To Have a Spark
Interitus
"The candle that burns the brightest is, most often, the shortest lived."
Days passed in Jasper, with few if any who noted Renalt Haakon's absence. The small-town police had filed a missing-persons report after forty-eight hours but few had truly reacted. It wasn't a manhunt for a dangerous criminal. It wasn't a desperate search for a small child snatched up by some psychopath. It was, to most in Jasper, just another rebellious teenager running off for a while before he shaped up and came to his senses.
The few that did notice didn't ask much of the others openly around them. They asked different people.
Jack Darby seemed pensive as he rode into the base with Arcee. Upon dismount, he noticed his companions, Miko and Rafael, were as subdued as he was. The silence was getting to be swiftly oppressive. Someone had to say something, thus it was Arcee that spoke up first.
"You three seem a little down. Everything all right?"
Jack was the first to answer. His tone suggested confusion and mild surprise. He had never really heard of anyone from Memorial High going missing for this long.
"A kid in history class hasn't shown up for over a week now and the cops have him listed as missing."
Ratchet turned around; his gaze immediately falling upon the three humans. The others remained silent, awaiting one of them to say something. Before the medic could voice the question in most of their minds, Miko and Rafael took up the tale.
"You mean the sickly-looking kid who's always in white? The blind one?" Miko asked.
"I saw him come out of the bathroom last week. He looked like he was about to pass out," Raf added.
Optimus Prime decided to speak up at that. His tone was gentle but firm. Although the 'Bots generally stayed clear of domestic or purely human matters, the Prime felt an insidious chill at this.
"Can any of you recall him in days past? Has he made known any signs of medical trouble or...interference?"
They all knew what he meant by that. Interference, be it by humans or inquisitive Decepticons. The three of them had become swiftly entwined with the Cybertronians. It could happen again on the other side. It wasn't a pleasant thought, considering MECH was still skulking out there somewhere. Rafael spoke up again; a somewhat distant expression appearing on his face.
"I remember him. No one really talks to him. He kind of keeps to himself, more than I used to. But this year, he's been acting weird. I never see him outside of school and when he's there, he's like a zombie. Never talks unless Vince or some other jerk is in his face. He's been looking sick since last year."
Miko's eyes widened.
"Raf...do you remember him coming out of the office that day?"
"When?"
"Last year, he came out of the office, before he started covering his face. He looked like he had a bomb dropped on him."
Jack stiffened.
"The obituary. Can you pull it up, Raf?"
The Hispanic boy nodded slowly. It wasn't a hard thing to find and in less than a minute, last year's newspapers came up onto the screen. The conflict in Cambodia. A dengue fever outbreak. Puzzled glances were exchanged as Rafael held up his laptop to show the 'Bots what they found.
"How does this relate to the missing kid?" Bulkhead asked.
"I think...I think I remember him mentioning a sibling. Leonard something," Jack put in.
Arcee peered at the opened windows on Raf's laptop.
"So you think this kid reacted to a family member being sent off to serve?"
The three children shook their heads. Reacting like that to someone going off to the service didn't make sense, but it was a prelude to another idea. One that none of them wanted to give voice to, but one that had to be put on the table.
"Is it possible he was killed or is listed as missing in the field?" Optimus' deep baritone rumbled through the base.
"So, he went crackers?" Miko scratched her head, responding to the Prime's question with one of her own, however brashly it might have been voiced. The Prime nodded. For now, they could only keep an eye or optic out and hope this kid, whoever he was, found his centre. Rafael closed out of the windows on his laptop but found he wasn't in the mood for a video game. Miko picked up her guitar and put it down again. Jack tried to work on his homework, to no avail.
Around them, the Autobots were lost in their own thoughts. They had all seen the horrors of war, had lost close friends and family to it. They knew how it felt to be both the recipient and the bearer of such news. For a while, they kept to themselves, sometimes logically going over what they had been told and rationalising or reasoning how they might have reacted. Or had reacted. It was never an easy thing and between them all, they knew a year wasn't enough.
A year could never be enough.
"Optimus. Do you feel we should scout for this human ourselves?" Ratchet's voice seemed tight. A lump had lodged its way into his throat, making his voice waver a little.
"Yes. But slowly. We must not become a danger or produce more targets for the Decep-" His voice cut off as the hum of June Darby's vehicle heralded her arrival to the base. It wasn't this though, that made the Prime fall completely silent. He raised a hand to silence all attempts to speak to him, acknowledging June Darby with a quiet nod of his head. The Prime looked for a moment like he was straining to hear something too far away to be distinct. He ignored the thunder that had begun and the rain that pelted down onto the base's roof and gave Jasper, Nevada a good soaking.
Say how many of us died
In the streams of light...
"Optimus, are you all right?" The nurse met her son in an embrace and gave the Prime a curious look. When the Prime didn't respond, Jack took the lead. He swallowed hard and scratched the back of his head. It was the nervous tic that got June's attention.
"Mom, a kid from our class went missing last week. It's that blind kid no one talks to."
The nurse paled noticeably, gaining concerned looks from human and 'Bot alike. The Prime shifted his gaze down to the woman as she moved to sit on the couch in what had long been declared "the human section" of the base. It took a moment for her to speak. When she did, her voice came out in the level, detached tone only medical personnel could begin to perfect.
"Jack. I am going to ask you several questions. I want honest answers." Jack, Miko and Rafael all nodded in assent.
"You said it was the blind kid, right?"
"Yeah," Jack nodded slowly amid voicing his confirmation.
"Jack, Miko, Raf. Did any of you witness him do anything strange or potentially dangerous?" Her tone was all business.
"You mean other than the wearing white, covering his face and looking like he's sick?"
"...Yes, Miko."
Rafael looked up at Nurse Darby with uncertainty in his eyes. He was content to let Jack or Miko speak up at this point.
"Remember when I got detention for a week?" Miko's voice held a nervous tremble. Around the humans, the Autobots had gathered, feeling a new tension in the air.
"We all do. But you never explained fully why," Bulkhead chimed in.
"I bloodied Vince's nose after he terrorised that kid. One of his sleeves was ripped. I saw something on his arm..." Miko and June locked eyes. Fear erupted in the Japanese girl's expression as a stern coldness bloomed in June's own.
"Miko. Are you sure of what you saw?"
"Yeah."
"Describe it. In detail. Now." The command put everyone in the chamber on edge.
Faceless bodies, morbid cries...
Miko closed her eyes, willing herself to remember that day, and relishing the victory she had achieved over Vince. Detention for a week was well worth it but that silver lining rapidly turned into rust before her mind's eye. She remembered the thin, white-clad boy pinned up against the lockers. She remembered the boy's knee meeting Vince's groin as she had rounded the hallway corner. She recalled the grasp of her hands on the bully's arm and the sound of cloth tearing. Vince's victim wasn't identified by face in her mind after that. He was identified by the disturbing lines...marks...scars running the length of his inner wrist. From the heel of his hand nearly to the elbow, she remembered the scars. She finally spoke again with tears welling in her eyes.
"His left arm. It was covered in...cuts. Long cuts, like someone had tried to fillet his arm."
"Nurse Darby, what does this mean to you?" Ratchet wondered at the nurse's sudden and vehement interest in this missing teenager. And such specific interest in what his arms looked like. He didn't like the answer. Worse still, it was an answer he couldn't entirely wrap his processor around. It was confusing, illogical.
"Ratchet, Miko just described self-harm."
"I do not understand, Nurse Darby. Why would a living being inflict harm upon itself?" Optimus spoke solemnly over the low murmurs of the others. They were as in the dark as he was.
"I'm not a psychologist, Optimus. I can at most, send you books on how the human mind works and why things like this appear."
Ratchet wordlessly turned to the nearest Autobot-sized console, rapidly typing away. In no time, he had several documents pulled up. He read them in a few minutes, hardly noticing the tense silence that had taken up behind him. He felt all eyes on him as he worked to understand, to put the pieces together. Absently, he began recounting everything he and the others had heard.
"A classmate ceases attending. That same classmate is reported missing. Miko, Jack, Rafael. You mentioned unusual behaviour. A reaction after exiting your schoolmaster's office. Correct?" The medic's hot blue optics narrowed in that thoughtful way of his when his mind began to race.
"Correct..." The responses were hesitant.
"Nurse Darby. You speak of self-harm. Violent self-harm. The children found an obituary from last year that coincides with this human's abnormal reaction upon leaving that office." The pieces were falling into a place none of them liked. Optimus Prime listened again for that sound over the rain.
Life's a dream that you will forget in the endless space
And the scars you got on planet Earth will be erased...
"Nurse Darby. Miko. Jack. Raf. Is there any possibility that this human might have left Jasper entirely?"
"No, Ratchet. He's blind. He can't drive," June replied.
"...no optics..?" Bulkhead sat down, struck with the foreign concept. Disability wasn't something Cybertronians really dealt with. They never had to, in ordinary circumstances. The thought sent a tremble through the great Wrecker's frame and he wasn't alone. The idea was slowly processed by the others.
Ratchet kept on typing at the console. The monitor to his right flickered to life. The medic turned to glance at it and found himself staring in shock.
"All of you. Here. Now!"
"What is it, old friend?" The Prime allowed the others to precede him, given his height next to theirs.
"Just..."
The monitor display was one few would forget after that. On it, the flickering display depicted a figure in white. A makeshift almost-tent stood half-destroyed in the rain. Around it, thick paper was strewn about the ground. At the chaotic spread's centre, the white-clad figure finished what looked to the untrained eye like some kind of dance. It was graceful, if quite amateur. As it concluded, the figure moved to sit before a Thermos and a little phial of what looked like tainted, greyish water. They watched as the figure took off his veil, revealing a gaunt face with sharp, angular features. Dark-tanned skin and light, sandy hair woven into a braid rounded out with a pair of hazel-blue eyes that, for all the world, looked clear and unclouded. They were unfocused and rather twitchy, as if the owner of those eyes could not control them.
He sat with the Thermos now opened. He sang, uncorking the phial and downing it like a dry pill, only to chase it down with the steaming contents of the Thermos. Miko's terrified voice broke the stupor in the room.
"Seppuku!"
"What? What was that, Miko?" June immediately turned, speaking in rapid-fire.
"Seppuku. Ritual suicide."
"Miko. Jack. Get my bag. Rafael-"
"Miss Darby, I want to stay and help." The boy looked on the verge of tears as Bumblebee knelt, offering his hand. Rafael crawled onto the hand and curled up a little as 'Bee held him against his chassis.
"Raf..."
"Please."
"Bumblebee. Please take Rafael home." Optimus' tone brooked no argument. Arcee transformed, ready to take Jack out of here; Bulkhead at her heels. Upon delivering June's kit, and a quick glance at each other, Jack and Miko joined their guardians. They could be of no further help here. It was silent agreement between them that they'd meet each other outside the base.
"Optimus, he's down. Primus, what did he do to himself?!" Ratchet's voice held an edge to it as the others escorted their charges out of the base. They didn't need to see this any further. June raced up the catwalk to get a better look at the monitor. The white-clad human was down. His skin lost colour and a trace of the silvery-grey tainted water trickled from his mouth.
The Prime flew into action then, both giving and receiving a command.
"Ratchet, the Ground-bridge. Now!"
"Get him in here, Optimus! I want that phial!"
It was a flurry of activity as Ratchet and June readied the medical bay. The Prime transformed, racing out of the base. In moments, he was back in bipedal form, clawing his way up the cliff side. Under his breath, the massive Cybertronian growled a prayer.
"By the All-Spark, don't be too late."