Darkness

Ch.12: Our Table... It's Broken

Trigger warning: Light depictions/mentions of injury and blood. Potentially sensitive material will be placed between ▶▶ and ◀◀

Optimus had punched the table with so much force I was certain he must have left a dent, but when he pulled away the only visible marks I could see were the fragments of my obliterated phone.

I clutched my aching arm. My phone was gone. It was smashed to pieces. My pictures, my texts, my memories of home. It didn't feel real. The pictures of my dad and brother that I might never see again, of messages from friends I won't get to read back on, the last time I'd hear my favorite music, perhaps any music...

I tried as hard as I could, cycling through the same list over and over. But, as I stared at the small scattering of phone-pieces, of everything I had just lost for good, I couldn't manage to feel anything. Numbness, I supposed. I stared and felt numb.

"Gotcha!" Optimus shouted; a writhing black robot had been slammed and pinned down on the edge of the bar.

I flinched. What had even happened? I remember being knocked flat and I swore I heard someone screaming. Had that been me?

The robotic creature Optimus had briefly wrestled with looked oddly animalistic, with four legs, a robotic tail, and curved claws. It was around the size of a dog, though bigger than any dog I'd seen before, on second thought, it was probably closer in size to an absurdly large wolf or tiger. Thankfully, it was no match for Prime's forearm which was actively keeping the writhing creature in place.

"Call Ultra Magnus," Prime ordered. He briefly lifted and slammed the robotic creature against the table again and its thrashing died down. However, it had done nothing to stop the harsh grating noise that was coming from its maw. Was it laughing?

▶▶ Prime looked my way. I had no idea how bad I must have looked, I was trying to not focus on the blood around me or the taste of it in my mouth. Whatever had happened had left smears of it on the bar. Surprisingly, though, there was barely any pain, just a slight stinging across my body. ◀◀ It was shock, I realized. I must be in shock.

"Someone get Ratchet," Optimus ordered, "And send word to Mainframe. I don't know how much he managed to send through Katherine's device, but our coordinates will be one of them. The Decepticon fleet will be upon us soon."

I sat. It was my fault. All my fault. Instinctively, my hand reached for my pocket where my phone had been, the fabric of the pocket had been torn open and underneath I had been given a few shallow scrapes. It had used my phone to send coordinates. The words were taking far too long to assemble in my head. It meant I brought their war to them. That wasn't comprehensible, the idea of an army of evil robots coming our way, and coming our way because of me.

"Oh Primus, Kathrine, are you ok? Talk to me!" Misdirect was at my side, I realized. He placed his arms and hands loosely around me, walling me off. He sounded like he thought I was on the verge of dying, the tone in his voice was remarkably similar to when my oxygen had run out. But I felt ok. Stunned and a bit sore, but ok. How would I know though, would me being in shock just mean I was oblivious? I flexed my fingers, wiggled my toes, and stretched my back a bit; everything seemed to be in working order, nothing broken.

▶▶ I looked passively down at my arms. Some red was seeping through on the left sleeve, but when I pulled it up, the cuts were hardly bleeding anymore. They were long but rather thin and clean, like the edges of a papercut, and didn't seem particularly deep. I rolled my sleeve back down, giving the struggling robotic creature another look. Its long claws must have been razor sharp.

"I'm ok," I said, feeling a bit more relieved. No organs peeking out, no ever-growing pools of blood, and no crippling pain: in my book that was as good as it gets.