The Day We Hailed The Heavens

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Time is Running Out

She reached out in her sleep; her eyes were open, she knew, but she was blind to the world around her. Prevailing darkness was wrapped around her body, tightening hungry fingers of black around her lungs and squeezing the breath from her body, causing her to cough like a drowning person whose body was filling with icy water. Desperate hands clawed at the shroud around her, but she could feel nothing physically holding her in her place here in this netherworld.

It had to be a nightmare… she remembered falling asleep with Starscream at the spring. Slowly, she became aware of herself and she ran her hands down her body, her fingers mapping out her frame where her eyes could not. A ghost’s frosty breath tickled at her neck and she flinched, attempting to take a step away from the invisible spectre.

The movement seemed to bring her body back to life; her legs hit solid ground and she fell abruptly to her knees, gasping as the iron grip around her torso relaxed and evaporated. “Starscream…” she choked, blinking in the hope of opening the black curtains that blinded her to the world.

He is not here.

Scrambling backwards, she let out a scream when she heard the cool, impassive voice that was neither male nor female. “Who are you?” she whispered, feeling the cold air on her flesh beneath her hair once again. “Where are you? Where’s Starscream?”

Hysteria was creeping into her voice, but she did not care. She wanted these questions answered, and she wanted them answered now. Starscream had once said that fear was the enemy, but she would have to fraternise with that enemy for the moment – what choice did she have but to be afraid, when she was blind and vulnerable in a world without a name, watched by a ghost in the blackness?

It was a few seconds before the reply came.

I am the beginning and the end.

Bewildered, she shook her head and reached up to her neckline. Her quavering hand found nothing but familiar skin around her collarbones and she took a deep breath. The necklace was gone, but she no longer knew whether this was a good or a bad thing. “Where’s my necklace?” she demanded nonetheless, hating to be so unaware.

The voice returned to her much faster this time, and she thought, with a shiver, that she could detect the tiniest note of anger in the tone.

The necklace that you claim as yours is not yours to claim. I am the creator and the life; I am the power and the decider of fates. I am what decided that you should fall in love with a Decepticon, and I am the glow behind eyes of red and blue. You just so happen to be in possession of that which I am trapped within… you are my captor, and have tried to be my commander.

“All Spark,” she croaked, remembering the voice from her previous nightmares and swallowing hard to dispel the drought in her throat. “Please… I, I didn’t mean to imprison you… it wasn’t me, I just…” Trailing off when she sensed no pity from the entity, she felt warm tears begin to form in her unseeing eyes.

I know no mercy.

She felt the hands around her again; ravenous wolves of fingers, lusting after her demise. A cold palm clamping over her lips cut off her scream, and her struggles ended in an agony akin to swords slicing across her chest. Her heart was thumping against her ears, and her blood was running cold and freezing in her veins as her brain registered the fact that she was about to die alone in a barren place. “No!” she wept through the hand that held her lips in place.

Her body was losing the battle and giving into the arms that were holding her down and turning her to stone. The stiffness of her lips and torso spread to every other part of her body, immobilising every limb, every vital organ. Her heartbeat slowed and her head spun… the thump of her life was fading, and she let out a weak sob.