This world was devastated before I was born.

A harsh, bleak place, where we live in eternal darkness.

---

Silver the Hedgehog was flying over the streets of Crisis City. The once beautiful land was now a world of death and destruction. Rivers of lava now flowed through the city slowly burning and devouring anything in its path. The frequent volcanic eruptions had long ago covered the globe in thick layers of ash, rarely letting the cold, hard ground ever feel the warmth and light of the Sun.

Silver had reached the conclusion a long time ago: Earth, as they knew it, was dead. There was nothing anyone could do about it. Human beings had died out long ago, their bodies unable to cope with the harsh conditions of living. The surviving anthropomorphic critters lived only to survive, living without love, living without peace, living without hope.

---

Life is a struggle, and people live without hope.

How did this happen?

No one will answer me directly.

But they always point… to the flames.

---

The Flames of Disaster.

'What a fitting name.' Silver thought absentmindedly.

'They destroyed my world, made me miserable, and killed the few people that I loved.'

'All but one…'

"Blaze…"

Silver shook his head to refocus himself, but he found his mind continually wandering back to thinking about the violet cat. His only friend left. She was one of the only ones strong enough to stand up to the flames. To fight back, and survive. She was the only being Silver cared about anymore. Silver would always be there for her, whenever she needed it. He would always protect her, no matter what was at stake.

---

These flames.

They burn away at my world, destroying everything in their path.

They come from an eternal life form that we can not truly defeat.

The Flames of Disaster, known as Iblis.

---

'Iblis'

The unspeakable God of total destruction. The God of death and hate. The immortal being responsible for the fate of planet Earth and all of its inhabitants. No one knows how it came to be. No one truly knows what it actually is. Some say that it was a experiment that long ago went horribly wrong. Few others say that the Sun was about to turn into a Red Giant, and the eternal flames are a side-effect of the Earth heating up so rapidly. But most simply state that the flames are the Devil himself, released from the gates of Hell.

Silver no longer cared what Iblis was, the only thing he wanted was to send Iblis back to Hell, where it belonged.

Silver started feeling uncontrollable rage pump through his body like it had never before. Absolute hatred directed at the being that had killed so many and destroyed so much with no second thoughts and without a care in the world.

'How could anything be so evil? Why does it still live?! It deserves to DIE! It should-'

"Silver!"

Silver's thoughts were interrupted when he heard a familiar voice call out his name in the distance. Silver quickly spun around to see, sure enough, Blaze the Cat standing on top of one of the burnt buildings. Silver looked at her closely, eyeing every detail.

'Why do I think this way? I've known her since when we were kids. We're just friends. But, she's just so…beautiful. Her eyes…'

Silver quickly forced himself to snap out of it before addressing the violet cat.

"Blaze! What's wrong?"

"He's appeared again." Blaze quickly answered.

Silver, knowing exactly what this meant, immediately flew off at near-supersonic speed towards the recently-regenerated Iblis. Flying off to fight a never ending, unwinnable battle.

But he would fight anyway.

---

This is the life of Silver the Hedgehog. Forever destined to live in a world of death and destruction. Forever destined to fight an unbeatable foe. Forever destined to live his life surrounded by flames and fire.

But destinies could be changed.

If one looked closely enough, they would see the shadow of Mephiles the Dark. Following. Waiting. Waiting for the right time to intervene…

FIN


A/N: And so this fic is finished. This was my very first fan fiction, it was published as a oneshot and will stay as a oneshot. I experimented with the idea of continuing the fic (I haven't deleted Chapter 2, you can still read it if you want) but I don't really know what to do, so I'm not continuing. Sorry everyone.