Adventure two did not come the next day.

Sonic woke up sometime in the middle of that night feeling nauseous. It had invaded his dreams and eventually woken him up; besides that, he felt . . . weird. Too hot, but too cold as well.

He wanted water. But he didn't have any in the cave. He'd been getting water from a stream somewhere else in the forest. And he was afraid to move. It was dark, and his stomach hurt.

So he just pressed deeper into the beanbag, tucked his legs up and curled till he was almost completely a ball, and tried to go back to sleep. But the hot-cold shifty feeling continued to wrack him, and the nausea made it difficult to be comfortable in any position.

After an hour of moving around and unsuccessfully trying to get back to sleep, Sonic felt himself getting close to tears.

He was tired, he felt sick, he couldn't move, he was scared, he was thirsty, and he wanted Longclaw. He wanted his foster mother more than anything.

But he was so, so alone.

It had been a couple weeks since everything had changed. He usually tried to be positive, but tonight was miserable, and he couldn't much see anything to be happy about in the moment.

Eventually, he dozed off into an uneasy, light sleep. But the sickness he felt in reality continued to haunt him. His dreams were wild and frightening.

He lost track of time.

"Longclaw," he heard himself whimpering, only half-conscious. "I need you . . . !"

It was dark, and he could barely open his eyes from sheer exhaustion. But he could've sworn he heard his mother's gentle, soothing voice. He just couldn't make out any specific words.

The nausea grew worse, and now his throat felt sore as well. Still, he wouldn't move.

After an eternity, sunlight finally began to leak down into his cave. But it didn't make Sonic feel any better. He was still tired, still nauseous, and he couldn't do anything about it. It was pathetic. He was pathetic.

It was the longest day of his life. He remembered being sick once before, but Longclaw had been there to take care of him that time. All he could do now was lie in his "new" beanbag chair, miserable, simultaneously hungry and very much not hungry. He hadn't eaten anything since the stuff he'd found in the dumpster the day before—

Wait a minute.

Maybe that was what had made him sick. That . . . and then maybe pulling a giant chair through the woods in the cold.

At least I have the beanbag chair to help me sleep better, Sonic tried to say aloud, just for the comfort of some kind of sound, but his voice wouldn't come. Whether it was from exhaustion or the illness or some other reason, he didn't know, but he couldn't make a sound, not even a whisper.

So the suffocating silence continued to torture him.

All he could do was pretend things were okay, he was okay, everything was going to be okay.

Sure, those first two were just pretend, but the last one was true, he forced himself to remember. Everything was going to be okay. He wouldn't be sick forever, soon enough he'd be back on his feet and back to exploring his new home. He just wished that would come sooner rather than later.