Savior in the Dark
Chapter Four: Footsteps in Dark Places
By: Varyn
"You have to tell me what happened, where is everyone? Was the city evac--"
Varyn was cut short as suddenly a slow, eerie, and utterly tortured cry that sounded like something in between a moan and a howl peeled across the distance, echoed through the streets.
"Varyn, we have to get out of here. Run!"
"How do you know my name?"
"RUN!"
She did as he bade, and they dashed through the streets as night fell quickly around them. Everything grew quite dark, save for a faint beacon of white light shining far away.
For several moments as she ran, the only sound Varyn could detect was a steady clink clank, clink clank, clink clank…As she and the mysterious young mech, who’s name she still did not know, ran through what seemed to be an endless labyrinthine maze. Then, at the edges of her perception, it began to seem to her like the sounds of their footsteps were being echoed, or multiplied, a faint yet rapid clinkityclinkityclinkityclinkity. It became louder and steadily louder still, until she recognized that it was in fact the sounds of pursuit, and furtively she glanced over her shoulder. There, rounding a bend in the road, was a group of about 20 ‘bots, racing after them as though their very lives depended on it.
Varyn called breathlessly to her companion:
"Look—there are others, other Cybertronians, alive!"
But there was something about the look in their optics and the way their arms had been outstretched and grasping, briefly though she had glanced upon it, that made Varyn almost expect his next statement:
"For the love of Primus, don’t stop, and don’t look back."
Varyn obeyed and looked straight ahead, just in time to see several more of the crazed-looking things leap out 20 feet in front of them. Varyn drew her sword as if it were instinct to do so, but even as she did so she was warned:
"No! Shoot them, don’t get close!"
But by the time he had finished saying it, he had already shot them, and their pursuers were nearly caught up. Above them in a building that was perhaps 50 feet away, the soft white light still shone, from a window in one of the 6th story apartments. The mech ran towards that building, and Varyn shot after, asking simply:
"Towards the lit room?"
He nodded, and now that Varyn knew where they were headed, she gathered her final ounce of strength and sprinted for the double-doors of the main entrance with all her might. She realized that she had to get there well ahead of her pursuers in order to have time to get the door open before they were upon them.
She pulled it ajar and leapt inside, waited for her companion to enter, then slammed it shut.
"Keep it closed!" She instructed him, as she ran for the nearby stair railing, then using her wrist cannons, shot off a section on the banister and brought it back to the door. She wedged it through the 2 handles, bolting the doors shut, just as their pursuers crashed into outer door, and began to smash against it again, and again. It wasn’t going to hold.
They dashed for the stairs, running up flight after flight. On the third story, they heard the doors burst open. On the fourth story they looked down and saw the wild, crazed, grasping, ‘things’ that pursued them rushing up the stairs, their optics hot with menace. By the 6th story, they were catching up fast. As Varyn rounded a hallway, following the mech towards the lit room, she glanced back hurriedly to see that they were no more than 30 feet behind. Her companion banged on the door of the lit room with both fists. Varyn stood still a moment, staring fixated into the strangely haunted optics of those who were after her--then just as they reached out to seize her, she was grabbed from behind and pulled into the light, seemingly almost at the same instant the heavy door slammed in front of her and was locked with a sound click-click. Then she was ushered through a second, and even stronger-looking, door, getting one last glance, through a window, at the twisted faces--one last listen to the screeches, before she was inside the lit room.
"Welcome, Varyn."
She recognized the voice from the phone.
"We were almost beginning to think we’d lost you."