Despair Resurfacing

Knuckles' P.O.V

The foyer we now stood in was just as dark and decayed as outside. Every object was broken and useless, the wallpaper was torn and dingy. And most unnervingly, there was what looked like dried blood smeared on the walls and splattered on the ground.

"That's not...blood, is it?" Amy asked shakily.

"I don't know." said Tails. "And I don't think I want to know."

"So, what do we do now?" Sticks asked.

Under normal circumstances, Sonic would know what to do. But he was still recovering from the zombies' attack on us and clearly couldn't work through what was going on. And besides, these weren't normal circumstances.

We weren't in our world anymore. We were somewhere completely different.

This was a world we didn't know, and had no place in.

"We appeared to have been taken here by some sort of dark power." said Tails. "If we can find the source, then maybe we can reverse it so it can take us back home."

"You want us to tinker with dark magic?" Sticks asked in disbelief.

"If it's what brought us here, then it can get us out of here." Amy said. "And it's the only chance we've got."

"Right." said Tails. "Then let's get looking."

"You okay now, Sonic?" I asked my boyfriend.

Sonic took a deep breath and nodded, then readied himself. Though I could still see traces of weariness in his eyes. He seemed so out of it, like he couldn't come to terms with what was happening, which was so unlike him. It hurt me to see him like this.

Sonic's P.O.V

The steps leading up to the second floor creaked and groaned under our weight. The hallways were just as dark and broken-down as the foyer-the rug lining the floor worn thin, the walls patched and peeling, the windows covered in an inch of dust. I looked out one as we walked past it, but I couldn't see much through the dingy glass. I couldn't get our encounter with the zombified versions of us out of my mind.

Were they still trying to come after us?

I didn't want to know.

The first room we entered was dark and bare, except for the scattered parts of some metallic object we couldn't place. A cone-shaped piece was stripped black and magenta, there were transparent pink strips, and an oblong silver part had traces of cyan that looked almost like eyes.

Suddenly, Amy gasped and knelt down and gently touched the parts. Her eyes turned glassy, and it was then that the rest of us knew where these parts came from.

"Bea." I whispered.

Amy started to cry, mourning the Bee Bot she took in and nursed back to health, but Tails put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hold on, Amy. It might not be her." he said. This caught all of our attention, even Amy's. "Those zombie counterparts of us were just different versions of us, we're the real ones. So maybe these are just the parts of another version of Bea, while the real Bea is back home safe."

This seemed to get through to Amy, because she had stopped crying and pulled herself back together. The rest of us silently agreed with Tails. It did seem like a good possibility-maybe this place, wherever we were, was just playing a cruel trick on us, trying to cause us pain. But we weren't going to fall for it.

As long as we were here, we wouldn't trust anything.

Suddenly, there came a painful scratching sound. Rotting hands were clawing at the window, trying to get in. I gasped as the glass shattered and grabbed Knuckles' arm, pulling myself closer to him.

And screamed as our zombified counterparts climbed in through the window and surrounded us.