Beeps and Buzzes

🦕 ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 3

　　
Masterful Optimists might've had a chance of romanticising your one-man road trip across state to avoid avid xenophobes - tragically, you were a pessimist with more investment in living to see another day than fixating on these lovely empty roads.

Haunted by well earned paranoia and existential dread; foul smelling fumes blowing through the air vent causing you to cough and hack like a chain smoker getting no reprieve for the windows were jammed shut. You had considered breaking them, couldn't lie, it was just that terrible.

Soldiering on long after its air conditioning gave out and the smell grew tenfold, caring not for reprocussions. Crossing paths with only three vehicles, grateful this particular area seemed largely untouched. Nothing but farmland for miles, wooden signs, a set of railroad tracks and what could've been a destroyed Silo.

Overall what one would expect to see, rather than what you wanted to see which was a dusty old Truck with faded flame decals.

Biting your tongue on accident thanks to a particularly nasty pothole, you had been forced to take a detour after the background noise of rattling became too hard to ignore. Swerving off down an old track that might've once been tarmac, car crawling underneath a large overhang of an archaic garage left in the care of Mother Earth.

The door came off in your hand upon exiting. Fixing it with a long look, just letting it go and using your toe to nudge it away. You didn't have time for health and safety - just needed to punch the engine a little, get everything up and running before continuing this scavanger hunt.

Couldn't hurt seeing if there were any usable items left behind here either. Maybe a lighter? Tools? Food? Anything at all.

Dutifully poking around, a thorough search led you to discover that somebody had attempted to make it livable. Obvious by some fairy lights left half untangled, strung up around the station's interior. Handprints on dusty shelves indicating recent trespassers, though nothing cemented the facts more clearly than a still warm fire pit.

Inclined to chalk it up to runaway, heading towards your crippled wagon, taking pause at something basking beneath the moonlight. Approaching with little to no obvious concern, peering down, eyes widening as the familiar blue liquid bid you with a sparkly welcome.

Energon.

The universe is cutting some slack for a change, apparently. Large pede indentations lay heavy in the sand surrounding this dribble of fluid. Unmistakably Cybertronian, with a rough looking transition into tyre tracks a little further away (deep scuff marks, if you must know).

Invigorated by a sense of agency, lugging yourself back into the driver's seat to trail the tyre tracks leading away from disturbed dirt and sand. Unsure whether this bombardment of optimism was good for you, having gone on for so long regressing into a 'edgy survival' character rather than a laid back jack of all trades.

All you were missing was black mascara and a choice haircut!

Maybe you should consider such a makeover in the near future. Eh, let's see what happens.

Regardless of which you ignored all road laws and excelled way past the speed limit, amazed at how nippy this tiny car was in a pinch! Despite being so damaged, close to blowing up, it remained keen on fulfilling its sole purpose which was to go fast! Barely even complaining when you pushed it over it's natural limit in a bid to at least cover some ground -

Which was how you wound up nearly dying.

Again.

Shane's car gave out. You only stepped five paces away before it just combusted. Rest in peace, you shall never be forgotten.