THE DAY AFTER
Concept by David Macintyre
Written by Sean Catlett, with denotes by David Macintyre and Stephen Zacharus

[AMY, Sean Catlett]

“Is something wrong?”

“Don’t stop. Keep going…”

The way Sandra’s tongue feels right now is like a giant red Popsicle, not melting in heat and somehow 98 degrees. On my back I can’t see how big it is, but I know it must be pretty fucking long to feel like it’s licking the inside of the belly button.

Normally, right now I’d be thrashing my arms around, with a giant pillow over my face to muffle the noises, but instead I’m as still as a dead fish, pun intended, and not being much of a turn-on. No need for the pillow this time, except maybe to drown out Sandra’s fevered licking.

The couch under me is sunken in about halfway under my weight, and I’m only ninety-five pounds. The seedy motel walls drip black sludge, the carpet is shag and full of lice, the grime is built-in and is a bonus, and these are obvious reasons as to why the room is so cheap. This isn’t the best part of town to be in, of course, but it is the best place both of us can be, and besides, everywhere is the same nowadays. Now, if only I could go along with her this time.

Like I said, this isn’t normal. This isn’t a time where both of us can scream at the top of our lungs and nobody would care. This isn’t a time where it’s necessary for one of us to bite the headboard while it bangs the other end against the wall, over and over.

Sorry, Sandra, but I’ve got too much shit on my mind.

Deal with it.

“Oh, fuck you, I’m leaving,” she says, getting up and wiping her face off, looking disgusted.

Or not.

“If you didn’t want to do this you could have told me, you bitch.” She storms into the bedroom, slamming the door. I guess she’s pretty pissed about the wasted money spent on the room.

But fuck all that. It doesn’t matter right now. My mind is on other things.

I pull my skirt and underwear back up, the material feeling soft against my open skin. I check myself out on the broken mirror on the wall.

I still think black looks better than pink.

**********

I fucking hate this city.

This world.

This life.

What’s depressing is that even if you have some hero seeming to be really, honestly, truthfully trying to make everything better than it is, you begin to realize that they are just like everyone else. It’s nature that consumes everything, and it’s nature that destroys.

It’s all about feeling good before someone kills you. Drugs, sex, murder. All the same dosage and prescription from the pharmacy. And you’re your own fucking doctor.

Become an addict. Go ahead. Before someone makes you a drug. Nowadays, you’re either one or the other. The only way you’re an in-between is if you’re dead.

The city smells like a giant pool of fluid. The steam rises from the vents in the street as if it were a giant creature breathing out its last breath. Around me everything screams and dies spontaneously. To my left, someone gets mugged and beaten to death. The dumpster ahead of me has stains on it, indicating an unwanted child. To my right, in an alley, emotion drips off the walls and onto broken glass…

I shudder, and I pull my sweater tighter around me. It’s summer and yet I feel icy. I’m cold, and yet I’m sweating. Each drop off of my face feels like it’s being scraped off.

I had told Rouge that we were going to the movies. It’s only been a half an hour and already I’m going home. This will take some explaining.

This is how my life is. This is everyday to me. I’ve become so emotionally desensitized that my face is no longer an extension but a mask that moves sometimes. I may look happy, but underneath it’s an entirely different story.

This is a new thing, though. I usually don’t go “home” unless it’s to sleep. Rouge and I barely even speak to each other anymore, unless I need money that she can’t afford to give, but does anyway.

Why can’t she fucking get a better job? There must be something out there other than letting male pigs empty their pockets and themselves on her. She has a PHD or whatever, for fuck’s sake. Things can’t get any worse so they should get better, right?

I already know the answers to these. None of them are optimistic.

The truth is, it probably can get worse. I guess I just don’t see how yet.

In about fifteen minutes I reach the apartment complex, one that looks the same as the last one I was at. The superintendent is jerking off to porn, so I decide not to bother him and instead I walk inside. The floor we live on is up three flights of slippery stairs that I do not want to climb.

Living in a place like this, you can never really hear much of anything in the other room, but you can have a pretty good idea. The problem is, what you end up doing is minding your own fucking business. Getting involved in anything is worse than forgetting the next day. Like that Cassandra girl or whatever. Knowledge of the world but the impossibility to do anything about it. That’s really not so bad, though. I would rather risk a headache than a heart attack. Any day.

I reach the door, the bottom of the sandals sticking to the floor.

Home.

Sort of.

“Home.”

I pluck the key out from under the matt before I realize that the door was left unlocked. Whoops. I barely have time to push it open before I hear the gun shot.

**********

Hearing Tails’ head hit the pavement again just confirmed my own theories on life and existence, that this place is actually one big toilet with no place to drain. The stink is unbearable and it permeates all porous surfaces, but it’s all too repulsive to notice what happens, the nerves already shot from overuse.

Tails, at least to me, is an exception of sorts. He is not the rule of the world. His kind, endangered. The demons that are all too common to be called rare or unique or frequent outnumber the rest. I see this shit go on everyday, everywhere I go.

Every day a little part of me is killed along with them.

I sympathize. Really, I do. Even when they leave and the aftermath is spilling on the streets, when all I want to do is comfort Tails… all I can think about is my problems and the trouble at home.

“Home.”

Fuck this.

I shouldn’t have come.

I want to leave. Leave, leave, leave.

Instead, I get up from my crouch and I walk up to Tails, calling his name a couple of times, as if I heard his voice from the street. He gets up and meets eyes with mine for a split second, but then looks down at the concrete, himself beneath him, all dignity gone. He tries to salvage as much as he can in front of me, wiping his face, all trace of what happened covered up in a hurry.

Never more do I want to die. Right now. A meteor or something. COME ON!

I’m an arm’s length away from him when I stop. Nothing happens. No giant flaming sword or hell with high waters. No fire and brimstone. No mercy killing.

Nothing.

Then I help him up, awkwardly, only holding his arms. Minimizing bodily contact. Trying not give off the wrong vibe…

What the fuck?! Wrong vibe? Tails would never do that to me… not like…

My hands drop to my sides. I’m breathing heavily. Fuck no, not now, not now…

gradually the thoughts are staring to degrade

“Hi Tails.”

Rouge…

“Hi, Amy… haven’t got a tissue, have you?”

Ah. Yes, the ever-present light attitude. Good. That’s good. Funny. Ha ha. Rouge might die. It’s a joke. Laugh.

A second passes, and still all I can say is “Tails?”

“What?”

“Tails.”

None of you know. None of you know what I have to go through, every single day of my worthless life. Pity won’t work here. Sympathy won’t work here. Confessions maybe.

“You know I should have finished hours ago.”

Oh… Oh yeah.

I need to share this with someone, ANYONE. I’d unload on a fucking dildo if I had the money for batteries! FUCK!

“What’s the matter, Amy? You look like you’ve seen a corpse in your bed or something.”

Where’s a fucking meteor when you need one?

**********

No shit.

I try to manipulate my mask so that it doesn’t hide my frustration. He doesn’t look convinced.

“You really have no idea.”

I suppose I should have expected this attitude, this ‘not knowing how to act’ attitude. Why the hell should the story of my life rewrite itself?

“I suppose not.” My voice sounds so mad, but the rest is numb.

This didn’t go as planned. I told him what was happening; the phone calls, the murders, the hunger, the starvation. The insanity.

He may as well had laughed at me.

“So… Rouge has tried to kill herself, and you’ve come to me about it?”

I just think you’re scared, Tails.

“Well… who was I supposed to see?”

You’re a scared little boy, Tails. The world changes you more and more every time I talk to you. I’m too late. Too late…

“Did you think of the police?”

The police. They have a file of the incident. You know, the rape. When I was fucked. Yeah, that. And they never want me to forget it. Ever. I’m the world’s punch line.

I tell Tails to fuck off or something. I don’t know.

I just want this over with…

“Look, to be perfectly honest, I want to help, but I really don’t know what you expect me to do. I mean, it’s not MY adopted mother we’re talking about here. If it was, I may have some idea, because then I’d HAVE to. But I don’t. So, Amy, I’m sorry, bla bla bla bla bla.” Did he say this? Is he making fun of me?

“Fuck, Tails, you’re the brains. You think of something.” The throw goes wild.

“Are you serious?” Exasperation. Did I upset him? What the fuck is going on?

What’s wrong with me?

Then he gives me this trip about how much trouble he is in for associating with me. It’s the reason we haven’t spoken in over two weeks. His parents. Those bastards.

He’s afraid of what they’ll take away from him.

I guess that’s what it comes down to. Attrition. I guess losing Rouge is preferable to losing his computer. It must be all he has left.

Well, Rouge is all I have left. Why can’t he understand this?

The rest of the conversation is a blur that I don't want to remember correctly. Insults are thrown back and forth like a game of tennis.

But fuck, Tails, this is Rouge we’re talking about! She’d do the same for you!

No. She’s a surrogate mother, nothing more. And I don’t know her well enough to give a shit about her. She gave Knuckles a boner because of her tits. Now he’s dead and she’s crazy. Fuck off. Try the police.

Some time later, when one of us finally walked away, I remember feeling this profound loneliness, out for only myself.

**********

I reach home, miserable and back to the beginning, worse off than I was before. The door closes and immediately the phone rings.

“FUCK!”

Somewhere else inside the room, Rouge lets out a cry because she knows who it is, as well as I do. I come running over to the phone from the hallway and I dive across to it, yanking hard and ripping the cord out of the wall. Too bad it didn’t break, though.

Right then, Rouge comes out, barely covered in ratty, week-old clothing, the bandage on her head stained red, the powder burn, a “Coal Miner's Tattoo” darker than the bleak black of the apartment.

She gives me this warm, barely visible smile, laced with brain damage. It’s hardly comforting.

I hug the phone to myself, to fight off the chills. It’s so cold.

“Thanks,” she says. “That’s been bugging me all week,” she says.

“Week?” My God. Where had I been?

“Yeah.” She crosses her arms. “They want to reach me. It’s something big.” She shivers too, and collapses to the floor, almost sobbing.

“Maybe they just want you back…”

“… No. This isn’t right. It’s something about…”

Something about what?

WHAT?! TELL ME!

Nothing.

I know that she’s thinking about HIM again. It’s the only thing on her broken mind anymore. The only thing that sticks…

This entire situation is really fucked up.

**********

The last couple of days have been grueling. Yes, past tense. It works.

Two days after the phone was pulled out, I finally plugged it back in. I expected it to immediately start ringing, waking up Rouge and throwing another bout of frightened screams.

Silence. Relief flowed over me, and I tried to get a hold of Tails. To apologize, or something.

But he didn’t answer. I hate leaving messages, but I do it anyway, trying to sound as polite as possible.

I still haven’t called the police.

Rouge had long ceased going to work, so I was pretty much scrounging what I could from what little we had saved, from what little people are willing to donate or throw away. I did manage to buy some canned food. We both ate them with reusable plastic spoon-fork things. Sporks, I think they're called.

Ha. Sporks.

I bought some blankets and a first-aid kit to take care of Rouge’s needs. The powder burn from the gun is pretty nasty, but we didn’t and don’t talk about it. It’s silent consent that neither of us go to a hospital.

Our apartment gradually turned into a bomb shelter. The windows were blocked with furniture and ripped up floorboards from one of the closets. The doorknob had an empty bottle of Mickey’s 24 Voltage sitting on top of it, something I had seen in a movie once and thought was quite creative. If someone tried to sneak in, we would hear the bottle crack on the hard entrance and we’d fight or die or whatever happened next. It’s a control thing, anyway.

Look, it’s not being paranoid if you’re right. You’re not crazy if everyone else is too.

Four days locked down in the house. And the phone still didn’t ring. Everything was quiet, so quiet, save for our chewing or snoring.

About here. Yes, about here, this is where Rouge taught me how to use a gun.

**********

Back to the present, the gun cold against the skin on my back. Slightly comforting. It’s been a few days since the phone rang last. The horizon is starting to look clear again, free of stormy skies, and I decide to try and call Tails again.

I pick up the phone from the floor, watching the door across from me. I start to dial. I finish, and I wait.

Click, click, click.

He picks up on the fourth ring.

He sounds distracted, not like himself, so I verify him anyway.

“Tails?”

“Oh… Hi, Amy. What do you want?”

What indeed.

How do I ask for help this time? What is the nicest way to mooch off of someone?

I decide to take it slow. He’ll understand if I-

“Look,” I start, “this is…” I hear angry pounding at the door, and I see the doorknob start to turn violently from left to right. “Oh my god, hold on.”

I drop the phone and I dive over the couch, hitting the hard entrance floor and I barely catch the bottle heading towards the floor. The knob still turns above me and I stare at my reflection in the bottle in disbelief.

Wow. Bad ass.

I stand up, unlock the knob, click the bolt, and crack the door, leaving the chain on.

It’s exactly who I thought it would be. It’s the superintendent, the one I saw pulling at himself a week and a half prior. You remember, I’m sure.

“Rent,” he puts simply, his face thin and his eyes beady.

He eyes me up and down, seeing my black skirt halfway pulled down, the empty bottle of Voltage in my hand, and when he reaches my eyes again, he stares with newfound contempt.

“Can’t you come back later? I’m a little busy…” Probably thinks we’re fucking or something.

He points his finger down into my face, through the crack of the door, almost reaching my right eye. “Listen up, you little fucking dike. You are about this close -” he doesn’t move his hand back, and makes a length with his index and thumb, a length that is about the size of his dick- “from being kicked right out on the fucking street. And this time that whore of a mother of yours can’t help you.” He continues pointing, trying to push in the door some more.

He doesn’t realize that one grows a hefty set of balls in life-threatening situations.

I push the door back, and he’s very surprised all of a sudden. His finger gets slammed a little by the door. Beauty.

“Come back later-” I lean down to put the bottle on the floor. “-or else, I will have to do something-” I reach behind my back and I pull the heavy revolver out. “-I will later regret.” I cock the hammer, the click staring him in the eyes. “Fuck off.”

Despite most of his expression covered by hatred, there is a flicker of fear before it dies out, gone in obscurity. “Don’t threaten me, you ugly ball of pink pussy.” He walks off, stomping down the hallway.

The door closes. I slip the heavy hunk of metal in my skirt again, the feel of it cold against my ass, and I put the bottle back on the doorknob.

When I pick up the phone, I verify again.

“Tails?”

“Yeah?”

“Where the hell have you been? I left you a message.”

“Funeral, then… went to get some food, then I came home. I think my parents deleted it.”

His parents have a thing about certain individuals who go down on women, although his dad probably does the same thing to his mom. Intolerant assholes deleted my message.

Oh well. Doesn’t matter now.

Fuck being subtle. “Look, how fast can you get here?”

“And why should I go over there at this hour?”

Sarcasm again, the light humor. Typical. Good thing I know how to deal with it.

“Answer the goddamn question, Miles.” Score. Using his real name is a wild card.

“On foot about two hours…”

Swish. Point.

But… that’s cutting it too long.

“Any choices?” I hope for a bus route he could take, or at least a friend that could give him a ride…

But no. The answer he gives me is something that I do not expect at all.

“You have got to be kidding me!”

“Hey, either that or I walk, and two hours later I see Rouge’s dead corpse.”

“Can’t you… I don’t know… fly or something?”

“They still sprained.”

Excellent. Really. “Is this your way of impressing me?!”

“Take it or leave it.”

Sigh. Shit, this is gonna be weird. “Fine, whatever, I guess it’s fine. Just, I need-”

There is a crackling, and a click I hear on my line. The same from earlier.

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck.

Eyes dilate, breath catches, muscles tighten.

“What was that?” comes out before I can stop myself. Mistake, mistake, mistake.

My eyes move wildly around the apartment, and they check the doorknob to see if the bottle is still there. It’s almost too dark to see.

“Probably just your breath on the receiver. Go on.”

Holy shit.

He heard it too.

Now, this COULD be my breath on the receiver; it COULD be the connection being messed with; or, it COULD be them, tapping the line, listening to our conversation.

Play dumb, play dumb. Don’t let them know.

“Look, I need you here as soon as possible.” My voice is calm but I’m shaking like a leaf. “This is-” Rouge starts crying from her bedroom. “Oh shit, hold on again.” I set the phone down on the floor, and my hand goes unconsciously to the gun at my back.

I walk quickly into the dark room, and I see Rouge crying on her bed, the bandage wrapped around her head now fallen to the floor. The wound is an ugly mark of a red, twisting river.

I lean down next to her, my hand still on the gun. I comfort her, my other hand flowing through her greasy, untended hair. She’s still crying.

“They’re coming!” She screams out suddenly, hugging herself tighter.

I don’t say anything… because I already know.

“Look… Mom…” Her eyes meet mine. I show her the gun. “Take it back. If they’re after you, then you’d better look after it.” She eyes the gun, then me, then the gun again. This could be a bad idea. “I trust you enough that you wont try to hurt yourself again. Even so, don’t do it. I love you too much.” I stroke her hair as the tears well up in Rouge’s eyes, and she kisses my hand, takes the gun back. She smiles, so weak, so weak.

I run back to the phone, feeling somewhat relieved. Well, that is, until I hear Tails’ voice.

“And just why should I help you?”

“What?!”

“I went to you when my cousin got killed, and you just blew me off. And it’s seven effing thirty, you want me to go traipsing into the city this time of evening?”

That’s right. The revenge thing.

Did that… happen?

“Look, I don’t have time for your fucking pity games, okay?! If you’re going to act like a little baby, I’ll handle this myself, but if you DO get off your ass and come, bring a weapon.”

And I hang up the phone.

What the hell is wrong with me? Reminisce

**********

Time passes with the speed of a slug. The creature, not the projectile.

My hand falls to my back to find that the gun isn’t there. Shit.

It was kind of comforting to have that hunk of metal connected to me. Even if I don’t know how to fire it, at least I can maybe scare someone off… or get myself shot.

I go in the kitchen and I grab a butcher knife. I slip it end down, sharp end pointing to my left so it pulls away when I yank it out, down the back of my skirt. It’s cold, but not as cold or as heavy or as comforting as the gun.

It’s ten minutes before I hear the slight roar of motors. They get closer, and I sit comfortably on the couch, thinking about how I’m going to convince him to help us. I’m worried because I didn’t tell him quite the entire story…

The motorcycle outside stops, right below my window. I don’t get up to check. If he’s trying to get a chance with me he’s going to have to try a little bit harder.

… That’s really stupid.

Suddenly, I remember the noise, and I rush to Rouge’s room.

I don’t hear her screaming over the sound of the engines, and when I open to door to the bedroom, she’s thrashing around on her bed, clutching the gun to her chest, barrel pointed at herself. By accident I’m sure.

I jump down next to her, falling in front, my hands gripping the gun. I can feel her heart beat beneath my hands.

“Please,” I tell her, her haggard breaths falling on my face. There are tears forming in her eyes. “We’re safe now. We’re safe. Don’t worry, I’m okay. We’re both okay. It’s help. Someone’s helping us.” Babble. Hardly poetry, but she seems to get the point, because she nods and gives me a peck on the check. The gun slowly lowers. She composes herself. For now.

I’ve never seen her this bad, through all the hardships we’ve suffered through. The amount of pain she must be going through, and the only thing to keep me from crying is to think that at least she has hell to look forward to.

“Is this what you called me here for?”

Tails.

Already inside.

“Shit!”

I walk swiftly over to him, across the length of the apartment, past the center room and into my bedroom. I close the door and stare angrily at him. We’re the furthest from Rouge that we can be before leaving her entirely.

“How did you get up here so fast?”

He stares at me for a sec, then shrugs. Over to my right, the fire escape window, which used to be barricaded before he got here, is broken open, the boards pulled off. Debris all over my floor.

I groan.

“What?” Acting as though he did nothing wrong. “Shit, it’s dark. Why are all the drapes closed in there?” He motions to the center room.

If we start fighting, then this could take all night.

“Never mind.” I started picking up the broken fragments of wood. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Glad to know I’m appreciated.”

I turn on my light, squinting in the harshness of it, adjusting. Tails is dressed in his normal street clothes, a hat on backwards, and he has sunglasses on even though it’s late at night. It’s so obvious that he’s feigning ease. Faux relaxation.

“Why are you so tense?” I ask him, slightly concerned but worried about the answer he’ll give me.

“Look… Amy, if this is some sort of fucked up way for you to get me to relax so I fuck you, I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“Why, are you gay too?”

“And I see the place looks just as perfect as ever,” Tails says, walking around my room, picking up my glass snow globe that I bought at the beach. I pretend like I care.

“Put that down!” I say, clumsily setting it back on the dresser. I’m a few feet away from him, and after setting it down, I look back and he’s staring at me, squinting. “Just… it was a gift.” I can feel him staring at me like I’m the oddest thing in the world, like I’m a green slug, the creature, not the projectile. I just start to pick up the glass on the floor.

Change the subject.

“Where’d you get a motorcycle, anyway?”

“A friend of mine,” he says, not elaborating.

“Okay… don’t you think that it’s a little, oh I don’t know, strange to be riding something like that?”

“What, you’ve never seen an underage adolescent driving a motorcycle at about two in the morning?”

“No.”

He’s smiling. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

I can’t help but laugh. The tension of the last couple of days had been getting to me. I hadn’t relaxed in a long time, getting the feeling that I was actually starting to go insane, and suddenly, it’s all released. I laugh for a long time before I finally stop, embarrassed. When I look back up at Tails, he’s still smiling, even chuckling a little.

“God, I’m so glad you’re here…” I say, meaning it more this time. “Thanks for doing this, Tails. I’m losing my mind here.”

At first, he smiles earnestly, that faux ease fading into honest comfort, but his façade comes back up like a brick wall, and his lips go tight and his expression becomes a mask. I frown.

“What’s wrong now?” I ask, a little irritated.

“Nothing.” He shrugs, walking over to the window again and picking something up.

“Wait… is that a bat?!”

“No, it’s a knife. Of course it’s a fucking bat, Amy!”

“What are you thinking?!”

No, no NO. NOT THIS! NOT NOW!

“You told me to bring something,” he says, handling the bat carefully, like it’s going to go off any second or some shit.

“I told you to bring a weapon, Tails! Not something used as a secondary dildo! I was fucking serious! I wasn’t joking!”

“Well, what the fuck was I supposed to get, then?!” He yells loud enough for me to jump, but I’m too pissed off to be scared. Or vice versa.

“I don’t know, use that big fucking brain of yours and invent something! Certainly something better than your mom’s stress reliever. No wonder you get the shit beat out of you.”

Whoops.

Uh oh.

His eyes go wide, and he spins his entire body around, swinging the bat full force at the broken window. The hard wood goes straight through the glass, shattering what’s left of the pane, littering the floor with pieces no bigger than a fingernail. Then he throws the bat across the room, smacking the far end of the wall, leaving a dent. Tails storms up to me and screams in my face, “Will that fuck someone up, you cunt-sucking bitch?!”

I wipe the spit off my face as he leaves, muttering to himself, out into the living room, towards the door. I catch the words “ungrateful” and “nothing right” before he unlocks the door and storms down the hall. Rouge starts to scream again. The bottle shatters on the floor.

I did it again.

I fucked it up.

With Rouge screaming again and our last hope quickly exiting, I saunter to Rouge’s room.

I jump next to her and hug her. I wrap myself around her fetal, shivering form. She’s drenched with sweat and as tense as a vice.

“Shhhh, shhhhhh, it’s okay, it’s okay…” It’s more for myself than for her.

Suddenly, her hands come up and she grabs my face. Her eyes snap open, and she whispers, so quietly that I almost don’t hear her, but the words dagger into me and make my heart stop.

“They’re inside… they’re inside…”

Fast backward. “What?” How did Tails get in? “It’s dark.” He didn’t know the windows were boarded up. “Why are all the drapes closed in here?” In fact, he thought that they were only boarded up. “Never mind.” Tails would never break in like he did.

Holy shit.

Someone else broke in.

My eyes search the room frantically, and they find something that I wish I didn’t notice.

The closet door.

It’s open. The crack is about one inch, but I remember it distinctly being closed last time I checked.

I don’t breathe until two seconds later, when the phone rings, and I start screaming.

**********

There’s nothing to eat here, I already know, but I crawl across Rouge’s floor to the mini-fridge in the corner. I grasp the rusted handle to the shit-brown door and I open. A slight sucking sound, which doesn’t sound like freshness, but more like someone’s fart. Lukewarm air pours out and hits my legs. The stubble doesn’t rise, but recoils. All it does is make the night even more putrid and sultry.

It’s been four hours and neither of us have looked in the closet. We tell each other that they would have made their move already, but we’re most likely only scared shitless of finding out that we’re wrong.

And, guess what, surprise, surprise, there is a carton of eggs in the back of the fridge. It’s long past the overdue date, but a lesson I learned a long time ago was that you can only take what you can get.

Sonic…

I haven’t gone out for supplies, for comforts of living, for a-lot-of-shit-that-we-don’t-need mixed with some-shit-that-we-do, because of an unspoken law that has been drifting around the apartment.

They are after us, and if we separate, they win. Divide, they conquer. With Rouge being bed-ridden and 99% insane, I do not think some fresh air will make any bit of difference.

Not even the scent of vegetarian meat cooking on a slab of rendered liposuction fat could clear the clouds of this dark day.

Flowers don’t bloom in overcast.

I pick up the carton of recycled everything from the grating in the very back and weigh it in my hand. It feels light. Empty.

Me and Rouge, we must look like a couple of Union Street hookers. You know the kind. Tousled hair from a previous, non-metaphorical job. Legs out of coordination because of soreness. Clothes bargain-basement and dirty and stained and loose and two sizes too small. Makeup running down. Arms bent. Lips chapped. Eyes dead. If we were to go out, we wouldn’t last long, that’s for sure, and then the FBI would have to protect us instead.

Sonic…

The carton doesn’t snap open, but reluctantly peels open. For some reason I do it extra careful, but I still end up ripping it. Something sticky covers the lining of the inside. Membrane sticks the tops and bottoms of the carton together.

One egg.

It suddenly hits me that this is probably the last thing that either of us will ever eat again. Chances are that either they will come for us, or we will starve to death. I don’t think anyone on the outside would want to help us.

I look over at Rouge. Her eyes are open and she’s staring at me. She’s mouthing the words: “You can have it” over and over again, as if it were a catchy song. She stops and goes back to sleep.

“Did you know: That all eggs are processed with chemicals? That’s right! The yolk you are eating is really a mix of food coloring and “organic substances” of the future!”

I saw an infomercial that told the history of eggs, and how they used to actually pay people who were able to come in and lay them.

Every hard shell was a wasted life. An empty vessel never destined to be fulfilled with the other part of it. Without the seeds, there is no life. And it’s sent off to be part of the collective.

“Real” eggs were outlawed shortly afterwards when the ARS came in and terror-bombed the companies with propaganda and extreme picketing. Through the money paid by advertising, research was funded for an egg substitute.

I was about five years old when all of this happened. Before then, I remember eating “real” eggs, and I can’t help but think if what’s happening to me now is just the “chickens coming home to roost”, if the expression is forgiven.

One egg.

That is all that is needed.

Sonic…

I can’t stop staring at the egg in my hands. It’s discolored slightly from age, but the pure whiteness of it remains intact. It looks so real… as good as the real thing.

If I cook it now, this will be the first time I have tried the substitute. The next best thing. The take-what-you-can-only-have. How did I not notice these the entire time Rouge had them here?

And out of all the things that are worth risking, it is worth the risk to stand in front of the window. It is worth the risk to walk past the closet to the door. It is worth the risk to travel along the darkness in the apartment to the kitchen to cook the last egg I will ever eat again. All of this is worth the risk of getting shot in the head by a sniper’s bullet. Or whatever.

The eggs also feels empty in my hand, but that is not really all that strange. In a sense, they are really empty, and that is probably how they will taste. Nothing, I guess, compares to the taste of a failed life in your mouth. But I wouldn’t know.

Sonic…

The kitchen is really only two cupboards and a Formica table, but I call it a kitchen because of the hotplate that sits in the center. The heat gauge on the side goes up to ten, which translates to roughly 450 degrees of heat. Depends on what method of measurement one is using, but I have the intention of turning it all that way up. Ten is easier to say anyway.

A roach goes splat under my feet. White, gummy juice squirts out of it across the floor and my bare feet, but it keeps wriggling, still alive.

“Did you know: Roaches can live anywhere from nine to ten days with their heads cut off? It’s only after the lack of nutrients do they finally die!”

I’d hate to live that long without a brain. I’d hate to live period. But at least there’s darkness to look forward to.

We cannot afford pans here. There is only one set of dishes, and I’m pretty sure that they’re all soaking in the sink. From two weeks ago. Not imagining what’s alive in there now.

I admire the egg in my hand. Even the lack of light has no match for the brilliance of the shell, the perfect roundness of it. So what if it’s not circular? It’s still a baby to me…

Sonic…

I don’t have the heart to break this one.

One seed is all that’s needed. One seed could have saved them all. One seed could have prevented substitution.

I place the egg on the cold hotplate, not reaching for the knob on the side. The dial stays at absolute zero.

The roach under my feet keeps struggling. Living. Fighting for something it doesn’t know it’s a part of. Lucky little shit.

SonicsonicsonicsonicsonicshitshitshitshitshitI’MPREGNANT! There, I fucking said it. There are too many infomercials on the TV at the other apartment for my own good. It’s also too bad that there are too many thin slivers of metal in the world. Stereotypically, clothes hangers.

But.

You take what you can get.

Last week, I chose a dipstick for engine fluid that I found on the sidewalk outside of a vehicle repair shop. It was stained and slathered with dried oil. The symbolism almost killed me.

Later that night.

I took down the bathroom mirror hanging above the toilet and set it up against the door. I locked myself in, just in case Rouge woke up. It was two in the morning. The florescent light bulb was flickering its last amounts of light. I sat on the toilet, stripped down and spread open. The flashes are adequate enough to get well illuminated glances at my insides.

This is what the boys want from me.

This is how I look to the ones licking me.

This is how I look to doctors.

This how I look to myself in the bathroom fucking mirror.

This is how I look to…

Sonic…

The oiled dipstick in my left hand, my right opened into a palm, spread fingers, I take a deep breath.

I turn the dial to the maximum setting.

The light flickers on.

The heat starts to slowly rise.

I put more weight on my foot.

The oiled stick is raised.

The roach squirms some more.

The light turns off.

The truth is, what I really want is just some acceptance. What I really want is to be loved. I don’t want a fucking hand-out. I don’t want a pity-rape. I don’t want someone’s excess baggage.

What I want…

Sonic…

What I want doesn’t matter.

My palm closes.

The metal drops to the floor.

I give up.

My foot lifts.

The egg smashes because I get tired of waiting.

**********

I can’t tell whether the rumbling inside of me is my stomach or the baby. My hand smacks my bare midsection involuntarily, probably leaving a giant red mark. I sigh deeply, along with ever-present rumble, and I get up from the side of Rouge’s bed. She stirs in her sleep.

She has the gun clutched to her chest. It’s pointed right at her head.

The closet door is opened all the way.

The thoughts that flow through my head are: “Is it a boy or a girl?” “They are watching.” “I’m starving.” “Take out the garbage.” “I love you.” “Oh fuck you, I’m leaving.” “It won’t be long.” “She looks alright.” “I’d fuck her.” “Pleasure grunt.” “She can take care of herself?” “Boo hoo hoo.” “Where were you when the brains were handed out?” “Fag.” “Get food, you stupid bitch.”

I’m not too sure what order they’re supposed to go in, or at one point I really heard them, but right now, each word that pops into my head seems so far away, like it’s a part of a history that demands to be remembered but that of which I’ll never know for sure what really happened. I’m not even sure if it’s my life I’m thinking about.

I start to dress, putting on my worn jeans, my torn black shirt from Temp-Sub, my sandals from the beach, no bra, and this weird hair-scrunchy thing from my trip to the beach.

I already know without looking that we have no money left, and for some reason I’m not in the mood to shoplift, so my options are somewhat limited.

In fact, I only have one choice.

Sandra. I can mooch off of her. I mean, she owes me some orgasms, so why not pay me money instead? It’s closer to her means, anyway.

So, it’s decided. I venture out into the world, leaving Rouge to herself.

Then…

I get the strangest feeling…

Something’s wrong.

No, can’t be.

Why would…

I pick up the knife that I stuck in the wall last night, slipping it in my back pocket. It’s not enough. I start searching the apartment for something, anything else…

…

When I walk out of the apartment, the time of day hits me in the face, blinding me. The last rays of sunlight arc out, tonguing the sky with razor sharp knives, cutting the dark clouds above. The bat in my hand suddenly seems like a toothpick, and I feel like an idiot holding it like it could do some damage, especially against some gun-wielding undercover government fucks, or a blood-sucking serial killer who is probably a vampire.

Each step I make scratches against the floor loudly, rolling tiny pebbles under the soft rubber of the sandal. The stairs circle around each other, repeating the same move over and over again. In reality I make no real progress. I just go in circles, but the feeling of moving down is enough to assure me that I am getting closer and closer.

With the night comes the cold. Even in the summer time the darkness feels as cold as snow.

Down three flights, and I pass not one single degenerate or scum or fabled creature of the night. The sounds of my rough footsteps and my labored, stressed, tired breathing echoes along the narrow shaft. If someone else was here, it would be the perfect opportunity to take advantage of me…

My heart beats faster. Blood pulses through me and goes where I wish it wouldn’t go…

Back.

The past.

The phantom limb I have starts to itch, starting out as a mere tickle and escalating into an outright atmosphere entry. The scars on my back suddenly feel like they’re on fire because of some fake army dropping napalm on top of it. Tiny ants crawl and bite. A giant branding iron sears my flesh. The glass shards of someone’s 40 proof, thrown and broken bottle of alcohol works it way beneath my flesh with each thrust, digging deep, probably grazing a shard of my spine. Those biology classes I used to take oh so long ago start to drift in, and my legs go numb. For a second I think I’m paralyzed

. . . . . . . . . . I drag the bat along the ground like a giant ape searching for a mate, keeping as focused as possible. The noises of the outside seem so distant . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .The superintendent has a strong right shoulder muscle and puts it to good use in front of his television set, wrapped in tin foil and spouting snow that looks vaguely like a woman. The dragging of the bat and the scraping of the dirt catch his attention, and when he looks at me, I say, “You’ll have your rent in an hour,” and I walk out . . . . . . .

. . . . . . The city moves but it isn’t alive. On the surface it’s gritty and beneath it’s filled with what’s on top. This single grain of Pandora’s Box rolls on a downhill plane, gathering enough of whatever sticks to it until it’s as big as a planet. Greasy organisms grow and become self aware. They reproduce and dig deeper. Self-discovery is really self-indulgence. Soon, the planet becomes the organisms it gave birth to. The planet sees itself as a small part of bigger world and it’s a grain again. And not to worry, because there is always a downhill plane . . . . .

. . . . It’s a long walk, like I said, but it becomes nothing when I start to run. The feeling of dread rises like a balloon filled with helium. Sandra is in trouble. Somehow, she’s in trouble and I have to save her or she dies. Someone wants her dead. Someone wants her dead. It’s about here where I realize that someone is following me . . .

. . So now the exact places I pass become insignificant. My goal stretches further away. I check behind me to see man dressed in gangster street clothes trying to keep up, holding a hand to his ear. He has trouble keeping his baggy clothes from falling down to his ankles, obviously not used to the feel of a stalker .

It’s a trap.

what is Was happening?

I stop dead in my tracks, listening intently to the sounds of the night. My back is turned to the follower, waiting for him to walk past me. Maybe he’s just a vagrant, following someone else. The thing is, he holds his hands under his coat like he’s going to pull a gun out.

Stop.

Wait.

Run.

As fast as you can.

i can’t

I lose my sandals, the gravel digging into the soles of my feet. My calves get pounded into my knee. My breathing grows dry and caked. The city runs faster and faster across my field of vision. Details get lost and only the primary colors register with me. This is what it must have been like for him.

It’s easier to run away from problems than to turn around and face them. I would know. I’ve been doing it for years, even before Sonic went to jail.

The road ahead becomes a tangled mess of concrete that the city was just too lazy to fix or care about. I doesn’t really matter, though. This cobweb in the slums is no different than any arrow in the richest neighborhood. The kids are still dealers, the parents are still pushers, and the cops still don’t give a shit.

By now I can hear and feel the veins around my neck and head throbbing and raising against my skin. The knife seems fine in my belt but the bat is slowing me down. A fleeting thought flies past that I should ditch it, but then the cluster fuck of the streets turns into view, and as soon as I see a right turn, I take it. And with the vagrant in pursuit, I reach into my jeans, pull out the knife, and throw it into a garbage can.

“Fucking shit, how many of these are in this goddamn city?!” But I duck into it anyway. The walls throb with circulation. Moisture saturates and washes it all in a think paste. Somewhere I can hear moaning. I’ve forgotten all about Sandra when I lean my back against the brick of the alley and grip the bat to myself.

I wait

His face comes around the corner in slow motion, partly obscured from above by a short brimmed hat turned downwards and from below by the collar of his black coat. All I see is the very corner of the color of his eye before the edge of the bat connects.

I don’t stop swinging for five minutes, each hit being a resounding echoed scream of pounded flesh magnified to the point of tossing the Richter scale upside down.

WHAM!

stop

WHAM!

stop it please.

Please stop.

wham, wham, wham.

A gun. Mother fucker had a gun on him. Mother fucker followed me because he was a cop.

F.

B.

I.

Secret agent.

Private investigator.

Whatever he was, I just bludgeoned him to shit with Tails’ bat and then stole his gun.

This is either the luckiest or the worst night of my life.

Sandra.

It’s back to running. I cover a distance of about two blocks before I realize…

Okay.

Calm down.

You’ve just run as fast as you could in the opposite direction. You’re overreacting.

She’s probably not even there. She won’t be in danger. Everything will be fine and dandy.

My vomit-like breathing slows to a crawl. I stare at the knife I threw in the garbage can, and I pick it up, pocketing it back and to the left. The gun goes in my right and to the front. The bat hangs loosely at my side.

And I start jogging towards our meeting place.

The apartment looks much different at night, more like a sinister enemy looming into the sky, watching its minions, making sure it all goes his way. Whenever I would have to sneak out of the house and venture across the roads of hell, I would always think of Robotnik. I would think about how things were so much better when he was always trying to kill us. Back when seeing each other fight and win was a refreshing change from the tedium of fame and fortune. Back when we weren’t as stupid.

Back when seeing Knuckles was casual, and not so…

Personal.

By the time I reach the fortress, the adrenaline pumps along at a cool, efficient pace. The shakes are gone. The bat, dripping the last drops of blood, feels as light as a toothpick again. I don’t even think about breathing.

Our room is on the second floor. It has a view on the entrance side. The light is NEVER off.

Second floor window…

Second floor window…

. . . . . . .

It’s official.

I’m fucked.

Long story short, the guy at the front desk now has a hurt arm and a gun pointed at his head. I’m screaming at him to call the cops but he only stares at me with empty, confused eyes. In the dim light of the bottom floor the elevator huddles itself into the corner, shielded from visitors and housing unknown monsters. It’s easy to decide that the stairs would be much faster.

The pounding of my feet becomes cushioned and drowned by the noise of a sticky enzyme grasping at my soles. The sound of the two surfaces breaking apart echo along the endlessly stretched paper-thin structure known as “the walls.” The gun is drawn. The bat sways in the darkness. I feel a voice call out to me from far below, a place of which I had planned to leave behind, saying that the phone lines are down. This sucks. This is awful.

This is…

It.

Last floor. Last chance. Last resort. Last door to the unknown. I cock the hammer back…

The hallway opens up to screaming. The doors of sleeping tenants open and heads poke out, their angry poundings on the walls gone futile. Despite the light spilling into the crevasse, it’s dark enough to feel like it’s really a giant amoeba. Lack of light brings invitation for the pitch creatures to feed. And I’m stepping right through it. The only thing worse than moving too slow is having it hurt as well.

Room 308.

Right when I see the door I know it’s locked.

Sandra’s screams prompt me to raise the gun and shoot my way in. The recoil almost breaks my arm into itself. Wood and metal splinter and are cast aside. The door is kicked in a mere second later, a continuation of the same movement.

And then there’s no light in the hall anymore.

A smooth outline.

The piercing, nonstop, unbearable screaming.

Sandra’s hair is such a bright shade of brown that she glows from the city lights. That and her eyes are wide enough with fear that what looks like these giant saucers of milk quiver and shake about seven feet off the ground. A giant beam of an arm vibrates and blows bright red, the faint sound of static electricity powering up. An engine whirs. Something hisses. Connected to the opposite of the beam of light are two giant red eyes, glowing in the dark. The gun already raised, I aim carefully, then I squint my eyes and I squeeze the trigger.

Flash.

Flash.

Flash.

The echo makes it seem like more than one, and in the light of the muzzle flash the clear face of another pair of glowing red eyes comes rushing forward. Along with the flash is a pinch, more painful than a sharp hanger crushing an egg. The two beings, they look so familiar…

Oh shit.

Oh shit.

Oh shit.

Dark again.

It’s hissing at me, a horrible gasping halfway between a breath and a whistle. Between the sounds of whirring machines and Sandra’s screams, I hear a body drop to the floor and glass breaking. The other pair of eyes falls through the window and out of sight, grinding greasy gears the entire way.

One down.

How many left?

The new menace is gone, but wind starts to rush behind me, sucked seemingly into a focal point in front of me. A clinking of metal…

SHIT!

Splinters of wood rain down on me, the center and head of the bad completely shattered by the impact. I’m thrown back out of the apartment, sliding across the floor. in one swift motion the gun is brought up again and i fire

and my first reaction was to hold the bat with both hands in front of me

it saved my life

In one swift motion the gun is brought up again and I fire.

Flash.

Flash.

Flash.

Another glimpse. His back. His back is turned to me, then he falls, struck.

Darkness.

Robotnik. This is his work. Not a creation, but a stolen life.

Robotosization.

Who’d he get this time?

Fuck you.

Again, the shot is dead on, the recoil now minimal, and I get up, gritting my teeth, the broken bat merely splinters in my clenched fist, I dive towards the screaming.

I end up rolling next to Sandra, still screaming and clutching her neck.

“SHHH! It’s me!”

Realization hits. She shivers but calms down a little, lowering octaves. Her arms warp around my neck and I stand up.

He’s already waiting for us, hissing violently, outline stretching outwards, moving forward. I raise the gun and start backing up but I hear the turbines again…

So I turn around to find Black hovering outside the window, brilliant red flame illuminating the apartment in a demonic shade of black. His arms fall to his sides, and he moves forward. I lower the gun.

Sandra and I run to the left, where I dredge up the desperate hope that the bathroom will provide safety…

Red drops in front of me, clenching his metal fists in rage, hissing unbearably. Sandra, hiding behind me, gripping my shoulders, screams “Shoot it!” so I raise the

CRACK!

My right shoulder shatters like glass, a product of Red’s oh-so-familiar fists attacking. The trigger still gets pulled but the shot goes wild, missing the target.

Flash.

Flash.

Flash.

Why the fuck is he so familiar?!

Clutching my arm, I watch as he stands there, stoic and still hissing over the roar of the red glow of the jetpack outside, staring right through me at…

Computing.

Calculating.

Striking.

He reels for another uppercut, bending down low to the ground and sucking in air for thrust. Straining, ignoring the stars, I force my arm around and fire when it comes close.

Flash.

Flash

f

l

a … metal dreads?

S on target

h

Bathroom.

Goal.

I practically heave me and Sandra inside the confines of the walls, rolling deep. The window where we were explodes and Black hovers inside, scorching the carpet to fire. Red starts to get up.

I slam the door right as it goes dark again.

I turn to Sandra, eyes glowing with fear, and she says, “I don’t want to die. Don’t let them hurt me,” over and over.

The only exit is back where we came. There is no window. The only thing in the room besides the rusty toilet is the rusty tub. What the fuck was I thinking?

I kiss her.

Then,

“We’re dead.”

The doors bust open, Black’s outline coming in first and getting thrown back by the first two shots, flash-flash-flash 2x, and Red comes in a second before it goes dark again

Permanently.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Red’s outline jumps into the air, ready to land on top of me, the hiss echoing within the confines, and I roll out of the way, coming up as he comes pounding on the floor, shaking the foundation. Black comes into the room and heads for Sandra, huddled in the tub against the wall. His right arm outstretches and reaches…

I use both hands. The gun comes down like a club on his arm, jarring my wrists and shooting pain up my neck. My shoulder begins to work even less, so I just toss the gun and unsheathe the knife with my left, wrapping what’s left of my right around his. Just as Black turns to look at me, I grip and bring it down as hard as I can…

Red takes my legs out from under me. I land on the side of my head, taking the knife with me. The faint sound of an internal warning light reaches my ears, and before I can get up Red is on top of me, pinning me to the floor so low that my chest

I inhale the thick odor of oil and grease, and I grunt and try to lift him off of me. No use. His sharp fists

GLOVES?!

pin into the floor, keeping him rigid. Metallic strips from his head brush my face, they’re sharp and they cut like razor blades, and he stares me down at me. I breathe in and I smell something that’s faintly organic…

And the knife in my good arm thrusts into his belly, bending and twisting against metal. Red makes no move to attack as I stab, stab, stab into him, pulling out and going inside, further and further, faster and faster. I move for all vital organs and I get no reaction.

I have a view over his shoulder to Sandra in the tub, now gripped by the neck in Black’s busted arm. She screams loud and kicks her legs against the walls, knees hitting before feet, her other arm trying to hit him in the face, but all of this doesn’t last long. As my stabs become more and more frantic and I grunt more and more desperately, her scream fades as the arms powers up again and then…

Blood goes everywhere. It splashes across my face and flows onto the floor where I’m pinned. I spit and choke. I can’t breathe. Black stays pinned in the same position and my stabs slacken. Sandra’s kicks cease, but her blood doesn’t. Her eyes lose their light, and all that is inside her pours out of Black’s busted arm, onto Red’s back and down my face. The squirting of blood stays constant for about thirty seconds until the flow slackens, spurting and emptying. Black shakes his arm, shuddering Sandra’s slumped form. Her body drops to the tub with a loud thump. Black leaves the room, while it takes Red at least ten seconds longer to stop staring at me and get up and leave.

I stay on the floor, bathed in Sandra’s blood, and just before I pass out, I think about how beautiful the stars would look on a night like this, but it’s obscured by the roof and the amount of red still in the room.

i just wanted you to know… i’m sorry.”

**********

“… tails?”

“What?”

“… nothing.”

How long have I been out?

“What do you want?”

“…”

“Look, I’m a little busy right now…”

“sandra’s dead.”

“… Oh. Right. That.”

Where the hell am I?

“Wait, who?”

“sandra.”

“I can’t keep track of all your clit-clique friends, Amy. You’ll have to be a little more specific.”

When did I wake up?

“i… i just thought you’d want to know who’s doing it.”

When and how did I make it back to the apartment?

Who the fuck am I talking to?

“You know?”

“i have a really… really… really good idea.”

“How could you possibly know?”

Don’t say. Line tapped. They’re listening.

“… robots… robotosized… two of them… red and black… they attacked us, killed her, left me alone…”

“Eggman?”

Click click click.

They’re listening.

Give him the facts.

“yeah. eggman.”

“Well, gee, as though the thought hadn’t crossed my mind already.” Sigh. “Are you sure?”

Did I call him or did he call me?

“i don’t have proof.”

“That doesn’t do me a fat lot of good then, does it? I told you to only call here if it was an emergency.”

Angry. Frustrated. Is that usual for him?

“well… now you know for sure.”

“No, no I don’t know, Amy. All I have to go off of is the word of some whacked out, dick-hating broad that has issues with sexuality. I’ll be laughed right out of the precinct, after, of course, the ten year incarceration.”

Did that hurt?

I’m not sure.

“you don’t care, do you?”

In a rush it suddenly all makes sense again. The apartment walls come into focus. The call…

“You don’t even care, do you, you obnoxious little puke! I’m helping you and you don’t even give a shit! Fuck you!”

Funny, you’d think that would feel good, but really I feel like I just swallowed more vomit rather than spew it. My face pulls tight and my eyes squint. I grip the phone so tight that I hear it crack.

“This is so typical, you little cunt. Only thinking about yourself, about your little problems with your release valves. Well, excuse me, but your little lesbian BITCH isn’t on my list of priorities right now! Family comes first!”

Great. Perfect. Fine.

These tiny trails of hot liquid start running down my face. I close my eyes and force out an apology.

Sigh. “Accepted. I’m sorry too.”

“Who… ?”

“… Sis.”

“I see.”

“She was on the news…”

That comment is so odd that I can’t think of what to say next. The silence is suffocating. I can barely push any coherent phrase out, so what I end up saying is something like: “You have a plan?”

“For?”

“Safety. In case Eggman sends them again.”

“And the FBI?”

“Tame. Tame compared to what lies ahead.” I’m choking on syllables.

“If they’re listening, then they know the task. Is Rouge still there?”

“… yeah.”

“Get her out of there. Take her anywhere in the city just for the night. Is there a friend’s house you can stay at?”

“of the living persuasion, no. but i guess i can manage something.”

“If they come after you…”

Click click click. “… don’t get caught. don’t give up. i know.”

“I’m liking you more already. Call me tomorrow from a payphone, alright?”

“i-i-if… i’m… still alive…”

“You’ll be fine.”

“okay. thanks. bye.”

The phone doesn’t even hang up before I start to sob.

**********

The tenants upstairs are taking a shower. Lucky me.

It would make a funny police report if the FBI storms into the apartment right now, guns raised and shouting orders to each other, flashlights arcing in the dark, snipers on the building across the way from mine, and they find me in the shower, covered in nothing but soap and completely willing to cooperate. In fact, this is their last chance.

Any minute now…

The superintendent usually empties testicle fluid on his floor around this time of night, and you’d think that would make him less of a prick, but no, his stamina is amazing. It could be him that’s pounding at the door right now, or it could be…

Come on. Get in already.

None of the lights work here. Neither does the plumbing. Air conditioning is a joke. But I can’t complain because it’ll get us evicted.

I keep seeing shadows move. Tricks of my mind, I know, but every time I jumped and cried some more. I haven’t left the apartment yet because I’m scared out of my fucking mind. I can’t tell if it’s night or day because the windows are boarded up. I don’t have a watch anymore. I lent it to someone…

By the time I reached the shower, the comforting, confined, claustrophobic slab of a white, linoleum tomb, I didn’t care any more. The FBI can have me. Robotnik’s freaks can come in and kill me. That jerk-off can go ahead and throw us out.

I give up.

You can only take a shower here if the tenants upstairs are as well, since we’re stacked on top of each other like a newlywed couple. The ceiling is water damaged, and loud noises leak through. Sometimes a fight. Sometimes the television. Sometimes…

Nothing works, and I can only hope that my coffin is really, really thick, so I don’t have to hear the neighbors scratch and crawl at theirs. I would just want some rest. But no, even then I’d probably be cheated out of it. Downsized and crammed into the anchovy afterlife. Everyone wants a piece, and if we don’t give up a little of our own, if we don’t share, then none of us get anything. As the years pass more and more will be stacked on top, and all hope for rest will be lost.

But anyway.

The door pounds louder and louder each time, but I close my eyes and drift, concentrating on the noises from above. The already-soapy water runs down the entire length of my body, washing Sandra’s caked blood off of me. I don’t bother to scrub. I just stand still, letting the water pound away at me, the oil and blood mixing and disappearing down the drain. A giant black and blue bruise radiates from my shoulder, a giant black hole of a tattoo. It hurts to move it. It hurts to touch it. When I feel my face there are all sorts of tiny cuts in it, raw and exposed, just beginning to hurt and heal themselves. I’ll probably end up with scars that look like the ones on my back. Above me, over the sound of the water and the door, I can hear voices.

About fifteen or twenty minutes ago, I remember someone walking up to the counter, covered in blood. I remember someone staring blankly at the superintendent, who also stared back, but in surprise. I remember this someone flipping a soaked wad of cash onto the counter. I remember the excess dripping onto the floor. I remember the someone saying: “I told you.” and then shuffling to her room three or four or whatever flights up.

He shouldn’t complain. He probably gets this all the time. But the grudge remains, and now he’s pounding on the door.

“Take it, yeah, take it, bitch, uh!” “Oh god, oh yes!”

Why the fuck was I spared? Why didn’t they kill me along with Sandra?

Flash, flash, flash. Click. Click. Click.

Click.

Oh.

“Fuck me!”

Forget trying to find a decent place to live anymore. They’re all taken already.

Hmmm. Maybe mass destruction is a good thing…

Pound, pound, pound. Rouge is being unusually quiet. I wonder how she’ll take the news…

“Yeah, you like it dirty, don’t you?” “You like this cock? You want me to fuck you with it?”

They only attacked me when I was in their way. I was pinned to the floor so they could take Sandra. They wanted her blood… Why?

I’m almost clean, my legs being the last that need rinsing. My clothes lay heaped in a bloody pile in the corner, next to the toilet. The screams and shouts from above haven’t ceased.

In the shower with me, the gun and the knife. One is broken, empty, and slick with red chrome, the other is bent in half, dull, gnarled, and shining black. The bat is still in pieces at the apartment…

One at a time.

Robotnik is killing us one at a time. The methodical, retarded bastard.

I get out of the tomb, not bothering to dry myself off. I walk into my room, the window still busted from when whoever decided to break in, and I pick out new clothes. Something colorful. Something stylish. I want to make a good corpse.

They missed their window.

Even Mr. Super has given up. The apartment is so quiet I can actually hear the couple’s labored breathing.

When I reach Rouge’s room, to tell her that we have to leave, she’s already dressed, the gun in her left hand and the closet door wide open.

Empty.

“I want to leave.”

“… Good idea.”

I lower my eyes to the floor, so she won’t see how glad I am to see her again.

“You okay?”

“Funny, I’d ask you the same thing.”

No one stops us on the way out, not even the superintendent, who just wedges himself as far away from us as possible on the ground floor.

**********

Flash freeze.

The way I feel right now, it’s hard to describe but easy to feel all the same. Almost like I’ve been an ice cube in a freezer all my life and then one day someone throws me into warm water. Cracks appear along my surface and I cling to whoever is nearby.

“Don’t worry. They’ll leave us alone,” Rouge says, her arm losing circulation. The gun wedged in her pocket still feels cold even through all of the clothing.

After the rape, I started having panic attacks and frightened outbursts at random intervals, screaming at a desk lamp or a street light. Anything phallic shaped, probably. After awhile they went away, but now, another feels like it’s creeping, waiting around the corner, biding time until the strike…

“I know where we can go,” she says, clutching me tighter than I’m clutching her. We look like two dirty street urchins from any number of historical stage plays, but at least we’re in a part of town where we blend in. Besides, it doesn’t really matter who sees us. Fuck my acquaintances.

Knowing your own mortality really puts life in perspective, doesn’t it?

Along the way to wherever we’re going, we pass several newsstands and televisions screens, and they’re all talking about the “serial killer” loose around town. They’re still calling them the “Vampire” something or other killings, whatever the assfuck, and now the media is concentrating on a single witness that has come forth.

Sandra’s other girlfriend, no doubt. Cheating bitch… God rest her soul. The press conference will be held tonight. The police will address the public with newfound information. Been there, done that.

Where we end up going is a dockyard, the kind where shacks and stores selling bait and whatnot for the sea-bound ships rest right on the water, over piers. They all look like they’ve been dipped in wooden varnish and sprayed with dirt, despite the water. Everything looks dried out like a senior citizen’s skin, from all the salt. It’s on dock 82 that Rouge turns onto and we walk to the very end, the only ones out this far, and she knocks on the door to the shack. The door creaks instead of pounds.

“Honey, why don’t you go over there and look at the fish,” she says to me, circles under her eyes. I smile at her.

“I’m not a kid anymore, you know. You can just tell me if you want to go away.” She smiles back, and I turn.

The air tastes like a lemon drop, the salt drying my skin, turning me into the wood. Making me look old, like the way I think. But even now I don’t know what age I’m supposed to be.

The pier is low enough to the water, and the moon is bright enough for me to see myself looking down, searching for fish. But the water is unusually black at night, and it looks like oil.

Oil…

This is reminding me of things that I don’t want to think about, but this place… this place is too inspirational, too poetic. Free thought is expected. The horizon, at the point where the sea looks like it curves down and off the planet, forever, where the end of the world is, it’s so clear. There’s no smog from the city behind me. The stars light the way, along with the broken moon’s white flesh. It used to be, when I was a lot younger in the mindset sense of the word, I’d lose myself in the stars, and send out a silent thanks for the moon being so easy to look at. Bright, but not harsh. I could stare at it all my life and not go blind from it directly. But now, because of Robotnik, it’s no longer whole. So broken that it’s no longer beautiful, but only reminds me of what happens to everyone and fuck, fuck no, I’m crying.

Wait. It’s raining. Yeah. Must be raining. Those drops that hit the water can’t be coming from me. That sullen, downcast face isn’t mine but the moon’s. It’s full again. Everything’s fine… everything’s fine…

No. It’s not.

The baby is kicking. I’m almost seven months along and I don’t look like I’ve gained much of anything. Possible birth defects. There’s genes to consider, there’s environment. I’d be a bad mother, since I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. The baby is going to grow up just like me, just like me, turn out just… like… me.

Fine. I am crying.

Doesn’t matter anyway.

I’m sobbing violently, the crying echoing into the night, when Rouge appears beside me, also reflected in the water, glowing like the moon. She doesn‘t even try to console me. She just sits with me, watching the water, until miraculously, we both get up at the same time and we leave.

Goodbye.

**********

“This isn’t so bad…”

A dumpster, lined with blankets and pillows. The outside is labeled as being a chemical waste bin, so no one will even try to open it. Just in case, though, there is a lock on the outside that is supposed to be keyed, and the inside can be pushed open as easily as a door. This was offered to Rouge by Dack, her FBI friend, who probably has a thing for her but it’s hard to tell.

The inside is dark, but I’ve adjusted to the light enough to see Rouge enough to try and talk to her.

“Just goes to show that you still have your fair share of tricks up your sleeve…”

Fuck, this isn’t working. She has not been responding to my attempts at conversation. She’s just been staring at me.

Damn it.

Why can’t I just thank her? Why can’t I just let her know that I love her, that she is the best thing to have ever happened to me, that…

“i… i want to talk.” Rouge says, the cancer scratching at her throat.

It’s almost insulting, since that’s what I had been trying to do for the last ten minutes, but… it’s so feeble sounding, so frightened. I hope that this won’t be another relapse.

“Sure,” is the only thing I can think of to say.

“I want to talk about something.”

“Sure. Anything you want.” I scoot closer to her, resting my head on her legs and staring up at her. She keeps focused on where I was sitting, not really seeing anymore.

“I… I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. It was selfish of me to take the coward’s way out…” She shivers, like she wants to cry. I know who she’s thinking about and she hates associating “coward” with him, but we both know that she’s right. “I know you’ve been in that drawer before, looking for medicine to dose yourself on, and we both know that nothing of the kind is in there. At least, not literally.”

She pauses, takes a deep breath. She also takes our gun out of her pocket and sets it down in front of her. Then, continues.

“There was only one bullet in it. And every day that he had not come back to us, I… I’d spin the chamber, put it to my head and pull the trigger. I know, I know, it’s stupid, but… I wanted to join him, wherever he was.”

We’re still near the docks, so the air feels misty with a touch of salt. “You really love him, don’t you?”

Rouge nods, starts to run her fingers through my hair. “Even if what he did was selfish, I’m sure, in his mind, his intentions were well-placed. And that’s what… that’s what stopped me the last time.” A tear drop hits my eyes. It so warm that I barely feel it, but I don’t blink, despite the stinging. “I realized that he wasn’t coming back. He’s gone. He left us. And right as I pulled the trigger… I moved. I chickened out. I’m too weak to do something like that.”

It’s easy to think of what to say after that. It’s practically set up enough that it’s cliché. “Weakness would have been to go through with it. It takes someone strong to deal with someone like me every day.” This is the most we’ve ever spoken about this, in all the months we’ve been together.

“Never sell yourself short, Amy. You’re still the best company I could ever hope to get.” She smiles. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

The whole thing is bittersweet, really, because I know she’s lying. What she wants is for me to get out on my own, to be dependant on only myself. She wants a normal life, a real daughter, a real husband, but she knows she can’t have it. But this… this conversation has gotten me thinking about him. I haven’t done that in a long time, I know, but it seems like it’s all I ever think about. More than Sonic, more than Tails, more than…

Weird.

He was my first real distraction from Sonic, the first guy I thought I could compare accurately to. Where Sonic fell short, he made up. The first of our group to actually let stupid, trivial shit truly slide. It didn’t matter to him, and what I saw in him was part childish infatuation, part realization that this was the type of guy I wanted to end up with.

Quite a catch.

I can see that Rouge would have been really lucky to end up with him. Had it worked out…

Especially after weeks of swallowing Sonic’s cock fluid did I finally realize the significance of a guy who actually listens to you, someone that doesn’t just roll over and fall asleep afterwards, someone that actually matters. But now…

Now… kiss all of that goodbye. Sonic made all men the same in my mind, just as he made sex with them the same. I suppose the reason I’m who I am now isn’t because I hate men. More that I’m afraid to try liking another one of “them” again. The prospect of being hurt is too much, and with women, it’s like they’re not even real people. They’re facsimiles. Sex with them doesn’t seem like real sex to me. And I suppose that’s probably wrong…

“The FBI is after me again,” Rouge says, shattering the silence. “Only this time I’m a suspect in a case they’re doing. They want me to talk but they don’t want me to talk to them. It’s a government thing.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about them anymore,” I say, thinking about how true that really is. They are the least of our problems.

“Yeah. Dack told me that they have new leads to follow, and that they’d leave me alone for the time being, hence why we aren’t being interrogated right now.”

“You sound better already.” She’s coming out of her funk, so quickly that I can hear the incline in her voice.

“I have you to thank for that.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, come on, I know you, Amy. The ability to unconsciously tag along with any fight against ‘bad guys’ is ingrained within.”

“I think you’re full of shit.” I smile.

“Maybe. But we both know who’s right.”

My arms slither around her waist, and I bury my face into her stomach before she sees my crying. “I love you, Rouge.”

“Call me mom.” She yawns. “I was beginning to get used to that…”

And we both fall asleep.

**********

Morning.

No, wait, afternoon.

Rouge is still sleeping when I wake up, and I do my best to quietly slip out. My intention is to try and scrounge up a measly late breakfast for us both, and possibly some soap so we can bathe in the ocean.

It’s still early enough for the light to be scarce, overcast, and tinted blue, but already the signs of ship rush hour, whatever they call it, are apparent. It’s louder than a rock concert at present time. The dumpster is almost sound proof.

From pier 82, way down by the end, Dack shoots a leveled glare right at my head, and I can tell even from this far away that he’s frowning. He must not like competition with his little Rougey.

Because of his hospitality, I don’t make any rude gesture, and instead I just smile and wave at him. I turn before I see his reaction and I keep walking.

The crowd is a sparse gathering of onlookers, vagrants mostly, term used loosely, trying to peddle their pathetic wares for a scrap of food. Most of them wear only rags around their waists and chest, hiding the shame of being naked and alone, utilizing hair growth. This way, they all look the same.

It doesn’t hit me all that hard until I walk right through them, and nobody even gives me a second glance. Looking down at myself I realize that my clothes are just as dirty as theirs, that I have nothing of value on me to take, and they all know it. Already I feel the tears start to come again…

NO.

Enough of this.

I’ve had it.

This bullshit, this hiding away fuckery, this coward’s way out, this ruining of my friends’ life… well…

No. More.

If they want me, they can come and fucking get me.

**********

Plan.

Stratagem.

A pathetic one, but it’s all I have.

I’m on the roof of a warehouse when I see them, almost invisible in the twilight, but their colors, their colors, their familiar shapes, and their appalling predictability give them away. To anyone else, they would look like aircraft, or a snobby rich asshole’s new hobby.

But he, they, don’t fool me.

Disregarding all else, I start to flail my arms and scream. I’ve been waiting for them to appear for hours, and finally, as the twilight hours descend…

What pushed me over the edge? How did I end up choosing this?

Sandra.

What if the same thing happened to Rouge? Or Tails?

Or…

I don’t want my baby to end up like me. I don’t want to bring something up in a world where shit like this can happen every day and no one can stop it. Murder is as regular as the changing of the hours.

And nobody even gives a shit.

Fuck that. I’d take nonexistence, I’d take oblivion over this hell.

I’m doing everyone a favor here.

And if I win?

Well, then yippee. Hooray.

No loss, no gain, just a benefit. I think of it as second prize.

Both the black and the red dots swirl in the air, a dance like the tango, and they search for their next prey, someone else that me or Tails or Rouge knows. Someone that Robotnik saw staring at him funny. That son of a bitch.

The two lights zig-zag lines, arcing left and right, ever so slowly. They are packed closely together, hugging. One obviously needs the other for flight.

Why doesn’t anyone notice this?

I keep flailing my arms, trying to get them to come after me. My feet hit the cinderblock I have assembled at my feet, but I keep jumping.

The two dots suddenly dive bomb into the thick of the city, and they disappear. Where they are now is nowhere near me, and my hails have failed. Fuck.

I was supposed to call Tails today. Shit, I knew I forgot something, though I don’t think I would have had the change for it anyway.

I swear, that boy worries about me too much, and every time I’m out on my own he thinks he has to hold my hand. His affection for me is too obvious sometimes, and I know that I can’t appreciate it but yet I don’t shoot him down from his cloud. I keep telling myself that he’s like a brother. Or a homosexual guy friend.

This could be the arrogant depression talking, of course, but sometimes it just feels good to vent.

Hmmm. Maybe this time I can convince him to try and hack into their communications systems or something, or construct a beacon, or…

They’re back.

This time, the two lights head straight up into the air and they split, coming apart in a giant V. One of them, the red one, hovers low over the city in the opposite direction, while the black one drops back into the thick of the buildings. It’s obvious what they’re doing. Searching, scanning, probing. They must not have found who they’re looking for, and now they‘re splitting up and trying to find them.

If it’s me they’re looking for, I don’t know it. Hell, it could be Rouge they want. But fat chance they’re going to get her without going through me first.

The building I’m on is high enough to oversee much of the alleys and buildings on the docks, towering above fire escapes and wet newspapers. Fuck, it seems like the bulk of my life has been spent in alleys, running from something or another…

I’m not retreating this time.

The red light shrinks away from me, going the opposite direction, and black reappears in short bursts back above the buildings, sticking to the cover of the structures and running in the alleys.

Perfect.

I reach down next to the ledge and I pick up a giant piece of cinderblock, leftover from the construction site a couple of blocks away. I pick a side, any side, and I lean over, block high above my head, and I wait. I watch the ground and the area around it and I wait for him…

Black.

The one who killed Sandra.

Sucked the blood right out of her.

Dead. You’re fucking dead, you hear me?

If I survive this one, and the second one, I’m coming after you next.

And I’m not stopping.

Wait…

Wait…

NOW!

**********

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

The block scores a direct hit on the bastard’s head. He thrusters immediately cut out, disabled, he lets out this ear shattering screech, and he lands face first with the most beautiful sounding crunch of metal. I seriously almost laugh out loud. But he’s not all the way dead. No fucking way that he is. This is only the beginning. He’s probably just playing possum. Predictable villain. Too easy.

I have to keep up this false bravado, this cocky attitude that gets on everyone’s nerves. Just like Sonic. I know why he did it now. How he got used to being an asshole to everyone. It leaves no room for fear. Confidence compensation.

I can’t do it as well as him, so even though I’m grinning like an idiot, I’m shaking, nervous, and my eyes probably show my fear.

I guess I just don’t care enough anymore. Not enough to stop myself, anyway.

Down the fire escape. Through the grinded metal. Across the wet pavement. Over the broken glass and concrete. I reach his lifeless form, his memory encroaching, black metal form. Dead already. Yeah right, my ass.

From his feet, I lean as far as I can over him, closer to his head than I would have wanted, then I whisper:

“Lights out, mother fucker.”

And just as quick, I take off in the opposite direction, his feet moving up to try and catch me in the chin, send the bone into my brain. Sucking my blood. He’s gonna have to try harder than that.

You wouldn’t believe how fun this is. Sure, it’s more frightening than anything that’s ever happened to me. I mean, I could die. I. Could. Die. Think like playing a video game with only one life left, your wife in your office building walking up the floors while you’re fucking your secretary, think masturbating during a family function, think driving drunk past a police station, wailing voice and screaming obscenities. Whatever works for you. Multiply it by ten. You’re nowhere near the prospect of discovered mortality, nowhere near knowing death is right behind you.

Funny. I would have thought I’d panic by now, but this is surprisingly calculated and…

Wait, where the fuck am I going?

SHIT!

I didn’t think this far ahead, obviously. Now I have to make up a plan on the spot. Fuck. Fuck. Turn left. Run some more. Black brick, looks all the same. Turn right. Left. Roll. Dodge. Dive. Don’t look back, don’t look back, think of water as a possible means of dispatch. Remember Rouge, Baby, Rouge, Tails, tails, tails oh fuck getting tired running out of breath ouch trash can ow hurts stupid rusted metal keep going keep going im dead im dead im dead dead dead dead

What the fuck?!

**********

“Hey…”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

“For what? For the ride?

“For everything. For being there.”

“Whatever. It’s nothing. If you didn’t always tag along then I wouldn’t have to keep saving you.”

“Well, I appreciate it nonetheless.”

“What the hell were you doing down there anyway?”

“Staying in a place down by the docks…”

“I knew it! You really like that smell, don’t you?”

“Tails, I want you to do something for me.”

“… What?

“Just listen to me for a second. I have a plan.” He nods, and for the first time that I’ve ever seen him, in all the time I’ve known him, is completely attentive. “I… I’ve been thinking about this whole thing. You know, about how they choose their victims, about how they kill, why they kill the way they do…” He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but then decides against it and lets me continue. “And I know how to end it. Quick and easy. So no more have to die. So nobody else has to suffer, and most importantly, so he doesn’t get more of what he wants.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay, but don’t expect to just stand aside and let this happen…”

“I can take care of myself, ya know.”

“Not against this. No way.”

I don’t know how to fight him on this one. He knows me all too well.

“I’m not about to let someone I care about take on something like this all alone.”

Good enough for me, I guess. If I can’t get him to break, I can settle for him bending a little.

“Then you already know what I have in mind?”

“… Go ahead and tell me.”

“Guess.” I attempt a coy smile. Keep it light, keep it light.

He takes a deep breath, which sounds slightly angry. The next word he speaks is laced with a mixture of disgust and fury. “Bait.”

I nod. “Bait.”

“That’s bullshit.” But the words are hollow. In his mind he knows that I’ve already made the decision.

“You either play along or you leave me to do it alone. And you don’t want that, now do you?”

Swish.

Goal.

I’ve won.

The apartment, somehow still here, somehow left alone by the superintendent, chills and shivers. He glares into me, which is colder than anything I’ve ever felt in my life, and he storms out of the window, hovering into the air.

“Bitch.”

**********

It was well into the night by the time I managed to pry all of the wooden boards off of the windows. Every time I pulled one off I found myself not being able to remember when or how I got them up in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong. I may be conceited, but I can still learn, from both my mistakes and others’ examples. What I can piece together from experience and teachers is that some things actually do require careful thought and planning. Especially when playing defense.

So, I gather what I can. Hammer, nails, light bulbs, electrical cords, toilet water, blankets, towels, clothes, a broken gun, a bent knife, a couch, an un-working television, two mattresses, a hot plate, broken glass from the window in my room, snow globe, wallet, various kitchen utensils like forks and spoons. All of it mostly wooden, or made of glass. The only thing I leave plugged in is the phone.

Every uncovered window I bust with a hammer. The shards fall past the fire escape, through the thin metal grating, breaking into a thousand pieces onto the street below. I don’t break them down to their frames, and by the time I’m done with the living room, all of the windows look like mouths, gaping in terror, with sharp, clear teeth lining every edge.

Next. I clear out every other room, bringing my bed and my dresser out, bringing Rouge’s bed and cabinet out. All of her clothes and the closet doors. Everything we own is moved into one room, and only then to I close everything else off. The doors are tied closed with the cords of whatever appliance that was in the kitchen. Unlucky for me, all of them have to be pushed open from my side, so it makes it harder to keep them from opening. Oh well. All of this is cannibalized anyway. Can’t expect perfection.

The doors that open my way are nailed shut and barricaded with one of the many large hunks of wood. Each object is much lighter after the contents are spilled out onto the street with the broken glass. And no, not all of it goes to waste. Those things big enough to trip over are scattered on the floor, a maze to jump over, dodge, and navigate. The left over nails I just slam into the wall. A bed of spikes. My hammer I toss into the corner near the front door.

My intention is to make sure the upcoming dance stays in one room only. Every advantage must be taken advantage of. Everything that I could possibly control has to be.

All of this is done with surprising swiftness. The living room already looks like a battlefield, a post-war tornado. A graveyard or a junkyard, constructed out of little pieces of Rouge’s life. Of my life. None of it served a real purpose until now…

The only door I don’t barricade is the front, because that still serves somewhat of a purpose. A test as well as a failsafe. Every light bulb available, I take and throw down the hallway, some at the other lights hanging along the walls. They all shatter and hit the ground fast, flowing like fine, crystal water in one direction. I throw all of them, both directions, some far, some close. Alternating. The halogen lights from the bathroom arc in giant circles, spinning like a top in mid air, and they come crashing down loudest of all. I run out of ammunition, and the floor is littered with white shredded newspaper that cuts deeper than any bad paper cut, that makes more noise than the couple upstairs.

Yes.

Perfect.

I take off my shoes and throw them down the hall, then slam the door shut.

It’s been an hour or two since Tails dropped me off. This all adds new definition to the word “haste.” The reaper should be here for the party any minute now. I hope he bringing the casserole…

Joke. Seriously.

For the final touch to complete this masterpiece, I tip the couch over, bottom side facing the window. Over in the corner is a metal pole, about the same length and width, but not weight, as a baseball bat. My only weapon besides my wits. Home court advantage doesn’t count.

I find myself grinning at all of this. I can’t help it.

But, of course, it fades when I hear the engines approaching.

It’s time.

One more thing.

I dial the number Tails gave me, and of course, he answers immediately. He sounds scared… but not as scared as me.

And I tell him that they’re coming.

I tell him that he can deal with it if he wants.

He still has time.

And I know we’re alone on this one, me and Tails. All by ourselves, because the line isn’t clicking.

No static.

No noise.

It’s clear… so clear…

Click.