Sonadow - The Island

19: How to end a nightmare

Hello, I'm back! Sorry for the long wait, January was filled with writer's block and editing this chapter was really taking long. I needed several days for certain parts, with that I just wasn't happy (to picture it for you: the original chapter was 31 pages long in my text document, the finished version you will read has 36 pages). Now I'm content and hope you enjoy, too. 

Sonic woke up to sounds of pain close to him. Sounds like these always told his instincts and inner hero, that he needed to wake up and do something, that's why he opened his eyes and sat up immediately, looking around.

He had lain next to the Master Emerald in its temple. Knuckles stood in front of the giant gem stone with his hands raised and held out towards it. He had his eyes closed and was murmuring under his breath, seemingly without a single break between the words to breathe. The hero knew better than interrupting him, especially since he remembered, what exactly he did there. He needed his concentration for the shield he built up.

Much slower than he was used to, Sonic stood up, feeling stiff from lying on the stone, and looked around for the origin of the noise, that had woken him up. His ears twitched towards the foot of the temple, from that came another small noise of pain, and he raced over and down the stairs – to stop shortly.

Kylie was kneeling in the grass in front of him, hunched over with both hands on her chest, wheezing and trying to breathe between small pained whimpers. Sweat rolled down her paler than usual face, her cheeks were far too red and small tears were in the corners of her eyes.

Somewhere behind the trees and bushes surrounding the temple, he could hear more whimpers, but also groans and muffled screams of pain. What was going on?

Tails and Bokkun stood next to the woman, looking helpless. Their distance made sense to Sonic in the next second, when Kylie suddenly twitched, just for a few seconds, and then hunched over again. She had probably flailed her limbs before, that's why they had backed off.

"Sonic!" Tails finally noticed him and looked at his brother with helpless relief. "What happened to her?," Sonic asked, going closer to him while making a bow around Kylie.

"I don't know! We were on our way here to look for you, and suddenly she said, that her heart would hurt and then she collapsed. I already asked the things I know about this, but she had no problem with it before and there's nothing known in her family!," the fox replied with a wavering voice. Tails was clearly at a loss of what could be wrong with her. He knew the basic things about medicine – and this was definitely above that.

They jumped, when Mighty came suddenly rushing out of a few bushes. Ignoring – or not noticing – the small group in front of the temple, he ran up the stairs to Knuckles. "Knux!," he shouted at him, shattering the other's concentration.

The echidna whipped around. "WHAT!?," he barked. "This spell you are performing, are there any side effects?," Mighty asked seriously.

"Side effects? This is magic, not medicine, there are no side effects!,"the guardian raged, angry for getting interrupted just for this stupid question.

"Are you sure? A whole lot of humans is currently writhing in pain here!," Mighty told him. Sonic frowned. So it wasn't just Kylie...

"W-what?!" Knuckles looked down and at the woman, who he noticed only now. "But that's not my doing, even if there was this side effect, they were all already on Angel Island, it would only affect them, if they had stepped on it, after I had completed the spell!," he defended himself, worry now creeping in his voice.

"We have a problem.," Blush landed next to the small group around Kylie, her glare just brushing for a second over the woman, before turning to Mighty, who looked at her anxiously. "One of the humans just took his last breath.," she reported. The eyes of everyone widened and flickered to the groaning Kylie.