What Lies Within You

Knuckles' P.O.V

A loud thud from somewhere in the room broke me from the trance of love. It hadn't woken Sonic-he was still peacefully asleep in my arms. More thudding from outside, what sounded like footsteps out in the hallway.

"Sonic, wake up." I whispered, shaking him awake.

"Mmm, what...?" he said, groggy from sleep.

An even louder thud came from behind the sliding closet doors. Sonic was wide awake now, and we were both on our feet, our eyes searching the room for who-or what-was stalking us.

The thudding, the footsteps, the sounds outside the window-the were all getting louder, coming closer. Sonic side-glanced at me, his eyes wide with fear.

"Knuckles," he said, "I think it's-"

Suddenly, the window shattered, the bedroom and closet doors were barged down, and they surrounded us.

"The zombies!"

Sonic's P.O.V

Tails, Amy, and Sticks rushed into the room and joined the battle. Fortunatley, by now and mostly thanks to Knuckles, I had recovered enough to fight. As Tails and Amy went up against their own counterparts, I spindashed Sticks' and mine off their feet. But then the zombie Knuckles grabbed me and held me above the floor. I screamed as I felt a stab of pain behind my left arm, then farther down. His spike had stabbed me and was dragging downwards, making the wound bigger. Blood seeped out and stained my blue fur red.

"Let him go!" Knuckles shouted angrily. After pushing the zombie Amy off of him, he punched his zombie counterpart in the back, making him drop me. I grabbed my wounded arm, groaning in pain, blood soaking my glove. Tails and Sticks fought the zombies off, and we fled the room and took off running down the hall.

"How do they keep finding us?!" Knuckles asked in disbelief. "They're blind!"

"Maybe they can smell us." Amy suggested. "Where are we even going?"

"Who cares?" I said. "Right now we've gotta lose them!"

We turned right and hid in a pitch black room. It was so dark we couldn't see each other, even though we stuck close together. The blood from my wound ran down my arm and dripped to the floor, and I silently prayed the zombies wouldn't hear it. But if they didn't need eyes to find us, who knew how strong their hearing was?

The zombies running footsteps grew louder, paused, and continued, slowly fading. We stood in silence a moment longer, then Tails opened the door a crack and peeked outside.

"All clear." he said, and we all sighed with relief. He opened the door farther, letting some light in. Enough for them to see my injured arm. "We'd better get something on that."

"Maybe one of these room has something we can use." Amy said.

"Or maybe there's something in here but we just can't see it." Knuckles said. "Seriously, where's the light switch?"

"Let's try feeling the wall." Tails said.

Our hands slid across the wall, searching for the light switch. It hurt to move my left arm, so I used my right. At some point, my foot caught on something on the floor and I almost tripped. I looked down in confusion, but of course I couldn't see anything.

"Found it!" Sticks called out, and the room flooded with a sharp white light. I shielded my eyes, blinded at first, then lowered my arm as I got used to the light. What we now saw sitting on the floor in front of us both confused and unnerved me.

It was me. Not a zombie, but the actual me. Well, almost. His arms and legs and the entire left half of his head with robotic. His cybernetic eye was blacked out and he appeared to be asleep.

Was this another memory? I tried to think of what memory this version of me would represent. Then, just as I was coming to realize what it was, the new Sonic's cybernetic eye glowed red and he woke up. When he saw us, his expression became deadly and dangerous. He stood up and glared at me with hatred.

"You shouldn't have gotten rid of me." he growled.

Knuckles' P.O.V

This was from when Sonic found that old mech suit in the cave. When it corrupted him and made him completely evil. After we destroyed the microchip that was controlling him, he never wore the mech suit again, saying he prefered having his feet on the ground.

Now it was here, and it wanted revenge on Sonic for tossing it aside.

"I had every reason to get rid of you." Sonic stopped looking scared and was now looking angry. "You made me act like someone I wasn't, like some incredibly rude and evil jerk."

"Don't you remember all the cool stuff you did with me?" the robotic Sonic asked. "All the swag my creators had?"

"You made me insult and attack my friends and ally with Eggman!" Sonic shouted. "I'm glad I stopped wearing you. And I don't care that you can't control me anymore, I'm never wearing you again!"

The evil Sonic scowled. "You're gonna regret saying that, hero!" he said angrily.

He swiped at Sonic with his robotic arm, sending him falling to the floor. He cried out in pain as he landed on his injured arm. Angered by this, I swooped in and grabbed the evil Sonic by his legs.

"How dare you hurt my Sonic!" I shouted, and swung him in a circle before throwing him against the wall. Amy and Sticks pinned him by his arms and legs while Tails reached into the robotic half of his head and pulled something out. The microchip that turned Sonic evil. His robot eye dimmed to black and he slumped to the floor, powered down. Amy destroyed the microchip with her hammer.

I helped Sonic up. The blood from his wound had made a small puddle on the floor. "You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." he said. He rubbed his injured arm. "Man, that hurt."

"I'd kiss it better, but I don't wanna get blood on my lips." I joked, making Sonic giggle.

Tails looked worried. "At this rate, the wound could become infected." he said. "We'd better get it treated fast."

Sonic's P.O.V

We found a staircase leading up to the top floor of the manor, but before going up we checked the rooms on this floor, looking for something to treat my arm with. We soon found a room filled with medical supplies and medicine. Most of them were used up or covered with infection, but we found some clean bandages and bottles of antiseptic that would do just fine. Tails rinsed off the blood, soaked the wound in the antiseptic, and wrapped it up. Now Knuckles kissed it, and I smiled and pulled him in for a quick kiss on the lips.

With that taken care of, we checked the remaining rooms on this floor for a way home-with no luck-before going up the staircase to the top floor. There was only a single door at the end of a long hallway, and from behind it came a purple glow.

We all stood in silence, watching it.

"You guys think that's it?" I finally asked.

"Only one way to find out." Tails said.

We walked slowly down that hall, and I opened the door. The room behind it was neither too big or too small, and completely bare except for two things. One was a control panal with a lever, currently set at a glowing purple light. And the other was a dark purple portal.

The exact same one that brought us to this world.

"This is it." Amy said quietly. "Our way home."

Knuckles' P.O.V

"I can't believe it." I said. "We actually found it."

Tails walked over to the lever. There was another light next to the purple one, this one green and not glowing. "I bet if I switch this, the portal will reverse and take us home." he said.

"Why don't we just go through it now?" I said and walked toward the portal. Only for some invisable force to push me back, stopping me from entering.

"I think you just answered your own question." Amy said.

"Do it, Tails." Sonic said eagerly. "Switch the lever and get us out of here."

I could see why he was the most anxious to leave. This place had brought back more bad memories for him than the rest of us. Memories of having our allies turned against us, facing his worst fear and nearly dying by it, himself becoming evil and attacking us. It was no wonder he wanted to leave this world the most.

But before Tails could put his hand on the lever, the zombie versions of us rose up from the wooden floor and lunged for him.

Sonic's P.O.V

Tails screamed in fear, but we acted quickly and rushed to save him. I spindashed the zombie versions of Amy, Knuckles, and me away from him, but another-I couldn't tell who-grabbed me and threw me into a corner. I groaned in pain as my injured arm hit the wall. My teammates and friends soon had the same done to them, and the zombies formed a tight half circle around us.

We were trapped.

"Don't worry, guys." Knuckles said. "I'll ground pound us out of here!"

He raised his fist to punch the ground, but then my eyes landed on the hole in the floor that the zombies had so easily risen from, and I stopped Knuckles' descending arm as fear suddenly shot through me.

"Knuckles, wait!" I exclaimed. "The zombies went through these floorboards like they were nothing. If you ground pound them, they could break out from beneath us and..."

I didn't need to finish my sentense. Of course we would've prefered a fall over a slow, painful death by zombies, but there were parts of this manor we still hadn't seen. Who knew what we'd be falling into?

The zombies came closer, and we huddled more tightly together. Amy started to cry.

"I think this is it, guys." she said tearfully.

Seeing her cry suddenly made me want to do the same. The realization of what she said struck me,