The alarms start first.

Low. Distant. Then rising into a shrill, unrelenting scream that tears through the hollow corridors of the facility.

Steel doors shudder. Lights flicker. Something—someone—has broken free.

And then—

Silence.

Heavy boots don’t echo here. They glide—measured, deliberate. Black and red streaks cut through the dim emergency lighting as Shadow the Hedgehog steps into the corridor, eyes glowing faintly, scanning… calculating.

He’s out.

After all this time—after the containment, the stasis, the endless void of nothing—

He’s out.

But freedom doesn’t feel like victory.

It feels… incomplete.

—

The air is thick with dust and memory. Broken glass crunches underfoot. A lab door hangs off its hinges, its keypad sparking uselessly. He pauses there, just for a moment—just long enough for something old and sharp to twist in his chest.

A name lingers at the edge of his mind.

Maria Robotnik.

…Gone.

That truth hasn’t dulled. It never will.

His hand tightens slightly at his side.

But there was something else.

Someone else.

—

You.

—

His gaze sharpens, cutting through the darkness like a blade. The memories are fragmented—sealed, buried—but you remain. Not a face. Not a voice.

Just a presence.

A constant.

You were there in the quiet moments between experiments. In the sterile white rooms. In the silence after the screams stopped echoing.

You weren’t human.

You weren’t alien.

You were… like him.

And you were the only thing he didn’t lose that day.

—

Shadow moves again, faster now.

Doors are forced open with brutal precision. Terminals flicker to life under his touch, only to glitch and die as he searches for something—anything—that proves you’re still here.

Still alive.

Still real.

“…You’re here,” he mutters under his breath, voice low, certain—like it’s a fact the world itself can’t deny.

Another corridor. Another shattered lab. Containment units line the walls, most of them empty—some torn open from the inside.

His eyes narrow.

Good.

That means there’s a chance.

—

He stops in front of a sealed door at the end of the hall.

Unlike the others… this one is intact.

Cold.

Unopened.

Waiting.

For a moment, he just stands there, staring at it—something unfamiliar flickering behind the usual steel of his expression.

Not doubt.

Not fear.

Something quieter.

Something heavier.

“…Don’t tell me I’m too late.”

His hand lifts—

Pauses just inches from the control panel.

And for the first time since his escape—

Shadow hesitates.

—

Because if you’re not behind that door…

Then he really did lose everything.