Invisible String

Sad Beautiful Tragic

Your mind screamed you weren't ready. You didn't want to leave.

You didn't want to go back to your uncaring and cruel world.

It was quiet in the void, eerily quiet. A part of you was terrified that you would open your eyes to see the blank ceiling of your bedroom in your apartment, waking up from a long dream. It wasn't that long ago when you had wished you woke up there in your own world. But now you wanted so badly to wake up in the Malto's guest bed, with the sounds of the children playing outside and the smell of Alex's cooking wafting up the stairs. You thought to Megatron, how you would never be able to finish what he started, you would never get to tell him how you feel, and you would never get to hear his voice again. You couldn't think of what you would even do if this was truly the end of your adventure. You wanted to scream, talk to any higher power and ask them to send you back. It might have not been where you were from, but it was your home.

Biting the bullet, you opened your eyes. To your horror and relief, you were floating in the red void and not standing in your room, needing to check yourself into a psych ward. Unlike the last time though, you were not forced to lay still, so your head whipped around to see the unmoving solid color around you. There was red above, below, and beside you, but it wasn't glaring, in fact it was a soft glow, almost white around the edges of your vison. You called out, hearing your voice but failing to hear an echo.

Panic set in, bubbles of acid sprung into your throat as you tried to call out again. This time you felt your lungs deflate, and anxiety claw its way into your chest. You might have been weightless, but there was a force sitting on your chest as the realization sank in. What if you were stuck here forever? What if you were never able to go back to either universe? Would Megatron try to find you? What if he tried and got stuck in a void like this one? The questions listed on and on before you had to force yourself to focus.

Just as you had calmed your heart down, a bolt of red flashed towards you. Covering your face with your arm, only peeking out when you felt enough seconds had passed. When you opened your eyes again you watched as the color around you started to fade.

"Hello?!" You screamed as the dark engulfed you, blinking and waving your hands in front of your face, only knowing they were there when you touched your face. You wanted to cry, scream, puke, sit down, anything, but nothing would come out of you other than a weakening.

"Help."

You closed your eyes, knowing it wasn't a dream but hoping it was. All you wanted was to wake up in your apartment underneath the purple quilt Dorothy had gifted you. You thought hard, picturing it in your mind. Trying to think of how the fabric felt on your arms. How it weighed down your chest. How it smelt like lavender and pine. How you would wake up and toss it back, to get ready for your job. One you truly loved. You almost didn't remember what your old job used to be. Did you work in an office? Maybe it was a warehouse? Or in retail or customer service? The memories of your old life were fading, you couldn't even recall any of the names of people you worked with. Faces becoming blurry and names escaping you.

Were you really that desperate to escape your life that you'd forgotten it all together? What if this was it? What if you could go back? If it was between being sightless in this dark void or going back to your world, would you really choose to stay? Was it enough to be in the middle of purgatory, only for the chance that you'd be reunited with your chosen family?

They really were family, weren't they? You had let them in, mark up your colorless heart, and change you forever. You'd let Dorothy mother you, grounding you even. You'd let Alex teach you the things a father should teach their child. They had taken you in. They had...fought for you. The children were there, they came to get you, to save you. Just like Megatron had.