I’ll be honest, I went a little CRAZYYYYYYYYYYYYY after Knuckles decided to spontaneously implode. I keep the insanity vomit down by pretending that he did it out of his own free will, and that it wasn’t my fault it happened.

Anyhow I thought for the longest time that the robot foot was the key. I couldn’t handle the guilt, see? I put it in a terrarium and stared at it for hours. Expecting it to move? Possibly. Grow into another robot? Likely. What did it all mean, after all. Of course nothing happened to it beyond being slashed and burned.

I remember crying a lot. Yeah. Took me a long time to get out of that. I don’t want to talk about it. I threw threats like babies at oncoming crowds. Anybody is a suspect, nothing is what it seems. Bug me and I kill, kill, kill. Ah well, dust is everywhere and you have to wonder if they knows too much.

Next came the calm paranoia phase. A new sidekick, a buddy, a pal, a rubber wall was needed. Knuckles is a tough act to follow, like trying to find an ant floating in outer-space. Like cutting stem cell with a sword. Like cooking a galaxy with a match.

Amy isn’t an option. Is Tom?

Beyond the fact that I don’t know who Tom is, really, I decided to give him an interview similar to the one I received in chapter 8. But I couldn’t find him, he disappeared or something. Next I tried to find the guy who interviewed me to give him a taste of his own medicine, but as it turns out he was one of the people we ran over with the car. The interview didn’t go well at all.

ME: What would you say is your most admirable quality?

COFFIN: …

Finally, I decided to give Amy a shot after all, but right away she threatened me with sex.

“Wanna stick in in me, baby?”

“No thanks, genitalia resides too close to the colon in my opinion.” And I ran away as fast as I could.

Next thing I know (NOW) I’m sitting in a drive-thru making a list of people I know. The title: People I Know. Subheading: (who can save my ass).

“Rouge; works as a bus driver and probably goes into seizures when she sees train tracks. Sally; in jail for killing a chef out of season. Bunnie; fortune teller, nuff said. Antoine; can’t understand him. Cream; pedophilia. Geoffrey; not in this continuity. Snively; ridiculous looking. Scratch and Grounder; gay. Shadow-”

“WELCOME TO BURGER JOINT, WE SERVE BURGERS, HOW MAY I DIRECT YOUR FOOD?”

“Can’t it wait? I’m a little busy here.”

“YOU DROVE UP TO US, SIR.”

“You have proof of this?”

“WELL.”

“I’ll see you in court, then, what are your specials?”

“SIR, NORMALLY PEOPLE JUST PICK A NUMBER-”

“I didn’t come here to buy numbers from you people. Eh? Eh?” I punch the speaker-box a few times. “You think your job means nothing, kid, but for about five minutes of my day, my balls are in your pants.”

“COURT.”

“I don’t mean to be curt, no. So how bout you just tell me the specials, eh? Eh?” Punch, punch.

“FAIR ENOUGH. WE HAVE THE 2, THE 7, THE 5, AND THE 8.”

“And all of them sound delicious. What do you recommend?”

“WELL, THE 2 IS USUALLY AFTER THE 1-”

“Impressive.”

“BUT, OF COURSE THE 7 AND THE 8 ARE NEXT TO EACH OTHER.”

“Yes, that does throw me off…”

“8 IS CLOSER TO 9-”

“Ooo, do you have a number 9?”

“NO, WE ONLY GO UP TO 8.”

“Hmm. I’ll take a 5. That’s half of a 10.”

“IT CERTAINLY IS, SIR. DRINK?”

“Do you have water with sugar in it?”

“A LITTLE.”

“Say, kid, what name do you like the most?”

“OUT OF?”

“Just in general.”

“ROUGE IS A PRETTY COOL NAME. I LIKE SHADOW THE MOST, THOUGH. I HAVE A BROTHER NAMED SHADOW.”

“You’re lying to me.”

“YOU’D NEVER KNOW OTHERWISE.”

“Like hell. Are we almost done?”

“ABOUT.”

“Get on with it.”

“WHAT SIZE WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR MEAL TO BE, SIR?”

“Robotosized. Hey, wait a minute-”

Childbirth is a disgusting thing, admit it. Imagine some metal creature emerging from a larger mess of mechanerotica, trails of wires and components arcing high in the air and raining down on my fucking car. I can no longer punch the speakerbox in anger because the speakerbox is punching me. We tumble around in my car before the third of Robotnik’s robots forces me outside, via the windshield.

Fever dreams aren’t supposed to happen while you’re awake. All the damage my brain has taken, cells sooner or later have to say “fuck this shit” and kill themselves. This robot is fully equipped with every dyslexic, flight craft architectural nightmare angle you can think of, in four dimensions of death by paper cut. Punk rock hair petrified.

You tell me how one fights this.

Some kid on a skateboard in the wrong time at the wrong place gets cut in half and, as if he needs it, the bot scrambles for the skateboard and starts beating me mad with it. I start to see double, so my odds look worse than ever. My jaw-jaw hangs loose and I can’t stop blinking-blinking. The bot stops for no reason suddenly, seeing something offscreen. He drops the skateboard. Cut to me on my feet, my right arm pinned behind my back, him holding the back of my head by the hair. He forces me to stand in front of a fire hydrant, and slams my face into the iron nipple on top. He does it again.

Ding.

Again.

Ding.

Again.

Ding.

Again.

Ding.

Seeing triple. Pain-pain-pain loses meaning.

Dingdingdingdingdingwehaveawinner.

“You tell me how one fights this.”

“Couldn’t tell ya,” the cut in half kid says.

Again. Ding. Again. Ding. My eyes roll into the back of my head. Drool falls out of my mouth.

The kid is dead and he looks better off. There’s a look on his face that says that he doesn’t care, and I wonder why I should, too.

Robot-boy holds my head steady, stopping, when he sees something in the distance. It’s a bread truck or a doughnut truck, I can’t tell. His irises secrete enough moisture to sodomize the desert with plants, and he thinks now that the world is saved somehow. He lets me go and we both fall to the ground, and sleep.