around, chasing shapes in the dark, and got tangled up in a bunch of weeds in the process. Chaotic struggling wrapped the stalks tighter around his body, but he kept the oxygen tube firmly in his mouth to avert total disaster. To unravel, Sonic dropped the flashlight. Even though free hands tried tearing the long green tongues apart, the slippery plants resisted to a great success. Sonic fell victim to an elusive wet shrub despite seeing water as his real challenger.

As the light reached the bottom, it traced towards the water lurker's identity, a giant black frog. Frightened by the alien object, it croaked. The sound created a barely visible black bubble that quickly expanded to engulf the waterhole. Vegetation suffered from it the most. Leaves fell apart and stalks drew back into the ground.

Sonic was free. He hesitated, however, feeling for the Chaos Emerald. It was still in his possession. Good. An emergency would have to wait. The hedgehog decided to dive after the light. It was barely visible because of the dirt below. Sonic grabbed it to wipe the front, accidentally smearing it more. The water was dark enough without another setback…

The hedgehog swore in silence and directed the light source at the ground. As he moved it downward, the diode dimmed down, allowing him to see only black mud coasted up by his own commotion.

Tails could witness the phenomenon on his screen. The water barely made a difference to image quality, but pointing the device at the ground caused immediate static to appear. Something other than Shadow was in that lake. The fox pondered about the interference as he paced along the shoreline. Nothing extraordinary caught his view in the visuals. The bottom seemed rockier with increased depth, though.

Sonic found the change fortunate. Rocks meant less mud and clearer waters. Looking up, he no longer saw the sky, but he figured the lake held nothing truly worse than the dirty stew of invisible larvae and grime above his head. Shadow was close. He could feel it, invited by the depths. Sonic could also feel his oxygen clock ticking down, but the reward outweighed any risk.

The atmosphere kept morphing underneath his feet. The lake seemed small on the outside, so Sonic had been venturing on without much reservation. It wasn't until the flashlight malfunctioned that he thought about turning back. White light flashed red, powered down like the rest of Tails' gear.

At that point, Sonic realised the water got so dark he couldn't tell up from down. He took a deep breath and concentrated, trying to retain his cool. All he had to do to escape was move away from the source of Chaos energy.

Odd pressure built up under his skin during the ascent. It frightened the hedgehog, so he swam up faster, only worsening the sensation. A sharp pang made his arm twitch. The fingers tensed unnaturally, giving his palm a creepy shape. It got more extreme with every breath he took, the little that remained in the oxygen tube. Sonic heard popping noises. Another twitch of the arm sent the torch into a gradual fall.

It spun a dying glance at the bottom, exposing a shape as alien and unnatural to the water world as Sonic was. A fractured platform made of monolith stone unlike anything he had seen in the lake thus far. The light lingered by the breaking point before it toppled to descend further in a wild spin.

Fractures like that didn't appear on solid rock by themselves. Sonic dived downwards, disregarding sound judgement. By the time he started following the light, Tails started praying. His video feed went from bad to non-existent, but the things he saw during the camera's fall were enough to make him weep. Places like the one Sonic had found were not supposed to exist.

Professor Pickle had warned them about the undocumented dangers every scientist endured in Lost Jungle. The stories they brought back to civilisation had hints of the unimaginable, the unprovable and just plain wicked. Science mocked anyone willing to suggest a frog could alter the weather even though it was the only explanation to many anomalies in the wild forest.

No man had gone where Sonic swam into. He had to push the heavy slab aside to make enough room to swim inside the shaft it was covering. Like a slide down an ash-covered chimney, the descent made Sonic feel sick. He still breathed clean air from the cartridge, but even that couldn't prevent gooseflesh and great disgust for the environment. Whilst the elevator-sized shaft was made of hard rock, age and disuse covered it in strange slime to the point it looked more like an intestine than a man-made structure.

Shadow's Chaos footprint grew with every breath. Outside the structure, energy could easily spread thinly to alert only the most sensitive creatures. Inside, the waves were overbearing.

Sonic reached the bottom and eyed the pitch black surroundings for clues. The flashlight broke at descent. Its diode, still hot and red, offered Sonic the kind of minute light that let him proceed. There was only one way forward. The hedgehog swam along the walls, trusting the energies that surrounded him more than the eyes, ears or touch. Vibrations resonated freely from the distance, and Sonic had all the resolve required to tackle the source.

He grinned in complete darkness at the taste of impending victory, and bumped into a wall.

The hero moved away, confused. The source was right there in the open, but solid rock prevented his body from reaching the goal. Sonic felt the walls, checking corners and bends only to be assured the corridor ended abruptly. Was there another entrance? Or a secret switch…

His grin morphed into a scowl. Sonic didn't like the meticulous planning ancient builders went through before erecting the structure. Traps, secrets and puzzles awaited those not enlightened.

Tails didn't consider himself enlightened, but he was knowledgeable enough to wish Sonic got stuck and swam back. They'd return with a regiment of archaeologists, soldiers and a cement mixer to make sure the temple didn't see light of day outside a secured top shelf folder labelled "Secret". There was a reason to the frogs' behaving as they did. Tails felt stupid for not having realised it earlier. There's always a reason nature acted aggressively or unpredictably. The frogs were part of the equation, but the heroes ventured further despite obvious warnings, dodging local fauna like generic hindrances in Green Hill.

And they did it all for Shadow, a hedgehog who scarred the Moon and was on the verge of obliterating the planet. Tails felt an expedition would do his position in the world of science a great deal of good, so he paid little attention to details about Shadow's bitter past. No wonder Eggman was so quick to crack. The bastard knew.

Sonic wished he did, too. The dead end literally ran him up the walls and the ceiling. If there was a switch, the locals took good care of hiding it from outsiders. Still, if Shadow managed to get through, there had to be a way. The thought of being bested by a rival unnerved him along with the darkness, so Sonic took out the Chaos Emerald to use as a temporary light source.

Brilliant green emanated from the jewel. It quickly revealed the extent of Sonic's folly. The hall had neither a switch nor a lever. It was a physical barrier, the order of which could only be broken by Chaos. With the emerald activated, Sonic could proceed through an energy clearing to the inner chamber.

Once inside, Sonic whispered for the gem to ease up, forcing the bricks to materialise behind him. He saw a figure as dark and poisonous as the frog Sonic had encountered, but much closer to him in every other respect. He found Shadow.

The body lay prostrated on a rocky platform akin to the many Sonic had seen in temple altars. Sonic dashed towards him, emerald in hand, to rid them both of the watery prison. As he accelerated, however, the remaining light revealed they were not alone in the sanctum.

Black frogs, hundreds of them, veered from the darkness. Despicable amphibians responsible for destroying life on the surface stalked Sonic on approach. When he reached out towards Shadow, the idle spectators croaked in cacophonic rhythm. The sound resonated from the walls and mixed with its own echo as the frogs' withering effect amplified.

A single black frog could reduce a meadow to a lifeless field. An innumerable horde lodged in a small chamber had the potential to send a renowned hero into oblivion. The frogs must have knocked Shadow out, but they'd have no luck with Blue Blur. No. He came here to save a life by risking his own. No slimy tadpole would prevent him from accomplishing that goal.

The frogs sensed his dedication. One after another, they crept closer to the altar to stun the hedgehog with their vocal blasts.

Sonic grabbed Shadow's hand and prepared for an escape. Chaos Control would get them out in a blink. Sonic agreed to endure pressure sickness, the lesser evil.

The emerald glowed brighter despite being dimmed by destructive croaks when Sonic prepared to tap into its power. It would be a swift victory, Sonic thought.

He looked at Shadow one last time. His rival smiled at him in return, catching the hero off guard. The next thing Sonic felt was the diver's mask breaking and a pair of hands connecting to crush his throat. Blue Blur coughed for air only to lose the air cartridge. Before water could fill his lungs, however, the dark hedgehog threw him against the platform. Dazed by the despicable blow, he lost consciousness. The frogs, either scared or encouraged by the violent display, hopped away through many ethereal openings in the walls that the offspring of chaos could use.

Sonic didn't know how long he remained motionless. He woke up dry in a place dimmer than Lost Jungle on a starless night. Unable to see a single shape, he concluded it was indoors. Everything felt so weird: Sonic knew his eyes were open, but the darkness made it impossible to tell for sure. The overwhelming unknown cast a thick shadow over his limbs, making them impossible to see or feel despite being attached to the blue hero. A faint voice subdued festering confusion.

"Took you long enough, Faker."

It came to him in a slow and booming manner like during a hangover. Still, he managed to recognise a shape on approach. Blue Blur acted on instinct by attacking the spiny hedgehog responsible for the taunt, forcing Shadow to step away. Sonic gave him a bad cut with plenty more to come.

"That's for trying to strangle me!" Sonic exclaimed. He shook a fist at the look-alike. "And this-"

Sonic cut it short. He had hit Shadow, but the hand appeared see-through during the assault. Sonic blinked forcefully to clean the veil from his eyes. Good. It brought solid colour into the peach fingers. He must have been tired from the dive.

The minor setback made him lose sight of Shadow. Sonic turned around to find him, but avoided moving from the spot. Venturing into the dark didn't seem like a good idea. The last thing he wanted was falling into a bottomless pit.

"Where did you go? Show yourself, chicken!"

The hedgehog checked every direction, feeling heavy in the head, but light on his feet. So light he could have sworn they weren't there, as if his figure was floating above a fluid surface. Once again, Sonic closed his eyes to concentrate. His toes could wiggle. Everything was fine. Even if he didn't know the way out of the dark room, he'd gladly punch the exit out of Shadow.

In return, Shadow just laughed. His voice sounded much closer now. "Where? There is no where. This plane is devoid of space."

Each word brought the voice closer to Sonic. It was distorted at first, but every passing second made it more recognisable. Sonic didn't want the approach to continue. He felt heavy inside-out. Sonic would have leant against something to stay up. He tried to, just that his hand would disappear into the dark to the point of going numb as soon as he'd extend it for support. The room was giving him some claustrophobic fits that shouldn't have been triggered. Sonic put his palms on his elbows, shaken by a non-existent cold. There was no way Shadow could be so far in such an environment without something horrible happening to him.

"Gerald called it a Chaos Singularity, a spaceless prison created by the Chaos Emeralds. Everyone using them is destined to end up where you stand, betrayed by the power you considered good all these years."

He could tell Shadow was enjoying himself with the speech. The pleasure was twisted, however; the kind an ill person gets from infecting another. The Ultimate Life Form was very hurt and tried to hurt him in the process. What frightened Sonic for real was the fact how every passing letter boomed closer to his head. By the end of the sentence, the voice positioned itself right outside Sonic's mouth. There was no one in front of him, but Shadow's voice had already tickled his lips.

Sonic tried to ignore it. "Spare the story for Tails. I saw you walk around me just to be arrogant."

The black hedgehog reappeared fully in front of Sonic. A half-smirk adorned his face. His arms were folded behind his back. Despite an expression of cocky satisfaction, he refused to look into Sonic's eyes.

"You also saw me bleed from one of your lousy punches. When did that ever happen?"

Even though the hedgehog stood a breath away, Sonic could never see him speak. The voice was coming out of his own mouth. Shadow was speaking through him. The revelation would have sent his quills rattling upright had they not been straightened out in terror the entire time. Sonic didn't want to sound convinced by the trickery, so he stayed vigilant, and cocky.

"Pfft. Plenty of times," he thought instead of speaking. Sonic couldn't make a sound.

His companion's smile melted away as Shadow put his forehead against Sonic's, seeming troubled. "Time is right. It keeps me shackled, Sonic."

The words had a genuine complaint to them in addition to snide agreement. Sonic tried to move away to preserve his privacy, but couldn't. Wherever his vision would shift, Shadow stood there, as close as ever, and growing closer still. Sonic would have considered it suffocating, had he been breathing at all in the dark.

"What are you talking about?"

"You still don't have a clue, huh?" the counter question rang in his head. Sonic wouldn't answer even when the echo became white noise. "A hedgehog using something called Chaos Emeralds is clueless about the chaos they bring. You never cease to surprise me despite being pitifully predictable."

He was lying. The ungrateful jerk wanted to take him for a fool, but it wouldn't work. Sonic knew the emeralds had always served the good in everyone and ultimately led to the world being saved from innumerable disasters. Eggman, Metal Sonic, Black Doom and Dark Gaia fell to their energy under Sonic's command. Were it not for the emeralds, Earth would have been destroyed. The emptiness around him had nothing to do with the jewels. If anything, it had to do with the villains eager to spread such negativity. Sonic wouldn't take another second of the unknown.

The hero struggled to move. A single step away made his leg go numb. Defiant to break the influence, Sonic strode forward. What he saw in the depths forced him to backtrack. Sonic saw nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not himself, not Shadow, just an empty gap, and he could feel the barrier around the gap shrink. Something was happening out there, and he had to act fast if he didn't want to be engulfed by it.

"Only time is real in singularity. Everything else is fake. Like me."

Shadow dissipated in a blink, letting Sonic snicker inwardly at the remark despite his grim outlook. The dark hedgehog rudely re-materialised within arm's reach to interrupt. He never once dared to look Sonic in the eyes, though. Whatever Shadow was up to, he didn't feel proud about it.

"An immortal hedgehog has nothing to do with time. Immortals become trapped forever, no matter how powerful. Someone destined to die, however…" Shadow paused. His head lurched downward, outlining a grin as alien and sinister as everything else in the void. "Is my ticket back home."

Shadow's smirk withered away while he inched closer. The expression wasn't idle disdain he wore as a mask during conversation. From tiredness to bitter regret, Sonic couldn't decipher the reason behind the intimidating façade.

"Stay away!" he warned. Sonic wasn't intending to permit assault on his personal space, ready to ward Shadow off with a kick.

The foot sliced through Shadow without the faintest effort. He stood there, regardless. Shadow looked troubled. As he addressed Sonic, the words came from within the blue hero despite their source being outside. He hated that. Sonic wanted Shadow to get out of his throat, but was powerless to stop it. With every passing moment, the hedgehog felt more and more alien sensations surround him. The darkness was wrapping a tight circle around him, and Shadow was part of it.

"I've thought about this moment a lot. Even if it was possible to avoid, I think you should be happy to coexist with an immortal."

As he finished the speech, Shadow reached for his chest, pulling a bit of white fur away from the left side. Behind it, a pair of bony jaws cracked open in his ribcage. They revealed a pupil brighter than a Chaos Spear surrounded by a clouded green iris. It steamed negativity from within, a storm under fragile glass.

Sonic recognised it. The eye belonged to Dark Gaia, an evil supposed to be locked deep within Earth's core. A thousand questions spurred in Sonic's mind, but he dared not ask for whom the bell tolled.

It focused at the hedgehog, allowing a low, heavy voice to boom in his head. "I was dreaming long. An empty dream, a dream of destruction. Beyond chaos and darkness, an eternal dream. To think I could see you again. I dreamed of meeting you once more."

A touch away from Sonic, Shadow lifted his head, pretending to smile. "Don't worry. You'll learn to accept it in time. I'll show you the light."

The iris sparked in its round frame. The teeth that protected it rattled horrifically to get out, pressing against Shadow's broken ribs. They didn't care about the Ultimate Life Form. They wanted to roam free. Free inside Sonic.

It thrust out of Shadow, trailed behind by a string of hollow bone. The jaws sank into Sonic's skin, tearing inside. They crunched through tissue and bone, relentlessly spitting out the fleshy remains in a greedy, lustful display till they exposed what they desired, the hero's pure heart. Its presence was weak at first, almost see-through inside, but the voice of the night knew how to invite a mortal doomed to serve as another vessel for its re-emergence. Eggman may have woken it up prematurely, but every passing night allowed the darkness to fester above the planet's crust as well as inside. The result, broken up and ultimately defeated, left hundreds of clots scattered by the wind, too far to harvest, too weak to find shelter from the horrid sunlit days. It was a great fortune for a part of Dark Gaia to find its Shadow, a being both desperate and willing, traits bound within the hedgehog creature's vicious blood. Now, the blood nourished the unholy eye to rise in power and bring sustenance to its master in return.

The eye hissed at the exposed pulse, freezing the blue hedgehog's agonising expression. "The one which knows not despair, the one which showed me a nightmare. Let us walk the path of destruction together!"

Dark Gaia's eye lunged at it, the teeth slicing Sonic's arteries at their hinges before cutting it out completely. It chugged and shook as if the heart resisted its influence, but it was a matter of seconds until the pulsating organ was sucked out of Sonic's ravaged body in animalistic swallowing motion. The muscle twitched through the spinal notches all the way into the black hedgehog. Once the deed was done, the bones retracted, leaving no trace of their existence as the eye lodged itself back in Shadow's breast with the prize.

Finally, Shadow could feel proud. He did what was right by taking Sonic's heart away. Dark Gaia was compelled by the sacrifice enough to leave its imprint on the empty gap formed in the hero's body. It took not a word for an identical iris as bright as the one lighting Shadow's vision to open in Blue Blur's body. This was the final stage.

He's earned his freedom at last. An ageless being tainted by a mortal's heart and a mortal imbued with the power of a deity. They were free.

Back on the shore, Tails saw a pair of black frogs hop out of the lake. He ran away to the campsite he made up during Sonic's absence. The last thing he wanted was sensitive gear melting from a startled frog's croak.

He had to consider returning to the pond soon. With Sonic gone in the sunken temple for so long, Tails couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible happened. He trotted back, having found a spare flashlight, and shined it at the lake till the rays exposed two spiny shapes.

The fox concentrated on the figures sent adrift. What he saw got him to abandon the light and swim towards them. Tails trudged laboriously, a pair of wet hedgehogs under his arms. He was happy to bits about the horror ending with success, and scared just as much now that two lives depended on him.

Shadow winced when thrown onto the mud. Sonic showed no signs of life, though, so Tails ran to his aid first. He put the body on its side and pressed the lower jaw open. A mixture of water and soil poured out of his mouth, spilling down back into the lake.

As Tails felt his friend for a pulse, his mind burst in chaotic panic: the heart wasn't beating. Tails pushed against the hedgehog's moist chest, hoping his weak hands were enough to bring a hero back to life. He counted to three, and when he was about to open Sonic's mouth for a breath of life, the hedgehog jolted upwards, coughing up the rest of the dirt still stuck in his throat. The hedgehog gasped for oxygen, wheezing loudly, and dropped back into the mud. He mouthed the air like a drying fish while his hands covered his face. Decompression affected them badly. Sonic must have used Chaos Control to return from the very depths.

The fox resisted the urge to hug the daylights out of his hero. Instead, Tails put a hand on his shoulder. Sonic felt the caring touch. It helped him ease up, breathe smoother. Whatever he had experienced in the water must have drained him.

Once he lodged both hedgehogs in a small tent, Tails sat outside, arms curled around his knees. They'd have to spend the night in the jungle, and everything rested on him. Tails sighed, consumed in himself. When a third black frog hopped out of the lake, the fox didn't even flinch. There were other things to worry about, things dearer than a little genius' life.

A cough from the tent made him dart back in. Sonic was trying to move to his side. Without food or clean water, there must have been more ugliness stuck inside.

"Sonic! Sonic! Are you okay?"

Tails patted him on the back to ease the spasms. He was patient and caring to the silent friend. Sonic must have understood his worry as he took the boy's hand and settled down. Sonic's expression was that of alarm, but Tails knew it would soon melt away.

"Sonic, is there anything I can do to help?"

The hedgehog smiled warmly. He faced Tails even though he couldn't see the fox.

"Yeah," he said and pulled him closer to whisper into his ear. "I want you to see the light."

As he uttered the words, something pricked Tails' chest. A croaking orchestra silenced the screams. Tails' heart served a noble purpose.

Sonic crawled out of the tent seconds later. The sky was beautiful that night, just like the Chaos Emerald. At last, he could see the stars, vibrant and distant, flickering to his left eye. Inside it, a little boy's heart twitched for the beauty to exist a moment longer. It would expire from misuse. By then, however, Sonic would have more than enough people willing to live the empty dream, the dream of Dark Gaia.

"Those who have lured me into a dream of destruction, let us walk the golden path together."

Author's note: Dark Gaia deserves a bit of continuity for the premature awakening. I've decided to pull on some strings to make connections between the chaos Sonic sees in jungle levels and the Chaos the hedgehog wields. I hope you've enjoyed the narrative and are willing to review. Do it for the frogs, whichever side they're on.

Happy Halloween. Beware of heart-eating deities.