Okay, I'm posting yet another new story before I update Arbitrary. Bugging me anymore will not help. And if somehow the threat of blocking you and deleting the story itself isn't enough, then I don't know how to convince you.
New story. Not DP/AEMH. So there.
Title: Tenebris
Rating: M
Genre: Supernatural, Angst, Horror
Summary: The war has been over for centuries, and yet I still feel...strange. Restless, in a way. Like I need to draw my sword and tear out a spark just to sate my lust for vengeance. But there is no one left to take out. I am all alone in this desolate world. The Lord of Death follows me. The silence and the darkness are nothing but a grim reminder.
Characters: Deadlock/Drift, Rodimus Prime, Prowl, Jazz, Nightwish, Deathstrike, and others.
Author Notes: N/A
Warnings: Pretty much what I put in almost every story I write. Don't own Transformers. Wish I did, but oh well...
Enjoy.
"Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym." Stephen King
The world stood, bathed in its perpetual grief and pain. Horrific screams, ones that were not as loud but still held the agony only a being tortured endlessly would have, echoed throughout the deepest and darkest corners of the universe standing silently around it. Fire and ash rose from the battered remnants of the atmosphere, and toxins were ever present.
It had been months since the fighting had started. Months that seemed so much longer. The endless age of my race made time move even slower.
The sky was dark, the sun a dying ember barely illuminating the diseased world beneath it.
I stood scowling deeply, the hot and toxic air burning the edges of my sleek and nearly weightless armor. The ash coated air swirled around me; the thick acrid taste of smoke covered my glossa in a rough and coarse embrace. The fire roared around me, a beast at bay merely waiting for the chance to pounce and tear into my metal flesh like the insignificant insect it believed I was.
It was almost amusing how the beast thought it could tame me.
The decaying, bloodstained bodies were strewn across the field, broken and bruised, frayed and crumbling like decade-old tombstones eroded by harsh weather and the relentless hand of Time. Decomposing flesh hung in tattered strips from the shattered remains of bones; the ghostly and jagged remains of each individual crumbling bone peered out from beneath the flimsy veil the slimy remnants of torn muscle provided. The stench that emanated from the carcasses was oh so horrible; the ever-present aroma of burning and charred flesh and boiling blood whisked through the moaning wind.
The ground was stained with an endless cloak of overwhelming terror. The slightest glance towards the decimated field would render the mind immobile from the fiery beast of fear that would dig its claws deep into the metaphorical flesh of the mind of its host. There would be no way out should the signs of infection show. The ailing being would have no remnant of hope.
My thoughts were drifting. My memories were hazy; I remember when they had been better, easier to recall, once a part of a field of high-quality perception able to sense the slightest anomaly in my systems. My mind is fragmented now; my memories are corrupted, stained and muddied, obstructed by the clouds of misery and pain and death and sadistic desire.
My processor seemed locked on the fact that this was a horrifically talented piece of art. Of intricately detailed penmanship and swirls and strokes that elicited the most beautiful and mind-numbing of results.
Sleep well, my little child
The monsters will not find you
Sleep well, my little child
Or the monsters will come
The laugh that escaped me was one of pure insanity. Oh yes, I remember when I had sanity. That seemed like it was such a long time ago that I can barely recall it. Ah, no...must not let my thoughts stray from the rickety old train track.
Wait...the memory I had been trying to catch but had evaded me: this gory battlefield had once been a playground for little sparklings and younglings. Yes, I remember...complete with the sticky plastic of the bobbing toy turbofoxes and Predacons skimming through the soft and shaved metal, accompanied by the screaming little ones as their older relatives pushed them high into the sky to make them believe they were on top of the world—this decimated field had been that. It was hard to imagine that this bloody haunted battlefield had been a place where innocent—no, they were not innocent; no one was innocent—children had played.
They will come, my dear
Skin your very form
Salt and season your hide
And boil it in a batch of stew
The gore-crusted wind continued to swirl around me. How could I have grown so accustomed to the thick scent of scalding blood and flesh? I was so used to it that I waited for it every day; as if it were a signal I waited for that moment where I could sample the delicious taste brewing in the poisoned air. But now, with the gore and violence that surrounded any being that had been powerful or lucky enough to survive the war that had ravaged the entirety of the monster that had been known as Cybertron...what else was there to wait for? Everything else was dead and dying. They were all delicious corpses.
They will make rope of your entrails
Tie up the naughty little ones
Use your talons for little utensils
To scoop out naughty optics
Rodimus stood beside me, his engine rumbling in thinly veiled distress and pain. This had been the result of a riot, one that had been going on for a few orns. The corpses were all different—some were Enforcers that had been attempting to keep the peace, some were fanatics that believed any form of rule was corrupted and wrong, and others were simply civilians that had been caught in the crossfire.
I could not help but wonder why this scene was so familiar to the gruesome afterimages of the War. The War that was long gone now; Megatron was no more, Optimus was no more...they were all gone.
I could see and smell and taste them all, all of them stretched out before me—see their flailing limbs as they were shot down, smell the acrid stench of boiled Energon and armor and fluids, and taste the scalding lifeblood as it splashed around me, coating my pure white armor in a horrific but strangely pleasing new paintjob—
Sleep now, my little child
Blackbirds will soar and swallow
And scratch and claw your scarred little flesh
To keep their children warm
So sleep now, my little angel
And keep your skin tight and warm
I gasped and wrapped a servo around my torso, my talons digging into the scarred metal. No. That was not what I was here for. I was here to help—here to offer assistance, not take it away in the blink of an optic—
"Drift? Are you okay?"
My mate's voice washed over me, a deep and pleasant rumble that made my wings shiver. He was worried, and I was worrying him. I could not have that—no, I would not have that.
I forced my respiratory systems back to optimal function and made myself nod. "I am fine, Roddy."
The brightly colored mech tilted his helm, vibrant blue optics bright. "Are you sure? You seem...off." His wonderfully expressive gaze widened as his vents hissed out scalding air. He had been a racer frame, and we always ran extremely hot. His heat was only increased by his all-over-the-map emotions, and it was doing nothing for the steadily increasing pounding in the back of my processor.
I hid a wince and nodded, fluttering my wings as I ran my talons over his sleek armor. "Please, Roddy. Do not worry about me. You need your focus on this meeting."
The former Prime hesitated before nodding. "If you say so." He fanned his own wings wide, bouncing on his pedes. "Come on! I heard that General Strika is going to be at the conference! I wanna meet her; I heard she's really cool!"
"One of the most powerful mechs on the planet, and yet you somehow still act like a child." My voice was as cold and detached as it normally was, but I could not suppress a grin as I transformed and followed my mate.
All the while, the song was still playing—over and over—in my mind.
Sleep now, my little angel
Or the monsters will come
Tear your soul to shreds and
Beat in your little head
Unless you sleep right now
The song is based off of multiple lullabies. Kråkevisa and Incili Bebek Ninnisi are the two it's based off of, and trussed up a bit by my own imagination. R&R, pleaze. This may be a one-shot unless you all want more.