towerofanimus | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Characters: Shadow the Hedgehog, anyone who crosses his path.
Setting: His room [ 03-14 ] upon awakening and beyond.
Format: Staaartin' off as prose, but I will switch about to whatever makes you comfortable.
Summary: One little hedgehog is grumpy and bumbling about the tower, looking for a way out, hoping to get back to Earth (someone's in disbelief, see). Oh, honey, no.
Warnings: Very, very mild cursing from him, should the moment arise that it would happen. (It's a rarity, though~~, unlike a certain namesake game he has~~.) Other than that, it really depends on who bothers him!

He honestly thought he was going to die.

Instead, he woke, his brain fizzing like a freshly-opened soda pop, his body numb for a brief moment. At first, it jolted him, the feeling of being unable to move coursing through his nerves, but soon, his fingers began to twitch, toes wiggling and curling within his hover shoes. Shadow was alive and well, no worse for wear beyond some burn marks, some bruising, and some nasty cuts along his arms and sides. Not only that, but he was in a bed, and he was lying on top of two very, very crumpled pieces of paper.

He rose, grunting and groaning over the aches all along his flesh. The letters were dabbed lightly in his own blood, something that made him wince. Disgusting. He didn't want to make a mess. Oh, and the fact that he was bleeding kind of sucked, too.

The first letter was an explanation of where he was expected to reside in this tower here, where to gain food, how to accommodate, etcetera. He scoffed, nonchalantly tossing it onto the nearby nightstand, before tearing into the other one.

That was the one that made his heart stop. His planet was destroyed.

He'd...

He'd failed?

No, this couldn't be. Someone had to be messing with his mind, and he was not about to have any more of it. He was going to confront the owner of this tower right now, settle this, and get back to his planet, saved from the clutches of the Biolizard and the plummeting ARK. His planet was fine. It had to be, or else he'd...

He'd failed her.

[ okay so! shadow can be wandering just about... anywhere and everywhere possible, basically lurking about and examining things as he tries to locate someone of authority. along with that, his roomies are free to find him in his room after having opened his letters. be careful, though: he might be just a bit more of a grumpypants than usual! u_u welp. ]

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"Mm."

Perhaps this boy wasn't going to be a little nuisance, after all. He... did remind him of her, for sure.

That was besides the point now, regardless. Shadow pointed down at him, his tone stern once more, but once again, it was not out of contempt or annoyance. "You are still a child. Be careful. Just because you have been revived before does not mean it will happen all the time. Other than that..."

He turned away, hands falling limply to his sides.

"Should I discover a way out, I will let you know."

"I'm not so much of a child! I'm twelve!" That was perfectly grown up in Romeo's terms, but he nodded. He was careful; though he would never let his friends get hurt if he could help them.

"... Twelve."

Wow, really?

Really.

"Until you are above eighteen, you are a child. To the world, namely to a fifty-year-old hedgehog," holy shit, yes, he did mean himself, "you are but a child."

Read: Shadow is a grumpy old man.

Romeo nodded, twelve and twelve was big. He scowled at Shadow's words but his annoyance at being called a child (again) was dwarfed by his surprise at his age. "You're fifty! That's so old!"

He stared at him in shock... In Romeo's defence the life expectancy of a early nineteenth centuary peasent wasn't really that high.

Well, Shadow didn't necessarily like being called an 'old man', really, given that it brought a sense of demeaning with the terminology. Despite that, the reality of the matter was that he was old, namely compared to most mortals.

"I am well-aware of that."

What else could he say to that, really?

"Well... twelve might be really little when you're fifty... but in Italy I'm practically an adult. That's where I come from. It's eighteen on other worlds but not in mine."

At least that was what Romeo had deduced, since at home people were always telling him he should act more grown up, and how he was working and so was an adult. And here everyone treated him like he was still a baby.

"In... Italy."

How odd. Italy... It sounded kind of familiar to him, yet he knew he had no idea what the place was. Ah, well, he's blaming it on deja vu.

"I cannot believe or deny your claim as we both cannot gather proof. Very well then," he conceded, one hand raising up to nurse at his own headache. He was beat, sick and tired of having to deal with this place already. "You are an adult. ... 'Practically' an adult."

Whatever.

Romeo nodded, he was and he was glad that Shadow had accepted it instead of arguing. He smiled at him, "Do you want me to show you around mister Shadow? I know all the places!"

"Shadow. Simply Shadow."

Mister just felt a bit... uncomfortable. At least he had to agree with the idea of looking around and knowing the tower intimately. It would likely be of help if he wanted to bust out of here.

"I would not mind," was his curt response, accompanied by a short nod. Shadow was giving him the go ahead to lead the way.

"Okay Shadow!" Romeo grinned at him and set off, "So this floor is where all the people sleep, there are five floors like this..."

"Five floors to accommodate... and how many rooms are there per floor?"

Shadow had to wonder how many people had been dragged into this situation. Maybe the number would give him more of an idea about what was going on. Were they seeking a small number of victims to lie to, or was it really such a large number to indicate the amount of worlds 'decimated'?

"Twenty!" Romeo grinned at him. It was the highest number Romeo could count up to, mostly because they were labled with numbers so it helped him! "But not all the rooms are full! There was only two floors when I got here though!"

"So they add on floors to accommodate," he softly spoke, a hint of malice in his tone, yet not directed towards Romeo himself. These people, whoever they were, had five floors worth of people and were still adding more. That meant a hundred people, which, when compared to numerous worlds, is a minuscule number, but if it had to be one to two people per world, that would mean... 50-100 worlds destroyed.

Of course, he still didn't believe them, but this was all hypothetical thinking here.

"I see. What are on the other floors, now?"

Romeo nodded, "They add on other floors as well, the tower grows a lot. When I cam there was four floors and then two floors with bedrooms... which makes six! But now there is more than I can count!"

He was quiet for a moment before he spoke again, "Well there's a cafeteria and a kitchen, there's also a resteraunt but that can sometimes be bad. There's two libraries, one of them is scary. Two forests, one of them is really bad with dangerous creatures so be careful! A swimming pool, a lake... two lakes, a meadow, an infirmary, lots of bad scary floors... And a floor where you can play games, and one with lots of instruments."

Well, that all sounded pretty average - mighty average, in fact - and he had to praise the presence of a library. If he didn't have anything to read to pull his mind away from this place...

Shadow shook his head. No, he couldn't tear his mind away. He had to remain vigilant, lest he want to stay here for all eternity. He was not about to have that, especially when he still had to adhere to Maria's promise. Protecting humanity for all eternity was his life. Ergo, remaining in this tower was like ripping his life away from him.

He was going to do what he had t-...

Oh.

Wait a minute.

"Forests... lakes... and a meadow.

"How."

What.

"Magic." Romeo said with a shrug, "Some of the islands float in the air, like they would usually float in water. And there's a huge big forest and meadow, some of the floors are bigger than others."

He knew it sounded strange, but he had been there so long that it was normal.

Either this kid had a wild imagination, or this tower was even worse than he thought. Shadow huffed, one hand resting softly against his hip.

"I will believe it when I see it," he spoke, quirking a brow in his direction. The implication should be obvious. Either show him one of these places within the tower's walls, or he will not believe those words.

"Come on then!" Romeo grinned at him and began to lead the way, because it was true and he didn't like people thinking he was lying!

"Fine," he complied, his tone seeming bored and dull. Shadow wasn't sure if he wanted to sit around and listen to more of this boy's outlandish fantasies. Of course, so far, he did speak of things that he could believe, and he seemed to be awfully genuine. Whatever. He was going to continue along with his little adventure to see just what he had to offer him.

"Which floor is, say... one of the forests on?" That piqued his interest the most.

"Well the bad forest is on floor six, and the good forest is on one of the floating islands. But it is high up so I don't know what number it is, I can take you there though!" Romeo grinned at him glad to be of help even if Shadow was a bit grumpy.

"So be it. The 'good forest'," he spoke carefully, mirroring his words to bring them both on a state of mutual understanding, "take me there." This would help to learn more about how the forest worked here and how the floating islands, well... existed.

Shadow was ready to get to the bottom of all of this.

"Okay then!" Romeo grinned and started to lead the way, "It's a lot of floors down." He told him and began to decend down the stair case, through the jail, the floor of metal bars, he went quicker through the insect floor...

They descended lower, lower, lower still, and to that, Shadow began to grow a little impatient. How far down was this place? In fact, how huge was this tower in the first place? It felt like the Empire State Building from how much they spiraled downward. That was pretty insane.

"How tall is this tower?" He grumpily sighed, annoyed by the sheer size of the place. This was going to make traveling through the tower a huge pain.

"Very very tall!" Romeo told him as they went through the storage room, then the large gymnasium and the lounge. Then the pitch black room; Romeo ran through that one too, and then the empty room where the spiral staircase ended, there was an exit to outside. "The next floors are the islands!"

"Hmph. Finally."

Shadow pushed ahead of him, barging into the area with little to no regard for the human being taking him along for the ride, and... he froze.

The sight before him was gorgeous, something he never thought he'd ever see, let alone in a tower. The island was gorgeous and pretty, flat grass extending to the sides until the ground met its end. The main attraction seemed to be the lake, and in that instant, he stepped for it, kneeling down for any sign of life. He immediately reeled back, feeling his stomach turn at the horrible reality.

That lake didn't even have an end. It just cascaded into who-knows-where.

Welp.