Espio hesitated for a moment, then nodded. It wasn't so much that it was a secret, it was just a subject he preferred to avoid if he could help it.

"My last memory of my homeworld was seeing reality collapse around me," he explained, voice flat. "The Special Zone is - was - built on waste Chaos Energy. Someone discovered how to withdraw all that energy back into its source, decided to actually do it... and succeeded. I'm only alive because Time Compression dragged me here - everyone else, in a whole universe, was lost."

He shook his head, trying not to think too deeply about it. "Basically, everyone died and I have no home to go back to."