"The darkest nights have the brightest stars."
★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
What in the pits is that?! It's certainly annoying. Maybe a hospital machine?
Oh, scrap. Everything's numb. Or, no. Everything hurts. Which of the two she's feeling, Toby doesn't know. So, naturally, she does the only thing any sane person would do. Complain.
"Man, I feel worse than a truck laid to rust in a farmer's field," she groans, eyes fluttering open.
"Toby!" Someone shouts, their voice ringing endlessly in the woman's ears.
"Ow. Could you lower the volume a bit?" She winces, scrunching her eyes shut in an attempt to calm her now raging headache.
"Sorry," they chuckle awkwardly.
"That's better. Now, can someone please tell me how I'm not dead?" She remembers the warm embrace of darkness and a fleeting flash of her mother's face.
"Always the comedian, aren't you, Tobbes?" Her eyes snap open, a blinding array of colours assaulting her corneas. It takes a few moments for her to adjust, everything going from a blurry outline to a crisp image.
Every inch of the room is either pure white, or a gentle baby blue. Plastic-y sheets cover her very sore form, and some sort of barrier type thing rests on either side of the hospital bed to keep her from falling out. An IV line remains snug in her left arm, why not her right one she does not understand. And while she can wiggle her left toes, she cannot for her right.
A dark figure stands by her head, tears in their eyes and a broad smile on their lips. They wear a military uniform and it looks like they have spent almost all their waking hours in the room.
"When am I not?" Toby smiles weakly at her uncle, feeling slightly doped up on painkillers.
"I'm glad you're okay, Toby."
"Okay? I freaking took on the almighty Decepticon warlord single handedly and got crushed like a bug! I assure you, I am anything but okay!"
"So you're awesome, then."
"Dang straight," she nods the best she can. A cough looses itself from her lungs, scraping her throat of whatever moisture it has.
"Easy, Tobbes, you took a massive beating," her uncle adjusts her pillow to elevate her position.
"Uh huh," the woman croaks, struggling to take a breath.
"I'm just going to grab one of the doctors, okay?"
"R—" she heaves, her coughing fit triggering her gag reflex, "Rat-atch—"
"It's alright. You're alright," Epps soothes, softly rubbing circles on the back of her hand.
"Ratch-et," she wheezes, tears now rolling down her cheeks.
"I'm afraid I can't do that," her uncle apologises, earning a confused glare from the woman. "We're not where they are."
YOU ARE READING
Gears and Pistons | | Bayverse | | Book 1
Fanfiction| |"Perhaps it's not fate then, perhaps its merely coincidence."| | | |"I have lost everything, and yet, I have gained everything too."| | Toby Williams, a frightfully intelligent eighteen year old woman who thinks of nothing but stars and engines...
