Pain of the Past

Knuckles' P.O.V

Sonic screamed as the zombie version of Tails grabbed him. I stopped his arm that swung to claw at my boyfriend and punched the zombie in the stomach, sending him sprawling to the floor. Sticks struggled as she held the zombie Amy at arm's length, but Tails swooped in and grabbed her from behind, allowing Sticks to smack her with her bo staff. My zombie counterpart was advancing on Amy, but Sonic recovered enough senses to spin dash him away from her.

"C'mon! Let's run!" he exclaimed.

We bolted out of the room, and I shoved an old bookshelf in place to barricade the door. We could hear the zombies banging on the door from the other side, but hopefully they wouldn't get out anytime soon.

Amy sighed. "Well, that was too close for comfort." she said. We all nodded in agreement.

Sonic's P.O.V

"Let's get away from here." I said. "Looks like they're gonna be stuck in there for a while, but we really shouldn't stick around."

"Couldn't agree more." Tails said.

As we walked down the hallway, I could still feel myself shaking from the shock and fear. I placed a hand over my chest and felt my heart racing. I took in deep, slow breaths, trying to calm myself. Knuckles took my hand and gave me a reassuring smile. I returned the smile because, although none of us knew if anything would be alright while we were here, I was grateful for my boyfriend's attempts to comfort me.

We were coming up to a slightly open door when from behind it came a sickening sound, like soneone getting impaled, only more metalic. We all flattened against the wall and listened.  These was the sound of shuffling footsteps, something sliding, a rustling that soon faded to dead silence. Tails and Amy, who were up front, cautiously peeked into the room, and their reactions startled us.

Tails gasped, and Amy screamed and held her hands up to her face.

"What? What is it?" Sticks anxiously asked.

Tails wordlessly pointed into the room, and the rest of us looked to see what it was. Knuckles and Sticks both gasped loudly.

"Oh my gosh!" I screamed, and desperately clung to Knuckles.

Inside the dark room, impaled against the wall by long swords, were Team Cybonic, our cyborg duplicates and allies from Robokin. Their eyes were half-shut and dimmed. There were huge slits on their wrists, and wires were spilling out of them. A grimy window on the wall to our left was open, which accounted for the sliding sound from earlier.

Tails examined Team Cybonic's slit wrists. "These are from Eggman's mind control wristbands." he said distantly. "When he used them as his soccer team to stop us from saving the fitness center."

I remembered that time. When our cyborg allies were turned against us and acted like total jerks. I remembered feeling so confused about why they were suddenly like this, until we finally found out the cause and saved them.

"Oh my gosh, guys." Sticks said, looking frightened. "I think I know what happened here. Those zombie versions of us. Maybe they broke out sooner than we hoped. And then they made it here before we did and killed Team Cybonic. Then they slit their wrists and left their bodies here to rot, and now they might be coming after us again!"

"I never though I'd say this, but I think Sticks might be right." said Tails. "We need to keep moving, find the source of dark magic so we can reverse it and get out of here."

Knuckles' P.O.V

We didn't encounter much as we continued along this floor of the manor. But then we came to a division: to our left was a staircase leading down, the bottom lit by sickly green light, to our right was yet another hallway, with no light we could see.

The choice was obvious, we were going down towards the light, which hopefully meant safety.

Grimy lanterns set in the white brick walls lit the tunnel we walked trough with the dreary light. The place didn't smell very great either, the stale air carried a damp, sour oder. The walls were stained with dried blood splatters, just like in the foyer, but we tried to ignore them. We turned right as we passed a brick wall.

And were greeted by a deep walkway full of water.

Instantly, Sonic began to gasp for breath. I took his cold, trembling hands in my warm, steady ones.

"Sonic. Sonic, it's okay." I said, trying to comfort him. But he didn't seem to be listening.

"No." he kept saying and shaking his head. "No, no, no."

"Sonic, it's our only way to get across." said Amy.

"I could fly us all to the other side one at a time," Tails said, "but that'll take too long, and I have a feeling we need to hurry. So we're gonna have to swim across."

"I don't see anything lurking underneath." said Sticks. "So it should be safe to swim through."

"Hop on my back, Sonic." I said. "I'll carry you across." He hesistated, looking nervously at the water. I gave him a quick kiss. "It's gonna be okay, babe."

I didn't know that for sure, but it all I could think of to calm Sonic down. It seemed to work a little bit, because although he still looked scared, he nodded and climbed onto my back, wrapping his arms and legs around me.

"Okay, let's go!" said Tails, and we dove in.

Sonic's P.O.V

I tried not to squeeze Knuckles too tightly in case I hurt him, but I was petrified beyond rational thought. We were drawing closer to solid ground, but the stretch of water seemed endless. Being surrounded by so much of it constricted my airways, making me feel as though I was underneath, far from the surface and struggling for air I couldn't reach. I took deep breaths in and out, trying to tell myself that we would eventually reach land.

But then, deep underwater, I saw something stir. A shadowy figure, unreadable. My racing heart picked up an even faster pace. It was speeding towards us, still unidentified. I tried to warn the others, but my fear had cut off my voice, so I could only let out a small choking sound.

Knuckles heard it, but before he could say anything, a giant, mutated crab rose from the water behind us and latched its pinchers onto me. I screamed, but was too startled and frightened to fight back.

"Get off of him!" I heard Knuckles shout before the crab pulled me beneath the water.

My chest burned from the lack of oxygen, and the water stung my eyes, making my visability poor. But through my weakened vision, I could see Knuckles dive under and swim quickly towards me. He jammed his spike into the crab's pincher, making it release its grip on me. Knuckles grabbed my hand and pulled me to the surface.

I inhaled sharply as soon as we reached air, then panted and coughed. Knuckles held me close to him and stroked my quills until I caught my breath. I gradually noticed that the other witnessed what happened, and they were undoubtably looking shocked.

"What...was that thing?" Sticks asked.

"Some kind of mutated crab." Tails said. "Looks like this water isn't safe after all. We better hurry and get to the other side before-"

Before he could finish his sentence, another crab rose up behind him and the girls. They were startled, but luckily, Sticks acted quick and threw her boomerang between its eyes, stunning it. Amy whacked it with her hammer, and it dove back underneath.

"Wait." Amy suddenly got a look of realization on her face, and then dread. "Guys, I think I know where those crabs are from. What memory, I mean."

I was just coming to realize it myself, when the two mutant crabs resurfaced and attacked us once again. I desperately clung to Knuckles, too terrified and helpless to join the fight.

"They're from when we fought Eggman underwater!" Amy told us as she dodged one crab's pinchers jabbing at her. "When he planned to destroy the village with a tidal wave!"

Tails tried to stab the other crab between the eyes with his wrench, only for it to block each attack with its pinchers. "That was when we sent Sonic underwater to fight!" he said as he did. "So he could face his fears! The fear that's facing him right now!"

Battling our nemesis underwater, drastically raising the fear level. Struggling to orient myself in the weightlessness of the water, and fight at the same time. Our attacks slowed down, the battle made more difficult than usual on our part.

Definitley not one of my best memories.

Suddenly, something from below latched onto my leg. Knuckles was yanked from me by one of the crabs. Then a third one surfaced from behind me and grabbed my head, then pushed me down so that only my head was above water. No doubt there was a fourth underneath holding onto me. These two new crabs had me trapped.

Something strange happened. Instead of brick wall and dull lighting, I saw coral beds and daylight filtering down from above. I was trapped in a collapsed pile of rubble, struggling in vain to escape. Then to my complete horror, one of Eggman's Crabots cut my air hose, leaving me in very real danger of drowning.

My entire mind went blank.

Knuckles' P.O.V

I finally managed to push a crab off of me, and then rushed to help Sonic. Seeing him the way he was sent a stab of pain through my heart. His pupils were dilated with fear, his breaths were labored and too fast. The Sonic we knew wasn't supposed to be like that.

I hardly recognized him anymore.

Suddenly angered by what the mutant crabs were doing to my boyfriend, I stabbed them with my spikes and carried Sonic on my back again. Tails, Amy, and Sticks managed to fight off the other two, and the mutated crabs sunk back into the water, defeated.

As soon as we were close enough, Sonic grabbed onto the ledge and pulled himself onto solid ground. I crawled up after my boyfriend and wrapped my arms around him. His blue fur was dripping with water and he was shaking all over. He was whimpering and hugging himself. Our friends joined us, looking at Sonic with concern.

To our surprise, tears started to run down Sonic's face. He was crying softly, but soon it became pained sobbing full of despair. Tails, Amy, and Sticks were alarmed, but I quickly gave Sonic a comforting embrace, who held tightly onto me as he sobbed.

"It's okay, Sonic. It's over." I said to him gently. I placed light kisses on his temple. "It's over, baby."

Sonic desperately pressed his lips to mine. I kissed back, gladly giving him the comfort he needed. Everyone sat down, looking warily at the water we just fought our way through.

And we all took a moment to recover from the intense battle, and the painful memory.