Scars Don't Heal - Transformers Prime (1)

Chapter Four

[Amanda]

  When everything cleared up, I was lying on the hot asphalt, squinting in the sun. I bolted upright and gasped. There were robot-car parts strewn all over the lot, evidence from the whole robot fight. Loud, metallic footsteps made me whip around and I saw the robot-truck walking towards me. I scrambled back on the ground, but stopped when it didn't attack me.

  "What are you?" I asked, my voice surprisingly strong.

  "My name is Optimus Prime," Truck-robot said. "I am an autonomous robotic organism from the planet Cybertron."

  "Auto- what?"

  "Or an Autobot."

  I stood up and wiped the dirt off my clothes. "How come you're not attacking me?"

  "I do not wish to bring harm to any humans," Optimus Prime replied patiently.

  "Those guys didn't hesitate," I commented, pointing at the heaps of wrecked robot-cars.

  Optimus nodded. "They are Decepticons. They don't care for humans at all." He said as if that cleared everything up. I shook my head and started pacing.

  "Okay, so I just watched some robot-truck or truck-robot dude named Optimus Prime fight and destroy some other robot-car things named Decepticons," I stopped pacing. "This cannot be happening."

  Optimus Prime crouched down so that he was close to eye level with me. Well, as close as a 25+ foot robot could. "You seem distressed."

  "Really?" I yelled, exasperated. "You know what, no. I'm not distressed. I'm leaving. I have to get to school." I pulled out my phone, frowning a bit at the newly cracked screen before checking the time. "I still have time to get there if I run." I mused to myself.

  I looked up at Optimus and started backing away. "Well, it's been fun- not really- but I have somewhere to be right now and you probably have to do... whatever you robots do in your spare time."

  Before the robot- sorry Autobot- could reply, I sprinted away.

  

  By the time I reached the school, I was completely winded and a little sweaty. Thankfully, my experience with marathon running allowed me to run without stopping for a solid twenty minutes. When I walked into the school, I quickly gave the secretary a story about how my car broke down and the towtruck people would take forty-five minutes to get there, so I decided to run to school. The old lady barely looked up at me as she wrote me a late pass and ushered me out of the office.

  But, during most of the day, I was zoned out and not paying attention at all. That ticked off a few of my teachers, especially when I caught up on what was happening not a second after they snapped me out of my thoughts. The truth was, I had other things more important to think about.

  The first thoughts that came to my mind were about my mom. I remembered how she used to tell me stories about heroes that came from a different planet to save Earth from their old enemies. Those stories were startlingly close to what happened today. Optimus Prime, an Autobot that came from another planet, who came to protect humankind.

  Stop it. I found myself thinking. Mom was just telling you some fairy tales. This is real.

  "Well, Miss Beckett?" I looked up to see Mr Salvaterre standing right in front of my desk.

  "Pardon?" I asked, my gaze unwavering.

  "I asked you what k in this equation stands for," He replied, snark in his tone. "If you were  paying attention, you'd know what it stood for."