Author’s
note: This ‘fic
contains disturbing images and mature themes/language, so is rated PG13. Many of
the events in this story are based on supposedly ‘eyewitness’ accounts of
paranormal experiences/activity.
There
is no evidence, of course.
Part
One: Valley of the Black Roses
“Over
here, Cheetor!” Leira yelled, then ducked swiftly beneath the cover of the
black roses and low-lying mist.
Cheetor
turned around, but of course she had already disappeared from view. That was,
after all, the point of the game.
Ever
since Leira had crashed here in her little stasis pod, she and Cheetor had made
fast friends. Both a bit rash, both happy, and locked together in that
inexplicable trance of vitality called youth.
Even
now Dinobot, who stood but 20 paces away, noted their careless ability to
improvise little hide-and-go-seek games in such eerie surroundings as
these—the valley around them that seemed to ape death.
Idiocy.
There was something to be said for idiocy.
Suddenly
there was laughter, and a call of:
“I
hear you, Giggle-Bot!” --Cheetor’s pet name for her.
Dinobot
snorted and had just thought up a lovely string of reprimands for the young
fools when Rhinox had the audacity to talk to him and break his train of
thought.
“Dinobot,
the energy readings in this valley are strong, but they just don’t make any
sense. They don’t come from energon—they don’t seem to come from anything.
They’re strongest right here…” Rhinox strode onto the top of a slight rise
covered with tangled bracken and various thorny bushes. “What’s more, they
don’t resemble any type of energy readings I’ve ever encountered before.”
Rhinox nearly mentioned that the energies of this place, whatever they may be,
were filling him with a sense of dread so acute his voice was close to shaking
whenever he spoke, but he decided against doing so. Sure, this place was a bit
spooky, with the dead marshes around it and their sorrowful bleached trees, the
twisted thorny plants, and perhaps most oddly of all, the bizarre black roses
carpeting the little valley... But Rhinox wasn’t the type to lose his
nerve--he’d been in plenty of situations with much more real danger than this
and had always kept a cool head.
Suddenly
there was a distinct rustling in the bushes a few yards to the north of them, at
the valley’s edge. Dinobot nearly jumped six feet.
“Predicon
attack!” He snarled, leaping towards the bushes. Rhinox and Cheetor followed
close on his heels.
There
was nothing there.
They
looked, they searched, they scanned. Nothing.
“Hey…”
Cheetor spoke up as they stood, mystified, some time later, “Where’s Leira?”
*
* * *
Leira
crawled down the shaft that the tightly woven bushes had pulled away to reveal.
She hoped the others wouldn’t mind her absence for a few moments, but she had
to see what was down here. She just had to.
The
small tunnel soon opened up to a dark little circular cave. On the ground was a
litter of bones, more exactly, early human bones. The walls were snaked with
runes. She guessed this must be a burial chamber of sorts chosen by the
proto-humans, but the runes on the wall were not like the other carvings she had
seen done by these hominids on rocks and such—they were more angular, more
harsh. Sinister, almost.
She
thought she felt a presence in the cave with her, though it was very dark and
she saw nothing. She assumed one of her companions had followed her, and at
first she thought it was probably Cheetor, but something held her back from
calling his name. She knew in her heart the presence was not Cheetor—it felt
older, darker, so she assumed Dinobot must have come looking for her. At least,
that was the closest match to what her mind was telling her was here.
“Dinobot?…”
No
answer, but the presence was still there. Stronger, even. Leira had always been
intuitive with the feelings of others, sometimes more sensitive to a person’s
true feelings than they themselves seemed to be, and now this little inner voice
of hers that told her what she had no words for was acting up again…Sensing
the feelings of another. She felt that the presence was struggling, as if held
in bonds. That it needed something, needed to be sustained, almost. Despite the
feeling of evil she got from this thing, she still felt sorry for it. To do so
was simply her nature.
“Who
are you?”
There
was no answer still but something was really pulsing now, at the back of her
mind. It needed to be released. She felt almost as though the presence was
operating her as she said:
“Come
out, please. I welcome you into my world.”
It
was like a thousand elastic bands snapped in her mind. Now the presence that
before had seemed centered at the opposite end of the cave from where she stood
was everywhere. It was horrifying and intense, but still, she saw nothing. A
cold sensation and tingling was moving straight through her body.
She
needed to get out of there.
She
scrambled back up the shaft, clawing and fighting her way, and swore something
was dogging her at her heels. When she got out—ten seconds later that seemed
an eternity—Dinobot, Rhinox, and Cheetor were standing in a semi-circle facing
her.
They
stood motionless for a moment, conscious only of a sudden wave of malevolence
and a terrified look in the face of their young friend that had never been there
before.
****
It
was quite late, and Leira had just returned from a night patrol. As she headed,
exhausted, to her quarters, Optimus’s voice called after her:
“Don’t
forget you have an energon mining expedition tomorrow with Cheetor, bright and
early!”
Inwardly
Leira sighed, but she wouldn’t let her leader see that, so she chirped out
“Of course Optimus, I’ll be there!”, as cheerful as ever as she opened the
door to her quarters and slipped through.
She
felt the door slide closed behind her, and went to reach for a small hand-held
computer.
That’s
when she noticed it.
Crouching
on her floor was a creature, fairly hominid in build but with what seemed to be
huge leathery wings it had almost wrapped around itself. It was a dark leaden
gray color, and its face seemed rather pointy and featureless save for huge
glowing red eyes. Though it was crouched she could tell it was not small, in
fact it must have been over seven feet tall when standing.
Slowly
it raised its head to look at Leira. She was frozen…The more fear she felt,
the greater this thing seemed to grow in stature, though it never moved save its
head, nor changed physically. It simply filled the room…It was not the same
feeling as the presence in the cave, this was a different entity. A cruel joker,
and a messenger. She could feel it leering and grinning at her though it had no
visible mouth, and she was too paralyzed to scream or move or think. It knew
they were coming for her.
Then
it vanished in a cloud of dusty smoke like erupting charcoal, and she fainted.
****
Leira
came to a couple much later, in the wee hours of the morning, but she no longer
felt quite like herself. Something was with her. She felt suffocated in her
quarters, and a million emotions flew through her—rage, hate, mad laughter,
the urge to flail herself about and howl, howl at nothing.
She
got up and moved down the hall, more silent and stealthy than she had been able
to on many a mission where it was more needed. She had no idea where this
ability came from, but she slipped through the passages as though she was made
of liquid, and time could not catch her.
She
found herself entering Rhinox’s little lab—she didn’t know how she knew
the activation codes to open up the door, and his many secret storages of
scientific items…Indeed it was as though outside forces were moving her hands.
She rifled through Rhinox’s chemicals, remedies, and devices, conscious only
of an intense dull ache pervading her body and the words ‘I hate you!”
screaming over and over in her head, overlapped by the thoughts she recognized
as her own…Though they, too, had become very odd:
She
held two bottles in hands.
‘Taken
on their own they are each beneficial in curing certain circuitry malfunctions,
but when mixed together they form a deadly compound. It is said to produce all
sorts of intoxicating effects before finally frying your circuitry
altogether.’
She
had the great urge to drink them and purposefully murder her own self, for some
unknown reason, whilst the voice of the dull ache suddenly screamed louder than
ever:
But
her rational mind knew she could be caught here. With a thorough sneakiness she
had never known herself to possess, she sealed all the compartments shut again,
arranging everything to look just as it had before, minus two little bottles…
Then she fled, out of the base entirely, into the dark night.
It
was high summer and the previous day had been one of thunderstorms, so the wind
was both cool and humid, subtly enrapturing and wild as only storm-winds are.
She
knew she was in danger, that predicons could lurk in every shadow. But, oh, the
night was so beautiful! And she felt so absorbed by something, something not
entirely sane, very feral and wicked. She loved and hated it seemingly with the
same breath, the same passion.
She
settled herself in the cool grass by a glade and drew forth the bottles,
emptying a small portion of one to pour a bit of the other in, knowing they had
to react before they were in her, and hoping this did not make it too weak. Love
and hate were one with her being, and the voices that were not her own cooed and
screamed in quick succession. She drank her death-potion, and it burned every
part of her. She did not mind.
Closing
her eyes for a few moments she knew she had hours left still, before burning
out. Suddenly, with what seemed like the end on her doorstep, she was possessed
ever more by the mad urge to really live. She was growing dizzy and her
head was buzzing comfortably, so for a while she sat and enjoyed it, then the
mad urge of life came back to her, and she leapt up. She ran to nowhere, the
cool damp wind her lover. She beheld the moon and the way it’s light was
shattered through the dark, wet, tree-branches. She shrieked and whooped to no
one, and moved with the night and the presence until at last she collapsed.
“We
will take you…But this isn’t the right place.”
“We
just wanted to know we could.”
“We
would have you now go before your comrades and feel shame.”
“S…Sorry
I’m late Cheetor.”
Leira
found it hard to speak with those three statements ringing through her mind over
and over, as they had been since she regained consciousness on the soggy ground
in a desolate patch of wilderness a short while ago. She should be dead. Why had
she done it? Who had she become at the moment she awoke that night? She had not
felt at all like herself, and yet she had, for what seemed to be the very first
time.
“It’s
ok…But where were you last night? You must have got up way before I did, and I
got up when it was barely dawn.”
“I…Went
for a walk. I wasn’t feeling well.”
“Yeah,
you really don’t look well…You sure you don’t want head back to base, have
Rhinox take a look at you?”
“NO!”
They
were both surprised by her overly emphatic answer.
“Uh…Ok…Sorry…”
“No,
no, don’t be Cheetor…I’m just not…”
She
paused. A sensation of terror was upon her.
“I
feel like…”
That
presence again.
“Cheetor,
someone who hates me is looking at me!”
“Huh?
You think the Preds are watching you or something? Trust me, I just scanned the
whole area, they’re nowhere around here.”
“Oh,
ok then…Silly me.” She tried to laugh but could not. “Let’s get this
work done, ok?” She found the note of pleading in her voice odd, out of
context.
“Uh,
sure.”
Cheetor
had no idea what was happening to his friend, and there was a subtle feeling,
almost a shadow, surrounding her that made him feel fearful, and watched. As
they descended a small slope towards where they would be mining, he knew he
heard footsteps crunching in the grass behind them. He turned around once, and
nothing. A few paces later her came to a dead halt and asked Leira to look too.
Nothing. Finally at the bottom of the hill, he said:
“Leira,
could you walk over there—by that rock? I wanna see if I can hear anyone other
than you walking.”
Leira
wordlessly obeyed, and Cheetor’s eyes grew wide. Following at about ten steps
behind her was a set of footfalls depressing the grass, but there was no one
there to make them.
“The…That’s
a gr..great trick there, Leira.” He stuttered.
Leira
turned to face him as he continued:
“I
don’t know how in all the matrix you are doing that, but it’s creeping me
out and it’s not funny, and what’s more we really have to get working or the
boss-monkey is gonna freak, and… Leira?”
But
she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking past him and slightly to his left.
She was consumed by what she saw.
It
was hooded and cloaked, about 4 feet tall, floating above the ground. It had no
legs; its arms were too long for its body--and there protruding from the
‘sleeves’ of its cloak were two long hands. They looked as though at one
point they had been the skeletal hands of a human, but now only the shadow, the
imprint, was left.
At
first it didn’t seem to notice her, and she almost felt that if she had had
the willpower to look away it might never have done so, but she could not avert
her gaze. Slowly it turned its hooded ‘head’ towards her own. She glimpsed
the void, the horror of eternity, in that dark space where its eyes should have
been.
It
seemed to stop time, to lengthen the moments of sickening panic that it
instilled in her. She saw death in it, not just as a distant force, but as a
something that is alive. She saw it as a consumption. She glimpsed what was a
terror and a truth: what it would really be like to lose her own self, or to
have to face an eternity of consciousness. Everything was that terror, the very
basis of existence was terror.
She
screamed, suddenly, turned—and fled. Running back to base. Sobbing
incoherently. She forced her legs to strain and run, then stagger, all the way
back. She threw herself into her quarters and shut the door.
In
essence she sought that lonely void that she had just feared.
She
had to fend off questions all the rest of that day, torture at the hands of
those concerned for her well-being. She couldn’t tell them of what she had
seen. She felt alone, ashamed, and separated by it.
Still,
sleep would not find her.
The
Shadow People were taunting her. Every time she thought she saw one out of the
corner of her eye, it vanished as she turned her head. They whispered to each
other. She knew the room was infested by them.
Finally,
she could stand it no longer:
“Why
are you here?” She whimpered to the darkness, as she lay curled in her little
bed.
No
answer.
She
nearly rolled over and went to sleep, when the moon suddenly hit a break in the
clouds and illuminated the room. Scrawled messily all over the walls was the
word ‘Trapped’.
“Why
are you here?” She asked again, even more timidly this time.
She
saw no more, turned over twice, thought about sleep again. Even breathed a sigh
of relief.
Then
she felt what she thought was her own breath echoing back onto her face. Then
again, and again. Something hissing cold breath onto her face.
“Die
bitch die”
…It
whispered rasp-like and bitingly into her ear.
She
shrieked as loud as she possibly could. Everyone came running. There was, of
course, nothing there for any of them to see, but nevertheless Cheetor let her
sleep on a spare bed in his quarters that night…
And
had the worst nightmares of his lifetime.
****
They
had let her have the last few days off from all duty, and Cheetor with her. They
had almost begun to return to the childlike fun and games that had characterized
there lives such a short time before, almost learned to manage the shadows.
“Tag!
You’re it!”
“No,
you are!”, Leira yelled as she leapt at him and tagged his shoulder.
“Hey,
no fair, you didn’t even give me a chance to run away!”
“There’s
no rule that says I have to!
“Ok
then--”, Cheetor laughed as he tagged her back now that she was distracted,
“YOU’RE it! Ha!”
Suddenly
Leira fell to her knees.
“Leira?”
She
rose up slowly, here eyes glazed and far-away, her voice almost metallic,
spouting halted phrases:
“I
will not be forbidden to rebel
I
will not be forbidden to rebel
I
will not be forbidden to rebel…”
“Leira…?”
“In
the dark time
I
will watch the fire fall
I
will walk in it
Death
to those who oppose me
They
only oppose themselves unwittingly
And
that is to ask for death.”
“Leira,
you’re starting to scare me…”
Suddenly
she threw herself into the broad truck of a nearby tree, then slapped herself of
across the face, before finally collapsing in a little heap, laughing like a
maniac.
They
carried her back to base, tested her over and over, then for lack of anything
more to do, they confined her to her quarters. No one knew quite what to say to
her.
All
evening she heard their whispered voices echoing down the hall:
“Madness…Don’t
know what’s gotten into her…Detected no bugs in her circuitry…Taken all
her weaponry from her just in case…”
“More
tests…Yes, tomorrow.”
“She’s
falling apart.”
“We
have to talk to her…We’ve already tried that…She won’t tell us…Does
she even know?”
Darkness
fell, and still no one came for her.
Other
than what was already there. The shadows danced on her walls again, whispering
in a frenzy. They were all the world to her now—they could make mountains
fall, continents collide.
The
pressure they put upon her was mounting, they owned the walls so she moved to
the center of her room, the farthest point from them, but they closed in. Closer
and closer she could feel them, seemingly just behind her back, but no matter
how fast she turned around they could always stay behind her, in the realm of
her peripheral vision. She could feel them grasping—she raced for the door. It
was locked, of course. Confined to quarters. No way out. She banged for a
moment, oh but they’d never get here soon enough!
Wish
a sudden desperation she ran for her only window, jumped for it, smashed through
it and landed on the ground below. She broke into a run. The night was not
beautiful this time—the branches were grasping arms, Shadow People clung to
the tree-trunks.
The
forest of sentient shadows closed in on her and now she truly was alone and
trapped, for she was away from her base, the only home she knew.
And
she could not stop running.
Half-delirious
as she staggered, under the sick sliver of the moon and the tearing clouds, she
headed helplessly towards the cave of darkness she had first entered of her own
curiosity. She felt like she was being pushed, driven by some black wave rising
up behind her. Her mind was dying.
‘Why
am I doing this?’ She wondered.
It
was her last coherent thought.
*
* * *
It
took the Maximals several months to return to the little valley of the black
roses, where they finally found the cave, and Leira’s body—its optics
smashed out and its beast mode half-eaten by rats.
Sometimes they still think they see Shadow People around their base at night, though they never saw Leira’s—when they are alone, and unsure of their own senses. Little is said openly about them, or even about poor Leira, for no one understood what happened to her, and no one ever will… But nevertheless the Beast Warriors, so adept in battle, sometimes shiver alone at night when a they think they glimpse a shadow in a moonlit corner that moves of its own accord, particularly one that is slightly different from its fellows. Taller than the rest, it is hooded and cloaked, and floats above the ground. It has no legs; its arms are too long for its body… And there protruding from the ‘sleeves’ of its cloak are two long hands. They look as though at one point they had been the hands of a robot, but now only the shadow, the imprint, is left.