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Screaming.
That's the last thing Espio remembered before he passed out. He wasn't sure what exactly was going on in this moment. When he opened his eyes, he was falling. Falling? Falling from where? No, that wasn't right. He looked closer. The chameleon squinted. He was floating, not falling. He was floating in nothingness. He was floating in darkness. It was all around him and simultaneously far, far away from him. It was empty. When he called out, his shouts were immeasurably loud but still somehow silent. His ears rang as he tried to make any bit of sense of the situation.
Espio shut his eyes again. He tried his best to think back. What could have caused this situation, and where was he? He heard someone yelling his name. Someone desperately crying out for him. It sounded like a male's voice. Dry and raspy. Exasperated and disturbed. Espio wanted to reach out, to see who was calling him so tremendously.
"W-what?" The chameleon spluttered. Espio tried to call back to the mysterious voice again. His attempt was futile. Normally, he was completely composed and held control over all his emotions, but now he felt himself beginning to panic, but as he tried to draw in a shaky breath he was unsure if he felt it enter his system or not. Was he even breathing in the first place?
Espio's blood seemed to run cold in his veins despite being a naturally cold-blooded creature. He felt frozen. He looked over his shoulder. Still nothing. Suddenly, Espio felt a tug on his ankle and was dragged with such force what felt like downwards to him, but of course, he wasn't sure. This continued for about a minute until he finally saw a source of light again.
~~~~~~~
Silver had returned to the future hopefully. His heart was swelling with affection from all the kind goodbyes his friends had said to him. He felt as if everything was perfect now. As if nothing could ever take away this sense of delight from him. Of course his childish optimism for the whole world to be perfect would never become a reality.
Silver exited his gateway through time with a huge grin painted on his face. His shoulders slumped in disappointment when he saw the future in front of him. It almost looked worse to how it did the last time he was here. There was a giant city in front of him. It stretched all the way to the horizon. It looked glum and dark. The only source of light was the orange streetlights. Giant black clouds covered the sky. It seemed safe to assume those dark clouds are smoke of some kind. It smelled like burning oil, it made Silver sick to his stomach. There seemed to be a complete lack of anything organic. The first thing he took note of was a huge Eggman branded tower in front of him.
"How lovely, a dictatorship by the looks of things." Silver grumbled with an exasperated sigh. Before he made the decision to return to the past, he made his way over to the tower and began a little investigation. While he was in the past, he did a little detective work with the Chaotix so he learned a trick or two.
The tower was huge, it reached far up into the clouds. There were hardly any windows at the front of the building, just the Eggman logo and some poorly painted over graffiti. Silver felt like he had seen this before. A weird sort of deja vu sent a shiver down his spine. He shook it off, he was determined not to become distracted.
The hedgehog trailed back behind the large building undetected. He went unnoticed so far, but that wasn't exactly hard to do at this moment because there was a lack of any sort of life within Silver's vision. Silver crept in through a surprisingly unlocked back door.
"How peculiar.." Silver thought to himself. He grinned then. A childlike grin plastered his face at a time like this. The hedgehog liked the word peculiar. It brought happy memories. He had first come across the odd word in a book Espio had been reading. Silver took no real interest in it but was curious as to what Espio enjoyed. The snowy white hedgehog stumbled upon that word on the first page. He frowned and then lifted his head from the book and met Espio's gaze.
He asked him what peculiar meant. Espio chuckled. Apparently, Silver failed to pronounce it correctly, that's what the chameleon told him anyway. Espio helped Silver first pronounce the word and then explained it's meaning;
"It means something unusual or out of the ordinary. Similar to how Tails is so smart, I think that is quite peculiar." The chameleon stated in a matter-of-fact tone. Silver giggled at that.
Silver snapped out of his trance. He had completely lost himself in his thoughts. He paused for just a split second. Somehow, in that half a second, something or someone punched him in the face, hard.
The hedgehog was sent crumbling to the ground. His gloved paw went to cover his face without recognition from his brain. When he finally peeled his hand away from his face, his once white glove is now sprinkled with his blood.
The hedgehog cursed beneath his breath. He needed to stop daydreaming and getting so distracted. He foolishly had let his guard down in a place where he could so be easily attacked. He took in his surroundings as fast as he could. He was still inside that Eggman building. It was hot in there. The walls were made of concrete and there were wires and pipes leading off in every sort of direction. He couldn't smell much besides his own blood. He could taste his own blood too. It oozed down his muzzle.
He quickly composed himself again and flew up from the ground with his telekinesis. He easily spotted what metalic creature had just wacked his nose with the force of a baseball. With his now elevated position, he held a much better advantage of smashing this fiend to smithereens. Silver simply dismantled the robot. The machine could do nothing but fall to the ground with a series of loud clangs.
Silver gently glided back to the ground. He wiped his now bleeding nose with his wrist, the crimson colour stained his fur. The hedgehog sauntered his way over to the broken bot. He hunched down to his honkers and poked at the measly scrap metal bot. He poked at it's broken parts with an unimpressed expression.
"An Eggman logo, how surprising." Silver grumbled sarcastically after he turned a piece of what was the robot's arm and found said Eggman logo.
Silver stood up straight again. His gaze moved around his surroundings, ensuring no other surprise robots were about to skin his snowy coat clean off. Once he was sure no one else was around, he opened another gateway and returned to his desired location in time.