"RRRAHHHHHH!"
Without waiting to see if the jaded merry-makers were out of earshot, the prince let loose a scream of pent-up rage that echoed throughout the throne room and were likely heard by the last of the courtiers lagging behind the king's entourage. Hamlet could not have cared less, 'They are too lapped up in the prospect of a happy drunken evening, the blitheringidiots,' he thought, as he panted. Yelling out of pure, uncorked anger and frustration was surprisingly taxing.
"Oh how I wish my rotten, filthy flesh would just melt into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not condemned and made law against self-slaughter!" Hamlet began, in delivery with less volume and shortness of breath but toned with no less frustration, "Oh God. GOD! Life is but a stale, tired and pointless waste to me that ending it all would be sweet, sweet relief.Damn it! Life is just a garden festooned with weeds, and other things so equally rank and vile. Nothing good or beautiful can grow or flourish in its choked, dead soil.
"I cannot believe it has come to this," he continued, "that my father, dead for not even two months, has been replaced by a-" Hamlet stumbled over his word choice for a moment, struggling to come up with a word vulgar enough to describe his wretched uncle, "foolish, cowardly, dishonorable piece of filth!" he spat the last word with particular venom, "Such an honorable, excellent king my father was. So much more superior to my uncle, like a god is to a pathetic rat, and so loving towards my mother that he would keep the wind from blowing too hard in her face. Oh God must I remember? She would cling to him relentlessly, and the more she was with him, the more she wanted to stay with him like so. Yet, within a month of my father's passing-God, I'd rather not think about it; 'Frailty' is the name of woman. Even before the shoes she had worn at the funeral had been broken in, her tears flowing like the Nile-good God, a lowly animal would have mourned far longer than that-she had already spoken an 'I do' to that loathsome sack of slime, my father's brother, who is no more like my father than I to the mighty Hercules. Less than a month! Her cheeks were still damp and tear-stained when she remarried. Such wicked speed, jumping so hastily into incestuous sheets! That is no good and no good shall come of it. But my heartbreak must be in silence, for my tongue must be held for now," he finished, as he
heard approaching footsteps echoing in the hallway outside the throne room.
"Hail to your lordship," greeted a cobalt blue hedgehog, unaware of the prince's soulful soliloquy moments before.
Pleasantly surprised that Horatio was around, Hamlet replied, "I am glad to see you well-Horatio? Or have I mistakenly addressed you?"
"The very same, my lord. The very same respectful servant," Horatio replied, bowing.
"I'll change that name to 'friend' for you," the black-furred prince smiled as he embraced Horatio, his anger now spent, "But why are you so far from Wittenburg? Ah! Marcellus!" Hamlet said as he noticed the golden-brown coyote.
"My good lord," Marcellus said curtly, bowing as well.
"I am glad to see you," Hamlet said in his direction, "and hello to you too, sir," he addressed to Barnardo, who bowed silently.
"But what brings you away from Wittenburg, Horatio?" the ebony hedgehog inquired again.
"I felt the truant disposition of skipping school sir," the blue hedgehog replied with a smirk.
"I would never allow your enemies to say that," the prince retorted, "and I'd never believe it even if it came from you. You're never one to skip class."
The prince then asked again, this time with a slight smirk, "What brings you to Elsinore? Might it be the drinks? Well, come, I'll teach you to drink hard by the time you leave."
Horatio answered him bluntly, "No my lord, I came to see your father's funeral."
Hamlet's anger flared up again, but he tried his best to keep the mood light, "Please, don't mock me. I know you came here to see my mother's wedding instead."
"Well," Horatio began uncertainly, keenly aware of his friend's stance on the matter, "indeed, they did follow each other closely."
"Well, it was all about thriftiness, Horatio!" Hamlet snapped, letting loose his tongue but still trying to humor the situation, "What was left over from the funeral dinner made for a fine wedding banquet, wouldn't you say so?"
Unable to hold himself back any longer, the prince cried, "Oh how I would rather have met my greatest foe in heaven than have gone through that day, Horatio. My father! I think I see my father!"
"Where, sir?" Horatio asked nervously.
"In my mind's eye, Horatio."
Slowly becoming more alarmed, Horatio said, "I-I have seen him once. He was a most noble king."
"He was a great man," Hamlet sedated himself and said in a more hushed tone, "He was perfect in almost every way. I shall not look upon the likes of him again."
"Sir," Horatio began, even more nervously now, "we think we saw him last night."
"Saw who?" the black hedgehog asked dumbly, momentarily lost, basking in the memories of his late father.
"My lord, the king, your father."
"The king, my father?!" Hamlet cried sharply, half-dubious and half-hopeful.
"Avoid feeling too much excitement for now, sire," Horatio began warningly, "Please listen with attentive ears, while I relay to you the amazing thing I have seen, with these gentlemen as witnesses."
"For God's sake, let me hear!" the prince was getting impatient.
"Two nights in a row had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Barnardo, bore witness to a figure like your father, fully clad in armor from head-quills to toes, as they stood on their watch, some time in the dead waste and middle of the night," Horatio began, gesturing to the sentries behind him,
"It had appeared before them and marched at a slow, stately and solemn pace, at but a staff's distance from their eyes, while they nearly distilled into jelly out of fear, thereby rendering them speechless. I had been told this and, upon initially dismissing it as folly, they asked me to come with them on their shift, so I could witness it for myself.
"Sure enough, it happened again, just as they had described," the blue hedgehog blanched at the thought, but pressed on nonetheless, "I knew your father. The apparition looked so much like him.
"These hands," he raised said hands up, "could not be more alike than they."
"But where was this?" Hamlet asked, immensely intrigued.
"On ze platform where we stand guard, sire," Marcellus piped up.
"Did you not speak to it?"
"My lord, I did," Horatio stated, "but answer, it did not. Yet once, I thought I saw it raise its head, as if it was about to speak. But alas, the morning cock crowed, and at the sound, it vanished hastily from our sight."
"It is...very strange," Hamlet said, overwhelmed by all of this news.
"As I do live, my lord, I swear it is true," Horatio said, noticing how overwhelmed his friend was, "We thought it our duty to inform you of this."
"Indeed," the prince said weakly, then paused to swallow a lump that had formed in his throat,
"Indeed, sirs. But this disturbs me.
"Are you on duty again tonight?" he asked the sentries.
"Yes, my lord," replied the purple chameleon, who, up until then had not spoken a word.
"Armed, you say?" the prince turned his attention completely towards Barnardo.
"Armed, sir."
"From head to toe?"
"Fully clad in his proud armor, my lord."
"Then you could not have seen his face?"
"Oh yes we could, my lord. His visor was up."
"Was he frowning?"
"More in sorrow than anger," Horatio chimed in.
"Pale or flushed?" the prince turned to Horatio again.
"Very pale, sire."
"And his eyes were fixed upon you?"
"Constantly."
"How I wish I could've been there," Hamlet replied longingly.
"It would have shocked you beyond reason," warned Horatio.
"I'm sure I would have been," the ebony hedgehog agreed, "Did it stay long?"
"About the equivalent of someone counting to a hundre-"
"No, more than that," the chameleon cut in.
"Not in the time I saw it," Horatio bantered, slightly irritated at the rude interruption.
"His quills were of a shade of cobalt blue, correct?" Hamlet asked quickly, wanting to avert a useless fight.
"The paleness of his fur disguised his color quite a bit, but it was obvious that it would have been a shade of blue with a brown fringe, just as I have seen him in real life," came Horatio's reply.
"I shall stand guard with you tonight," Hamlet declared, "perchance that it will appear again."
"I warrant it will," the blue hedgehog predicted.
"If it resembles my noble father, then I shall speak to it," Hamlet decreed, "even if Hell itself opens and bids me to hold my peace.
"I ask you," he turns to address the other three, "that if you've up to this point kept this secret, to keep it further. Whatever happens tonight shall not be talked about to anyone else besides ourselves, and I shall keep myself restrained as well.
"So fare you all well," he turns, giving them their cue that it was time for them to part ways for now, "I shall see you on the platform within the hour before midnight."
"Our duty to your honor, my lord," the three replied in unison.
"Your love instead, as mine to you," came Hamlet, "Farewell."
The three men then exit the room, leaving Hamlet once more to his thoughts, but this time, rather than the usual constant beration of his mother's incestuous behaviour and his uncle's inferiority, it was the thought of foul play that invaded his mind.
"Foul deeds will rise-though all the earth overwhelm them-to men's naked eyes."
A/N: I guess I should put a disclaimer here so I don't get shot at or kidnapped by The Copyright SWAT team or something. I own not a single cell of any of the Sonic characters used in this story, SEGA and/or Archie Comics do. Also, the story of Hamlet is not owned by me either, although no one really knows who owns it and therefore can take credit for being the original author because Shakespeare's scripts of it are but his own stage adaptation of an ancient story/stories whose origins and credibility are still being debated today.
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