[|Courier of Darkness|]

/Dropping like flies/

The influx of patients was nonstop. As soon as I stabilized one, another was thrown onto the energon-stained table before me. I hardly had any time to clean off my supplies, my table, even myself for that matter. To make things worse, it seemed like they were sending the most heavily wounded here instead of taking them to a bigger facility.

It didn't take long for the first patient to perish. He was impossible to save due to his horrific wounds. Since he had been under the care of Flare, one of the younger medics, that meant the poor medic would die as well. Flare knew his fate, but that didn't stop him from begging for his life.

I looked away as his head was blown clean off his shoulders, flinching when the sound of his lifeless frame crashing to the floor filled my audio receptors. Flare was the first of many to die this way. I had to force myself to ignore my surroundings and only focus on what I was doing. I could feel the bile rising in my throat with each gunshot, knowing exactly what was happening without even looking.

Flare...

Siren...

Fuse...

All of them..... gone.

I have no idea how I made it this far. I should've been slaughtered like them. But for some twisted reason, they spared me. I was the only one left. Those I had wished to save from this hell now laid lifeless on the floor, their energon spreading in wide pools that threatened to stain my pedes a sickly blue color. I wanted to purge. My hands were trembling and everything in my body was screaming at me that I was about to die.

But I didn't.

"Ah.... It seems we have our winner, Dreadwing."

I froze, my entire frame stiffening. I knew that voice. The very voice that rattled any Autobot to their core.

Megatron.

I looked up and saw Dreadwing standing there with a miniature hologram of Megatron in his palm. That sick bastard was staring right at me, a twisted smirk on his face. Even as a hologram, he still terrified me to wits end. I quickly averted my gaze from him and instead focused on my hands, which were caked in dried energon. I wanted to purge again.

"Tell me something, Ratchet." Megatron rumbled, folding his hands behind his back. "Why do you think I ordered this little.... experiment to happen?"

My chassis shuddered as I drew in a sharp breath and I refused to look at that monster. Everywhere I looked, there was energon. The smell of it... the sight of it... it was all overwhelming me to the point that I couldn't even think straight. Never had I ever, in all my years as a medic, been in the presence of so much energon in a single room. The very thought of it was now burned into my processor.

"Answer me." Megatron hissed lowly.

I remained where I was, still in utter shock of what kind of absolute hell I just went through. "I-I.... I don't know......" I murmured, my voice barely a whisper as I stared wide-eyed at the floor.

A short bark of laughter came from the hologram of the silver titan. Even his laugh made me want to cower in fear. What happened to me...?

"Yes you do, my dear Ratchet. You know exactly why. This was the first of many tests I was going to put you and your fellow—well, fallen medics through. I wasn't expecting them to fail so miserably."

Something snapped inside of me when those words left his mouth.

"They did not fail. They tried their hardest to save patients that were impossible to save! Don't expect me to sit here and listen to you spew more lies!" I snapped harshly in a sudden burst of anger that seemingly came out of nowhere. That anger, however, dissipated as soon as it appeared, leaving me cowering in fear once again as Dreadwing snarled at me.

"I admire your fierce attitude, Doctor. However, that won't get you anywhere while I'm in control." Megatron smoothly replied, adding salt to the wound that had already carved itself through my courage and pride. "You have already given me what I wanted without even knowing it." He purred, turning to look at Dreadwing and nodding.

I quickly backed up against the nearest wall as Dreadwing advanced towards me, my optics wide with fear. I only had a second to register the pain searing through me before I blacked out, little sparks of electricity dancing across my discolored frame.