Shadow
As a kid I always liked violent video games, so when I became a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, I nearly fell in love with the characters. I had gotten hyped up when I started watching the cutscenes of Shadow the Hedgehog.
The graphics could have been better at the time, but a good game overall. So after around a year, I managed to buy a preowned PlayStation 2 version of the game from a gaming store by the name of GAME. I was nearly overjoyed by the fact that I owned it.
Shadow as a character never did please me with his so called sad and depressing past, with the death of his friend Maria. In the game I knew about the Black Arms, and how Shadow had obtained the ability to work weapons like a handgun, and that he mildly swore throughout the game.
After coming back from the shop with my parents, I instantly went to my room and turned on the PlayStation 2. I put it in and started. The game loaded and the normal starting save data menu had appeared. I of course clicked the new file and nearly jumped out of my skin at a sudden gunshot SFX from my small black TV. Damn game...I never knew that would happen. I instantly recovered and watched the starting cutscene.
The music for Shadow's game had always had my vote as the best soundtrack in a Sonic game, but the theme song "I Am All Of Me" wasn't playing. Only the sounds of a dying city in the background. The cutscene showed Shadow standing in front of a half-destroyed moon. Funny, I thought they had a plot-hole with the moon. Back in Sonic Adventure 2, Dr Eggman had blown half the moon up as threat to the planet. I must have an up to date one or something! This is so cool!
The black hedgehog looked slightly darker than he should have been. His stance was strange too, with a dead GUN soldier in one hand and what looked like a glowing red Chaos Emerald. Again, I thought it was a better version. I never liked the United Federation anyway.
The screen suddenly was swarmed by Black Arms aliens called Death Leeches around the dead human. Shadow smirked as a shiver went down my spine. The screen then faded to show his glowing red eyes and grin for a slight moment. The game was suddenly was brought to another menu, this time the starter menu to start the game. It then didn't act different at all. No difference to the game or levels. Westoplas was a wreck as it should be. I played until I had spotted a GUN soldier fighting off Black Arms.
I felt a rush of anger at the agent from god knows where and attacked him. He screamed in agony as Shadow shot at him, again with a small grin across his muzzle. Blood pooled around the dead and Shadow's hover skates, staining the pure white design. I also smiled at it. One down, twenty-nine to go.
Time and time again I shot and murdered the GUN agents, until I came across the end of the stage: a Chaos Emerald floating within a ring. I jumped into it and waited for the normal mission ranking screen to pop up, but it only showed Shadow standing there with the gun in his left hand.
Nothing happened as he dropped the gun and ran off the screen, heading to the next level. No cutscene with Black Doom or Sonic. Just skipping to the GUN Fortress level. That's quite a skip. This must be a hacked game or something. I sadly sighed, but continued to play.
I killed more and more GUN soldiers and somehow met up with Black Doom. He congratulated me with my mission on making the humans pay. Shadow didn't bother looking nor answering the Black Arms leader. The next level wasn't a boss with Sonic for the last boss of that path, but sent to Sky Troops. The only level with some difference to me.
It had my name in its title.
Sky without the added "e", but still seemed to link with me. Another cutscene showed with Shadow and Black Doom over looking the level, but as Black Doom talked about that the stage was a flying fortress that he had created over 2000 years before, Shadow stared upward and for the first time, I truly saw his face. Blood had stained his fur and deep dark circles around his eyes as if he had been crying for hours on end. His fur also seemed to be dirty and ungroomed, so it looked nothing like his normal self or like the cover. Black Doom had sank into the floor and left the hedgehog alone.
A voice began to whisper from the speakers in my TV.
"Why did you make me do it? I do want revenge from the humans on Maria, but not like this. Never..."
The "never" had impacted me like a brick. Shadow was talking about the way I was playing the game and choosing his path. He then looked straight at me through the screen.
"Why did you make me a monster, Skye?"
My jaw dropped. Shadow had just said my name and looked at me. My heart seemed to soar in happiness, but mixed with horror. Tears run down his face as his whole body began to shudder.
"I know you care about me. But not the real people around you. Just only me."
A grin slightly grew on his face. I couldn't stand it. This Shadow wasn't the Shadow that I knew and started to actually care about. This was the terror I had created that only looked like him. But I couldn't dare look away from his face.
"I don't want to kill like this anymore...make me stop...before it happens again, Skye..."
As I was about to reset the game, it screeched at me. Shadow screamed in pain as darkness overtook the screen. I suddenly try to talk through the screen just as Shadow had did before.
"Shadow, don't give up into it! Don't!"
My emotions overflowed as nothing had appeared on my screen. Then after moments of silence I spotted a young human girl with blonde hair and blue dress. Not her...anyone but her! The girl just stood there with a small version of Shadow lying in its pool of blood, dead.
Then as the girl turned around, her face changed from her normal facial structure to disfigured and menacing to the eye, and then changed to quite a similar face. My face. I wailed in terror at the sight and then she started to laugh at the dead corpse of the younger Shadow. Then I hear Shadow's voice coming from the game again.
"...Too...late...for...you...Skye..."
—
Skye was found dead with a handgun in one hand while holding onto a bloody Shadow the Hedgehog plushie by the hand with a grim smile across its face. All police officers that had seen said scene has been murdered or caused suicide. One officer that was saved from hanging himself screams about a brown haired female teenager with a black and red hedgehog threatening him to not say anything or they would torture him forever...he then was found dead later that night with a direct gunshot to the forehead. Only thing found were bloody footprints of hover skates and trainers.
Originally uploaded in 2011
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