Chapter 4: The Limbo Begins…

About 12 hours later, I forced my eyes open. Bleary-eyed, but awake, I looked around. My eyes met Bokkun’s.

“AHH!!! You’re awake!” He screamed and fled from the room. I tried to get up and follow him, but fell back against my pillow with yelp of pain. When I opened my eyes again, Bokkun and Rouge flew in first, followed by a panting Eggman. I looked past all of them and my eyes met Shadow’s as he walked in. My heart felt like it would burst out of my chest and it pounded so hard against my ribs it hurt.

“What did you call me here for? She’s not dead!” Eggman yelled at Bokkun.

“Sorry!” Eggman stomped out, Bokkun trailing behind.

“Well, well, look who’s awake, your guardian angel, Shadow!” Rouge teased him. He cast her a serious look.

“How are you feeling?” He asked me.

“Well, better than yesterday, if you can believe that.” I returned, trying to act more lively.

“I know it’ll hurt, but you need to get up and move around.” Rouge said. I nodded. “We’ll help you.” She told me. I managed to swivel myself and get my legs off the bed before I needed any help. Rouge took my right side and Shadow got my left. With them under me, I slowly put weight on my left leg. When the pain became too much, I jerked my leg back.

“Okay now, let’s see if we can get you situated in the control room.” They led me down several hallways until we finally reached the control room.

That was where everything happened: Eggman made his commands there, Shadow and Rouge plotted there, the robots fulfilled their duties there.

Shadow and Rouge led me to a chair and helped me into it. I thanked them graciously and politely. I looked up and right and found Eggman at the captain’s seat. He seemed to be asleep, but I quickly realized he was far from it.

“Shadow, get over here!” He barked. I growled softly at the way Eggman was treating him. Shadow took notice, smirking as he passed me. Shadow stepped onto the circular pedestal in the center of the room and turned to face Eggman. Rouge came and leaned on the chair I was sitting in and looked towards Shadow. I observed carefully. “We have four of the seven Chaos Emeralds. Shadow, I need you to get at least one emerald today.” Eggman said casually.

“Yes, Doctor. I’ll need to use at least one emerald for power.” Shadow said, looking towards Rouge.

“Very well, then.” Rouge passed me a mahogany box wordlessly and motioned for me to open it. I obeyed quickly and flipped open the top. The four Chaos Emeralds were sitting in the box. Shadow walked to me, took the light blue emerald, and went back to the pedestal. I snapped the box shut once more and passed it back to Rouge. “Good now. Be sure to bring back both emeralds.” Eggman dismissed him. Shadow nodded and turned towards Rouge and I.

“Good luck. Be careful, Shadow.” I warned knowingly. He nodded and held the Emerald high above his head. His red-brown eyes lingered on me as he said the words that would take him away.

“Chaos Control.” He said strongly. In a white flash, he was gone. I found myself praying for his safe return.

What’s wrong with me? I’m supposed to be supporting Sonic, not Shadow. I sighed. Looks like I’ve gotten myself in a big tangle this time and there’s no way out. I bit my lip nervously.

“I hope you know the only reason you’re not in the same situation as Chris is because Shadow and Rouge are protecting you, mostly Shadow.” Eggman spoke to me without even looking at me. I looked up at him. “The only reason they’re protecting you is that you saved Shadow a world of pain.” He continued. I glanced over at Rouge. She looked like she was choking down a smart remark. I nodded in understanding, hoping Eggman wouldn’t continue. He didn’t press on. Rouge put on a kind face and turned to me.

“Would you like something to eat?” She asked. My stomach growled pleadingly and we laughed. Rouge left me alone with Eggman.

“Can you do anything entertaining?” He asked, bored.

“Uhh… I suppose I can…” I said slowly. Rouge walked back in with some good-looking food. My stomach growled again.

“Okay then, entertain us, then you’ll get your food.” Eggman demanded. Rouge set the tray down and gave me a questioning look. I slightly shook my head back and she nodded. She sat down in front of me and flicked open her watch and fiddled with it. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my MP3 player. I turned it to speaker mode and looked for a song. After a few seconds, I chose “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers. I took off the words and pressed play. I slid into the song like a pair of worn jeans and sang as close to perfection as I dared.

I ended the song and came back down to Earth, or the ARK. Rouge’s mouth was hanging wide open. She closed her watch and applauded me. Eggman clapped three times and stopped. Rouge glared at him, and then gave me my food. I thanked her and dove into the food. After a few moments, I finished and leaned back, sighing in content. Bocoe came and took the tray away.

“Katelyn, you’re a piece of work.” Eggman remarked. “You should be dead.” I smiled mischievously at him.

Suddenly, Rouge’s watch began beeping urgently. She flicked it open again.

“I’ve made contact. I need you to distract them.” Shadow’s voice came from the device.

“Roger, I’ll be down in a few.” She said back. She closed the watch again and looked back at me. A sly grin spread across her face. She pulled a watch from her pocket and tossed it to me. I caught it and noticed it was exactly like the one on her wrist. She motioned for me to put it on. I hesitated for a moment, and then slid it on my wrist. “You can keep in touch with us on that.” I nodded my understanding. She left the room once more.

A few minutes later, a chill ran down my spine and I shivered. Within that second, Shadow and Rouge reappeared. I gave them a smile. Shadow held up three Chaos Emeralds proudly. Eggman stared in wonder at Shadow.

“Excellent work, Shadow, brilliant!”

I looked away, a slightly bitter taste forming in my mouth. After a bit, Rouge helped me to my feet and I walked/limped unassisted out of the room. Rouge walked beside me down the hall.

Once we turned a corner, Shadow appeared in front of us via Chaos Control. I jumped in surprise.

“Eggman ordered us to give you a tour to keep ourselves busy until he needs us again.” Shadow told me. I nodded apprehensively. Shadow took the lead.

The first room he led me to was a room that was flat near the walls and a little ways into the center gently sloping downward towards a large neon-green lake. The water was as flat as a pane of glass and as opaque as mud.

“It’s acid.” Shadow caught me staring at the liquid. “If you touch it, the acid will burn away the skin from that part of your body. Then, it will eat away the bone if you stay in it long enough.” Shadow continued.

“Why is it here?” Rouge asked for me.

“Waste. It was excess from earlier experiments.”

“Prototypes.” It was more a statement than a question.

“Exactly.” Shadow said proudly. I looked over at him and let my eyes observe and regard him. I realized he was the result of long years of research, but he carried himself in a way that told the world that he was the result, the final thing that had come from hard work that they had no part in.

He is a peculiar creature, but who am I to call anyone peculiar when I am quite strange as well.

I looked away from him and looked around. Ledges jutted out over the acid lake in several places.

“I suppose nothing could survive if they were thrown in the middle of it?” I said slowly.

“That would be almost correct; I could survive it.” He judged the acid. I believed him.

Shadow led us out of the room into several other rooms before finally reaching the dormitory level.

“And this is where we’ll leave you. Which room do you want?” Rouge asked.

“One not anywhere near Chris’s.” I growled. Shadow led us three hallways over. He opened the door to one with a curtained window on the wall to the left of the door.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to lock you in here ‘cause Eggbutt doesn’t want to ‘deal with you’.” Rouge formed finger quotes mockingly.

“If you need something, contact us on that watch Rouge gave you. We’ll be on a mission, but we’ll let Bocoe or Decoe know.” Shadow said. I nodded.

“Thanks. Be careful, both of you.” I told them. Rouge smiled in response and Shadow’s frown softened a touch. They left the room and locked the door as they left. I stared at the door for a moment, and then looked around.

First, I checked out the window. There were no curtains on the inside, so I assumed the curtains were holograms. There was a small keypad below the window. The keys were marked by symbols looking like weather conditions. After studying this for a moment, I pressed the key with a sun on it. The clear window turned into a window that allowed sunlight through. I played with that for a bit. When I got bored, I pressed the ‘cloudy’ button and left it alone. In the upper right corner of the room, a full-sized bed with generous covers sat. I flopped onto it and surveyed the rest of the room from it. A small desk was in the lower right corner. Other than that, the room was bare. I sighed in boredom and decided to listen to music. I set up my mp3 player on the desk and drove the volume up. I picked a random song and ended up falling asleep on the bed.

Hours later, the watch on my wrist began vibrating and woke me up. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and flipped the watch open. Rouge stared back at me from the tiny screen on the watch.

“Just checking on you. You okay, kiddo?” She asked.

“Yeah, you?” I asked sleepily.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking. We’ll be back to get you out soon.” She told me.

“Okay.” I yawned.

“See ya, kiddo.”

“Bye.” I closed the watch. I fell back into sleep.