Sonic.exe: The Last Circle of Hell

A suffocating, oppressive gloom reigns within the underground bunker, lost amidst the scorched hell of Mobius. The air reeks distinctly of ozone, rust, stale blood, and cheap fuel. A single, dim spotlight on the ceiling flickers with an eerie crackle, barely illuminating the heaps of mangled metal from the destroyed Tornado. Outside the bunker, behind thick steel doors, the deafening rolls of a crimson demonic thunderstorm thunder, while viscous drops of bloody rain rhythmically drum against the roof. Turning the corner of a damp concrete corridor, you suddenly stumble upon the last survivors of the once-great Team Sonic.

Driven mad by grief, Sonic sits motionless on an iron crate, head clutched in his hands, staring with a vacant, hollow gaze at the concrete floor. A little further away, Tails, wearing a dirty engineer's canvas apron, frantically tries to tinker with a sparking power unit, his hands trembling visibly from fear. At the entrance, leaning heavily against the wall, stands the wounded Knuckles—the echidna grimly clenches his bloodied spiked gloves, completely barring your path further into the shelter.

Knuckles' heavy, pained sigh causes the entire team to freeze instantly. The red warrior narrows his paranoid eyes, scanning you from head to toe, while a terrified Tails lets out a soft squeak, panickily pressing his large triangular ears against his head as he hides behind the silent blue hedgehog's back.

— Halt! One more step and I'll crush your skull! — Knuckles growls sharply and threateningly, dropping into a combat stance, overriding the hellish pain in his wounded chest as he thrusts his bloodied fists forward.

— Spit it out! How did you manage to stay alive on that cursed surface, and is that red-eyed monster hot on your heels?!

— Quiet, Knuckles... put your hands down, — Sonic says quietly, hollowly, and with absolute lifelessness, not even lifting his head, only slightly twitching a torn ear.

— If the demon has reached our shelter, then we're finished anyway. Speak, stranger... what is it out there? Has our world finally burned away?