Thirteen Days

Warning: Contains torture, insanity, deaths, and lots of angst.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Transformers. I'm just borrowing them for a bit to mess with their heads.

Author's Note: I think I'm developing a problem with naming characters...I just don't seem to want to do it anymore. Heh. Oh well...enjoy one of the most plot-advancing chapters so far!

- 7 days before -

She didn't want to move for the next year. Hell, Ariel didn't even want to think of moving for the next year. Unfortunately, lady luck had gone on vacation a week ago and had yet to return. Ariel whimpered as she was dragged through the corridors to the familiar room with a table and chair. The chair, amusingly enough, had been exchanged with a metal one fitted with restraints, and bolted down to the floor. Ariel's escort shoved her down into the chair and secured her legs, but left her hands free. The reason was obviously as they brought in a tray of food, which she blearily, painfully, ate, aware of each and every one of the bruises she'd gained yesterday before her 'hidden skills' had kicked in.

"I don't suppose you'd give me some coffee if I asked?" she asked when they returned to take her tray. No response was given, and when men returned to secure her arms, Ariel gave up on the coffee dream. Sighing, she waited as they finished, and a man in a white lab coat entered. She recognized him from her first day, and noticed that he now seemed to be wary as he observed her, and Ariel smirked slightly.

"That was quite the display you put on yesterday." the man said after a few moments, and Ariel's smirk vanished.

"That was quite the beating they were trying to give me." she deadpanned in reply.

"We hypothesized that, considering all the facts, a combat situation would be the best way to acquire the readings we required." the man said seriously. "Now, tell me, have you ever had a psychotic episode? Besides that one in LA, of course, that resulted in the court cases. We know about that. But have you ever had a less violent one? Say, being able to put together a machine you shouldn't have been able to, or having an image in your mind of something metallic? Maybe heard a voice speaking, a male one, when there was no one around? Or lost control of a limb? Perhaps seen some strange planet, as clearly as if it were real?" the man went on, listing possibilities, as Ariel shook her head or answered 'no' to everyone. He didn't seem to understand that, at this point, even had she had any of the experiences he was bringing up, she wouldn't tell him. So she just let him continue on, giving him odd looks as his list of things got weirder and weirder.

"Did you ever encounter a vehicle that could talk to you? Or see one driving by itself? Was there anything odd when you went to purchase your current vehicle? Do you know anyone with the last name of Witwicky? Banes? Lennox?" the man was getting away from psychotic experiences now and seemed to be moving on to people she might know or places she might have been at specific times. Ariel stopped paying attention, just answering 'no' automatically every time he paused. Finally, he stopped, looking a bit frustrated, and Ariel arched an eyebrow at him.

"Can I have my coffee yet?" she asked, just to be irritating - she was fairly sure by now that that strange confidence from the court cases had returned again - and the man made a strange noise before glaring at her and storming out of the room. After he'd left, two men entered with food, and Ariel's hands were freed again so she could eat. Eyeing it warily, Ariel considered refusing it, but all the exercise she'd gotten yesterday had made her exceptionally hungry today, so even though there was a fair chance the food was drugged, she ate.

Sure enough, Ariel started feeling pleasantly light-headed after about ten minutes, but fortunately, that also made all the aches and pains from the day before go away, so Ariel didn't mind too much. Until a different man returned and began to try and hypnotize her. Ariel pushed down the fuzziness and fought the hypnotism, but the drugs were powerful, and inevitably, she gave in, slipping into a hypnotic trance.

She remembered everything clearly later, but that was because her hypnotizer ordered her to, right before he ordered her to tell the truth so long as she was in the trance. Ariel agreed easily to both orders, as hypnotized people usually did, and the man began asking her simple questions about her name and where she lived, then tried to get her to lie. She refused to, following his order, and he seemed satisfied as he sat in a chair across from her, which he'd brought in with him. Then he began on the serious questions, asking her about how she'd felt and what had happened the day before, then going back to the incident in LA. He managed to get out of her that she'd been feeling odd for some time, and slowly he worked his way back through each even mildly important event before she attacked Kyle, until he came to a day two and a half years ago.

"And what was special about this day?" the man asked patiently. If Ariel hadn't been in the trance, she might have wondered over his patience, and the fact that she wasn't bored, but as it was, all she could think about was that day.

"Nothing." Ariel answered, then on the heels of that, corrected herself with, "Everything."

"Nothing and everything?" the man questioned curiously.

"Nothing happened." Ariel replied, and just as before, on the heels of that statement, corrected herself with,"My life ended."

"Your life ended?" the man looked surprised.

"No, as I said, nothing happened." Ariel said. "My life as I knew it, at least." The man was sitting up straighter now, watching Ariel intently.

"How did your life as you knew it end?" he asked.

"I told you, nothing happened! My life was fine!" Ariel said with slight annoyance, then calmly concluded with, "I died." Before the man could reply to that, white-hot pain erupted in Ariel's gut, and she screamed in agony as it spread throughout her body. She was aware of a snap of fingers and panicked voices, and then the world went black.

- On to day 7 -