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Shadow holds the map in his hands, sandwiched between Maria’s letter and a postcard of the landmark he’s looking for. For the hundredth time, he checks his GPS coordinates – tries to make sure he’s really in the right place. That he’s arrived at the spot the picture was taken, all those years ago.
This is supposed to be the third-largest waterfall in the world. A popular tourist destination. The fact that he’s here alone should have been the first clue something was wrong.
The postcard boasts of clear water and even clearer blue skies; wildlife living in harmony with the falls, lush green forests on all sides of the falls. The tourist information boasts of careful planning to preserve the waterfall’s natural beauty; to never give tourists the opportunity to spoil the beauty with littering or pollution. They have to protect it, the postcard reads – this is an important destination for avian life, being of the largest mating and nesting areas for at least three hundred unique species of birds.
Even the photograph itself is taken from the viewing deck, from a respectful and awed distance rather rather than close enough to interrupt nature’s bounty. Shadow knows it was taken here, too; he can see viewfinders in the photograph’s frame – cheerful yellow periscopes lining the glass fence, with stepladders underneath to ensure children and non-humans can see the water and wildlife, too.
Shadow has checked a thousand times. He’s standing in the exact spot this photograph was taken.
He wishes he’d never found it.
Fifty years ago, he had been so excited to see this place with Maria. But things change when you sleep for fifty years. The world moves on without you – and now this place is nothing like what Shadow was promised.
The viewing deck is cracked and rusted from disuse and disrepair. The yellow viewfinders have lost their paint to storms; little remains of the original color, and what lays underneath has long since lost the battle with rust. An abandoned bird’s nest sits in one broken viewfinder. It’s half twig, half insulation foam. A remnant, Shadow thinks, before the birds moved on.
They had to, without the trees. There is no wildlife next to the waterfall. There is no lush green forest, no clear blue sky. No birds calls in the distance, no bugs underfoot.
And there is no waterfall.
The water is still there – it hasn’t dried up completely. Somehow, Shadow thinks, this is worse.
There is no life here; the life has been replaced with concrete and metal turbines. Eggman’s logo is branded into the structure, its grin and dark eyes staring down what little nature dares come close. The closest trees are at least a mile away – kept at bay with barbed wire fences and scorched earth.
The waterfall is nothing but a dam. No life grows here – how could it?
Can this really be the place in Maria’s photos? Shadow feels sick to his stomach just asking.
He looks between the picture and the letter; re-reads Maria’s childish cursive insisting they just had to visit this place and see its beauty for themselves. It was at the very top of her ‘Earth List’ – which, she insists in this same letter, is nothing like a bucket list.
Bucket lists are for people planning on dying, silly! Grandpa and I have worked too hard to give up now. No, this is an Earth list. For everything I’m going to do once I’m healthy enough to go back to Earth. You’ll come with me, won’t you, Shadow? So we can see all of this together?
She wants these experiences for the both of them, because she’s kind. But even without Shadow, Maria should always been able to come here herself; to breathe fresh air and see the most beautiful parts of Earth with her own eyes. Not with postcards sent up from her parents.
It’s not her only dream – she wanted to follow in Gerald Robotnik’s footsteps, back then. Gerald Robotnik made his money in Heal Units – Maria will continue his legacy of healing, and find clean energy. Energy that doesn’t damage the planet, energy that won’t make life difficult for the creatures that Shadow was based on, the ones they’re supposed to share this planet with.
The postcard and letter are sparse, Maria’s own words few and far between. Most of the letter is simply a list of destinations.
This was at the top. Circled and underlined.
Shadow swallows hard as he looks between the postcard and the reality before him. He’s checked twice online that the postcard used a real photograph, not a painting. That it wasn’t just someone’s imagination, or an interpretation of what this land could have been.
Fifty years ago, it really was as beautiful as the postcard in his hands.
Vibrant, full of life. Shades of green and blue that don’t, can’t, exist here anymore.
Shadow doesn’t need an explanation; the Eggman logo on the dam is proof enough.
Shadow wants to be angrier – and he’s sure he will be, later. There’s a pit in his stomach and his chest feels like it might explode from grief. He needs to be able to retaliate; to bring the world back to the way it was supposed to be. To right this wrong. But like Maria, this land is gone forever.
He has to roll up the letter and stuff it into a pocket at his hip so he doesn’t damage it in his anger.
Maria’s last wish – to have at least one of them see the beauty on Earth. And he can’t even do that properly.
It’s as barren and lifeless as space. Nothing but drinking water and hydro-electric power.
There’s no point staying here even a second longer. If he stays here for a minute more, his anger will consume this place – and if anger doesn’t do it, grief will.
But destroying the dam won’t save this place, either. Forests take decades to replenish; a chaos blast would make it even harder for anything to grow back, destroying what few organisms have survived despite it all.
He can’t stay here. But he can’t just chaos control away, either. His unsteady anger makes any use of chaos a bad idea – they heighten emotions, and adding radioactive fuel to the fire, so to speak, would light up the remnants of this viewing platform before he could blink.
So instead, he turns, ready to race off until the anger diminishes back to cold grief.
He doesn’t get the chance. When he turns, there’s a flash of blue.
Sonic leans against an empty freight crate by the cliffside.
“Some scenery, huh?”
Shadow’s jaw tenses. “Why are you here?”
“Rouge mentioned you were sight-seeing.” Sonic doesn’t meet his eyes – instead, they’re laser-focused on the Eggman logo. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to stop you from coming here, even if I had time to warn you.” He’s quiet for a moment; as if waiting for Shadow to contradict him. Shadow doesn’t. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Shadow balls his hands into fists. “What does it matter to you, what I do?”
Sonic doesn’t blink. He keeps his arms crossed, expressionless save for the intensity in his eyes as he stares down the dam. “It’s not fun, coming back home to find that everything you love’s been turned into… this.”
“This was never my home.”
“I know. That’s not really what I meant.”
The air goes silent around them – and Shadow is once more aware of the lack of bird calls or bugs. There’s nothing that lives here – nothing that could make its home here, even if they wanted to.
Shadow finally turns back around, the full view of the dam and its painful legacy before him. “...Maria wanted me to see this place,” Shadow admits. “It was a nature preserve. There was… she had a postcard. A whole list of places she wanted to see.”
Unbidden, he pulls out the card. He feels Sonic approach, close enough to look over his shoulder. Shadow doesn’t tell him to go away. Only holds the postcard closer, so he can see better.
“It looks beautiful there. I’m sorry I never got to see it for myself,” Sonic says.
Shadow just grints.
Sonic goes quieter for a moment. Then, uncertainly, “As far as I know, it’s been like this since before I was born. You… Shadow. There wouldn’t have been a chance to save it. Either of us.”
Sonic doesn’t have to specify what he means. The rush of the dam speaks for itself.
Shadow swallows tightly.
There’s too much Shadow wants to say – that he doesn’t need to know he was far, far too late to save it, he’d guessed that for himself. That he doesn’t need Sonic’s pity. Instead, he says nothing, and Sonic continues, voice far away despite being right next to him.
“It was one of Eggman’s earliest projects, according to Tails. Says it gave a lot of humans jobs, that’s why it got approval, despite being protected. But it only took a few years to build, and those jobs don’t last once the project is done. The only one still profiting is Eggman.”
“For someone who never saw it yourself, you know an awful lot about this place.”
Despite himself, Shadow passes the postcard to Sonic, who accepts it delicately, thumb brushing over the lush trees.
“If you’re asking if this is where I’m from, no,” Sonic hedges, not looking up from the picture, then hands the postcard back. “But there are hundreds like it. This is just the biggest.” He pauses. “For now.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s still expanding, believe it or not. He’s not kidding about the whole, take over the world thing.” Sonic lets out a long breath, and Shadow realizes that it’s not just that he sounds serious. He sounds tired. “There’s a river up in Holoska about this size. Next week I’m going to try and stop him before he starts his next project. We’ll see how it goes.”
“Why are you telling me this.”
Sonic gives him a small, lopsided smile. As if the answer is obvious.
“No,” Shadow says. “I don’t do – that isn’t the kind of work I do.”
“Shouldn’t it be, though?” Sonic backs away, leaning against the viewing platform’s glass fence. It stands sturdy under his weight – fitting, that the manmade structure is the only thing left standing after all this time. Shadow can almost imagine what Sonic’s referring to – Maria’s wish, that Shadow would protect the world. Sonic has the courtesy not to say it aloud, though. Instead, he just gives Shadow a bittersweet smile. “...Just think about it, alright?”
“Did you come here just to recruit me?”
Sonic shakes his head. “I actually,” he starts, then stops. Hesitates. “...About the list you mentioned.”
Shadow narrows his eyes, ever so slightly.
“If you let me see it, I can tell you which ones are still, ah…”
“No,” Shadow interrupts. “I want to see it for myself. Whatever is left, I have to– someone has to witness it.”
Sonic nods. “If that’s what you want.”
Sonic doesn’t leave, and neither does Shadow. Not yet. He moves to stand closer to the glass barrier, a cautious distance from Sonic. Then, he pulls out the postcard one last time, holding it up to his vision. Though the waterfall is gone, he can still see shadows of its existence. Places where it carved its existence into the very cliffside. Where Eggman’s machinery can’t quite hide its origins; can’t conceal what once was.
“Do you think,” Shadow starts uncertainly.
Sonic looks over at him, face giving nothing away but curiosity.
“...Do you think… That we could ever bring this place back to what it once was?”
It gives Sonic pause. He looks back at the ghosts of what once was; waterfall and forest alike. His silence is telling; Shadow knows what he’ll say long before he says it. “I’m sorry, Shadow,” he says. “I don’t think it works like that.”
Shadow sighs. He goes to fold up the postcard, but gently, Sonic stops him.
“But,” Sonic continues, gently tapping the green on the card. “There are other places a lot like this. Ones that there’s still time to save – I go there as often as I can to check on them. Make sure they’re still safe, that they haven’t been taken over.”
“But not this place. It’s too late here.”
Sonic sighs, but doesn’t disagree. “All I know is I’ll save what I can. Maybe, if Eggman stops attacking every other day, I’d get a chance to help fix something, not just save it, but… I don’t know. Trying to restore this place… it could take decades. Centuries, even.”
Centuries, Shadow thinks.
He slept for fifty years already – and this place fell to ruin without a protector. The world changes, when no one looks after it.
He hums.
“You’re just as short-sighted as humans,” Shadow says, new determination creeping into his voice. “A few hundred years – that’s nothing, not to the ultimate lifeform.”
Sonic turns to him, suddenly. Eyes almost fever-bright. “What, you’re going to fix this place up all by yourself?”
Shadow crosses his arms. “No.”
“But-?”
“Not every human was short-sighted about protecting the world,” Shadow says. He thinks of Maria’s ideas, the inventions she never got the chance to actualize. But there are others who want to make a better world. “I’ll just have to find people who will protect it alongside me.”
“Huh. You’d trust humans with this?”
Shadow gives Sonic a sharp look. “They deserve the chance to restore this place. To atone for the destruction their people caused.” He pauses. Looks back at the Eggman logo on the dam. Then, hesitantly, “...Albeit, with supervision.”
Sonic takes a moment to chew on that, it seems. Holding something back – though, Shadow can’t figure out what.
Instead, he just shakes his head and smiles.
“I hope you stick with it,” Sonic says. Shadow doesn’t have to look at him to know there’s optimism, real and present, in the edge of his smile. “This place needs you.”
“As if I care what you think of it,” Shadow mutters. “It’s not as if you’ll be here to see it.”
Sonic chuckles. “Sure,” he says. “But that’s why it’s hope, right?”
Shadow doesn’t quite know what to say to that.
But it seems Sonic’s reached his limit for standing still, because he comes back from the wall, stretching and adjusting his shoes.
“Well, glad we could chat. But like I said – Eggman’s been attacking just about every other day,” Sonic says, sounding bored despite the urgency Shadow knows lies underneath. “I should probably get going. It’s been too quiet lately.”
Shadow only grunts.
“But if you get a chance,” Sonic says-
“I already said no.”
Sonic chuckles. “I was going to say – Never Lake looks beautiful this time of year.”
Shadow furrows his brows. Sonic waits a beat, letting him process that. Then, in a softer voice, continues:
“Even if some of them aren’t on the list Maria made for you… There are still beautiful places left in the world.Things worth experiencing.” Shadow can’t meet Sonic’s eyes, but he hears compassion in his voice. “I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”
Shadow almost looks back at him. Almost. “If it means that much to you. I… will keep that in mind.”
Sonic chuckles. “Later, Shadow.”
With that, Sonic races off into the distance – skeletal trees swaying to his speed. And, on the very edge of the horizon, trees with healthy leaves following suit.
It’s not perfect. There’s no life for miles; the soil here will take ages to recover. And he can’t get his hopes up – there’s a chance that this place will never re-grow. That it may never be healthy and full of life again.
But Shadow thinks he can imagine a future – albeit a distant, far-off hope, practically a dream – where this place is green and growing.
Shadow reaches out for the abandoned bird’s nest in the viewing platform, and gently plucks a feather from the twigs and industrial materials. Gently, he folds up Maria’s postcard, and tucks the feather inside. When he’s finished, he zips it securely into his glove.
Someday, somehow, he thinks. This place will live again.