… As it plummeted downwards, cockpit aflame and stopping for nothing, the pilot screamed in terror. 'I must live – for them!' he shouted, the unmistakable bite of fear in his voice. Suddenly, …

A conundrum. Suddenly what? Indeed, suddenly anything? Did 'suddenly' even fit?

'Damn it all,' exclaimed a frustrated Tails, slamming down his heavily-chewed pencil and causing the tiny clock on his desk to rattle. Writing was harder than it had first sounded.

He had been having nightmares for a number of weeks now and slowly but surely they were leading him towards a drowning inferno of paranoia, suffocating him with his own inner turmoil. As he did not want to have a nervous breakdown before his tenth birthday, he did not hesitate to contact Dr Quack, the local physician.

'A simple analogy would be a bucket under a tap,' the doctor had patiently explained to the young fox. 'If the bucket isn't emptied, or the tap isn't turned off, that thing is going to overflow.'

'The bucket is my mind?' queried Tails. Dr Quack nodded.

'How am I supposed to do that? Empty the bucket, that is...' asked Tails, somewhat confused.

'Emotional release,' replied the doctor. 'You are clearly being traumatized by something. I am willing to bet my right hand that it is a direct result of doing... well, the things you do on those missions into enemy territory. To place such a stressful burden on an eight year old – an orphaned one, no less – is bound to have terrible ramifications for their psyche. I don't believe Princess Sally actually approves…'

A sly grin crossed Tails' face; Aunt Sally had not even heard about – much less approved of – half of his and Sonic's sorties into Robotropolis. Remembering the mantra drilled into him by his blue hero, he consoled himself that what she did not know could not hurt her. Dr Quack continued:

'Yes, clearly you need an outlet… a way to "empty the bucket" as it were. Now, I'm no psychiatrist, but the Mobius Medical Journal once released a study on writing as a treatment, and apparently it can work wonders – builds communication skills, too. Next time you experience one of these nightmares, try and turn it into a story about another, distant group of people; let me know how it goes.'

'And that's it?' asked Tails, amazed at the simplicity of the doctor's plan.

'Sure is. Don't push yourself too hard, though; sometimes it can do more harm than good.'

'Oh… thanks…' said Tails, not sure if he really meant it. What did I expect? he thought, feeling somewhat unfulfilled; Prozac?

He left Quack's office, unsure of how he felt.

And now here he was, with third degree writer's block. It really was most frustrating.

A pencil, a sheet of paper, a simple plot. The dream was as clear as day to him, and yet he was unable to describe it, let alone write it. Looking once more at the almost empty page, he attempted to articulate what came next.

…he shouted, the unmistakable bite of fear in his voice. Suddenly, —

… a thought occurred to him? No, he was sure that wasn't it.

… the glass altimeter shattered, spraying glass? Couldn't be, thought Tails: he would have remembered that.

… an explosion rocked the—absolutely not!

Tails sighed. Nothing more than symbols on a page, writing was somehow supposed to be able to carve a crude image of his soul into the paper. The process was supposed to be cathartic, and from the initial outset sounded almost infantile in its simplicity. Then why was it so damn hard? How hard can it possibly to describe a... a dream?

'It's just… writing! Gah...' he let out in an agonized sigh. The frustration was quickly overtaking him.

He was a mechanic by trade. A technological genius. He could fix a Megalon-6 plasma driven engine in under an hour, and advanced electronics was nothing more than a quaint hobby of his. He could name all the parts of almost any plane, and knew the Tornado better than he did his hero, Sonic – well, almost.

Modesty aside, he was a genius; and it was not as if he was short on material to write on, either. On the verge of giving up, Tails called it a day and ventured outside.

The fresh, sweet air was like a soothing kiss upon his face. Having spent the entire morning inside, it was relieving to be able to stretch his legs once more. He strolled onwards through the tiny village of Knothole in no particular direction, trying to push his frustration to the back of his mind. Before he knew it, he was in the all too familiar Great Forest; he kept walking, letting the minutes tick by, until he arrived at a clearing.

The clearing was simple, with a floor of dirt and a break in the forest canopy that revealed the immeasurable sky above. In the evenings, a milky twilight filtered through this small gap, hypnotic in its beauty. Tails found himself coming here more and more often lately – it helped him to think, and put all his troubles behind him.

Paradoxically, it helped him simultaneously remember and forget; and to ignore the things that could never be forgotten. This clearing was his personal helicon; Tails hoped that it would help bring him to his creative zenith and help him finally be at peace with himself.

In the middle of the clearing, Tails slumped gently to the ground and lay on his back, watching the clouds stalk slowly across the afternoon sky. He had all but forgotten his earlier frustration with writing, and soon drifted into a state of deep thought.

You are clearly being traumatized…

The words of Dr. Quack two days previous came back to him. In silence, Tails reflected on them. And, losing himself in the clouds that filled his vision, realized:

He was absolutely right.

- - -

From his birth, Mobius was at war with the forces of Robotnik. All he had ever known in his life was war, and his only glimpse of peace had been through the occasional bedtime stories delivered by Aunt Sally, who had told of parades, music and happiness throughout a land united in good fortune. It did not seem possible to him; he often thought it was all an absurd dream, that peace could have ever settled upon these lands.

At the age of four, he was torn from the parents he had never known and subsequently adopted by the Knothole freedom fighters, who had since grown to become his surrogate family. As his life went on, he found a hero; someone whom he could look up to. But it was a hopeless pursuit, he ruminated: he could never be like him, and would always be living in his shadow. Nevertheless, Sonic was the figure he strived to be one day; he felt that he would never be complete until he had achieved the near perfection he epitomized.

A few more years passed, and at seven he went on his first mission into Robotropolis – amid much protest from Sally. And rightly so, he had thought in hindsight, for there began a new regime of terror imposed on Tails' young mind.

It was not as if he did not want to go on the missions. To see his hero in action was to be in a state of ecstasy, and to partake in the action itself gave an adrenaline rush that not even high velocity flight could compare to. Oh no, it wasn't the missions themselves that had shattered the child; it was the horrors.

Undeniably, Robotnik was evil. Sonic jokingly referred to him as 'Robuttnik', but all of the freedom fighters knew deep inside how much of a cruel and twisted individual he truly was. What went on within the bitter, arctic hell of his cold heart nobody was quite able to fathom; he was sick, and carried with him a twisted disease of hatred – and it was contagious.

Tails remembered the torture chambers. In one of Robotnik's many fortresses, Tails had once accidentally stumbled upon a room that he was sure had seen and heard the pain of many freedom fighters before him. Spiked instruments of death were suspended from the black, stone walls, complemented by the iron chains and blood stained shackles hanging from the roof. The body of the room was in itself a vile manifestation of all Robotnik's sinister machinations against the peaceful Mobians; dark metallic tables reminiscent of an autopsy room lay dormant, flecked with the torn flesh of living creatures. Here, Tails was sure that many innocent creatures had been crushed by the iron fist of a despotic overlord – answers to questions minced from farmers and peasants whose only crime was to defend the concept of 'love thy neighbor'. The smell of burning fur arising from among the tortured screams came to him, as real as day.

Crushed…

A tear often came to Tails' eye as he remembered that it was more than likely his parents were captured by Robotnik before he truly knew them. As much as he wished it was not the case, he could not help but wonder sometimes; was his mother broken on the rack before the eyes of a sadistic, cackling fiend? Was his father's body beaten and crushed in a relentless pursuit for trivialities? The image of a malicious iron, blood stained shackle swaying silently in a cold draft was impossible to shake from his mind.

What went on behind closed doors, however, was matched by the mindless robots that patrolled the iron fortress. To his credit, Robotnik was an intelligent robotic scientist – as much as the Freedom Fighters hated to admit it – his fundamental flaw lying in the uses to which he applied his expansive knowledge.

With pain, Tails recalled the group of freedom fighters that had joined their own for an ambitious raid into Robotropolis. They numbered five, and were not much older than Sonic and the others.

So young…

The raid was all going to plan until Antoine set off a proximity alarm; with alarm bells ringing, the group started to run in panic; without a further thought, Tails had used his obvious advantage to fly, spotting for the others and witnessing the unfolding spectacle as they ran.

The others ran fast, but they were not fast enough – the other freedom fighters had come from an extremely dense sector of the Great Forest, and as a result were not terribly adept at running. As they began to lag behind the others, Tails remembered urging them on furiously with his mind; as if it would somehow help them escape the accelerating hover-flame bot that was closing in on them, descending like a hideous metal eagle in pursuit of its next meal. Go on, he thought with all his strength; You must make it! Faster… go faster!

Unfortunately, his mental exertion was but for naught – one of the others tripped, and it was all over. As their bodies were immolated by the vicious flame of the bot, they fell to the ground and writhed in agony, their flesh succumbing to its fiery death. Their charred, black, skeletons remained in the street a further week before the remains could be recovered and given an honorable burial. Five souls extinguished, removed from the mortal realm by an unforgiving hand of fire: Tails was unable to sleep for three days.

By this point, he was seven and a half years old.

Tails remembered the roboticization chambers. He had only seen them once before, when Robotnik had captured him and held him hostage; strapped to an iron rack. Tails bore witness to the death of 72 Mobians that long night, each one still visible in his mind to the present day.

No, it was worse than death, determined Tails; the theft of free will made a mockery of nonexistence. But to take this free will as Robotnik did – with such vile, perverse pleasure – it was inhuman.

'Look, look at the body mutate!' Robotnik had clapped with sadistic delight, watching eagerly as a young squirrel who could not have been much older than Tails underwent the horrific process.

'Watch him squirm! Oh, look at him—SNIVLEY! Decrease the power further; I want our young friend here to witness the process in all its grueling entirety.'

Snivley had complied with the order – and to the utter terror of Tails, the process was clearly now much more slow and painful for the wretched subject. With agony, he watched as the young squirrel clawed at the glass chamber, screaming as his body mutated and gave in to a much more rigid metallic construction. His flesh was tearing, his skeleton cracking and – with a distinct, unforgettable, sound – snapping. The vocal chords strained to breaking point as all air was expelled from his lungs for the last time in a blood-curdling scream.

'Stop!' Tails yelled, 'Stop, you madman! You son of a bitch! S-Stop… stop…'

He had trailed off, unable to take it anymore. He was prevented from averting his gaze or closing his eyes thanks to a drug Snivley had previously administered on the orders of Robotnik. He would have cried, but his tear ducts had sealed themselves shut –intensifying the feeling of empathy he held for the tortured being behind the glass.

Suddenly, the screaming ceased and the lights faded for a millisecond. With a clunk, a twisted, half roboticized squirrel lay dead in the roboticization chamber. The gaping rictus of death descended upon his face, which had frozen in one last contorted grimace of pain.

'Oh well,' remarked Robotnik, almost laughing. 'I suppose it never was designed to run at half power, anyway… let this be a lesson to you and all your little friends, pathetic child; all who oppose me shall fall, and by my hand their broken corpses shall lie discarded upon the scrap heap, their lives exhausted in my chambers. You will be the first...'

Luckily, his plans had been foiled by Sonic once more that night. Tails could not count on being so lucky the next time.

He was unable to bring himself to talk for long after Sonic had rescued him from certain torture that night. Crushed bone, iron, shackles, death, horror… by Tails' eighth birthday he had witnessed more barbarity and atrocities than some of the most hardened soldiers in the old army of Mobius.

'And by my hand their broken corpses shall lie discarded upon the scrap heap…' – with a shudder, Tails knew that the promise delivered by Robotnik that torturous night was far from empty.

Tails was scared. Scared for his friends, scared for his parents, scared for himself… all the bad memories of events past flooded back to him as they had never done before. Why had so much happened to him? Why had he even been born…?

And with that, Tails was overcome with emotion and began to cry.

- - -

Tails awoke silently, opening his eyes to the now-familiar hole in the canopy. Stars against the night-sky shone through, illuminating the tortured fox in a milky light. A slight breeze rustled through the surrounding trees, barely brushing the skin beneath his thick fur.

Tails did not know how long he had been lying there, reflecting and remembering the things that had plagued him for to long. Oh, how he wished he could forget…

Perturbed by his past, Tails got up carefully and brushed himself off. In silence, he walked back to Knothole village, the crackle of twigs under his feet bringing back the solemn memory of an unnamed squirrel. As he went, an irresistible compulsion overtook him:

Tails felt like writing.

- - -

The dim light of a lantern lighting his desk, Tails dragged the discarded piece of paper towards him with determination. It ended here, and it ended now.

'Yes…' he said to himself, almost shaking with premonition. 'I have it… I have it…'

He began writing furiously, as though trying to extract the hideous venom from his mind with the sheer energy of the pencil in his hand. The words flowed to him, quicker and quicker, accelerating. He could not pause, and like an avalanche of letters, he continued writing. Suddenly, he stopped, panting, the pencil lying discarded on the desk. He did not know why, but he almost smiled as he lifted up the paper to the light.

'Yes… yes, this is it…'

With finality, he turned off his lantern and walked to the door. Doctor Quack's treatment really was rather cathartic, he thought; at last he would be able to forget, and claim that which was due to him. Taking one last look at the scrap of paper on his desk, he opened the door and walked on – into eternity.

- - -

With a soft whistle, a cool draft flowed soothingly through the open window. On the cluttered desk against the far wall, papers rustled slightly as the wind touched them: weaving around ornament and stationary alike, bathing them with transparent motion. With a gust, a single scrap took flight with a gentle flutter, flying across the room and at last coming to rest in the open fireplace where the flames devoured it in earnest. As the paper crackled and burned, purging forever the memories Tails had struggled to live with, a single paragraph scrawled at the foot of the page in childlike handwriting stood out for the world to see:

… then he realized something. To the pilot, it mattered not whether he lived or died, for to die would be to experience a healing release. 'Yes!' he laughed, struck by a sudden, inescapable realization; 'Yes!'

Deciding to laugh all the way to his grave, the pilot increased the angle of descent. Suddenly, the plane accelerated; everything except the fast closing ground became a senseless blur. Faster and faster, downwards and forwards… O, forwards! The pilot knew not what death would bring, but was positive that it would all end today – right here, right now. The sun shone brightly that day; a mocking reminder of the happiness he could never have in the mortal realm. He would chase it, he decided: with death as his springboard, he would chase his happiness for eternity.

With a final shout of glee, the plane embraced the asphalt landscape with a passionate kiss of fire. His life of pain over, the pilot was now free; free forever, for always and always.

To those that witnessed the release, the pilot had died; his life extinguished fighting for what he believed in. But the pilot knew better.

He knew he would travel forwards, towards the freedom he never had. Bright skies were ahead, and for the first time in his existence, a bright outlook could be assumed. Yes, he would travel forever:

Forever, into the sun.