I wake up to the warmth of the sun on my face and open my eyes. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light but when that happens, I glance at the sky. Judging by the sun's location it's probably somewhere between 10-11 AM, at least that's what I think. I take a hold of the boat's side as I prop myself up while yawning.
As my eyes get more and more used to the light, I begin to really see my surroundings. The blue of the ocean on the other side and on the other a sandy beach that I've never seen in my life. The sand seems to continue all across the shore. Behind the beach is a dense looking forest. A jungle. From somewhere beyond the forest I can see several peaks of mountains. The air is surprisingly warm and makes me want to take off my hoodie which I then tie around my waist.
"Maybe this is the change I needed," I mutter as I grab my bags and jump out from the boat. I wear my backpack and put the other one over my shoulder. Now should I stay on the beach or walk into the forest? The smart choice would be to stay nearby the boat, but then again, I don't even know how I got here. I wonder if I'm here all alone. As far as I can tell there is no one here.
I begin to take steps into the forest and soon enough I'm walking beside all sorts of plants. The forest back home had been green but somehow this place was even greener. Vines are hanging from the trees and plants are filling the ground. Even the rocks are covered with moss and other small plans. The smell of the flowers is enough to make me feel like I'm in a paradise. But I should probably still be on my toes. Jungles can be dangerous and it's easy to get lost in them. The last thing I want is to die painfully because of a poisonous bug or being roasted alive by a group of cannibals.
The surroundings seem rather similar for quite some time until I see a clearing. My eyes widen at surprise of the sight and I stop on my tracks. Different sized shacks and some other buildings. It's a village! But that's not the part that surprises me. It's the inhabitants that make me confused. They are not humans. Instead they are animals that walk on two feet. There are many different species such as goats, cats, beavers, monkeys, walruses, foxes and many others and they seem to all live there together in harmony.
Not knowing what I should do I continue walking onwards. Maybe they will be completely fine with me. Or at least that's what I hope. The animals seem to notice me as they turn around to look at me, and it seems they are just as surprised to see me as I'm surprised to see them. Some of them pick up their pace when they see me while others just completely stop walking.
One particular animal, I think it's a brown cat, stops to stare at me and I decide to go and ask him for some help. As I'm making my way to him, he seems to notice and quickly turns around while quickly walking or almost running away. It seems like they are scared of me so maybe I should just leave.
I enter the forest once again and begin walking among the plant life. The air there is rather humid which makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable, but I guess that's how it is on tropical islands and nothing can change that. Come to think of it, I don't even know if this is just an island or if this is a part of some continent.
This time I don't walk that long when I come across the beach again, only this isn't the area I had started from. The sight is completely different as between some large rocks and a couple palm trees is a lone shack. Maybe whoever lives here isn't afraid of me unlike the people at that village. I walk around the shack to see a doorway that has no door and walk over to it.
"Hello?" I say as I peek inside the shack to see tree creatures. A tall man dressed in a red coat and black pants, a blue spiky animal wearing a brown scarf and a two tailed fox wearing goggles on his forehead.
"Congratulations! You're the third candidate," the blue animal says pointing at me, and I raise an eyebrow confused.
"What now?" I ask hoping for an answer, but I don't get one.
Instead I follow the group onto a cliff where I find myself standing on top of a hoverboard next to the fox and the man who are also standing on top of hoverboards as the blue animal stands nearby us. "Alright, being my sidekick is no easy task. This competition will test your strength, stamina and endurance," the spiky blue animal says. As I look at him closer, I come to the conclusion that he must be a hedgehog. "The winner will be whoever makes it through all of the unimaginable hardships and brings me the red flag I planted atop the incredibly dangerous but inaccurately named Mount Safety," he continues and points at a mountain peak that has a flag waving on it.
I glance at the hoverboard and the steep slope in front of me. Never in my life have I used a hoverboard so how am I supposed to do this? And why even am I doing this? "I'm sorry," I say hoping it would catch the others' attention, "I don't exactly—" I continue but I'm cut off as someone pushes me forwards. "How does this work!" I yell as the board picks up speed. The slope comes to an end and soon enough I'm trying my best to balance while trying to move alongside the weird wooden lanes that were between the trees.
For a moment it's rather hard but eventually I start to get the hang of it. While trying my best to keep myself from falling, I take a glance behind me only to see the fox moving toward me with a lot of speed. Before he can crash into me, I decide to take the risk and I jump. The fox passes under me and I land back on the track right behind him. He soon disappears from my view and the human also passes me soon after.
The tracks soon come to an end, but to my surprise I see the two boarding different vehicles. The fox jumps on a blue airplane while the human enters a weird ball-like craft that begins to float. Not knowing what to do I decide to just walk after them hoping that I will catch them soon enough.
It doesn't take me that long to find them, but once again the sight I see makes me confused. The man is standing by a frozen pond and next to him is a weird looking robot. The hedgehog and fox on the other hand are standing on the ice that is cracking right under them. Before I have the chance to ask what's going on the ice splits into several pieces and the fox jumps into the air using his twin tails to fly while the hedgehog falls into the icy water.
"I can't swim!" he shouts worriedly, making my heart jump. Even though I don't know him at all I still don't want him to drown. Heck, I want nothing bad happening to anybody.
The fox flies over to him and tries to pull him up but it looks like he can't get a good enough grip on him. "You're waterlogged! I can't lift you," he tells his blue friend.
"Don't worry about me!" the hedgehog says letting go of him. "Get outta here!" he instructs.
"That's not how sidekicks do!" the fox says back and grabs onto the hedgehog's wrist with both of his hands.
The two stay above the water for a moment as the fox continues to try and pull him out but soon, they both sink into the water. Even though I have no idea who they are, a small gasp escapes my mouth.
The human and his robot turn away from the scene seemingly about to leave, but suddenly out of the water bursts the hedgehog being carried by the fox. The man and his robot turn around surprised and the fox lets go of the hedgehog who turns into a ball and begins to spin toward the robot. As the robot falls down it breaks the ice cap and falls into the water. The hedgehog on the other hand rolls back up and the fox grabs him again before the two fly toward the jungle.
"I'll be back!" the human yells clenching his fist, "With a new robot. Who has an accurate name! And super laser eyes. And he'll feed me ham," he continues on rambling as I watch him fly away via his pod.
I look off into the distance a bit confused by what just happened. "So that's that I guess," I sigh and look around. My bags are still at the shack on the beach. I wonder how long it'll take to walk back. Without hesitating I take off toward the direction that I think I came from.
The sky is turning different shades of red when I finally find myself back at the beach. The shack that my bags are in is now in my view but there are two creatures I haven't seen standing in front of it. A pink spiky animal wearing a red dress, probably another hedgehog, and a tall red creature with longer quills, maybe an echidna. The two are walking away from the shack and it seems like the pink one is following the red one while singing something about a pizza man and juggling.
I walk over to the shack as the two are now further from it. My bags are lying on the porch and they seem to be pretty much untouched. I pick them up and turn around to leave but instead I bump into someone. "Ow!" I exclaim as I fall, and I hit the wall behind me.
"Oh,I'm sorry. You didn't get hurt, did you?" a voice asks as I rub my back. As I open my eyes, a sense of deja vu passes over me, before quickly transforming into something else. What I find myself looking into are two emerald green orbs. It's the blue hedgehog.
"Wow," I accidentally blurt out. The chances of me looking like a complete idiot right now are higher than ever, but I'm hoping the hedgehog won't notice this, and will instead think it's just the way the light is reflecting from my skin.
"Are you okay?" he asks holding his hand out for me. There's clearly genuine concern in his voice and I can also see it clearly in his eyes. I glance at his gloved hand and slowly take it.
He pulls me up as I say, "I think I'm okay." Now that he's right in front of me and he's not moving I can fully see him. He's almost fully blue, aside from his cream-colored belly and muzzle, his shoes are red with a large white stripe in them, but it's hard to see because they're covered in sports tape. I originally had thought that he would've been smaller but surprisingly enough he's the same height as me.
"You sure?" he asks, and I turn to look at him into his eyes again. They're just a nice shade of green. A beautiful one.
"Yeah," I say. The two of us stand there for a moment before I even realize I'm still holding onto his hand. "Oh sorry," I quickly apologize as I let go of him and pull my hand back to my side.
"That's uh, okay," he says and quickly pulls his hand away from me. "We've never met before. You new here?"
"Yeah. I just got here today actually," I answer.
"Interesting place for a holiday," he says and laughs.
I glance away from him to the ocean. The ocean is reflecting the pinks from the sky. "It's not really a holiday," I say as I turn my gaze back to his emerald eyes. "But if it was would you happen to know where I can find a place to stay?"
"You mean you don't have a place?" he asks sounding almost surprised.
I slowly nod, "Yeah. That's exactly what I mean."
"In that case you can probably stay at our place tonight," the hedgehog smiles and the turns to look to his right, "Right, Tails?"
I turn to see what he's looking at to see the fox from earlier saying, "I don't see a problem with that."
How had I not noticed he was there all this time? Why was he so silent? "Wait, I don't wanna be a burden or anything like that. I can go to a hotel or something," I say to the hedgehog while also taking a glance at the fox.
"You won't be a burden. Come on let's go," the hedgehog says and both he and the fox begin to walk away.
"Wait," I say and the two turn around, "Are you sure about this?" They both smile as they nod. "Okay. In that case, what's your name?"
The hedgehog seems almost purple as the sky's reds reflect from his quills and he smirks, "I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog."
"Sonic," I say after him. That's an interesting name.
"And I'm Miles Prower, but everyone just calls me Tails," the fox says, and I nod to him. Now that I can see him closer, I notice that he's wearing a utility belt and like Sonic his shoes are covered in sports tape. He's also wearing white gloves.
"What about you?" Sonic asks and I turn to him.
"Y/N," I tell him.
The two of them smile and turn around. "Come on," Sonic says, "Let's get going before it's completely dark."
"Yeah. It looks like a storm is approaching," Tails says, pointing to a dark cloud a bit further from the island.
We soon arrive at yet another house, only this one is bigger than the one on the beach and it has a door. Inside the shack is at least a kitchen, a living area and a door that probably leads to a bathroom. A green couch is sitting in the living area and a rather large chair is hanging from the ceiling close to it. A small TV is also in the same area. The kitchen is also pretty simple, consisting of a few counters and cabinets, a fridge, sink and an oven.
"So, where will I be staying?" I ask looking around the building.
"I mean you can sleep pretty much anywhere you want," Tails says as he jumps on the hanging chair.
I sit down on the couch and open my bag. I didn't really take that much stuff with me, only the stuff that's here and the stuff in my backpack. There are only a couple sets of clothes and few other things that might come in handy. This all was with me if I were to survive and it seems like I did.
"Is there a bathroom I can use?" I ask as I get up.
Sonic points at a door on the side as he lies down on the couch, "There."
I thank him and enter the rather small room, washing my teeth and changing my clothes before leaving. As I walk into the living area it seems that both Tails and Sonic have already fallen asleep.
Sonic is quietly snoring on the couch and by his legs are a pillow and a blanket that I assume have been left there for me to use. Grabbing both of them I sit down on the couch and place the pillow next to the armrest before lying down and pulling the blanket over me. The couch is surprisingly rather long so both Sonic and I can fit on it with no problem.
This sure has been an interesting day, certainly nothing like back home. A complete change. I like it. Hopefully it'll stay this way. I smile to myself before slowly drifting to sleep.