Predatory

The Past That Never Lets Go

I ended up spending the rest of the day with Vos and Tesarus in the engine room, located in the lower hull of the ship. Tarn was working with Kaon on something that had to do with computers, and Helex was taking inventory of all our supplies with Nickel before we got to the planet to refuel and resupply our store rooms once there. 

Tesarus and Vos both knew a lot more about what they were doing than I did. Tesarus used to do construction and mechanic work, and Vos used to be a mechanical engineer. I think the only reason I was helping was to translate for Vos, as I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. 

The engine room was less of a room, and more of a large space that housed the growling beast itself. It was quite considerably warm, and the walls were watermarked from years of condensation building up from the steam that was constantly billowing out of the nostrils of the engine, this clouded up the room and shrouded everything and everyone in a fuzzy haze. There was a strange rhythmic thrum to the engine, it would rumble, screech then hiss. Over and over again. 

Rumble. Screech. Hiss. 

Rumble, screech..HISSSsss.

Rumble, screech........hisssssssss.  

......rumble.......screech.........hiss.

I lay in bed that night, tossing and turning, the rhythm of the monster sleeping below the deck unable to leave my head. I sighed, flopping onto my other side to face the window. I watched the stars float by, their soft light swirling around my room as we passed them. I fluffed my pillow, and tried to settle myself in again, closing my eyes as I did so.

I found myself in a dark shadowy alleyway, in some unknown city, though somehow I felt that I recognized it. Sirens roared in the distance, and the acrid stench of smoke filled my intakes, making my upper lip curl and my optics burn. I was standing in a puddle of what I assumed to be filth-ridden acid rain, at the end of the alley looked to be the town-square of whatever city this was.

Suddenly, a loud BANG sounded above and to the left of me, and flaming debris fell down around me. I dropped into a crouch, covering my helm instinctively. My optics fell upon the puddle I was crouching in, but they suddenly widened when the smell hit me. Used energon. It pooled around my peddes and ran a cold cerulean river down the alley. I lept up, and bolted for the alleyway. I almost made it too. 

The flaming pieces of glass and metal hit the energon, and blue flames erupted from the ground. They licked at my plating and and burned my peddes through the cracks of my armor. I gritted my denta, but then the scene changed.

I was now surrounded by bodies, all of them faceless. Mechs, femmes, and sparklings, all lying abandoned, broken, and dead. Something lapped at my knees, and I looked down to find that I was up to my knees in used energon. I tried to stifle my intakes with my servo in hopes of purging the smell of death out of my olfactory sensors by any means necessary. 

"EeeeEEEEeeechhhoOOooo~"croaked a voice from behind me.

I turned slowly, and stood in horror at the sight before me. 

"EchhoOo...." Flame Charge gasped again, as she clawed over the floating bodies towards me. Her helm hung at an unnatural angle. One of her optics was crushed beyond repair, the other a sickly blue from the numerous energon vessels that had burst inside of it. Her once beautiful face was cracked, and eroding with rust around the optical sockets and the edges. Her bright red and orange color palette was diluted, and a rusty brown tinged every color. Her neck cabling was a crusty blue from the dried energon that seeped from where her head had been cut off when she had been executed. I choked back the vomit that threatened to show itself.