I woke up in a field that extended as far as the eye could see. The grass was checked, the sky was blue, and I could see what looked like sunflowers a few feet away from me. What was strange was that the petals on these sunflowers were very pointy, looking very sharp. I walked over to these flowers, and as I got closer I could see something blue heading toward me. I felt a gust of wind as the blue thing ran past me, and I ran to hide behind the sunflowers. I could hear shoes scuffing as the blue thing stopped itself. I looked around to see a big rock next to me, and I dived to hide behind it. I saw a secret door on the rock. I opened it, went inside, and closed the door just in time for the blue thing to come up to the rock. 

“Hello?” a muffled voice (clearly male) came from outside the rock. “Is someone there?”

I didn’t answer. I was scared that whoever was outside the rock would hurt me. 

“You don’t have to hide. I won’t hurt you.” The voice sounded genuine. I opened the door a crack to see what looked like a blue hedgehog right outside the rock. It was about the same height as me, maybe taller. 

“Who are you?” I asked, frightened. 

“I’m Sonny,” The blue thing introduced itself.

“Where am I?” I asked Sonny. 

“You’re on Mobius,” he replied. “Mind telling me your name?”

“I’m Neptune. Neptune Galaxy.”

“Nice to meet you, Neptune. Mind coming out of the rock? It glitches the game.” 

“Oh, sorry.” I opened the door and crawled out, and Sonny helped me up to my feet. I noticed that Sonny was taller than me, me meeting his chin. 

“You don’t have to be sorry. My little sister has the same habit. She’s actually the only one here who can do that, apart from you.”  We started walking to a blue, old-fashioned plane off in the distance. I could see someone working on the plane, but I couldn’t make out who. 

“Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to the person working on the plane. 

“Oh, that’s Miles. He’s my best friend,” Sonny replied. 

I stopped. “Am I in a video game or something?”

Sonny paused. “Technically, yeah. You are.” 

I shrugged it off as we continued walking toward the plane as we continued talking. At one point - I can’t remember when - Sonny grabbed my hand and started running at really high speeds to the plane. Sonny stopped after about 1.5 seconds, and we were on the plane. I was a little dizzy from the high speeds, being that I had never gone that fast before. I remember hearing Sonny and Miles talking before something stabbed me and I passed out. Well, ‘stabbed’ isn’t the right word. More like ‘pinched’. 

...

I woke up to a white hospital room with doctors and surgeons rushing around outside the room. I immediately got this song stuck in my head, which was unusual since I never get an earworm. It went something like this: 

“I was just a little girl playing a simple game

When my life was stripped from me, never to be returned.

Now I’m screaming ‘Please let me out but no one will come.

I’m still screaming ‘Please let me out and return me to my home!

I’m just a little girl stuck in another world.

I just want to go home. Please let me out, please let me out!”

It was a rather depressing song to say the least, but melodic at the same time. I decided to sing it under my breath. When I finished, I felt this rush of wind all around me, and I was in this white room. Suddenly, I felt myself start to change. I looked down at my hands and saw that they had almost doubled in size. I got this huge headache as I transformed from being your average human female to being what seemed like a... I don’t know, galaxy fox? It’s hard to describe. Instead of having peach skin, I had beautiful galaxy-patterned fur that covered me from head to toe to tail. I had a long, bushy tail; fox ears, and muzzle; and my eyes had changed from being a baby blue to being a gradient of dark-ish purple to dark-ish blue. By the way, I think I was a... what were they called? Mobians? I think that’s it. Well, whatever they were called, I was one of them now. Then, everything went black and I was back in the hospital room. I looked down at myself and saw that the changes had been kept. I really was a ‘galaxy fox’, or - whatever it’s called. I was tired from whatever had been injected into me from earlier, so I closed my eyes. 

I dreamt I was flying. I felt the rush of wind against my face as I soared through the night sky. It was freeing. I dived through white, fluffy clouds, and soared above the city. It was quite a breathtaking view. Then, I woke up. Again, that song was stuck in my head. So, curious as to what would happen this time, I sang it; a little louder this time. Nothing. I sang it again, this time with a little more emotion behind it. As I sang, I got this image in my head of a girl lying beneath a willow tree. It was nighttime, the stars were out, and I could see the moon. The girl was wearing a baby-blue dress with a white apron, white knee-high socks, and black shoes. Her skin was light peach, and her hair was blond. She wore her hair down, and it went down just past her shoulders. She was singing the same song I was, but it felt as if she was heartbroken about something, unlike me, who was singing it just for kicks. As I finished, I saw her hair flow as the wind blew against it. It was a beautiful image, but (like the song) sad. 

Beautiful but sad. 

I wonder if there’s a message that someone’s trying to send me. 

After I left the hospital, I walked with Sonny and Miles to a nearby forest. It looked kinda like your standard horror story forest, but with a strange purple fog. 

“What’s up with the fog?” I asked.

“That’s probably just Manic playing with the fog machine again,” Sonny said. 

“Who’s Manic?” I asked.

“Manic is Sonny’s younger brother. Manic isn’t his real name, that’s just what he goes by,” Miles replied. 

“Oh. I didn’t know you had a younger brother, Sonny. By the way, you remind me a lot of someone else.”

“Oh? Who’s that?”

“It’s another hedgehog named Sonic. You actually look and sound exactly like him,”

“Really? Does he have any special powers?”

“Yeah, actually. He has the power of super speed and the ability to control the Chaos Emeralds.”

“Hey, don’t you have super speed, Sonny?”

“Yeah, I do. Maybe we’re related in some way.”

I paused. For some reason, Miles reminded me very strongly of the orange-haired kid from school. I noticed that he had two tails instead of just one, and it made me think of when I saw for a split second one of the sleeves twitch. 

We continued walking through the creepy forest and I noticed that the fog had cleared. I could actually see more than five feet in front of me! I noticed that the forest was way less creepy than before and it looked pretty peaceful. I slowed my walk a little bit to take in the scenery. It was nighttime, the stars were out, and I could somewhat see the moon through the trees. 

“Twinkle twinkle little bat...” I paused. I thought I heard something in the distance, about twenty feet away. 

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

“Hear what?” Sonny replied. 

“Up above the world, you soar...” There it was again. This time it sounded louder. Closer. 

“There it is again! Can’t you hear it?” I asked again. 

“Yeah, I hear it,” Miles replied. “It kinda sounds like singing.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Sonny said. 

“Maybe you’re half deaf,” I said sarcastically. 

“I’m not deaf! I just don’t have that good of hearing compared to you two,” Sonny explained. “Not all species have 12-star hearing, you know.” 

“Let’s just move on,” I suggested. 

We continued walking. I heard the singing again, so I decided to stray off and find the source of the music. I eventually reached a clearing, and I saw a little girl sitting down in the grass, petting what looked like a yellow fox with a red stripe going down its face. The fox had on a pink tee-shirt with a red heart on it, black shorts, and red-and-yellow shoes. It looked like it was either asleep or unconscious. 

I slowly walked toward the girl, and she didn't seem to notice me. She was wearing a baby-blue dress with a white apron, white knee-high socks, and black shoes. Her skin was light peach, and her hair was blond. She also wore her hair down, and it went just past her shoulders. Just like in the vision...

“Twinkle twinkle little bat, how I wonder where you're at. Up above the world, you soar, like a tea tray in a store. Twinkle twinkle little bat, how I wonder where you're at,” She sang. It sounded melodic and I was hypnotized by her singing. It almost put me in a trance and I started to feel drowsy. 

Not realizing I was still walking, I stepped on a twig and it screamed, snaping. She stopped singing and looked up at me. She had beautiful baby blue eyes. 

“Who are you?” She asked while standing up. The fox got off her lap and stood up, yawning and stretching. It shook its head, wondering where it was and what had happened. It had one eye teal and the other grey, with slitted pupils. It also had a scar going diagonally across its grey eye, starting at its red stripe and ending at its cheek. That’s weird, I thought. I thought foxes had round pupils, not slits. 

“I’m Neptune. Neptune Galaxy,” I replied as the fox disappeared into thin air. 

“I'm Alice.” 

“You have a beautiful voice, Alice.” 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. By the way, what was that on your lap? It kinda looked like a fox.”

“Hm? Oh, you mean Phoebe! She’s a fox-hyena hybrid.”

“Fox-hyena hybrid?! That’s impossible!!” 

“Not here, it isn’t. Here, any two species can mate.” 

I paused at that. That can’t be possible... can it? I thought. I know that foxes and hyenas are two completely different species, so how is it possible to have a hybrid of the two? My mind was baffled. Then I remembered what Alice said, and decided to just accept it and move on. 

Later, I was walking in the forest again, this time alone. I had decided to leave Alice be and go find Sonny and Miles. A few minutes later, I noticed that a strange presence was in the area. Well, either that or I was being followed by somebody. Suddenly, a red, glowing orb that was about the size of a soccer ball floated down from a nearby tree. It looked really cool, so I went to touch it when suddenly, out of nowhere, the same fox-hyena thing appeared between me and the orb. 

“Get behind me!” The fox yelled. I assumed the order was directed at me since the fox was facing the orb, so I got behind it. The fox looked at me with wide, powerful eyes and I immediately thought of my friend, Phoebe, from back home. Could it be...?

Almost like it was reading my mind, it said “Yes, it’s me, Phoebe. I’ll explain later.” 

Suddenly, I was behind a rock while Phoebe faced the orb. Suddenly, everything except me, Phoebe, and the orb went greyscale. The red orb started to morph into something that looked kind of like Sonny, but with pitch-black eyes with a red slit, darker fur, bloody claws on each hand, and yellow pointy teeth. I also noticed that it was crying blood. Phoebe, on the other hand, mostly stayed the same. The only things that changed about her were that now she had a yellow aura around her that kinda looked like a phoenix and she had big yellow wings. When I snuck around to see her face, I saw that her eyes had turned completely white; including her pupils. Phoebe looked pretty mad. I gotta say, she looked pretty intimidating. 

“I thought I destroyed you,” Phoebe spoke in a voice that sounded like there was an echo of what she said before she was going to say it. 

“Well, you thought wrong,” the creepy hedgehog-like thingy spoke in a really deep, omniscient voice. 

“You’re like a cockroach. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t get rid of you.”

“Did you forget that I’m immortal?”

“No one’s immortal. Eventually, everyone dies. Even you, Exe.”

“We’ll see about that.” Everything went back to normal except for Exe and Phoebe when he held his hands above his head. It seemed like he was sucking the darkness out of the forest to then form a big orb. Exe threw the dark orb at Phoebe, who teleported behind him, dodging it easily.  

“You’ll have to do WAY better than that if you even want a chance at putting me down,” Phoebe said after she teleported in front of Exe. Phoebe then held her right hand to his chest and everything except me and Phoebe went greyscale again. Exe went greyscale, but only the orb at which he was originally still had color. The orb looked like it was inside Exe. Phoebe took her hand and reached inside Exe’s body to then grab the orb and pull it out. When she pulled it out, it was about the size of a marble. 

“The body is like water; it magnifies the soul’s appearance,” Phoebe explained to me like she could feel my confusion. 

“Wha-what are you?” I asked, kinda scared. Phoebe then went back to her previous form, floated over to me, and sat down. 

“I’m what’s called a ‘Golden Fox’, even though I’m a half-breed,” Phoebe said. I was a little confused at her comment, then I remembered what Alice told me. “Hm? Oh, you mean Phoebe! She’s a fox-hyena hybrid.”

I hesitated before saying “That’s impossible.”

“Not here.” She then turned around, lifting the back of her shirt to show a red stripe going down the entire length of her back. Scattered all over her back were dark-ish yellow spots that kinda looked like hyena markings. At about where her shoulder blades were, she had dark yellow fur markings in the shape of folded wings.  So, I ‘did the math’, as it were.  Now I know who you are...

I and Phoebe were walking in the non-creepy forest when I asked her “So, how long have you been here?”

“Here, it’s only been 5 months. But in your world, it’s been 5 years. I don’t know which one to believe,” Phoebe explained. 

“We are in a video game, right?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Then we should trust real-world time.”

“I meant to say yes and no. Sure, we are technically in a video game, but we’re also on a different planet. Different planet means different mass which means different spin speed which means faster or slower time passage.”

“How did you become more of a nerd?”

“I’ve been intentionally holding back in school.”

“Why would you do that?”

“To blend in more.”

“Oh. Wait, why would you try to blend in? If I were you, I’d try to stand out.”

“Have you looked at me recently?”

“Yeah, but back at school you’re a human, Right?”
“Even in my human form, my proportions are still way off. Everyone who’s an artist would immediately notice and call the cops.” I then heard her mumble “It’s in those situations that the Don’t Notice Me spell comes in handy.”

“Magic exists here?!”

“Yes, and it’s called Chaos Energy.”

I noticed that Phoebe was staring into space a lot. So, I asked her what was wrong. She replied with “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just talking with a friend.”

“Who’s your friend?” I asked. 

“It’s my big brother, Sonny.”

“Hey, I remember him talking about you earlier. He said that you could go inside walls.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I can glitch inside the walls around us.”

“I can do that too!”

Phoebe was shocked. Somehow, I could hear her thinking What?! How? I thought I was the only creator here!

“Well, I guess you’re not.” 

Phoebe put her finger to her mouth, shushing me. She then tapped her temple, thinking use your thoughts to talk with me. 

“How?”

She sighed, then said, “You know how you can control your thoughts, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, think the words you want to speak, but don’t actually say them.” 

So, like this? I thought.

Yes, you got it! Good job! Most people get it on the fourth or fifth try, Phoebe replied. 

We left the conversation alone and continued walking. I noticed that we were in a small, abandoned neighborhood. It looked really creepy and gave me the chills. 

“What is this place?” I asked Phoebe, who was seemingly unaffected by the atmosphere in the neighborhood. 

“You’ll see” was all she said. 

We entered a new building at the edge of the neighborhood. As we got closer, I could see a sign above two double doors that read “William’s pizza and entertainment”. We went inside to see a check-in table near a back wall and two hallways to the left and right of the table. The place was somewhat greyscaled, except for the red and blue checker pattern on the wall and the black and white pattern on the floor. 

“Stay here.” Phoebe then went through a really big square doorway to the left of the check-in table. I could hear Phoebe talking to someone for a couple of minutes, then a bunch of metal clanging on the floor in a pattern that made it sound like footsteps. Phoebe walked out of the doorway, then told me to follow her, and I did. 

We walked through the big doorway that leads to what looked like a big party room. There were cafeteria tables lined across the room in front of a really big stage. On the stage were these huge animatronics. Each one was almost twice the size of your average human adult. The first one looked like a bear, the second one looked like a chicken, the third one looked like a bunny, and the fourth one looked like an alligator. The chicken, the bunny, and the alligator had a guitar while the bear had a microphone in his hand. 

“Wait, where’s the wolf?” I asked Phoebe. 

“Oh, you mean Roxanne? She’s here. Right now she’s getting repaired. She’s in the back if you want to see her,” Phoebe replied. 

“Where, exactly?” 

“Just follow the yellow line on the floor.” A yellow line then appeared on the floor, staring at me and disappearing into the right hallway.

“Got it. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

I followed the yellow line when I heard a whooshing sound behind me. I turned around to see what it was and saw that no one was there except for the animatronics. Phoebe must have teleported somewhere, I thought. 

I continued to follow the yellow line and it eventually leads me to a big room with what looked like a giant scooper? Anyway, aside from that, there was also another one of those really big animatronics, but this one was a wolf. Oh, this must be Roxanne! 

I turned her on, and she looked at me with beautiful teal eyes. Then she sat down and was almost at my eye level. 

“Do you know who I am?” Roxanne asked.

“Of course. You’re Roxanne Wolf,” I replied. 

“Incorrect. Try again. Who am I?”

I was confused. If she wasn’t Roxanne, then who was she?

“I don’t know. Who are you?”

“I am Phoebe Finite, otherwise known as Ansa Stoneheart. I have been tasked with trapping you in this world for all of eternity. I am sorry, but I have no other choice but to kill you.” Roxanne got up off of the ground and went into another room, which was behind a glass window. 

“Again, I am sorry, but I have no other choice.”

Time seemed to slow down. I ran to the door through which I entered, opened it, and scrambled to get to the exit. When I reached the front doors, they were closed and locked. I tried to get them open to no avail. I heard metal footsteps behind me and I turned around to see Roxanne in front of me. 

“Stop wasting your energy. This entire building is made out of pure vibration and adamantium,” said Roxanne. 

I realized that she had backed me into a corner, and time was running out. Fast. I had no weapons on me to defend myself with, and I couldn’t see anything within arm’s reach I could use as a weapon. I tried to duck underneath the big animatronic, but she grabbed me instead and started walking to the basement. We went through the right hallway, through a couple of doors, and finally landed in the basement. It looked like your standard run-of-the-mill basement with brick walls and a stone floor, except this one had a giant alligator animatronic sitting in the back. Roxanne walked over to the animatronic, opened the chest plate, stuffed me inside, and closed it back up. Everything was really dark, but there was just enough light where I could see wires, gears, spring locks, and cross beams all around me. I heard a beep outside the animatronic and suddenly, there was a cross-beam going through my chest. I heard another beep and there was another cross-beam going through my stomach. I tried to call for help, but no one answered. Instead, I heard metal footsteps going out of the basement, then a door closing. I noticed that I was bleeding out, and fast. If I don’t get to a hospital soon, I’ll bleed to death. 

I tried everything to get out of the animatronic, but nothing worked. Eventually, the last thing I saw was the inside of the animatronic before everything went black.

The end.