It’s a pretty regular morning to wake up. The weather is open, light coming from my window, dogs barking outside, and the smell of the cherry trees, even though I don’t know any existing ones nearby. I got out of bed and ate some chili dogs left from yesterday. It tasted way better yesterday evening, but this was also fine. My alarm started beeping consecutively. “Oh right, I’ve got a race tomorrow. I better practice a little so I can run faster.” I said to myself. I finished my ‘breakfast’ and went to the place I usually train. I did some warm-up moves and started running.
“Do not use all of your energy at the beginning, save some for the end too, Zed.” That’s what my coach always said, and he has a point. So I stopped running and started jogging… It was my third lap around the course but damn I was bored. Just when I was out of energy and about to give up, I saw a water stream flowing. Where could it possibly go? Since I was bored and tired, I decided to walk where the stream flowed. I walked, walked, and walked. Finally, I reached somewhere. It was a lake inside a forest! There were frogs, birds, and bunnies all over the place. But they looked too unrealistic. As I took another step, all the animals ran deeper into the forest. As I was about to turn back, I saw a big yellow ring floating on the water. “I have to take that!” I said and jumped into the water to get it. I was going to get wet. Well, that’s what I thought.
As soon as I touched the ring, I was in another place. It was just like I got teleported! I checked around, the grass was repeating a pattern. It was a light green line of grass, then a dark green one, a light green and a dark green… So was the soil! Though it was a square pattern this time. A dark brown square, then a light brown one. There were slim palm trees scattered all across the area, with some wooden totem-like structures that had different faces. There were also bushes and sunflowers. But the weird thing was that they were moving harmoniously together, up and down, up and down… The landscape was like an obstacle course. Beneath the course, there was a big sea. Also, there were other similar islands in sight.
Just as I was wandering around, someone ran near me at a flashing speed.
-“Who is that?!”
The guy came near me. He was a tall and slim boy with light brown hair and blue eyes. Probably in his 20s.
-“Finally! A human being. Welcome to Green Hills!”
-“What do you mean? What happened to me? How are you that fast?”
-“Okay champ, you’ve got a lot of questions. I have been stuck in this place for two years but still couldn’t manage to find a way out. You probably came here because you touched THE RING.”
-“The ring? What is that?”
-“It’s the only way to travel across the real world and here. Such a cool way. And about my speed, I use these swift boots that I borrowed from a blue guy.”
-“A blue guy? Weird. How do I go back? I have an important race that I have to join!”
-“If we work together, we can get out of here! My name is Christopher by the way, but you can call me Chris.”
-“Alright Chris, my name is Zed. Nice to meet you.”
Chris gave me a pair of the shoes that he is wearing. He said: “Try to keep up!”. He started running incredibly fast again. He even ran a loop-like structure, which was physically impossible for a human. I did the same and I actually managed to do the same! I was way faster than Chris. He had an average physique but mine was better compared to his. We started running and I managed to catch up to him.
“How is this even possible?!” I said as I ran against the wind.
-“In Green Hills, any speed you want to travel at, you can.”
-“All good with that, but how are we supposed to get out?”
-“We have to defeat the evil egg scientist dude that has turned the animals around here to mean robots. He has THE RING. But we have to be super careful. He is beyond a normal scientist. He has crazy robots too. He calls himself ‘Doctor Robotnik’.”
Just as we were running, Chris stopped and spotted a green emerald.
-“We need that if we want to beat Robotnik.”
Obstacles were blocking the way to the emerald. Chris surpassed the obstacles professionally and with ease. He came back with the emerald and got 4 more out from his pocket.
-“What are we supposed to do with these?”
-“These are the chaos emeralds, 7 of them can be used to unleash the true form of someone. We got 5 of them right now. We just need to find 2 more. Glad I kept these with me. I knew I would need them someday.”
-“Cool. Wow, look at those robots!”
Three wasp-looking robots were flying in front of us. They were blue and had black stripes. Suddenly, they started shooting yellow laser beams at us.
“Show me what you got!” said Chris.
I ran to the mechanical arthropods and used an uppercut on one of them. Its head flew a few meters away.
-“Dude, that was too basic. Watch this.”
Chris rushed to the other two robots and jumped. He rolled in the air somehow and landed on one of the robots while they were still shooting. After that, he bounced to the other evil animal and also knocked it out! 3 tiny animals, ones that looked like I saw at the lake, came out of the robots and walked away. We have freed them.
“-That was so cool!”
-“I know. Experience.”
We continued to search for more chaos emeralds. In a short time, we found them and were ready for a fight. Then we saw Robotnik, he was looking at a screen. (Probably filled with his evil ideas.) His torso was literally a sphere, and he had a brown mustache. He was bald and wearing evil scientist glasses. Robotnik turned to us and started talking.
-“I felt your energy, Zed. I knew you two would come here in no time.”
He made a super evil laugh and pressed a big red button.
-“Wait, how do you know my na-”
The floor beneath us disappeared, and we fell into the ocean. I tried to swim upwards, but it didn’t work. For some reason, I couldn’t swim. I guess I gave away my ability to swim for speed. I looked around, trying to hold my breath. Steve was destroying some fish-bots… I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. Chris waved at me, and he pointed to a crack on a wall that was near me. I big air bubble came out of the crack and I sucked all the air that was in it. My lungs were full of air! For now… Suddenly, a giant octopus robot came down to the ocean. It had glasses instead of his eyes and inside, I could see Robotnik using the machine.
One of the tentacles of the machine held Chris and didn’t let him go. He was going to drown! While I was distracted, thinking about Chris, another tentacle held me. I couldn’t hold my breath anymore, and Chris had already fainted. I tried to escape the tentacle but it was no use. I was racing against time, and just when I wished for a miracle to happen, the seven chaos emeralds came out of Chris’ pocket and started spinning around me.
A few seconds later, I opened my eyes suddenly. I destroyed the tentacle easily and escaped. My hair, my clothes were golden, actually, I was golden! I punched the octopus, and it flew to space. I could hear Robotnik screaming “NOOOOOO!” Chris was also no longer being held by the tentacle! Oh but he looked pretty dead. I held him and started to push myself to the surface. I could do that now for some reason. When we got out of the water, I discovered that I could fly! I put Chris on the ground and he woke up. He said: “Defeat him.” I flew to space, where Robotnik was, and I didn’t even need to breathe at all! He was probably begging for mercy, but I couldn’t hear him this time. I flew to the octopus at an incredible speed and landed a punch on it. There was a big hole at the place where I landed a punch! But wait a minute, I didn’t even feel it. I think I didn’t even touch it.
I got an idea after that. I started flying around Robotnik’s robot. I could feel the power inside me. I started going faster. Faster, faster, and faster. I was fast. No, I was speed. I was so fast that I was able to interact with my own frames from seconds ago! I created a golden tornado that flew with Robotnik into outer space. To never be seen again. Robotnik was now gone, and he dropped a golden ring before disappearing. I took the ring and flew back to Chris. He was feeling better. I took a deep breath, and the chaos emeralds appeared near me. I gave them to Chris.
-“Look, Chris! I got THE RING. Now we can finally go back to the original world.”
-“Good job Zed. But it’s not we. It is you. I can’t leave Green Hills. I have finally adapted to here. And thanks to you, I now know how to transform into my true form , I can defend myself. But I will visit you once in a while, I can promise that.” and he smiled.
I thanked to Chris and went back to my own world. I was so tired, and it was nighttime. I went home and slept.
I woke up. It’s the big day! I went to the race course and got to my line. Everyone got ready and started running with the sound of a whistle. I wasn’t using much of my energy, but I was way much faster than the other racers. What was happening? One person from the audience shouted: “Nice shoes, number one!” I looked at my shoes. My shoes were still swift shoes! No wonder why I was so fast. I won the race. And by a lot difference. Everyone congratulated me and stuff, but I was sad. I didn’t win the race by myself. It was the shoes that made me win. I was sad. But yesterday was the craziest day of my life. Maybe even someday these shoes will save my life.