8SONIC HIGH SCHOOL: The Remake
CHAPTER THREE (ugh)
"Are you sure this is the right way, Tails?"
"According to my phone's GPS, it is. Computers don't lie."
Tails and Sonic were five hundred feet in the air, Tails spinning his tails like helicopter blades as Sonic held tightly onto his left hand. Tails' phone had directed them off the mainland and past a narrow bridge that looked barely wide enough for an SUV. Now, they were overlooking a small island—probably no more than a mile and a half wide—on which the small road continued. As they descended, Sonic observed that the island looked a bit like a skull.
"In one thousand feet, you will arrive at your destination," declared Tails' smartphone.
"Well, I'm guessing it's on this island," Tails said as they landed on the road on the island's edge.
Sonic glanced at the time on his phone. "I hope it is. The prom starts in about six minutes."
The two began to follow the little narrow lane deeper and deeper into the island, past papery brown grass, drooping sunflowers, wilted dandelions, and plenty of bare trees. In fact, every bit of flora on the island appeared to be either dead or in the process of dying. The atmosphere made Sonic feel simultaneously underwhelmed and overwhelmed. Something was definitely off about this place.
"Sheesh, this place could use a good watering," Tails noted nonchalantly.
No shit, Sherlock, thought Sonic. Don't you care that this place might be dangerous?!
Tails parted the tangled branches of a dead bush to reveal a small faded sign. "'Welcome to Ghost Island'?" he read aloud. "Hmm, interesting name for an island."
"Wow, you don't say," Sonic mumbled uneasily.
Eventually, the two reached a large two-story Victorian-style farmhouse. Much of the white paint on the exterior seemed to have chipped away over the decades, revealing splotches of brown, rotten wood underneath. The window shutters were crooked, as if ready to fall off, and half of the roof's shingles were missing. The sky above Sonic and Tails was now dark and overcast and a sudden gust of wind made them both shiver.
"You have arrived at 221 Rock Candy Highway."
Sonic checked the mailbox near the house for an address number. Sure enough, on the left side, in faded, barely legible writing, was the number "221".
"This is it," Sonic confirmed to Tails. "But why is it in this creepy old house? Something's not right."
"Relax, Sonic," scoffed Tails. "It must be a Halloween-themed prom."
"But it's not even September yet." Beads of sweat formed on Sonic's forehead.
"So? You know how they always put out Halloween and Christmas stuff earlier every year. In fact, by my calculations, we could be seeing Halloween candy sales in June by the year 2040."
Sonic decided that Tails was likely right, and they both walked up to the decrepit old house. Sonic couldn't see any cars parked around the house, but assumed they were parked in the back. The steps leading onto the front porch creaked and bent as the two climbed up them. And when Sonic opened the front door, it fell off the hinges, crashing tremendously loudly onto the vomit-colored shag carpet in the foyer.
The two of them walked cautiously into the house. The bright citron-colored wallpaper soon gave way to pitch-black darkness as they moved further and further away from the front doorway.
"Damn, it's dark in here," said Sonic. "I can't see a thing."
"Let's use our phones," suggested Tails.
Sonic retrieved his phone from his tuxedo pocket and turned it on, Tails doing the same. It didn't make much of a difference, but at least it was enough to illuminate the head of a ghost peeking around a corner.
"Oh, look, Sonic, a ghost."
"Mm-hmm."
There was a five-second silence.
"A ghost! Ahhh!" screamed Sonic and Tails in unison, immediately skedaddling. The ghost started a chainsaw and began to chase after them, holding the buzzing chainsaw over their heads.
"Shit!" shouted Tails, panting. "He's got a chainsaw!"
"Let—let's hide upstairs!" Sonic suggested, now dearly terrified.
They ran up the rickety old stairs to the second floor. The ghost followed soon behind, pulling the chainsaw's cord repeatedly to create rhythmic revving noises. It swung several times at Sonic's and Tails' necks, but missed every time, instead slicing deep cuts into the walls. Eyeing a closet at the end of the hallway, Sonic sped toward it, but stopped short of it when he heard a crrrrack and Tails crying, "Sonic!"
"Tails! I'm coming, Tails!" answered Sonic, turning around and rolling under the ghost's chainsaw. The weakened old hardwood floor had given way when Tails stepped on it, leaving him hanging between floors. He grabbed Tails' hands and pulled him up to safety.
"You're a lifesaver, Sonic. You know, I'm honestly impressed," Tails remarked. "They went all out on this haunted house prom theme."
The ghost gave up and floated into the upstairs bathroom to wash up. The hedgehog and fox returned downstairs and entered what seemed to be a living room, although it was too dark for either of them to really confirm it.
"Anyway, where is everybody?" asked Sonic. "We've been here ten minutes, and I haven't seen anyone else from the school yet."
"Ohh, I'm afraid nobody else will be attending," boomed a sinister voice.
Sonic froze. "W-who said that?"
"Just an old, shall we say, friend of yours."
The unknown figure cackled evilly, sending chills down Sonic's and Tails' spines. Light suddenly bathed the whole house, revealing the staircase they had just used, a sofa, a piano, a Navajo-inspired area rug, and a man who was so round, you would swear he had eaten a live pufferfish.
Sonic's jaw hit the floor when he recognized the person. "D-Dr. Eggman?" he whimpered.
"You fools," snarled the nefarious Dr. Eggman, twisting an end of his brown mustache between his fingers. "I sent you those phony prom flyers and limo to lure you into meeting me here at this abandoned house. Now, you have fallen right into my trap!"
"I thought your voice on the phone sounded familiar!" Sonic shouted, enraged both at being duped and at his own gullibility. "Are you trying to snatch our Chaos Emeralds?"
"You're not taking our Chaos Emeralds away from us if I can help it!" declared Tails, shaking his fist as he courageously stepped forward.
"Oh, but that's where you're wrong!" retorted Eggman, bellowing the last word. He laughed again, this time, harder, as he opened a gray, box-shaped device and pressed a button inside it. A small bottomless metal cage descended from a hole in the ceiling, clattering to the floor and enclosing Tails inside it. Eggman's laughter only intensified further as he watched Tails rattle the bars of the cage. It became gradually more maniacal, more filled with malice. Sonic's only movement was his frantic hyperventilation; he was effectively paralyzed with fear.
"Not only will I take your precious Chaos Emeralds," Eggman continued, "but now, since your weakling little friend is ensnared, I think I'll siphon his intelligence from him as well. He won't need it when he becomes my personal servant!"
As much as Sonic wanted to beat Eggman to death at that moment, he was too apprehensive to move. What if Eggman locked him in a cage, too? His eyes slowly shifted to Tails, who was miserably straining at the bars of the cage. The steel bars refused to budge even a micromillimeter, yet he continued to try valiantly to pry them apart.
Sonic felt a lump grow in his throat. His best friend since preschool was about to become a slave to his worst enemy, and it was quite possible he would never see him again. He didn't notice the tear sliding down his face until he heard Eggman.
"Aww, is widdle baby Sonicy-Wonicy gonna cwy?" teased Eggman, mockingly circling around his eyes with his fists.
"That's it!" Sonic cried, reaching his breaking point. He grit his teeth, entered a roll and then, performing a Spin Dash Attack, launched himself right at Eggman. But Eggman, having anticipated this, thrust his abdomen outwards just as Sonic was about to hit him, resulting in Sonic bouncing off his suprisingly firm abs and ricocheting around the room. He finally smashed face-first into one of the archaically-papered walls; the impact was so severe that Sonic's whole front was left a faint shade of avocado green, patterned with barely-visible stylized ducks.
Eggman laughed again, jumping onto the mantel of the fireplace. "I find it exceedingly adorable that you think a little weakling like you can fight an evil mastermind like me! I really ought to trap you too, but your pathetic attempts to attack me are simply so amusing!"
"I've had enough of your cliché, poorly-written villain dialogue, Eggman!" yelled Sonic, leaping onto the mantel just as Eggman leaped off it onto the floor. "Aw, damn it."
"Hah! So much for being the 'fastest thing alive,' eh, snail-boy?"
"Snail-boy?" Sonic repeated as he hopped down from the mantel. "Seriously? You couldn't have at least gone with 'Slownic'? God, you suck at making upAGHK!" He suddenly felt two tons of force smashing into him and launching him backward. While he was talking, Eggman had prepared a wrecking ball and pushed it in his direction. Therefore, "Slownic" turned out to be the perfect nickname for Sonic.
Or so Eggman thought. Acting suddenly characteristically quickly, Sonic climbed to the top of the wrecking ball, holding tightly onto the cable attaching it to the ceiling as the ball started to swing back the other way. He waited until the ball was in the perfect position, then lunged off it, roundhouse-kicking Eggman in the head on his way down. The two of them landed on the ground in an awkward face-to-face position.
"You're mine now, Eggjerk!" Sonic yelled triumphantly before Eggman silently poked him in the eyes, causing the hedgehog to get up and stumble around while cursing in agony.
"Okay, this is seriously the dumbest fight scene I've ever seen," commented Tails, briefly acting as the author's mouthpiece, from his cage.
"Let's face it, Sonic. You're just not worth my time," Eggman sneered. "I'll be back in thirty minutes to annihilate you all." He then pressed a button on a different remote control, and a dome of crisscrossing orange, green, and pink laser beams materialized around him. The lasers bounced around in a magnificent light show.
"All?" asked Sonic. "Don't you mean 'both'?"
He waited shortly for a response, but there was none. Instead, Dr. Eggman pressed another button on the remote. The laser dome began to rise, a circular part of the parquet floor equal in diameter to that of the dome ripping out of the ground and rising with it, becoming the dome's floor.
"Sayonara, simpletons!" taunted Eggman as the dome approached a swirling, sparkling, dark purple portal in the ceiling. "Soon, your Chaos Emeralds will be all mine!"
Sonic and Tails watched helplessly as their archenemy burst into a final fit of evil laughter before he and the laser dome disappeared into the portal. The portal then closed, and there was silence. A large, steel-plated LCD display faded in on the wall closest to where the portal on the ceiling had been. Glowing red numbers then filled its screen and started counting down, the display emitting shrill beeps once every second.
30:00
29:59
29:58
29:57
"Sonic?" whispered Tails, his voice quivering. "I want to go home!"
"I know you do, little buddy," Sonic sighed, before hatching an idea. "Hey, maybe I can help you."
"Really? How?"
Sonic reversed about ten steps, then curled into a ball and revved up for another Spin Dash, firing himself at the cage. Clang! The next thing Sonic knew, he was lying on his back on the floor on the other side of the room. He could feel the blood throbbing through his head, like his heart was inside his cranium. "Are you okay?" asked Tails.
"I guess," grunted Sonic as he struggled to get to his knees. He moaned in pain. "I see Eggman made sure this cage would be extra strong."
"I don't like this, Sonic." Tails was shivering now. "At first Eggman was going to just take my smarts from me, but now he's going to kill us!"
"Don't worry, Tails," said Sonic. "I'll make sure we both make it home safe."
"But what if you don't free me in time? I don't want to die, Sonic! I don't want to die!"
Watching the fear play out in his best friend's widened, teary eyes was almost too much for the hedgehog to bear. "Don't worry, old buddy. You'll be okay." Sonic could only hope this was true.
"Promise?" Tails swallowed hard.
Sonic choked on his words for a second, then placed his hand in Tails'. "I... I promise, Tails. I'll get you out of here, no matter what!"
He turned toward the hallway, but stopped when he heard Tails sob, "Please don't go, Sonic!"
Sonic wanted to cry, too. "I have to, Tails. I'm going to see if I can find a way to unlock your cage."
"W-well, okay, I guess." Then, almost in a whisper, "I love you, Sonic."
"I love you too, Tails."
Sonic started off again down the hallway, a chill running down his spine and his heart sinking as he realized that this may have been the last time he would see Tails alive.
