The Day We Hailed The Heavens

Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

The Crystal Line

Warning: This second part of this chapter contains a character death, and some images of gore and violence. Rated M for safety.

Darkness.

Black, crushing darkness.

She looked from one side of what might or might not have been a room to the other, unable to see anything - the nothingness surrounding her was so pitch-black and impenetrable that her eyelids might very well have been sewn together to stop any infinitesimal glimmer of light coming to remind her of the fact that she could see, and that she was alive.

Wait... she wasn't alive, was she?

Rose took a deep breath, her hands automatically moving up her body to find the place where Sideways's horn had pierced her. Her trembling fingers came to something warm, and moist - she slowly traced the edges of the wound, knowing that it was there by what she could feel, and yet feeling no pain as she did so. She rubbed her fingers and thumb together, feeling the blood moving between them, but her entire body appeared to have numbed itself to whatever agony she might have experienced before she had come to this place... wherever she was.

So this was the next world, was it? It wasn't quite as she had imagined... she had expected either everlasting sleep, or some kind of glittering paradise on the edges of a clear, blue river, with angels and cherubs and the like. Perhaps this place was Hell... perhaps she had done something wrong in her life, and was destined to stand by herself in this suffocating obscurity until the end of time.

Tears slid down her icy cheeks as she remembered her last moments. How she had begged Ratchet not to leave her... held his hand... stared into his soft, cobalt-blue eyes as if the entrance to Heaven had been behind them.

Falling to her knees, she buried her face in her hands, letting a weak sob push itself from between her lips. It echoed through the emptiness; her own voice bounced back at her repeatedly, and she shook her head, realising the true horror of her situation. She was dead... she was actually dead. Her life had ended after nineteen years... nineteen years of monotony and routine that had finally had a chance to end when she had been allowed into the weird and wonderful world of the Autobots and their friends.

And now that chance had been wasted.

What would her mother say when she was told that her daughter had been killed trying to defend an alien robot - worse, what would her father say? She prayed that they wouldn't be angry with Ratchet, or blame him for her thoughtless stupidity... then she laughed hysterically, remembering that there was obviously no one to pray to now that she was here.

Rosa Lee Connelly.

Her head snapped up, her heartbeat staggering. "W-what? Who's there?"

There was complete and utter silence for a few torturous moments, and Rose looked about anxiously, wishing on everything she knew that she could see again. The fact that she was blind was terrifying her beyond anything else; in this state, she was all but defenceless, and in a very vulnerable position. What could this voice be - who did it belong to? Was it the Devil, or God - or something else entirely? She pushed herself away from the place that the sound had come from out of fear, but it was like moving through thick, unyielding treacle...

The voice came again. Hold on, Rosa.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Rose demanded, her voice cracking and her blood pounding in her eardrums deafeningly. "For G-God's sake - why can't I see anything? Who are you?!"