SoNic Cage, Chapter 12: Danny Tamberelli's Katana

"I like this cool anime about all of these characters named after countries and shit. It's awesome. They do things that reflect well-known and popular facts about history, such as Germany raping France. It's cool because, even though it's such a common fact, it makes me feel really smart for understanding it, even if I'm really just too stupid to figure out that allegory used without subtlety is a bad literary device. Anyways, I'm sick of being alive. Goodbye, SoNic."

These were the words that echoed with SoNic for all these years, as they were the final words Knuckles had said to him before snorting the last line of cocaine, fishing out an M-9 from between the cushions of the couch, and blowing out his own brains. For months after it had happened, SoNic had proven unable to sleep at night, because the disturbing images kept flashing through his mind.

He had always imagined a bullet going through someone's head would create an initial blast of blood, and then they would fall over dead, but he he'd been shocked to discover that the bullet passes cleanly through, and only a few seconds later, when it seems nothing might happen, blood gushes from the entry wound like a waterfall, dropping straight downward onto the shoulder if the individual is propped upright.

He hadn't actually been paying attention when Knuckles died, but he'd looked this up on YouTube later. He had been in the next room, which was the kitchen, half-minded listening to Knuckles' last words and then the gunshot, so there'd been little for him to see. He hadn't gone in that room that day, or the next day. Twelve years later, he still hadn't. He hadn't called the police, either, and the body was still there. The stench of the long-decayed corpse emitted from the room, even now, and for the first several years, it had been a breeding pool for flies, to the extent that he'd been forced to spray poison under the door so swarms of maggots would stop seeping from the room. It barely helped, though, there were so many of them, and the fact that he'd defecated on the floor of that room just hours before Knuckles' death had not helped matters.

"SoNic? SoNic, are you there?"

It was Tails. SoNic nearly forgot they were on the phone together. He was staring at the door again.

"Uh, yeah, I'm here. Just lost in space and all."

"Yeah, you're a regular Dr. Zachary Smith," Tails jested.

"What?"

"Never mind. Anyways, me and Amy were going to go down to the park and-"

"Amy is the succubus queen. She can't be trusted. She tried to deceive me, and now she's trying to..." he trailed off.

"Excuse me? SoNic, what was that?"

What was he saying? A memory, that of an adventure he was certain he'd never been on had gone through his mind for just a moment. It felt so certainly part of history for that flash of time, and now it had passed, and he felt silly for having ever believed it to be so. Something was going wrong. Was he losing his mind?

He leaned against the wall, still on the phone with Tails. He slid down into a sitting position, trying to get a grip.

"Nothing, I just-"

A scraping sound from the room containing Knuckles', like something inside was trying to get out. It scraped three times in succession, the first of a slightly screechier, higher tone, as if to scream let me out.

"SoNic. SoNic, what's wrong?" Tails was asking, sounding somewhat worried now. The three scrapes happened again. Then again.

Let me out. Let me out.

"I'm alright, Tails. Really I am."

"We're worried about you, SoNic. All of us. Me, Amy, Shadow, even Julie-Su," said Tails.

The Mistress of Lies. The words flashed through his mind before he even had time to consider what they meant, but for one solitary second he had been so sure that his good friend Julie-Su was one of the most ancient, powerful, and malevolent beings alive.

"You never want to hang out with us anymore," Tails continued. "Your house stinks. Ever since Rh-"

Rhonda died?

"-ode island, you just haven't been the same. I know it's tough adjusting to a new area, but this place is just better to use as an HQ."

The scraping came again. Let me out. Let me out. It was horrifying. Tails was going on still, but now he was imagining Knuckles in there, trying to get out. Trying to escape from death. Trying to find the truth. And what was the truth? SoNic knew. Knuckles hadn't done cocaine before he'd blown out his own brains. He'd been smoking a blunt. It was Spirit Day, and they were talking about how Tails had committed suicide.

It was all falling apart. The whole world was an indecipherable blend of reality and illusion.

"W-will Silver be at the park?" SoNic managed to stutter.

Silver? Who is Silver? And how could Tails have killed himself if he was on the phone right now? Then again, when had he died to the werewolf? And to SoNic himself on his way to kill the werewolf? Or a clone? Or maybe he'd died to defend SoNic from Julie-Su's black magic?

The world was spinning. Tails was still talking, but the words were being lost in the distortion of it all. The scraping. One, two, three. One, two, three. Let me out. Let me out. SoNic got up and took a dizzied step towards the door. I'll let you out alright, he thought.

The dark lord, the king of demons, the great foe of life and prosperity. Who had it been? Had he been slain? Why couldn't SoNic remember? Was it all a dream? Professor Virctum's Nightmare Machine, maybe? Or maybe the Nightmare Machine was just a fabrication of something greater. Something beyond anything the human brain could perceive.

He kept moving towards the door. Let me out. Let me out. The dark lord was surely on the other side. Throughout the entire war, he had slain every other god, and achieved his goal of enslaving life. But that had only been stage one.

SoNic's legs burned with agony, as if the universe himself didn't want him to open the door. Let me out. Let me out. He fell, then crawled. Hell seemed to be manifesting within him, but still he pushed on. The door...

The dark lord had left his four remaining demigods to rule over the world in its dark age, as he himself took his war to the a higher power, eventually becoming a transcendent and then an archon. But at that point, no one had heard from him again, for his form was one that could no longer directly interact with the humans he so despised. His dreams of bringing eternal misery to the world had been lost.

Let me out. Let me out.

Now, after all this...

Time? Space? Something else?.

... the dark lord was beginning to find a way back in. The pain was becoming unbearable, but SoNic was there now, and the scratching was worse than ever. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out.

He stood on shaky legs, placing his hand on the knob.

"SONIC!" Tails shouted over the phone. He couldn't see anymore, and all sound was faint, yet he still heard Tails' with such clarity.

"W-what..." he groaned in pain.

"Don't open the door, SoNic. Don't open the door. You can't release the dark. Don't open the dooodooC%[PA%hnos7& weryu0985jynm 30wrhnsdgs0efik
EXCEPTION THROWN
METAGATE DAMAGED
ATTEMPTING TO REPAIR...
............
............
............
............
............
>...process complete. Repair process cannot be completed.
>...AIDS
>...Directive: Contact SoNiC Cage, Ghost Rider Supreme
>...Executing...
....
....
....
Hero sonic = new Hero("SoNic Cage", 52, null);
sonic.giveSTDImmunity();
EmergencyMethods.ContactHero("UniverseX462YR", sonic, EmergencyProcedures.Rectification);
return;
Directive Complete. Cranial Implant complete.
....

"-isoner," Knuckles.

"What?" asked SoNic loudly. He realized he was standing in the kitchen. He walked back into the room where Knuckles was talking

"I said that I think a show that uses allegory well was The Prisoner. You know, the representations of both sides of the iron curtain through the usage of a mysterious organization that commits to aspects of both sides. It was really cool. I wish I had good enough taste to watch stuff like that for the well-implemented symbolism of countries instead of shitty animes that just outright name the characters after the countries. God, I'm such a loser. Well, anyways, I guess I'll kill myself. See ya, SoNic."

"Hey, wait," SoNic said, determined not to let this happen again. "Why don't we go out for ice cream instead?"

"I dunno," Knuckles said hesitantly. "Well, alright."

The Metagate. It was all he could think about now. He didn't even know what it was, nor what he was supposed to do with it, but he was determined to find out.

"Just hang on really quick," said Knuckles. "I gotta go drop some acid and jack off in your bedroom."

"Hey, Knuckles?"

"What?"

"If I ever had to go on a quest transcending, um, space and time to stop the deterioration of all realities and unrealities and to stop the return of an evil lord to the world, do you think that, like, you'd let me borrow your car?"

"Uh, I dunno. The PT Cruiser?" asked Knuckles.

"Well, I was actually kinda hoping for the Cadillac."

"Uh, maybe? I guess? I'd probably let you borrow the PT Cruiser, though," said Knuckles.

"Well, I'd loan you my Ku Klux Klan robes as collateral," replied SoNic.

"Why do you have KKK robes?" Knuckles asked.

"Because I dislike black people."