¿Him or Her? {Sonadow}

Chapter Eighteen

__Shadow spent the whole week holed up in his house. At the beginning of it Tails had successfully hacked into the unlabeled file. He wanted to send it to Shadow but Shadow wanted a chance to take a longer break. He mainly wanted it because he was slightly growing a bit depressed. He had been receiving the same dreams, or rather memories, every night and would always wake up with his face wet with tears. He would keep thinking of ways to distract himself from it, but that same yearning feeling would not leave. He wanted it to go away so he could live his life peacefully again. What Shadow really wanted was to let it out, but he didn't want to tell anyone, not even Rouge, about it.
__Shadow tried to keep his mind busy by cleaning up his house, even though it was already clean. Even Navi attempted to clean in her own silly way. The way she used her feet on a rag to wipe the counter was amusing to Shadow. It actually made him feel a little better. Shadow had put down his broom and went over to Navi. He waited until she stopped dancing on the towel before scratching under her chin. "You are a riot."
__"Chow!" Navi had flown up to Shadow's face and lightly kissed his cheek.
__"All right, all right," Shadow said tiredly. He then set her back down on the counter. "I honestly don't know how I put up with you. But you amuse me, so I won't complain."
__Navi tilted her head but smiled anyway.
__Shadow leaned back and crossed his arms. "You're not the only one who amuses me." He set his arms down and went to grab his phone off the coffee table. He decided to message Sonic and tell him he was ready to check out the "haunted mansion."
__Sonic replied almost immediately. Cool, and perfect timing, he said. I was just starting to get bored. Meet you at the park?
__Shadow felt weird all of a sudden. For some reason there was no part of him protesting as he sent a message saying yeah.

__Shadow was standing by a tree with his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed. He had been waiting for Sonic to show. People passing by would smile at Shadow and he would nod back as acknowledgment. He was getting annoyed, though. He had been standing there for five minutes. He knew Sonic was faster than that. He was about to pull out his phone when something quickly appeared next to him: Sonic's head.
__"Guh!" Shadow jumped back and growled when he saw that Sonic was hanging upside down on the tree branch. Sonic had started laughing at Shadow's angry look.
__"Ha! Scared ya, didn't I?" Sonic continued laughing before back flipping off the tree branch and landed in his feet.
__Shadow stifled another growl as he crossed his arms. "When did you get here? And without me noticing?"
__Sonic smirked and wrapped his arms under his quills. "I've been here the whole time, silly. Before you came here. I was just waiting for you to notice when you somehow came to the exact tree I was sitting in."
__Shadow managed to calm down a bit. Sonic was really annoying, yet intriguing at the same time. It didn't bother Shadow, though. "So, where's this mansion?"
__Sonic set his arms down before motioning Shadow to follow. "It's all the way on the other side of the city at the mountain range."
__Shadow did not hesitate in following Sonic.

__They were taking their time in going up the mountain where the abandoned mansion was. Shadow stayed behind Sonic, allowing him to take the lead. While Sonic kept his eyes forward, Shadow was examining the mountains. The way the mountains here looked seemed closely the same to how Maria described mountains to Shadow for the first time, even when she never seen a mountain in person.
__"Maria would've loved this," He caught himself muttering.
__Sonic looked back at Shadow. It took him a bit before speaking. "What was that?"
__Shadow shook his head. "Nothing. Are we almost there?"
__Sonic had slowed down to where he was next to Shadow. "Yeah, it's coming into view now."
__Shadow looked ahead and saw the mansion. It was large, maybe three stories. The wood with faded brown paint was broken and rotten. Most of the windows were either covered in dirt and grime or broken. There was a double door, and one of them was in tact while the other hung on the bottom hinge. There were also lots of plants that had overgrown all over the giant house. It was also charred. Shadow found himself walking on an old concrete path, which had cracks and grime all over it. Ahead of them was an old banged up fountain. Inside it were some old coins, bugs, dead leaves, and a few small broken up skeletons.
__Sonic stopped to look into the fountain. "Guess the owners believed in wishes," He remarked brightly. "And I guess small animals die in this thing pretty often."
__"Shrews and rats," Shadow said. He then walked around the fountain and looked at the front doors.
__"You can tell what those broken skeletons are?" Sonic asked as he followed Shadow.
__Shadow ignored his question as he looked inside the house passed the broken door. It was dark but he was able to see a bit of the main room. The floor was a checkered pattern of a faded red and beige with a large antic carpet in the middle. There was also a broken desk that had somehow fell behind the doors.
__Shadow turned to look at Sonic. "Is there a back story to this place?"
__"Yeah," Sonic rasped. "There was a small family here: a mom, dad, daughter, and her grandmother. The couple never called themselves rich, but they somehow always got a lot of things for their only daughter. They did a lot to keep her happy since she always seemed upset. The grandmother would keep telling them that spoiling her with toys would not make her happy, but they didn't listen. They believed they were doing good. When the little girl turned ten she developed an interest for chemistry, so her parents bought her a chemistry kit. That didn't make her happy, though. Something had caused her to use that kit to set the house on fire. She was the first one to be engulfed by the flames. It was said that the grandmother cursed the mansion as she burned with it for the parents' idiocy. This all happened a hundred years ago."
__Shadow was looking at Sonic with his eyes wide. The way Sonic looked how he explained the story was unnerving. He showed absolutely no emotion. This seemed unlike him.
__Sonic suddenly smiled as he looked at Shadow. "Ready to see if it's actually haunted?"
__Shadow just stared at Sonic in confusion as he waited for him to reply. You are really hard to read.