Wow, this chapter took a while to write.

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I hope you're all enjoying the story so far!

*Disclaimer: I don't own transformers*

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Was it all just a dream?

I actually had to ask myself this.

Was it all just a dream?

At first it seems that it was. That the standing here, listening to my grandfather blend pancake mix in the other room, is reality, while the whole them dying-and-transformers thing had been nothing more than some crazy dream we'd laugh about over breakfast.

Except looking around, I knew I couldn't have possibly dreamt an entire four years in a single night. There was too much I remembered. Too many small details I wouldn't have remembered had it all been a dream.

Taking a single step backward, I paused as I realized that I still had my boots on. When I looked down, the blue jeans, yellow-knit sweater, and the black boots I'd put on this morning all looked the same as they did before I'd mounted Astraea. I didn't have a scratch on my body. No aches. No pains. Nothing. I held up my phone and stared at my reflection, checking to see if I still had blue eyes, but my eyes were just as they had always been—they were green.

I was human.

But if it all really was just a dream . . . what about Astraea? Where is she? I spun around, suddenly frantic, and ran toward the living room window that overlooked the pasture. It was empty. No horse. No goat. But when I glanced down at my feet, I could see the laced boots I'd put on this morning. Abby had given them to me for my twenty-first birthday, a little over a year ago. I didn't have these boots when my grandparents were still alive. I was wearing these boots this morning. I was still wearing them now.

I turned to the window again and looked for Silver. It too was gone. In its place sat my grandmother's bright yellow VW Beetle, a little dusty looking, but otherwise in excellent condition. Nothing like how it had looked after—

I spun away. This wasn't right. This could not be happening. I had experienced the accident first hand, I had seen—

I'd had nightmares before—falling nightmares, giving-a-presentation-in-front-of-an-audience-naked nightmares, being-chased-down-a-hallway nightmares—but I'd always been able to force myself to wake up. I stared down at my wrist, the one that felt perfectly fine, untouched as it had been by Barricade, and I pinched as hard as I could.

Pain shot up from where I'd compressed my skin.

No. This had to be a dream. It had to be.

Then I heard something. Someone was coming down the stairs. My head shot up of its own accord, and I froze with my hand clutched around my wrist. Part of me wanted to turn and see whom it was, but I stopped myself. If this really was a dream, then seeing her now wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't bring her back or make it okay that she was gone. Nothing did. Nothing ever would.

"It's only a dream." I said to myself.

What makes you think this is only a dream?

Turning towards the voice, I found myself looking into the light blue eyes of my grandmother.

She looked exactly how I remembered her; down to the nurse outfit she wore, down to the roundness of her body, even down to the soft blonde colour she used to dye her hair in order to keep out the grey. She looked like she could be touched. Like she wouldn't fade away into nothingness the moment I moved to embrace her tightly. But then I gazed harder into her eyes, and it occurred to me that instead of being blue like I had first assumed they were—because that's what colour her eyes had been while was alive, blue—, her eyes were a burning fire of violet, and I took an involuntary step back. My grandmother just stared at me, sympathy showing in the lines on her face.

You do not want this?

The voice that came from her throat sounded like my grandmother's, but at the same time, it was definitely not. This voice almost had a reiterating quality to it as she spoke. It certainly wasn't like any human voice I'd ever heard.

When I refused to answer she tilted her head a little, as though in question.

I swallowed, clutching my wrist closer to myself. "Who are you?"

She didn't answer.

I tried again, more insistently this time. "Who are you?"

We are you.

I blinked. What kind of answer was that?

"No," I said, shaking my head, "you're not. You're not me, and I'm not you."

We are you.

"No—"

You are we.

"I'm not—"

Together we are one.

By this point, I'd accepted that this was either a really messed up hallucination or dream. Despite that this wasn't anything like the dreams I usually had concerning my grandparents—there was no darkness, no terror, no panic, for one thing—, I still refused to acknowledge it as anything but. And yet—

"What do you want from me?" I said.

My grandmother smiled at me a little sadly.

We do not want anything from you.

"Then why are you here?" I asked, folding my arms tightly against my body.

She didn't answer, just continued to stare at me silently while the warm smell of pancakes wafted from the other room. I shifted from foot to foot; feeling on edge in a dream that made little sense to me, and getting ready to bolt the moment my grandfather appeared in the doorway to summon us to breakfast. My grandmother saw this, and tilted her head, her expression kind.

You do not want this?

"I want this more than anything," I whispered, gazing around at what had once mundane. "But . . ." I shook my head. "This isn't real. None of this is real." I looked at her bitterly, wishing with my all heart that it was my real grandmother standing in front of me, instead of this violet-eyed sphinx. "And neither are you. You're not my grandmother."

She stared at me with sympathetic eyes.

You are in pain, she said, but not as a question.

I looked at the ground, then up at the painting of the tiger hanging above the back of the couch, anywhere but at my not-grandmother's eyes. Finally I said—

"You're one of them, aren't you?"

We are, and we are not.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. Then I shook my head. "Nevermind. Look, can you at least tell me whether or not this is a dream?"

Your body is unconscious, but your mind is very much awake.

I paused. "So I'm in a coma?"

In a sense, yes.

I took a deep breath. "So how does this work? Do you know where my body is currently?"

You are with my children as we speak.

My heart leapt into my throat. "They aren't . . . hurting me, are they?"

You are quite safe.

Somehow that didn't reassure me, but only because I was weary about being lulled into a false sense of security by what I was certain was only a coma-induced-hallucination.

She cocked her head to the side.

You doubt our words?

I frowned. "I doubt your existence."

Our existence is your own. We live through each other.

"No, we don't," I said, and my frown deepened. "This is only a dream."

This is not a dream. Nor is it a hallucination.

"No? Then what is it?" I asked. Our eyes locked and something in hers unveiled itself, and I looked away.

After a moment of silence, I swallowed. "Why won't you tell me who you are?"

We are you.

I laughed hollowly. "No, you're really not."

We are you.

You are we.

Together we are one.

With a rather sad expression still on her face, she began to back away, and I noticed that the world around us seemed to be melting. Turning back, I tried to talk to my not-grandmother, to ask her what was happening to me.

She was gone.

There was a bright flash, and a sudden feeling of falling.