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When the radio crackles to life, the convict is finally ripped from the spiraling of his own thoughts.
The sound snaps through the submarine— sharp, electrical, intrusive— and he startles despite himself, shoulders jumping as static floods the cramped space. For a moment, it’s just noise. Hisses and pops and distant murmurs that don’t quite form words. Then it fades again, leaving behind an even heavier silence. Good.
He exhales through his nose, grounding himself. He’s making progress. The map spread across the console confirms it… slow, agonizing headway toward his destination, but headway nonetheless.
All he has to do is grab a sample of that giant skeletal… thing… and then he’s home free.
Easy.
Simple.
Practically relaxing.
“The signal picks up this deep? Crazy,” the cobalt hedgehog mutters, a pen jammed between his teeth. He chews on it absentmindedly, like it might be what is keeping him tethered to reality.
The radio answers with a brief, violent burst of static blips and disoriented voices— too many, overlapping, warped beyond recognition— before the line cuts out completely. He glances over his shoulder at the speaker mounted high on the wall, eyes narrowed as if he’s half-convinced the thing can see him. The transmission bulb gleams faintly, reaching into the darkness like an outstretched hand.
Down here, light is scarce. The only illumination comes from the blinding flashes of the camera feed on the screen behind him, the array of light-up buttons and gauges to his front, and the meek, rhythmic blink of the speaker’s bulb. Everything else is shadow and rusted metal and the oppressive presence of the blood ocean pressing in from all sides.
But the prisoner asked for this. Convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, funneled through a system that never bothered to listen, this was his only option. Do the unthinkable. Take a submarine— the physical embodiment of an OSHA violation— and plunge it into the depths of the blood ocean. Gather samples of skeletal remains. Creatures long lost to time, to war, to age. Maybe all three. No one seemed particularly confident in the details.
“These samples are going to save our kind,” they told him.
Now don’t get it twisted— he doesn’t see himself as a hero. Never has. But when desperate times start screaming for one, he’ll step up to the plate. Especially when the promise of a home run comes with the sweet reward of freedom dangling just out of reach.
He hastily scribbles on the map in front of him, marking his progress with a sense of grim pride. Every line drawn feels like a small victory wrestled from this rusted hellbucket. The outer walls creak and bow as the endless tides of red press in closer, metal groaning under pressure like a living thing. He plasters some tape at the corners and adheres the crumpled map to the wall at some point, needing all of his meager desk space for further papers to document his findings.
He punches a series of numbers into the keypad with practiced urgency. The machine hums back to life, thrumming through the floor as the submarine lurches forward. He swivels in his chair and pushes up to his feet, sauntering to the opposite wall. He slaps a large, rectangular button that easily snaps another photo for him.
He glances back above the console. The porthole looks back to him with indifference. With that porthole sealed— glass no match for the crushing pressure at these depths— the camera is his only set of eyes.
The grainy screen lights up, revealing everything the submarine hides in plain sight. The rusty walls slick with condensation. The cluttered spread of buttons and levers laid out like an indecipherable altar. The speaker tucked neatly into the corner of the ship. But the convict isn’t looking about the cabin of the submarine. Ice spiders through his veins at the spectacle on the screen.
You’d think with modern technology they could afford a better camera. The fuzzy image does nothing to dull the dread pooling in his chest. Nestled into a rocky outcrop is something wrong. A creature— he’s certain of it. Its eyes burn through the sanguine sea, fixed directly on the camera. On him. Its body is incomprehensible, a writhing mess of tentacles and teeth that refuses to resolve into anything sensible.
By the time he snaps another picture, it’s gone.
“Did ya get shy?” he mutters, though his voice lacks conviction. He shakes his head and tugs at his ragged sleeves, smoothing his disheveled quills back with equally worn gloves; a rather rough attempt to stay grounded.
“They did not tell me there was anything alive down here,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. “Or am I seeing things?”
The walls creak again, louder this time, as if the blood ocean itself is listening— like it has an answer but no way to speak it. His pulse spikes. His quills bristle instinctively.
“C’mon, use your big boy words,” he sighs, spinning on his heel to head back to the helm, his rump meeting the swivel chair in front of the console. “I’m already losing it, talking to myself. Guess it doesn’t matter— if there is a monster out there, it can’t hear me.”
The radio on the back wall springs to life. He nearly falls out of his seat as static floods the air, thick and suffocating. Before he can even think of what to say, a shrill Beep Beep! sound from the side of the control panel has his eyes flicking upward. Just in time to see the oxygen gauge dip.
Three of four.
“Fantastic…” The static quiets, and then— against all reason— an unfamiliar voice cuts through the line.
“You talk too much.”
A masculine voice drips through the speaker, deep and rich, irritation palpable in every syllable. Definitely not anyone from above. The A.R.K. doesn’t have many occupants these days, and he’d remember a voice like that. Most of what’s left up there he’s become begrudgingly familiar with.
He shakes the thought away and refocuses. “You can hear me? Okay, yeah— great. I’m already going crazy. They didn’t mention a guide once I got this far down. But they also didn’t mention creatures, so… here we are.”
The line crackles harshly before the yellow light blinks again. “They don’t know of me. Just like they don’t really know of you. Now do they, Sonic?”
He tilts his head. “Guess you’ve got me there. You from the other station? Who are you?”
Sure. Why not. Let’s talk to the definitely-real and not-at-all-hallucinated voice coming from the radio.
Silence stretches uncomfortably long. Long enough for the familiar dread of isolation to start creeping back in. Just as he opens his mouth to fill it—
“You can call me Shadow.”
“That answered none of my questions, technically,” Sonic says, brow furrowing as he swings one leg over the other.
“It matters not,” Shadow replies. “We have a goal to complete together. You need only hold it together a little longer. Then you can rest.” The words are measured. Calculated. Not unkind but not warm, either.
Sonic’s fur prickles. He exhales sharply, emerald eyes wide at a realization, like an unfinished puzzle with the border pieces put into place.
“How did you know my name? They never asked me for my name.”
The speaker hums before releasing an ear piercing shriek of feedback. “Will you help us? I’m not far from you. I can give you directions.”
Sonic scrambles back to the opposite wall, slamming the large button again and again. The screen flickers to life, showing what looks like long-dead flora— shades of green and black bleeding together in a muddy blur.
“Give me an answer, Sonic,” Shadow says. “You can either die down here for nothing… or die down here after serving a great purpose.”
“No,” Sonic snaps, stomping toward the speaker and jabbing a finger at it. “I’m gonna get the sample, they’re gonna pull me up, and it’s gonna be great.”
Shadow’s voice drops an octave. “Why don’t you look at the cargo beneath you? Convince me you weren’t sent on a one-way mission to hell. Try to keep yourself convinced.”
Sonic’s ears flatten to his skull.
Has Shadow been here before— or is he just…
The hull shudders violently. Sonic loses his footing and stumbles back towards the console as the submarine groans in protest. The ocean swirls audibly around him, pressure screaming against metal. He staggers back up. Then a warm splatter lands on his forehead. Then another. His eyes trail upward to a thin crack in the ceiling, crimson seeping through.
“Am I leading you there or not, Sonic?” Shadow asks calmly. “Let me guide you.”
Blood pools on the floor. Sonic scrambles for the hatch, fingers slipping as another quake hurls him across the tiny cabin. He slams into the opposite wall, air ripped from his lungs, vision dimming at the edges.
“Stop wasting time,” Shadow chides. “Don’t be so clumsy. Just go beneath and cross the wires.”
Something snaps. Sonic growls like some sort of wild animal. He rips the fire extinguisher from its casing and hurls it at the speaker. It sizzles on impact, then pops loose, clattering to the grate below, metallic, echoing vibrations shaking through the death trap.
“Fuck you, man!”
Beep Beep!
“How is the oxygen already this low?!” He pants as he crawls back across the cabin, slapping the capture button again and again.
The screen fills with the tentacled creature’s burning gaze.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
Somewhere in the strobing chaos, it retreats.
Sonic dry heaves, stomach twisting painfully around nothing. The ocean warbles around him, bubbling and swaying the submarine. His ear flicks, straining for any sound that doesn’t belong.
The world flips. His head collides with the ceiling, inches from the bleeding crack. Darkness blooming in blotches throughout his vision. Loose objects fly— pens, the clipboard, the extinguisher—
The last thing he sees before everything goes black is the camera screen, blazing bright, snapping photo after photo on its own from across the room.
The first thing he sees when he’s ripped back to consciousness is nothing.
Not darkness, exactly. Darkness implies space. This is absence. A swallowed void pressing against his eyes no matter how wide he forces them open. The smell hits him next, sudden and violent, metallic and wet. It coats his throat, making him gag before he can even draw a proper breath. Blood. Too much of it.
He shifts instinctively, wobbling forward, and the floor gives way beneath him with a sickening slickness. His paws skid out from under him, claws screeching uselessly until he catches himself just short of slamming face first into the metal. The surface is slimy, even warm in places. He freezes, heart hammering, suddenly very aware of how close the walls feel, like they’ve crept inward while he was unconscious.
It takes a few seconds too long for him to realize someone is talking at him.
“Convict, can you hear me?”
The voice snaps him upright. He whips his head around far too fast, dizziness washing over him just as the bulb above flickers back to life. Yellow light spills weakly across the submarine, revealing streaks of red smeared along the walls, the casing behind him speckled like something burst.
“No way, that’s impossible,” he blurts, voice hoarse. “I broke that.”
“Broke it?” The man’s gravelly, irritating tone crackles through the speaker, distorted yet unmistakable. “Rodent, pull yourself together and get that sample!”
The convict shakes his head hard, way too hard. Warm droplets splatter behind him as his vision swims. “How is that… I must’ve really been knocked out.” He swallows, breath coming faster now. “I’m on it, Egghead. Quit riding me. The sub’s taken on a leak somewhere.”
“Then go to the crawl space and fetch the repair kit,” Eggman snaps. “We don’t have time for this.”
The words crawl space settle unpleasantly in his gut. He squints toward the speaker. “And then I’ll be free?”
The silence stretches. It presses. Each second crawls by, thick and heavy, until he’s convinced the speaker’s dead too— that he’s been talking to a ghost in the wires.
“Then you’ll be free.”
Ivo’s voice returns, barely there, the last word clipped as the signal cuts. The bulb dims, flickers once, and dies, for what he hopes isn't for good.
Darkness slams back into place. “So much for that,” he mutters, though his voice wobbles, despite himself. He drops to his knees and starts wading blindly through what feels like at least an inch of lukewarm blood, the liquid tugging at his fur and tattered clothes with every movement. His paws finally collide with metal— the hatch.
“That’s right! The hatch…”
The same one Shadow mentioned. The same one that was supposed to hold the truth. To let him in on the secret of if this is a one way ticket to hell or a hero’s gauntlet. His chest tightens. No—
No, that was just a dream. A nightmare stitched together by pain and too little air. That’s all.
Still, the loneliness creeps in anyway. Sudden and sharp, like waking up after a night out and realizing everyone’s gone home without you.
“Eggman?” His voice echoes strangely, swallowed by the cabin. “Hello… Ivo? Who is Shadow? You told me I was on my own. Why did you lie about even that? How can I trust you?”
Nothing answers. No static. No hum. Just the sound of his own breathing, too loud, too fast— bouncing off metal walls that feel closer than they did even just a minute ago.
Right. Lights first. Then he can check the oxygen gauge. And where the submarine landed. If it even went spiraling downward to begin with…
When he releases the hatch, a weak, flickering light trembles beneath him, as if unsure it wants to exist at all. The rug of blood pooled beneath his knees finds the opening immediately, threading through the seam and dripping into the crawl space below. It slicks the metal, turning what little room there was into something tighter, wetter— hungrier.
“Here goes nothing,” he mutters, voice echoing in the metal shell. “Or everything.”
The convict slides down headfirst. Gravity takes him for a second too long before his shoulders catch, and he has to shimmy the rest of the way through, breath hitching as the walls press in. He doesn’t so much land as flatten against the floor below. Every movement forward is earned inch by inch, metal scraping against his elbows and knees, the sound shrill and intimate in the enclosed space. There’s nowhere for the noise to go. It just stays with him.
Time stretches. The crawl space seems to lengthen the longer he’s inside it. By the time he reaches the far end, he’s convinced it’s narrowed. There isn’t room to turn his head properly, let alone roll over. The thought of a full-sized human attempting this space borders on absurd. They would’ve gotten stuck. They would’ve panicked. He swallows, throat dry, and keeps still for a moment longer than necessary.
At the end of the line sits a fuse box. Above it, a single bulb glows sickly yellow, dimming with every breath the submarine doesn’t take. How generous, he thinks, staring at it. A luxury.
He flips the panel open. Burn marks halo several switches, blackened and brittle, and inside is a nest of wires. Way too many, tangled and senseless. Whoever put this thing together sure did a hack job. Most of them don’t even lead anywhere. As he shifts his weight, a small scrap of paper slips loose from the cluster of wires and flutters down, landing on the blood-soaked floor beneath him. He freezes, then stretches as far as he can to see it before it dissolves entirely.
The words are scrawled and uneven:
Cross the wires — SM01
“Which wires?” he whispers hoarsely. “There’s so many… Wait, isn’t that what Shadow said to do?”
The paper absorbs the blood greedily, the ink bleeding out until it’s nothing but pulp. Whatever hope it held goes with it. He lets his head rest against the cold, sticky floor, eyes unfocused, chest rising and falling in shallow, careful breaths. The crawl space feels like a coffin someone forgot to seal.
He isn’t sure how long he stays like that before the bulb flickers overhead, briefly brightening, as if to remind him it hasn’t forgotten he’s here. That he still has work to do. Threatening to plunge him into darkness if he doesn’t hurry it up already.
With a quiet growl, he forces himself forward. Sorting the wires takes longer than it should— hands shaking, vision swimming in the low light— but eventually patterns emerge. Circuits. Intent. He isolates them until only two wires remain, their copper ends exposed and waiting.
“Well,” he murmurs, voice barely there, “here goes nothing.”
His fur bristles the instant the copper touches. The submarine lurches, shuddering back to life with a mechanical groan, and light floods in from behind him. It’s almost blinding. Relief hits him so hard it draws a shaky laugh from his chest, and for a second, a smile splits across his muzzle.
Now to check the coordinates. Oxygen gauge. Easy.
He tries to lift himself but the walls don’t move. Reality crashes back in. He’s still trapped. Still wedged in this narrow throat of metal. The crawl back feels longer, slower, every backward shuffle scraping nerves raw. As he kicks his hind leg up toward the hatch, something catches his eye. A something that wasn’t visible before along the wall ahead.
A box. Sleek. Black.
He snatches it by the handle and hauls it up with him into the main cabin after several minutes of shuffling backwards, the convict’s muscles burning. Most of the blood has drained into the crawl space now, leaving the floor slick and treacherous but mercifully clearer. His emerald eyes sweep the cabin, finally landing on the oxygen gauge. “There’s no freakin’ way…”
Full. All four pale, greenish squares are filled to the top, glowing softly back at him.
Aside from the chaos of items strewn across the cabin, everything appears… functional. Switches sit where they should. Panels hum softly, obediently. The submarine isn’t dead— it’s wounded, but alive. That realization lets something dangerous stir in his chest.
Hope.
It wriggles back into his heart. His blue quills ease, just a fraction, and he exhales as he lowers himself into the swiveling chair welded to the floor. The metal is cold through his gloves. Solid. Real. For a moment, it almost feels like control.
He studies the he map taped crookedly to the wall, corners curling as the masking tape gives up one sticky breath at a time. Lines blur together, routes looping in ways that don’t feel natural. He traces them anyway, committing landmarks to memory that may or may not still exist. After a beat, he leaps up and takes the few steps that are required to get to the camera’s feed, reaching up to smack the panel with the flat of his paw.
Nothing.
He hits it again. Harder. The monitor crackles, then sputters to life; and whatever image is produced sends him scrambling, the back of his knees colliding harshly with the chair. His heart leaps into his throat.
It was only there for a millisecond. One frame. A glitch. Static misbehaving. But he knows what he saw.
An eye. Too close. Too large.
It stared straight out of the screen, round and wet and impossibly aware— peering back at him. The monitor settles into harmless grain again, buzzing softly, as if pretending nothing happened. The silence afterward is waaay worse. He stands there, frozen, listening to the quiet whirr of machinery and the distant creak of metal under pressure, wondering if the camera is broken… or if it’s finally showing him something he was never meant to see.
“Focus.”
The word snaps Sonic back into himself. The chair bites into him as he drops, tush hitting the springy cushion a little too hard, the recoil jarring up his spine. Metal creaks beneath the sound, protesting the sudden shift.
Sonic drags in a breath that scrapes on the way out, then laughs— thin, hoarse, more exhale than sound. His smile stretches across his muzzle anyway, relief flooding fast and dizzying. “Shadow?” His voice comes out higher than he expects. “Man, am I glad to hear you. I—” He swallows. “I thought I made you up. Like a dream. Or—”
A soft chuckle crackles through the line, stopping Sonic from his ramblings, dead in his tracks. “You sounded pretty pissed last time we talked,” Shadow says mildly. “Now I’m your dream boy?”
Sonic’s brows knit, the movement pulling at his scalp in a way he suddenly becomes aware of. Of the way the chair cups him. Holds him.
“Water under the bridge,” Sonic assures, forcing lightness into it. “You were right about the wires. And I found the box.” His gaze flicks, unbidden, toward the corner of the room. His throat tightens. “Is that the cargo you meant?”
The line goes dead silent. Not static. No disconnect. Just… nothing. Sonic counts his breaths before the silence presses too close.
One. Two. Three…
“Look inside when you’re ready,” Shadow says at last. His voice is crisp, clear. “For now, we need to get back to work.”
Sonic lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been rationing. It leaves him a little lightheaded.
“Right. Yeah. You’ve got coordinates?”
Another chuckle. It brings a warmth to Sonic’s cheeks that is anything but welcome. “I do.”
Hope coils tight around his chest, squeezing just enough to hurt as Sonic turns back to the control panel. The movement feels slower now. He swallows hard, the image of that huge eye still burning behind his own, no matter where he looks.
“Lay them on me,” Sonic’s paw hovers over the coordinate panel shakily, expectantly. “Wait! The ceiling, I still gotta patch it.”
Shadow has the audacity to grumble. “Do what you must, but don’t waste too much time.”
Sonic flicks the steel box open with much enthusiasm. Inside is a few items of interest but for now, his focus zones in on the repair kit.
Blood beads along the ceiling seam before it dares to fall, each drop swelling fat and crimson in the dim light. Sonic presses the patch up with an unsteady paw, digits already numb, an odd sensation to pair with the heating metal of the ceiling. The space forces his elbows in close, shoulders hunched, spine protesting as he stretches just enough to reach. A drop slips past the seal and splashes against his glove, scaolding even through the material. He hisses through his teeth, heart stuttering, and shoves harder, smearing sealant into the crack until it oozes back at him like something alive.
The submarine groans softly around him, a deep, stressed sound that vibrates him down to his very bones. Sonic freezes, breath caught halfway in as he awaits the decision of the hull— whether or not it will hold. The drip slows. Stops. For now.
Sonic leans back into the chair with a shaky breath, muscles burning. “Leak’s patched,” he says, forcing cheer into it. “If we spring another one, I’m officially charging extra.” As if the payment was anything monetary.
A pause. Then, softer than before, “Good work.” The words land heavier than they should. Sonic swallows.
“You sound surprised,” Sonic says, trying for a grin he knows Shadow can’t see.
“I’m impressed,” Shadow replies. “Your speed is remarkable. I think most people would’ve panicked.”
Sonic snorts. “Hey, I panic very efficiently.” His digits curl against the armrest, still slick with sealant on the surface of his gloves. “You always this flattering, or am I getting special treatment?”
A low hum of amusement rides the line. “Maybe I like the way you actually focus when you’re scared.”
Heat crawls up Sonic’s neck. He hates that Shadow can hear it anyway, what with the hitch of his breath, the way his laugh comes out a beat too fast. “That’s creepy, dude!”
“And yet,” Shadow says calmly, “you’re still listening to me breathe.”
Sonic stills. He hadn’t realized he was matching the rhythm of the voice coming clearly through the speaker until it’s pointed out. His chest tightens— not entirely with fear.
“…Yeah,” he admits quietly.
“Good,” Shadow says. The sad excuse of a submarine creaks, metal settling around him like a held breath. “Stay with me. I’ll tell you when to move.”
Hope flares again, sharp and dangerous. Sonic fiddles with his sleeve, the cabin feeling impossibly tighter than before. And, despite his usual antics of being rebellious for the hell if it, does exactly as he’s told.
“Come find me, Sonic.”
The words slide straight under his skin. Sonic bites back the snark on instinct, jaw tightening before he can stop himself. “Coordinates, Shads,” he says instead, lighter than he feels.
The world narrows. Slows. He becomes painfully aware of the ceiling hovering just above his quills, of the way each breath has to be taken deliberately— drawn in, let out, like the air might run short if he’s careless.
Beep Beep!
The sound makes him flinch. Oxygen down to two notches.
Numbers follow, Shadow’s voice steady as a metronome, and Sonic punches them into the keypad with quick, practiced motions. The machine shudders as he shifts it into gear, metal complaining loud enough to feel personal. For a moment, he thinks it might refuse him.
It doesn’t. The sub lurches forward, carrying him deeper, farther down winding caverns, toward a signal that promises he won’t be alone down here.
The promise of finding Shadow starts to feel like the only option that makes sense. A living connection. A spark. Anything is better than dragging some fractured, ancient husk back to the surface and calling it a win. Home, he thinks, and almost laughs. Yeah. Right.
He steps back to the camera panel. His hand hovers over the capture button. The hesitation is thick, sticky, as if the air itself has weight. The screen blooms with an image that might once have been a forest? Twisted silhouettes locked in place, growth frozen mid reach.
Sonic swallows. Time slips. He isn’t sure when his thoughts thin out, when his body starts moving without him. Autopilot, maybe… or something quieter, more insidious, nudging him along while he’s distracted by his own breathing.
“Shadow?” His own voice sounds off to himself. “You still there?”
Nothing.
Cold rushes through him, his heart dropping to his stomach and away from the warmth quickly dissipating in his chest. “No— no, no, no…” When did the line go dead? The convict’s throat dries instantly, panic crawling up behind his ribs. The submarine drifts and then it hits something hard enough to stop the craft dead in its tracks. The impact is jarring and merciless. The inmate’s head snaps forward, forehead cracking against the camera’s monitor. White flashes behind his eyes as he yelps, recoiling, warm blood already slipping down between his brows. He doesn’t give himself time to feel it. He slams his palm down on the capture button, desperate, needing to see what he’s collided with.
The screen fills. It’s… the carcass. A cage of bones, ribbed and yawning, packed tight with rows of jagged teeth that curve inward like they were meant to keep something from escaping. Or entering.
His breath stutters. The submarine idles, humming softly, the sound suddenly obscene in the face of what’s drifting just outside.
He has a choice. The inmate could take a piece. Do exactly what he was told. Earn his way out, earn his precious freedom. Or he could find Shadow. Get to him. Help him. The thought latches on hard, immediate and desperate. The hedgehog doesn’t know how long he’s been down here. As time has gone syrupy, unreliable, but he knows Shadow’s been here even longer.
Surely Egghead wouldn’t mind a detour. Surely no one would fault him for prioritizing something alive over some ancient, broken husk. The convict’s fingers tighten into fists.
He leans forward, smearing his own vitality across the bright capture button, blood slick and dark against the plastic as he tries to grab one last image before turning back, before leaving it behind to find Shadow. The screen refreshes.
It’s gone.
The cage of bones has vanished as if it was never there at all. No drifting fragments. No shadow of mass. Just empty crimson liquid where something immense should be.
He hits the button again and again to nothing. One of the stills catches another submarine, not unlike his own, completely ripped to shreds. On the most intact side panel, clearly painted in bold letters it reads:
SM-01.
The note? The box, right. The truth. The convict whirls back to the black, metal case and flings it open. Inside are four items. A life jacket. Very, very funny. A stack of papers hastily stapled together. A flash light. And a bottle of water. The water is uncorked and drank immediately. He’s still wiping at his muzzle when he starts to thumb through the papers. Neat handwriting documenting what looks like a very long trip. It dates back several years. It’s signed, plain as day, by someone named Shadow.
Shadow, of SM-01.
The inmate— No. Sonic abruptly stands up, the contents of the box falling to the floor, breath coming fast. His pulse roars in his ears as he stumbles toward the porthole. Not the camera’s screen— a real window. Something solid between him and whatever this place is hiding just beyond the rusted hatch. He paws at it, frantic. Yanks. Claws. His dulled claws punch through his gloves, screeching against metal, sparks of pain shooting up his arms as he rakes at the seam. The submarine groans in protest.
Then it gives. The resistance vanishes so suddenly he nearly pitches forward. The hatch yawns open to reveal glass beneath. A thin, cloudy, laughably fragile sliver of a window. Something that should never have been all that stood between him and the pressure outside. He presses his bloodied pawpad to the glass, unsure of when he even shed his gloves.
Fine cracks spider outward beneath his delicately placed paw, whispering and spreading, each one a reminder of how little space there really is between him and the dark. Sonic freezes, forehead hovering inches from the glass, staring out into the waiting, open ocean of blood, acutely aware that if it breaks, there will be nowhere left to run.
His thoughts scatter to the winds. Freedom. The bones. Shadow. Making it out of this alive. Shadow. The documents. Shadow.
Shadow. Shadow. Shadow.
He squints, straining to make sense of the murky, blood tinted view. The world shrinks, his vision narrowing, and it feels like the whole ocean is holding its breath with him. Then he finds it.
Rather, it finds him. An enormous eye, impossibly large, drifts into view from the other side of the fractured glass. Not through a grainy photo, but real and right before him. The pupil shrinks, then widens, and locks onto his own. It blinks once. Twice. Each movement deliberate, slow, alien. Sonic freezes, every quill standing on end.
And then his world erupts.
Blood surges into the submarine as if drawn to him, rushing through every seam, every vent, pressing into the walls and floors as though the metal itself wants to merge with it. Sonic tumbles backward, hitting the floor hard, his heart hammering in tandem with the pulsing tide of warmth and wet.
Some part of him, the part that still clings to Shadow’s voice and the hope of the connection they share, something he at least hopes they share— it just feels right.
Right and wrong and whatever is left between collide all at once— yet Sonic doesn’t move. He just watches.
Something silky frames Sonic’s cheek. He inhales, bracing for the burn, bracing for sticky, hot crimson to flood his lungs, for the coppery choke of it, but the air that fills him is clean. Cool. Thin, maybe, but real.
With bleary eyes, he squints upward. The oxygen gauge swims into focus after a moment, its lights dim and tired. One bar left.
Not enough.
Not enough to get back to the surface.
He swallows, mind sluggish but already plotting. He’ll have to find Shadow, somehow. Board his submarine, cling to it if he has to, and then they can make it back together.
“Sonic.”
The voice is close. Too close to be coming through the speaker.
Before he can puzzle that out, something brushes the shell of his ear. Gentle. Warm pawpads rub slow, comforting circles along the sensitive inner curve, hitting that perfect spot that makes Sonic’s thoughts dissolve into static. He exhales, melting bonelessly into the plush, unfamiliar softness beneath his head.
His eyes adjust to the low light in lazy increments. He notices the uneven welds where the bottom of a chair has been fused too hastily to the floor. His head is resting against the seat, tipped at an awkward angle. Jeez. He must’ve wiped out hard.
…No, that isn’t right. His head isn’t in the seat. His head is in Shadow’s lap. And Shadow is giving him ear scritches.
“I haven’t felt this much like myself in so, so long, Sonic. Thank you.”
The words vibrate through him, low and steady, Shadow’s voice somehow smoother in person. Far less sharp around the edges, like it’s been softened by proximity. By honesty.
“Say my name again,” Sonic slurs, a dopey, unguarded smile splitting his face before he can stop it.
“Sonic.”
And Sonic laughs. No, worse. He giggles, light and breathy, like the sound surprises even him. “No one has called me by my name in so long.”
His gaze drifts upward at last, slow and reverent, finally taking Shadow in. He’s a hedgehog and the sight makes Sonic’s chest ache in a way he doesn’t have words for. Jet black fur catches the dim light, streaked with brilliant red. Not red like the blood ocean outside. Red like rose petals. Something Sonic has only ever seen in pictures.
Shadow’s eyes match the stripes, impossibly deep, glowing softly as they look down at him with such open care that it feels almost intimate to witness. Familiar, too. Sonic frowns faintly, trying to place it. Where had he seen eyes like that before?
The thought slips away as Sonic lazily lifts his arms, draping them around Shadow’s lithe waist. His digits trace along the subtle ridges of his spine, memorizing the shape without effort, until they settle at the small of Shadow’s back. The sable hedgehog’s fluffy tail lightly sways back and forth lazily. Sonic’s paws begin to knead there instinctively, slow and content— making biscuits, as some would call it.
Shadow doesn’t pull away. He isn’t wearing a shirt, just tattered cargo pants, frayed and hole-ridden, revealing patches of the softest fur Sonic has felt in ages. Warm. Comfortable. His boot taps on the floor once, as if to remind Sonic he’s not just a pillow to rest on. The cobalt hedgehog presses closer without thinking, anchoring himself there, like if he lets go he might drift off into nothingness again.
“How’d you get in here, Shadow?” Sonic murmurs, blinking up at him. “I thought the window broke.”
Shadow’s free paw begins to shift, slow and careful as it cards through Sonic’s quills, smoothing them back into place like he’s got all the time in the world. “You let me in,” he says gently. “Don’t you remember?” He smiles down at Sonic, soft and fond, a single fang peeking out from beneath his upturned lip in a way that feels almost boyish. Cute… Wisps of white fur spill from his chest, in the pallid light of the submarine, and Sonic can’t help noticing how impossibly soft it looks. Familiar. Safe. Shadow continues, voice warm.“You found me.”
Sonic hums, brow furrowing as he tries to line his thoughts up properly. Everything feels slightly out of order, like his memories have been jostled around. “Did I?” he asks. “I keep hitting my head. I’m not too sure.” He shifts weakly, adjusting his position. “We should try and find that carcass so we can both be free when we get back home.”
Shadow’s paw stills.
For just a moment, something heavy flickers across his face— old and tired and deeply sad. When he speaks again, his voice is softer, careful around the edges. “We are home, Sonic,” he says. “As much as I feel more like myself… more than I have in years…” He exhales quietly. “We have to stay here.
It’s where I belong now—
where we belong.”
Sonic shifts, untucking himself from Shadow’s lap so he can look at him properly. Shadow’s expression carries so much weight it makes Sonic’s chest ache. He looks exhausted in a way that goes deeper than sleep. Sonic realizes, distantly, that he feels it, too.
“…We can stay like this for now,” Sonic offers.
Shadow seems to ease at that, the tension melting into something gentler. “You’ll feel better if you close your eyes for a bit,” he says. “You’ll be free before you know it.”
Sonic nods, even though his head swims when he does. He pushes himself up on unsteady legs and staggers a few steps before sliding back down against the wall of the submarine. The metal is cool, solid— but not unwelcoming. Not when Shadow’s here.
He pats the floor beside him. Shadow looks at the spot, then at Sonic, wearing that same warm smile that somehow feels borrowed, like he’s playing a part he knows by heart. Still, he rises, boots dragging softly against the floor, and comes to sit beside him. And even if he seems disingenuous, the comfort of being with someone right now outweighs all of that. The shred of coherence slips away. Shadow is no actor, he’s with him.
Sonic wastes no time leaning over, resting his head against Shadow’s shoulder. Shadow’s arm comes up naturally, steadying him, holding him close. All Sonic has to do is get that bone fragment.
Then they’ll both go up to the surface. Then they’ll be free.
“Yeah,” Sonic murmurs, voice thick with sleep. “After a little rest… we can go.”
His eyelids finally give in, the weight too much to fight anymore. But he can still hear the dripping of the crimson nightmare that is the iron death trap taking on too much of the ocean. Even when his head feels as if there’s a thick cloud lodged between his brain and his skull, he can’t drown it out.
Shadow adjusts his grip, careful and protective. “Thank you for staying with me,” he whispers, resting his cheek lightly against Sonic’s quills. “Goodnight, Sonic.”
Beep Beep!
Beep Beep!
