This story was inspired by the fantastic universe the Botosphere created and I can't thank the three ladies enough. I recommend you read their stories (www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/u/2096745/Botosphere); not only because they're wonderfully well-written, but because – with the Botosphere's consent – I'm basing my story on their universe and even use a few of their OCs. I tried keeping things easy to follow for those who aren't familiar with the Botosphere's stories, however.

I then want to thank my friend Terri who did her magic in betaing. Thanks, hon. *hugs*

Disclaimer: I don't any of the Transformers - sadly. I'm just using them for my muse's amusement and promise to return them (eventually). I can't make any promises for the state they will be in though. xD

And now, on to the prologue:

– prologue –

When the World Crumbles

It started as a normal day, but it went downhill soon after.

She was in school, taking her final math exams, when suddenly, all around her, the windows broke and rained down on the students and teacher. A blow hit the building, making the floor and walls shake heavily. She fell from her chair and onto the floor. For a moment, everything was eerily silent and then deafening noise washed over her. It wasn't loud enough to drown out the screams of panic and terror though. Blinking up into blinding light, she saw people running for their lives, not caring whether or not they stepped on their classmates lying hurt and helpless or cowering frozen on the floor. Glancing up, she saw dust and concrete particles raining down from the ceiling, covering the classroom in a thick white blanket.

Groaning, she tried to get up and follow her classmates out of the room. She couldn't move however. Belatedly she realized the pain shooting up her arm and into her shoulder. Glancing down, she saw the huge glass shard stuck deeply in the back of her hand. Blood welled up and spilt over. She shouldn't have been able to hear it, but the sound of her blood dripping on the floor was overly loud in her ears. Checking herself over, she glanced down her torso. Her legs were stuck under what she assumed had once been her table, and the pain exploding in her hip when she moved told her the deformed furniture had squished her shinbones when toppling over and onto her. But that wasn't the worst yet.

Directly above the table, she saw two huge bloody red eyes staring back at her. The color itself was unnerving, but the face belonging to those eyes belonged to a creature sprung directly out of her worst nightmare. A claw reached out, closing in on her.

She started screaming.

…

It was a rude awakening. Rude and painful. Extremely painful.

She tried sitting up and found she couldn't move. At all. Something was holding her down, she thought, though she couldn't find the source or feel what stopped her from moving. She would have understood why she couldn't sit up had there been a belt or something similar strapped over her to keep her still. But she simply felt nothing that could pin her down like that. So she tried sitting up again, with the same result as before: nothing. She couldn't even move a muscle. It felt like she was frozen.

Taking a deep breath, she found that even breathing was hard. And painful. Why was she so much in pain anyway? What had happened that she couldn't move and hurt all over like hell? And then she recalled the bloody red eyes and the claw reaching out to grab her. Suddenly, she remembered again and sat up – at least she tried to. Only she still couldn't move. She thought she had died, but the constant pain reminded her that she was still alive. So where were the doctors with their morphine when you needed them?

Trying to make sense of what had happened, she sifted through her memories. There were clear pictures of boring days at school, chaotic Thanksgiving meetings with her eccentric aunt's family, the one or other argument she had had with her mother, the calm voice of her grandfather explaining to her his latest project at work, she and her dad laughing about a joke someone had told, her grandmother's lullabies when she was a small kid… Nothing out of the ordinary.

But then she remembered the excruciating noise she had heard, before the world around her exploded, sounding like even the smallest being was going to be erased to extinction. Flashes of darkness and light accompanied the sounds. She recalled the frightening sight of her classroom being a place full of rubble and dust, like a bomb had been dropped onto the building and exploded within the school. Bodies had lain everywhere, some motionless, some ripped to pieces. And there had been screaming, a lot of screaming wafting through the air. She once again heard frantic footsteps, hurrying from left to right, from right to left. And then there had been growling thunder before the world faded to pitch blackness.

Frowning, she tried to dig deeper into her memories. In her mind she saw the air shimmer red, two bloody orbs boring into her mind through thick fog. She also recalled the huge shadow standing above her while something light scurried across her body, pricking her over and over again. Suddenly, she remembered the blood-curling scream that had risen from deep within her, but that had never been let out. Instead, searing hot steal had cut into her, ripping her open. Gratefully, darkness had taken her, but the pain had still followed her into the abyss. Now more than ever she felt the urge to let out the scream that was still stuck in her throat. She remembered voices speaking to her, cold and scary. Recalled excruciating pain and maddening laughter. Crunching her eyes shut, she tried to will away the memories, the nightmare that felt so real. She didn't want to remember. Couldn't they all just leave her be?

Out from somewhere, there rose a scream so intense her blood froze in her veins. She couldn't pinpoint the direction where it came from, but the squeaking of metal and more thunder followed the tortured cries. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the noise was gone and everything fell into deadly silence.

She felt tired and close to giving up fighting – against what, she didn't know. Only her intuition told her that she had to keep going or she would die. The memories she had dredged up faded back to flashes of light and darkness, making no sense whatsoever anymore. Colors of all kinds ran together, mixing up and forming indiscernible patterns that hurt her eyes just trying to watch them. She shut her eyes tightly and focused more on hearing, but everything was still as silent as in a cemetery.

Then there was light once more, icy yet searingly hot …

… followed by extreme darkness. Slowly sinking back into the abyss she had woken up from, she tried to escape the pain that engulfed her like a cocoon, never to let go again. Spidery hands raced through her spine and ripped it open, fire slashed through her veins, ice crawled through her like an avalanche crashing down the mountain and killing every living in its wake. She couldn't escape.

She let lose the scream she had held up for so long.

And then, finally, there was gratifying relief when everything ended and total darkness swept over her, erasing all memories.

What do you think? Engaging start? Not so much? Let me know please. Reviews are always love.