Unforgiven

By MistressAli

Snively, Robotnik © Sega/Archie/Dic

Lyrics are © Donna Lewis

-another face, another name-

His name was George, but no one here knew. No one here cared. He was another Mobian face, worthless, sobbing over his family, or some other sentimental bullshit. Snively didn’t care.

-stand in line all the same -

Mobians were just numbers, nowdays. Robots for the factories, lambs for the slaughter, experiments for the tortures and tests. Because that was how Robotnik wanted it.

-I’ve been here so many times –

He stood there, with his mouth droning out words of Robotnik’s glory to the hapless man inside the tube. It was always the same. He could do this with his eyes closed. And sometimes, just sometimes, the thought sickened him to the core. Sometimes he sat in his room stone- drunk but his mind wide open and oh so crystal clear…he saw how utterly sick and pathetic he was.

His uncle held the gun but he pulled the trigger. He was the one whose clothes were sprayed with blood. And he couldn’t wash it.

- I don’t know the reason why-

And why? Why had it come to this? Because his uncle wanted it, and Snively had to please him. He had come to him initially in hopes of finding a new father. Because the original was flawed, the original wasn’t good. And he’d thought Julian would be better.

Julian had been better, all right. Better. Bigger. More creative. But not with praise, and acceptance, and love and those things the young boy Snively had so desperately sought.

No, Uncle excelled at all the cruelty his father had, except Julian was even better. Even better at dishing out the abuse.

And that’s why he was here, looking in the raccoon face whose name was George, but Snively didn’t know that, so he just called him ‘the raccoon.’

 “I have kids,” George said, loudly. “I have children. They need me!”

- do I want to live to tell? -

“I don’t care.” Snively said, flatly.

The pain on the man’s face was almost a pleasure. To know someone was hurting besides HIM, for once, was just a simple joy for Snively.

And that thought brought him sickness and guilt at those times when he sat drunk, contemplative, or both, the thought that he got so much pleasure out of other’s pain, just like his Uncle…and he loathed to think he was *anything* like that man.

NO no no.

But there was no denying, Snively followed in his Uncle’s footsteps. But by force, he mused. He was dragged along by the tyrant’s hand. Dragged along, but always told that he would never amount to even half of what Robotnik was.

- chained inside this living hell-

“How can you do this?” George demanded, his hands pressed against the sides of the tube. Snively was walking towards the roboticizer control panel, but something in the man’s tone stopped him. It was like a jolt to his soul. It was like a stabbing knife in his conscious. The voice was strangely unaccusing, it was just bewildered and compelling the truth.

Snively turned and shot George a forlorn look. If one didn’t know him, didn’t know his evils, they would’ve been taken in by his eyes, dead, and worn, and agonized, sad, and hopeless.

‘cries of freedom never heard -

“Because I can’t get out.” 

Snively eyed the line of prisoners, all waiting for their turn to become tin cans.

“If it’s any consolation…I’m just as trapped as you.”

But he deserved it. For letting Julian trick him, and enslave him.

For running to Julian in hopes of a new life and a surrogate father. It was all his fault for searching blind.

- I guess this is what I deserve -

“Let us go…” George said.

“If I can’t get out, why should you? Maybe I like the fact I’m not alone in my misery.”

Not alone.

- who am I?-

But he was.

-alone in the world -

Snively had nobody.

His Uncle had turned him into a worthless slave. He cursed his nephew’s name daily.

- alone in this world. -

He had no love, he had only hate from those he persecuted. And the one he killed and enslaved for, Robotnik, treated him with contempt usually reserved for lower lifeforms.

-without love. -

He had no one. No where. No how. No hope, no future, no light, no life.

He was the very definition of the word alone.

“Let us go. You have so many people. How many do you want?”

“I don’t want them…” Snively mummered, his hand hovering over the ‘start’ button on the control panel. “I don’t care about you, or your families, I don’t care if you live or die, or suffer. I only know, if you get away, my pain increases.”

He shrugged almost apologetically. “And that isn’t something I enjoy.”

“Then run with us,” the raccoon said, and Snively knew he must be desperate to be flinging out such daft ideas.

But Snively didn’t care.

He was going to die today.

Because at this moment a prisoner broke ranks and took down a SWATbot.

He was shot, to be sure, shot dead, but while the shots were being fired, the other prisoners broke free and managed to take down the shooting robots.

It was all so quick that Snively could’ve swore they rehearsed it.

“Please, run with us,” said George, when they busted him free.

They had Snively on the floor as well; one man had busted his lip open with a punch, and another had pushed and kicked the small human violently, and still anther had spat upon him.

And the raccoon said run? Run to where with them, surrounded by their hatred? It was like a sprint into hell.

“Let’s kill him!” jeered a cat. And he kicked Snively soundly in the ribs.

-eyes of sorrow, eyes of shame –

“Kill me then,” he moaned, sprawled out, his lip ebbing blood onto the floor. “I don’t care.”  He stared up and his eyes were a funeral for a soul killed too soon, a soul that had been tainted, seen too much hate and anger; a suicide soul that had committed itself to ending the pain once and for all.

“You want to be free…” George said, as solemnly as one who might speak at the funeral of this soul. “We’re free now. Maybe we should help you.”

-self destruction’s so insane -

Snively’s eyes pleaded but his lips all bloodied still spoke their mantra. “I don’t care. I can’t care. Anymore.”

The raccoon pulled him to his feet and then, with the cat’s help, they threw him into a glass tube. A roboticizer. His own medicine.

- I don’t care -

Snively sprawled on the platform, beaten and hurt, and suddenly afraid, but not afraid enough to struggle.

-just let me go -

He was already a robot to Julian’s whims, why not go a step further?

-         let the veins of scarlet flow –

Julian could never hurt him again. And he would go on, doing the same empty things, but maybe, with his soul tucked safe and secure behind metal plating, maybe Snively could live someplace else. Dream up a new world for himself.

-show me a sign –

Maybe he would be numb to everything.

- unlock the door -

Numb was better than pain.

The cat was laughing when he pushed the button. He thought he was hurting Snively. He thought he was getting the wicked one back, harming the empire of Robotnik.

-release me, I’m yours-

Snively watched the beam come down upon him, cringing, reveling in its beauty.

-         Into the clouds, higher. Higher. Higher. –

Then his eyes turned out to George.

The man would be going to his children, his mate. He would be able to live free, at least a while longer. Maybe he would live to see the day Robotnik was taken down.

- I like to sit and think alone -

His smile was sweet and sorrowful. Snively suddenly wanted to know his name.

As his body changed to metal, as pain washed over and then washed away, like waves over his mind. And he drowned, and felt his soul pulled into the undertow.

He wanted to scream, before his voice was changed to a metallic drone; he wanted to beg the raccoon for his name.

Because he cared suddenly. He cared.

His uncle would laugh and mock him.

His father would call him weak.

His mother…

Would cradle him. She would cry with him.

He’d forgotten her. Her love. He’d forgotten under the mountains of hate piled upon his young shoulders.

- I like to dream of coming home -

He saw her now, he knew suddenly, he had love, even if it was dead love.

He had a home in her memories.

He thought he saw George smiling, too.

-maybe now the voices sleep -

A Mobian who had cared about him even when faced with death.

Snively had one last thought, before the coldness took over him completely.

-this time –

‘I’m free.’

**