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Eyes of unheard anger, center themselves on Sonic like he was the reason for them looking so wrong; so foreign. “You just assumed I’d go along with you no matter what! Did you even consider what I wanted?”
Took a moment more to recognize the question was aimed at him; it wasn’t for someone else, because he was the one hurting his brother.
“I- I thought that, after everything, you- you’d want to- ..” Somewhere in the middle of the stuttered mess of words, something clicked and that’s all that clicked in that moment.
For a brief moment, his perspective wasn’t so clear anymore, Nine flickering between several faceless foxes, until landing on a young, 4-year-old fox from many years ago.
“..go home….” The sentence finished itself in a hollowed breath where his eyes drift to the middle ground.
“They’re not your real friends!”
He doesn’t know why it took so long to realize that he was projecting the image of Tails over the fox before him. He doesn’t know why, after everything, he was seeing it all through a cracked kaleidoscope.
This wasn’t Green Hill, they weren’t the same friends he knew, but his mind kept trying to hold onto that far sense of home in these familiar faces.
“.. Tails… ” He heaved so hard, his lungs squeezed uncomfortably, and they didn’t refill; forgetting to function where his mind is absent.
“ I’M NOT TAILS! ”
The words were painful inside and out, causing him to flinch harshly, ducked inches lower than his natural height. His jumpy vision lands on a young fox, betrayed and heartbroken. Anger and sadness coating his whole image, where tears begin to well up.
“I’M NINE! ” The fox towers over him, thumb jammed into his own chest.
“I’m me! ” Volume lowered with a crack but was still quite loud for his still ringing ears.
He raised a hand toward the huffing fox, whose eyes had melted to utter despair, but the kit just furiously shook his head, eyes shut tight. He’d dropped to his feet and backed away from the extended hand.
“Too late-” He croaked out, before he reached an arm towards the shards without so much as glancing in the hedgehog’s direction.
Next thing the speedster knew, he was being blown over by another shockwave at close range.
When he finally managed to get his short-circuited brain to function enough to get him sitting up again, the cave was dark, and the fox was heading for a newly made portal.
“Wait..” He wheezed.
“ Goodbye, Sonic. ” The kit said dejectedly, still not looking in the hedgehog’s direction as he disappeared through the closing gateway.
The hedgehog watches the portal shut; watches as the fox is no longer in view and the cave’s left dark, but for some reason, none of that catches up to his strangely fragile mind. His eyes ghost over the darker walls of stone, not fully seeing what he’s looking at.
Instead, he sees a battle of friends and machines. A doctor in a hunking mech reaches claws towards a multicolored stone. When his eyes land on the center, the mech is gone, and so is the stone. He expected to still see the kit standing by the prism like before to the point he thinks he does see him in the instance his mind clears the mech out of the picture. But - like everything else - the image didn’t last; dusted away to nothing: only serving to deceive his lagging thoughts.
He was just there… where…?
He doesn’t remember when he started walking again, slow, scuffing steps, dragging towards the middle. His hand extended towards where the prism once stood. He gets far enough where his next step hits the incline of rock, and his hand passes through where the prism should be. His balance teeters and his palms are slamming on the stone’s surface. His eyes search it for answers, clues as to where the prism could’ve gone, where the pieces he broke were finally being put together again.
He was going to go home…
“Wh-...” The rest of the word died the moment his air ran out. Choked out of him where he hadn’t realized how tight his chest had gotten. He didn’t know he wasn’t breathing and now that he does, it hurts.
How does he get air in again? How does he fix it?
His head felt full, pained. He closed his eyes where his legs shook with sudden weakness.
He hurt; everything hurt. How does he fix it?
There was a sharp sting up his knees where he dropped, and eyes open, helped nothing as his vision was clouding quickly. How does he fix it?
His weak grip slips from the stone and he’s down.
He can’t fix it.
Darkness comes quickly.