Chapter Text
You couldn’t believe you were doing this.
Carefully placing your feet on the rocks, you slowly crossed the river, desperately trying not to get your shoes wet.
Am I even going the right way? You asked yourself bitterly, panting when you finally reached the other side.
Scanning the edge of the bank and the treeline, you nodded to yourself.
Yes, this looked familiar. As familiar as a million trees and rocks could get.
You knew your old campsite couldn’t be far. It had to be in the vicinity of the river. But, because of the construction on the nearby road, you had to park your car in a different area then you were used to, resulting in your expedition through an unfamiliar part of the woods.
Digging your foot into the dirt bank, you hauled yourself back into the trees, adjusting your heavy backpack. You only had a few hours before night would fall, and you had to finish your goal before then.
You had to find someone.
******
A few months ago, your friends planned a short camping trip to a nearby forest preserve. After a rather tough week at school, Vivi (your ever adventurous best friend) decided to pack everything into her massive pickup and drive there for a fun ‘get-away.’
Gripper National Park wasn’t exactly your ideal vacation spot. The trees were tall, dark, and loomed threateningly as you drove closer and closer to it. You had only ever visited it once, as a kid, and it was the same then as it was now: menacing, mysterious, and something out of a horror movie. It looked like the type of forest where serial killers would bring their victims.
On top of that, there had been numerous reports of people disappearing in Gripper due to ‘unknown circumstances.’ So, why in the name of all that’s holy would Vivi ever decide to go there? It was obvious to you that this was just a set-up for an awful thriller flick - but that didn’t seem to cross Vivi’s indifferent mind.
When you had tried talking her out of it, she started to make fun of you.
“You’re such a scaredy-cat!” She had complained. “Nothing is going to happen, stop being paranoid will ya? This doesn’t have anything to do with your stupid ghosts, does it?”
Vivi’s words might have stung a bit, but you didn’t stay mad at her long. Sometimes you wondered if you were sane yourself.You had promptly relented then, too upset to continue the conversation. And thus Vivi, you, and a few other friends decided to come for a weekend.
In short, you could… see things.
More specifically, things other people couldn’t see.
It started when you were younger, about five or six. You kept noticing a strange blob float in and out of your vision when you were at school. When a teacher asked you what you were staring at, you had pointed and said you could see the ‘squishy’ playing with another girl’s pigtails. Of course, the teacher merely wrote it off as a child’s active imagination.
Until you had an accident.
The things you saw varied in size and shape. Sometimes they were innocent squares or circles that only moved when something inanimate bumped into them. Others resemble animals - like that cat that likes to perch in a tree in your front yard. They often repeated actions and behaviors, and never left the spots you found them in. Some of them, however, were human-like. And humans were unpredictable.
That one day in the fourth grade, you were walking in the hallway with a friend of yours when something massive blocked your way. In your surprise, you stumbled and ended up tripping right into the dark figure, passing right through it. You had never tried to touch any of the things you saw, scared of getting hurt. But, you realized that day that you could, and when you did, you just phased past them.
Being young, you didn’t find an immediate solace in that fact.
It was a human, that much was certain. But, it was covered in so much red that you had trouble distinguishing which gender they were. You stared at them from your spot on the floor, wide-eyed and fearful, as it stared back. After a brief look of surprise passing through their blank eyes, they vanished.
You had screamed then, telling everyone to run away. It took two teachers to wrestle you to the ground to stop you from hurting yourself in your tantrum.On top of being the school laughing-stock thereafter, you came to the realization that you were the only one who could interact with these strange objects.
Your parents had been called to the office in the afternoon, and you were punished with detention for disrupting the learning environment.
As you got older, you were relieved that you hadn’t been sent off to a doctor or an asylum. Your parents merely gave you a scolding back home - more out of concern than punishment - and you tried to move on. After that, you continually reassured your parents you saw nothing.
Even though you did. Every single day. If you told them the truth, who knows where you would have ended up now? This would be a secret of yours for the years to come.
It wasn’t until sophomore year of highschool that you told another person. That person was Vivi.
Vivi lived in an old house on the outskirts of town - one built back in the 1800s with some of the original foundation intact. The first time you came over to her house, she lamented about the chill that was always present in her room. She deduced it was because of the poor insulation, but you saw the culprit almost instantly.
The woman was dressed in fancy period clothing. She was beautiful - with flowing dark hair and gray eyes. You hadn’t told Vivi right away, unsure of how she would take it. Instead, you researched into things. Apparently there had been two deaths on the property - one of them had been a young woman by the name of Taylor. Seeing a picture on the internet, your hunch was confirmed. The woman you had seen in Vivi’s house was the same person as Taylor.
You saw a ghost. A dead person.
Vivi didn’t take your discovery very well, as expected. She said she believed you, but after that, she kind of tried to forget about it. You didn’t blame her - you were just happy she hadn’t told the entire school you were insane.
Taylor never spoke to you, but once she realized you could see her, she liked to float near you more, pointing at things to convey meaning. When you were alone in the living room one time, you had found out her favorite color was blue.
You had eventually learned to deal with the things you saw, and never mentioned your growing knowledge of them to anyone else. There was no way to describe it without sounding like a lunatic, anyways.
The reason you were at Gripper right now, was because you had seen something - something unlike anything you had ever encountered. The months after your camping trip to the forest, there was an unnatural tugging in your chest to come back. You had to find out more. You just had to.
The first night in the park, you were roasting marshmallows when the ground had suddenly started shaking with tremors. Panicked, you had dropped your smore and gripped your lawn chair, heart jumping. You had thought it was an earthquake.
Casey, noticing your reaction, furrowed her brows at you, asking what was wrong. You came to the horrid realization that none of them could feel the sensation.
Drawing everyone’s concerned gazes, you had laughed it off and told them it was nothing. The conversation then returned to normal, shifting to lighter subjects - like the upcoming summer fest in town. The ground still hadn’t stopped shaking, the vibrations becoming recognizable.
Footsteps.
Something was headed toward the campsite, and it was something only you could feel.
You struggled with indecision for a long while, half-heartedly participating in the conversations to mask the fact that you were freaking out. You wrestled between telling your friends, and waiting to see if the source of the sound would appear.
After ten minutes of restlessly squirming, the footsteps had suddenly stopped.
Laying in your tent, hours later, they had started again.
This time, you were too frightened to move from your small cover. Huddling deeper into your sleeping bag, you covered your mouth to muffle your erratic breathing. You watched in fear as a massive shadow casted over the translucent material of the tent. Whatever it was, it most certainly wasn’t an animal. It was far too large to be a bear or any other predator. Vivi and Casey laid unperturbed beside you, sleeping peacefully.
This happened every night during the trip. For three days, you curled up in the tent and pressed yourself in your bag - worried that whatever kept visiting your campsite would harm you.
On the last night, your curiosity got the best of you.
As soon as the footsteps alighted in your vicinity, you peeked a cautious head out.
You would never forget what you saw.
It - It was a robot. At least, that’s what you thought it was.
You have seen some weird things in your life; giant spiders with a million legs, birds with three eyes, trees with arms. What you saw now topped every single one of those other encounters.
The being was humanoid, entirely metallic, covered in purple-black plating that glinted in the low light. It was tall , too. Bigger and more compact than any ghosts or blobs that wandered back home. You were probably small enough to fit in its palm.
Shocked, you let out a gasp, immediately clapping your hand over your mouth. The robot swiveled its head around, meeting your terrified face with a blank mask. Nothing happened in those slow-moving seconds. You felt your entire life flash before your eyes as you continued to stare back at the faceless being.
It tilited its head, almost curiously, taking a few steps to your left. The fire had been put out, so the only part of its outline you could see were glowing, purple lights. They brightness trailed after the moving figure, betraying the smooth, calculated way it was walking.You sunk further back into your tent, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible. You had already lifted your leg and placed your foot underneath you, ready to leap up and run away. But, it seemed that you had been caught. Maybe you still had a chance to pretend you couldn’t see it?
It kept walking towards you.
Nope.
If it takes one more step I’ll scream and wake everyone up-
You froze as a thick cable darted at you, aiming for your head. You squeezed your eyes shut in reaction, covering your vulnerable face.
After nothing happened for another brief moment, you opened them up in confusion. The cable was big enough to effectively clamp over you -
It had phased right through your body.
You blinked several times, looking up at the robot. A strong chill erupted across your skin, causing goosebumps to rise on your exposed arms.
Did that mean it was…?
As if had confirmed a hunch, the robot backed up, pulling in the cable with it. It melted into the shadowy treeline before you were able to say anything.
******
You were back at Gripper National Park to find it again.
It was stupid from every standpoint. It went against any form of logic. Here you were, in a creepy forest known for its missing people, chasing an apparition that may or may not really exist. You didn’t even really interact that much with all your other discoveries. What if they actually could hurt you? What if this was something more than just a hallucination, and you were diving into knowledge that should not have been been accessed in the first place?
The experience, however, was so vivid and unique, that you couldn’t help but seek it out. You needed to know. You wanted to find out the extent of your weird ability. If that meant you had to take a risk, then so be it.
You trudged on.
******
His name was Soundwave.
He wasn’t a ghost. He was a Cybertronian - an alien. You found that out on your fourth trip to Gripper.
That was all you were able to tell from what he showed you through his visor. Soundwave never spoke, he communicated through images that flashed on that mask of his. Despite your burning questions, he never answered why he was stuck the way he was. If finding out there were sentient robots on Earth wasn’t a big shock in on itself, then finding out he was trapped another dimension was just as mind-blowing.
The things you saw - they all came from another plane. It made some convoluted sense, but you were just happy to find out you haven't been hallucinating all these years. It was so liberating, you had continued to come back on a weekly basis, finding time between your schooling and job to seek out Soundwave again and again - to learn more. You had set a routine, meeting up with the bot at the same clearing each visit.
You were now in a one-sided conversation with the him; it was the fifth time you had scaled your way past the river.
Legs crossed, you sat comfortably on a flat rock. Soundwave was standing next to you, observing his surroundings. He didn’t mind you following him. Since the first encounter, he was just as curious about you as you were of him. That might be because you were the only one who could see him.
“How are you going to get out?” You questioned him, peering up under your eyelashes. “If you’re stuck like that…?”
The mech shifted, chuffing. He didn’t answer you, but he did move to sit down, fluidly bending his lithe body to press against the rock wall beside him. You watched curiously as more images flickered across that visor of his. Soundwave turned to face you as his mask pinged. There was a repeating animation of some kind of glowing vortex.
“A portal?” You squinted at him, “Where are you going to find one of those?”
He outstretched an arm, pointing a long finger north. You frowned, the obscure answer not doing much to reassure you. You huddled against your legs, biting the inside of your cheek. His responses befuddled you. If you could somehow get stuck in that alternate dimension, did that mean there were ways of getting in and out? What about Taylor and other humans?
Soundwave suddenly bent down, his mask obscuring your entire vision. “What else - can you - see?”
The voice startled you at first. It was like a broken record - a mash-up of multiple sounds to connect in a sentence. You stared back at bot, slowly processing what he was asking.
“Lots of things,” you answered, “weird shapes, animals, even humans.” You flashed him a bright grin. “Nothing like you, though! You really scared me back at the campsite.”
Soundwave’s frame rumbled, nodding as an affirmative. He didn’t move away from you, however, allowing you to observe him more thoroughly. He was intricate, a being comprised of complicated mechanical parts and pieces - otherworldly and intriguing. It’s strange, you thought, how close you could be to this amazing creature, and yet still feel no presence. The sunlight shined past his body, but he cast no shadow.
“Inquiry,” Soundwave tilted his helm in the other direction (he seemed to do that a lot).
You blinked, “Inquiry…? Oh, are you asking a question?”
The bot nodded again.
You beamed innocently, “Ask away!”
He shifted, his wing blades coming around so that he was directly facing you. The way he was positioned was imposing - he loomed like a mountain over your delicate form.
“Assistance - required. Will you assist Soundwave?”
******