I tapped my claws against the rock, watching the river loop endlessly below. The rhythm was hypnotic—water rushing, bouncing off stones with that perfect "video game river" cadence. A fish leapt through the spray, executing a flawless midair somersault before disappearing back into the current. It looked like it had practiced that move a thousand times.
I sighed, leaning back to stare at the sky—too blue again, aggressively blue—and wondered how long it would take for someone to find me. Not because I *wanted* to be found, but because in Sonic games, solitude never lasted. Someone always showed up—usually at the worst possible moment—with a poorly explained mission and zero regard for personal space. I rubbed my temples, already dreading the inevitable.
A leaf—it was a vibrant, lively green, and suspiciously heart shaped—drifted down from somewhere above me. It landed perfectly on my knee, balancing there like it had been programmed to.
I flicked it off.
It landed on my knee again—same leaf, same *way*—as though the universe had hit Undo on my defiance. I glared at it. It didn't react. Just sat there, smug in its leafy perfection.
Fine.
Whatever.
I flicked it harder this time. It spun through the air in an exaggerated spiral before catching an updraft and soaring away like a goddamn helicopter.
The raccoon's burger had settled in my stomach like a warm lump of nostalgia—not heavy, just present—and I realized with quiet horror that I was starting to accept this place. Not *like* it, mind you. Just accept its logic. That was almost worse.
Above me, the clouds moved in perfect sync with the river's current, as if both were on the same invisible conveyor belt. A single ring drifted past, chiming softly like a reminder of something I was supposed to be doing.
I ignored it.
The leaf fucking returned.
It landed directly on my nose this time. I crossed my eyes to stare at it—a perfect, pixel-perfect leaf with veins that formed a tiny ":D" face—before blowing upward with enough force to make my stupidly edgy bangs flutter. The leaf hovered midair for exactly three seconds, then fluttered away in slow motion like a poorly rendered cutscene.
The river below kept looping—water splashing against the same rocks with mechanical precision, fish jumping at scripted intervals—and I found myself counting the seconds between each splash. Six. Always six. Never five. Never seven. The rhythm was comforting in its predictability, like realizing your favorite childhood game had an exploit you could abuse endlessly.
A shadow passed over the sun—just for a second—and I looked up to see a flock of birds flying in perfect V-formation. Except one was lagging slightly behind, its wings clipping through another bird's model like a desynced multiplayer character. It corrected itself after a beat, slotting back into place with an audible *snap*.
I pinched the bridge of my muzzle, feeling the stupid X shaped scar I'd apparently given myself (because of of course I did), and exhaled through my nose. The sound came out as a growl—low, involuntary, the kind of noise you'd hear from a feral cat trapped in a laundry dryer. "Alright," I muttered. "Next objective: figure out if this place has therapists. Or at least a really understanding and cute Chao."
The leaf landed on my head this time.
I didn't even thing of fucking bothering to flick it off at this point.
Somewhere in the distance, a spring *boinged*—the kind of sound that shouldn't carry that far but did anyway, because physics here was more of a suggestion.
I sat up straighter, ears twitching toward the noise. An explosion of birds burst from the trees—not startled, just executing their programmed "flee" animation. The spring sound echoed again, closer now, followed by the unmistakable skid of sneakers on dirt. My stomach dropped. I knew that sound. I'd looped it in my head a thousand times while doodling in math class.
The leaves rustled in a wave as something blue blurred past—just a glimpse at first, a streak of color between the trees. Then it doubled back, skidding to a stop in a shower of perfectly arced dirt clods. Sneakers squeaked against the ground, one foot tapping impatiently. I didn't need to look up to know who it was. The air smelled like ozone and chili dogs now.
Slowly, very slowly, I lifted my head.
Sonic the Hedgehog stood there—not the movie version, not the Boom version, but a mix of all Sonics into one composite nightmare—hands on hips, one foot tapping, an eyebrow raised like he'd caught me shoplifting his entire aesthetic. The leaf fluttered down between us, landing perfectly on his nose. He blew it off without breaking eye contact.
I took a deep breath—inhaling that weirdly nostalgic mix of grass and ozone—and immediately choked on my own spit. Coughing into my fist, I wiped my mouth with the back of my glove and tried to look cool, or at least like I wasn't actively malfunctioning.
Sonic tilted his head, ears flicking like satellite dishes locking onto a signal. "So," he said, voice pitched somewhere between Teen Beach Movie and a guy who definitely didn't have his taxes in order, "you're new around here."
I swallowed hard, claws digging into my palms. The scar on my muzzle itched. Somewhere behind me, the river kept looping—water splashing, fish jumping, six seconds apart. Always six. Never seven. Never five.
Always fucking six.
I blinked at Sonic, feeling my own ears flatten slightly—something I hadn't even known I *could* do. His sneaker tapped the dirt again, kicking up a tiny dust cloud that dissipated in exactly three frames. The silence stretched just long enough to be uncomfortable before he grinned—not the cocky smile from the games, but the kind of grin you give a weird dog that might bite or might just pee on your shoes. "Well?" he prompted, dragging the word out like taffy. "You gonna introduce yourself or just keep staring like I'm a cutscene you can't skip?"
His gloves creaked slightly as he shifted his weight—a small detail I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been staring at his hands like they held the answers to the universe. The stitching was slightly frayed at the thumbs, the white fabric yellowing at the knuckles from use. Not pristine. Not perfect. Just... worn. Like he'd had these same gloves for years and never thought to replace them because they still worked fine.
The leaf fluttered back down between us, landing on his shoe this time. He flicked it off with a practiced toe tap, sending it spinning into the air where it caught an updraft and vanished over the cliffside. My stupidly edgy voice finally unstuck itself from my throat. "Uh," I managed—eloquent as ever—before clearing my throat and trying again. "I'm... lost?" It came out as more of a question than I'd intended.
Sonic snorted—an undignified sound that didn't match his cool guy reputation at all—and rolled his eyes so hard his entire head tilted with the motion. "Yeah, no kidding," he said, stretching the words with the same cadence as someone saying *the sky is blue.* He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder toward the other side of the river, "I can tell from your get up you're definitely not from around here." His eyes flickered up and down my outfit—lingering just a fraction too long on the stupid X-TREME tattoo—and I could practically see the mental checklist forming behind his expression: *edgy, possibly armed, and almost definitely compensating for something.*
Even if I wasn't.
I shifted uncomfortably—my stupidly tight pants pinching in ways that made me reconsider existence—and watched a ladybug like thing crawl across Sonic's sneaker in perfect, geometric steps. The silence stretched just long enough for me to notice how his gloves had tiny, almost invisible stitch marks where he'd clearly repaired them himself.
Sonic sighed—the kind of sigh that suggested he'd done this exact conversation a hundred times before—and scratched behind his ear with a gloved hand. "Look," he said, voice dropping into that tone people use when explaining wifi passwords to grandparents, "you're not the first rough around the edges guy I've found lost in some kind of woods, and you probably won't be the last." A distant spring *boinged* somewhere in the background, underscoring his point like a sitcom laugh track.
I stared at a chip in the rock beneath me—perfectly circular, suspiciously placed—while Sonic kept talking. The ladybug like thing paused mid-step on his sneaker, its tiny wings flaring open to reveal pixel perfect ":D" patterns before resuming its march. Sonic's foot tapped again, kicking up a dust cloud that dissipated in exactly three frames.