The world glitched like a skipped heartbeat.

Static stitched itself into the air, the sky rotting into bruised reds and oil-slick blacks. Green hills lay flayed open, pixels bleeding, music dragging its feet a half-second too slow. Sonic.exe’s game breathed like a thing with lungs, every tree watching, every ring trembling as if it might scream.

Shadow the Hedgehog landed hard on corrupted grass, boots biting into code that tried to swallow him back. His quills bristled, crimson stripes glowing like warning flares against the dark. Chaos energy simmered under his skin, impatient, sharp. His eyes narrowed. He had fought monsters, gods, timelines. This place still crawled under his fur.

Then the static parted.

Another Shadow stood across from him.

Same silhouette. Same impossible confidence etched into posture. Same sharp angles and lethal grace.

But wrong.

The vessel stepped forward from a tear in the world, the ground frosting over beneath their feet. Their quills mirrored Shadow’s shape yet flowed softer, less rigid, like they moved with the wind instead of against it. White fur caught the broken light, polar-bright against the hellscape, unmarred by the red rot of the game. Crimson stripes were absent. In their place, faint gray accents traced their form like quiet pencil lines.

And their eyes.

Green. Vivid, living green. Not the neon corruption of the game, not the burning red of Shadow’s own. This green felt like forests that remembered spring. Like mercy, sharp enough to survive.

They wore the same general armor silhouette as Shadow, but altered. Sleeker. Less severe. Gold rings gleamed at wrists and ankles, catching flickers of static. Their stance was open where his was coiled, weight balanced rather than braced, as if violence were an option but never the first draft.

A demigirl-shaped contradiction to everything he was.

Shadow stiffened, Chaos energy flaring instinctively. “Tch. Another trick?” His voice cut the air. “I’m not impressed.”

The vessel did not answer.

They simply tilted their head, studying him with those green eyes, expression calm. No malice. No hunger. Only recognition. Like looking into a mirror that chose a different ending.

The world reacted badly to that.

Sonic.exe’s laughter crawled through the sky, distorted and wet, the clouds stretching into grinning mouths. The ground convulsed, trying to reject the anomaly. Pixels tore at the vessel’s outline, but the corruption slid off them, unable to find purchase. Light shimmered faintly around their form, not a shield, more like a quiet refusal.

Shadow’s jaw tightened.

“You look like me,” he growled, circling. “But you’re not.”

The vessel turned as he moved, matching his pace without mirroring his aggression. Their movements were smooth, almost gentle, boots barely disturbing the corrupted terrain. Their presence dampened the static wherever they stepped, colors stabilizing just a fraction, as if the game itself hesitated to hurt them.

A flicker of irritation sparked in Shadow’s chest. And something else. Something dangerously close to curiosity.