Transformers: For the Future – Chapter I: The Girl

The debris of a meteor flew in all directions as something mysterious flew through it, the thing’s tail a light with a flame of white, blue and faded red. It had been wandering through the vast corners of the galaxy for roughly a century, but finally, a faint magnetic pull of a planet lured it towards the globe. The occupant inside, who was a seemingly young human girl, but with pointed ears, around the age of four was being knocked around in her pod.

“This is it… I’m gonna crash…” she told herself in her strange language. After a moment of gliding towards the blue planet, the girl’s pod was engulfed in flames, the girl getting banged around even more due to the friction on the outside of her husk. As she entered the troposphere, she realized that the sky around her had darkened. It was night on this part of the planet. While flying through the sky, she noticed beings on the ground, shrunken from her height. Through the loud cracking of her pod around her, the alien could hear every word the humans spoke with her sensitive hearing. The language was odd to her, but it seemed familiar.

Everything suddenly went black and the girl felt an immense pain on her forehead and felt something warm trickle quickly down her face and neck. Her perceptive, pointed ears suddenly popped and there was a loud, high pitched sound ringing in her head. She brought her hands up to her ears only to feel more blood pouring out. The girl opened her eyes and realized that she had just crashed, causing a crater in the soft earth, and the dirt to rise in piles fifty meters from her position in a circle, her in the center. Her window was blocked with black smoke, and she couldn’t see where she was. Panic rose up inside of her like an uncontrollable monster as she felt the destroyed pod around her heat up.

The alien kicked open the door and stumbled out, only getting far enough, right outside the circle of uplifted earth, to not get damaged by the explosion of her escape from this planet. She collapsed onto her knees; the pain suddenly becoming raw on the now exposed under layers of skin, and that high pitched screeching in her head did not help at all. Before blacking out, she saw something that frightened her: a crowd of humans gathering around her.

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The doctor exited the girl’s room, looking down at his clipboard, a frown on his lips. When he looked up, he expected to see a gaggle of people who had some sort of connection to the girl’s appearance. Instead all he saw was a slightly short, slightly plump, white-blond haired, wide-eyed woman. She was completely different from the skinny, black haired, almond eyed tall four-year old.

“Uhm… are you with the little girl..?” the doctor asked the woman who looked up immediately.

“Yes… well no… I suppose so. I’m not a family member, but I’m the one who drove her here. Is she alright?” the woman asked, anxious. The doctor looked at her a moment, and then looked back down at his clipboard.

“She’s unstable right now. We’re surprised she even survived. Her head has sustained a heavy blow, and her eardrums burst, both of them, she might go deaf. She’s lost a lot of blood, but other than that, she’s only got minor scratches and bruises. No broken bones or anything.. It’s amazing that she even managed to stay alive until now. She is currently on life support. We heard about that crash on the news moments before you showed up here. Do you know what she was doing out there?” the doctor asked the woman, looking up again.

“No. I was just on my way out of the market, on my way home from work, when there was a loud explosion. Naturally, I, like any other passerby, was curious and I got out of my car and I saw the little girl in the middle of the crowd. She was so close to the thing that had landed in the ground. Nobody was doing anything, so I asked a few men to help me carry her into my car and I drove here… Does her family know what’s happened?”

The doctor frowned. “Actually… we tried to look her up. But there is no record of her having a family. In fact, she doesn’t even seem to have a name, birth certificate, social security number or anything of the sort. While she stays here, we’ll have the police try to look her up.”

“And if… she’s got no family or anything of the sort…?”

“…She will have to be sent to an orphanage.”

“N-No. I wouldn’t want her to grow up in a place so sad like that after this… if nothing comes up, I would like to take care of her.”

The doctor smiled gently at her. “You’re a real humanitarian.”

----

Ugh…The girl laid in the bed, unknowing to where she was. All that concerned her was the aches and pains she felt throughout her whole body, which seemed to pulse from her forehead. Her eyelids flickered, opening slowly, only to shut again against the bright white lights. Where am I…? Fragments of the crash flashed through her mind, but when she tried to search deeper, she found nothing. The landing was all she could remember. When she came to think of it, she didn’t even know who she was, how old she was, or anything of the sort. Around her, she could feel slight breezes, as if someone was moving. She could not hear a thing, only the same high pitched noise, but at least it was less intense now. Slowly, she lifted her arm, which felt like a ton, to shield her eyes as she gingerly tried to open her them again.

What she saw surprised her. After she removed her arm, she was looking up at a white, tiled ceiling, the white lights still blazing. Only when a hand was waved in her line of view, did she realize there was someone in the room with her. She looked over to see a woman with a worried expression. Something was wrong. The girl didn’t belong here, she, herself, knew it. She needed to leave this place, a place where no one could find her, so that she could think without distractions.

She tried to sit up, but the woman gently pushed her back into the soft bed. The girl looked up irritated at the woman, but was shocked to see that her strange company was talking, her mouth moving slowly, but no sound came out. The girl raised her hand to her ear. They were covered with some sort of rough material that seemed to wrap around her whole head.

Once again, the girl tried to sit up, but the woman persisted. The child became impatient with her and forced herself away from the lady. She looked around, for something that she could see herself in. There was another door that was opened ajar, and led into a smaller room. She walked in and found a mirror. The girl looked at herself, as if she had never seen her reflection before.

Her skin seemed white, almost translucent, showing her veins, a deep blue against her paleness, and her black, shoulder length hair was messy, and caked with dirt and blood. The bandages around her head were red, slightly browning; there was also a long, thin band-aid on her cheek. Her brownish-scarlet eyes were wide, bloodshot and slightly baggy as if she did not sleep the night before. She looked down at herself to see that she was wearing a simple, pale blue dress. After a moment of staring, the girl sensed a pang of pain in her head, and then felt lightheaded and dizzy. She tried to stumble back to the bed, and almost collapsed, had it not been for the woman, who caught and ushered her the rest of the way.

After the girl was tucked in again, a tall, dark haired man in a blue shirt, black tie and white jacket came in. The two strangers talked. The man had a small frown under his nose as the woman jabbered away to him. Then he looked at the girl, slightly shocked at the piercing gaze she was giving the two, and then turned back to the woman, saying something, making the woman cover her mouth with her hands.

The man walked over to the girl, talking, maybe not to her, but talking all the same. By the look in his eyes, he was surprised. Very surprised. A moment passed where the two strangers stared at the girl, making her uncomfortable and then the man flipped some papers on his clipboard and wrote something. He turned the board around and showed the girl what he had traced.

She looked at the strange lines. Some were slanted, some were curved, some were vertical and some were horizontal. What ever it was, it confused her. She looked at the man, showing him her perplexed expression, and the man turned back to the woman, shaking his head.

“It seems that she can’t even read anymore. Have you tried talking to her?” the doctor asked.

The woman nodded. “She doesn’t say anything. What do think is wrong with her..?”

The doctor looked down at the girl again. “Well… considering the wound to her head, she could have forgotten how to read and possibly who she is, and maybe she’s too shocked to speak. Give her a couple of days. She’ll come around.”

But a week passed, and the girl still did not talk. By now, she was completely healed, to everyone’s surprised. She could even hear again, and after being able to hear, she quickly picked up on the language that they were speaking. On the night that she was supposed to leave, the doctor approached the woman who would now be in charge of looking after the girl.

“Ma’am, this little girl seems to be a miracle. Not only has she surpassed her critical state, making the life support that she was so shortly on, unnecessary, but her wounds have healed completely, even her head and eardrums, and in such short time. She can even hear again. If it is okay with you, now that you are her guardian, we would like to have her come in once a week for examinations,” he said, acting as if the little girl wasn’t standing there.

“Hang on… is… is this why you said that I didn’t have to pay her bill? Because you wanted to ask me if you could conduct tests on her? She’s a human, not a science experiment, Doctor! No, you can’t take her in for “examinations”! I’ll be paying her bill now, and we’ll be leaving.” The woman held out her hand expectantly for the invoice, but after a moment, the doctor shook his head.

“No, forget about the bill. I understand why you don’t want to let us examine her. I’ll pay your bill from my own pocket. You are a real saint, miss. If only there were more people in the world like you,” the doctor said, smiling admirably at her.

----

After leaving the hospital, and staying with the woman, who identified herself as Chloe Banksfield, and her daughter, Liz, they asked the girl what she wanted to be called. The child looked up at them, thinking a moment and then said in a surprisingly sleek voice for a four year old:

“Raven.”

“Raven? Why that?” Liz asked.

But the girl shrugged.

“Alright then, you are now, Raven Banksfield—” Chloe began, but Raven cut her off.

“No, just… just Raven.”

“Oh,” Chloe looked hurt, but when she saw that the girl was watching her, she smiled and nodded.

Afterwards, the three picked out a birth date for the girl. They ended up choosing the day that Raven had been found, bloodied and injured in the clearing: October 13th. Then the next day, they went to go and get her a birth certificate, a social security card and an enrollment in a school that she would start attending come November, the next month.

----

Three years passed, and the three females grew closer together. Raven was now attending elementary school, which she seemed too smart for, even though she had skipped two grades already and had started a year earlier than most children. She was now a seven year old in the fifth grade, and at the top of her classes. Liz, who was six years older than the girl was in the eighth grade and happy with where she stood, even though it seemed that her younger step-sister was a child prodigy. She was proud.

One day, when Raven had ridden her bike to the park without Chloe or Liz’s knowing (who were in the backyard, gardening), there came a low rumbling and the ground began to shake. There was a loud crash from the house, causing the two to turn around, only to see that their home had been completely demolished under the weight of what appeared to be two giant robots, wrestling each other. The two females screamed and ran from the house, gathering on the streets far enough to watch the bots duke it out.

Chloe suddenly screamed and tried to run to her now crushed house when two men who lived on her street held her back.

“What is it Mrs. Banksfield?!” asked one of the men.

“M-My step-daughter! My step-daughter! She’s still inside my house! I have to get her out!!” Chloe struggled against the men but to no avail. Only after the robots had gone, and the police and firemen showed up was she allowed to approach her house. Chloe and Liz were trembling, tears pouring from their eyes like rivers, unable to accept the fact that the innocent seven-year-old girl, who had just been getting used to her surroundings was killed, crushed underneath all that weight. Many houses on the block were destroyed, and so Chloe and Liz were herded, like the other now homeless families to the local church that was two miles from the neighborhood.

An hour later, little Raven rode her bike back to what now looked like a demolition area. Shocked, the girl didn’t watch where she was going and steered her bike directly in a pothole in the street. She was flung from her bicycle, and skidded across the hard concrete. After a moment, Raven sat up, now covered in lightly bleeding scrapes. She stood up, slowly and painfully, her skinny body shaking and walked over to the wood covered lot that was her house. For hours she stood there, staring and finally started trying to scavenge around, hoping that Chloe and Liz would pop up out of the debris, laughing and yelling, “GOTCHA!” But they didn’t.

At dusk, the girl decided to leave her home, her hands now bloody with splinters and deep cuts. She slowly walked towards the setting sun, unaware to where her legs were carrying her, transfixed by the red-orange light. When the darkness had completely fallen, she treaded across a driveway, where a bright yellow, double striped car sat. It caught her eye because of its bright colour in the suffocating night, and because most cars were not this brightly coloured, that she had seen. It was like a breath of fresh air. She walked up to it and placed a bloody hand on its hood. She looked down at the crisp, bright paintjob, and tried several times, until she finally managed to smile, but meekly, and after that, she collapsed, her head hitting the car rather hard with a dull “THUD”.

----

Raven was now conscious, but everything was still dark. She no longer felt the harshly cold wind around her, or the hard concrete underneath her. In place of those outside-ish things, was a warm feeling, as if there was a tame fire around, and the softness of a cushion. She tried to sit up, or move one of her limbs, but failed after many attempts. At last, she heard footsteps, though they didn’t sound familiar. They were light and quick, very unlike Chloe’s or Liz’s. At the thought of someone who could help her, she tried to move again, and even tried to speak, but it seemed like she had no results until a feminine voice shouted out:

“Ohmigawd! Sam! I think she just moved! Sweetheart, can you hear me? How are you feeling?” When there was no vocal answer from the girl, the voice said: “If you can hear me, try to move your finger again!” Apparently Raven had managed to twitch her finger once more, because the voice, now apparent that it belonged to a grown woman, yelled: “Sam! Hurry up!”

There were loud, rushing footsteps. “Is she okay? Did she respond?” asked a male voice.

“Yeah, she did. She didn’t speak, but she managed to move her finger,” replied the woman’s voice. “Listen, sweetheart, whatever happened to you, you were pretty banged up, and you even left a bloody trail on our car outside. We don’t know how far you’ve traveled, or anything, but you’re going to stay here until you’re better. We’re already starting to put up signs about you all over and—”

Over the woman’s voice, Raven heard the male’s voice, speaking in low tones, and far away. Her brain couldn’t make out what he was saying, but in response to him, came a low, mechanical whine. An odd sensation shot up into Raven’s heart, making it beat faster. That whine sounded familiar, but the girl couldn’t figure out from where.

After a moment, everything went quiet, and when Raven finally managed to open her eyes, she was in a cozy house, on a soft sofa with a warm blanket over her, and once again, she was covered in band-aids. Raven sat up, slowly and looked at out the glass doors behind the sofa. Dawn was breaking.

Raven sat there a moment, thinking about what had happen in the last couple of hours, only looking up when she heard footsteps on the stairs. The man and woman who had helped her were advancing on her.

“How do you feel?” the woman asked. She had no wrinkles or gray hair, but she still had a slightly aged look about her. The girl could tell that in the woman’s days of youth, she had drawn a lot of attention with her beauty.

The girl looked away and muttered something incoherent. The man stepped in her line of vision, smiling kindly down at her. He wasn’t all that different from his wife, although his eyes looked a bit more tired. “Well, since you’re going to be staying with us for a few days, I suggest we introduce ourselves. I’m Sam Witwicky, and this is my wife Mikaela Banes Witwicky. What’s you’re name?”

“I’m Raven, but you can call me Rev, and I want to thank you for helping me recover. I don’t know what became of me… Oh, and I’m sorry about the blood on your car.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam said.

“Rev? How did you come up with that?” Mikaela asked.

Raven told the couple about how one day she had nothing to do in class and decided to mix up the letters in her name. She had switched the two vowels, and that’s how Rev came about.

“Oh. Well that’s clever,” Mikaela said, smiling. “Now why don’t you tell us what happened?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she briefly told Mikaela and Sam about how she had come back to a destroyed home, and tried to search the debris, but gave up trying to find the two women and hoped that they had gotten out safe and sound.

“I’m sorry to hear about your loss. But you can stay here until you decide otherwise,” Sam said.

Raven looked around. “This is a very nice house, it seems rather aged, but still in good condition.”

Sam looked at Mikaela, both surprised. “Well, yes, it’s aged because this house used to belong to my parents before they moved to Europe.”

Raven nodded in understanding and then turned away to watch the sun rise. Mikaela had long wandered off into the kitchen to prepare breakfast, and Sam went outside to the driveway. After a while, Raven got up and followed after Sam, but he was no where to be seen, all that was there was the yellow, double-striped car, sitting peacefully, it seemed, in the soft light of the early morning sun. Raven went over to it and sat next to its front right wheel, hugging her knees close to her body. After a moment, Raven began to speak.

“I… I want to thank you. I think you saved my life last night, just by being there. …I know what you truly are. You… you don’t have to hide it from me. I don’t know why or how I know, but I just do. And… and that sound you made before… it’s familiar to me… I remember it, as if I’ve heard it all my life. Please… just show me… I… I feel like I have to see you…” She put a hand on the side of the car but looked up immediately when she realized that there was a woman standing there with her child, both of them staring. The mother walked away quickly, tugging her child, who was looking back curiously at Raven. She heard the child say to her mother:

“Mommy, is that girl crazy?”

After a moment, when the mother thought that they were out of the girl’s hearing range, she said, “Yes. Yes she is, don’t ever talk to her.”

Raven was surprised that she could hear the mother, even though she was already half a block away, but it sounded as if the woman had been right there in front of her when she said it.

Raven sighed in defeat after looking at the car once more, and then stood up turning to see Sam standing there, staring at her sympathetically. “Breakfast is ready.”

During the meal, Raven, who did not have much of an appetite, noticed that Sam and Mikaela were talking secretly with their eyes. Mikaela looked a bit panicked, while Sam looked confused. Afterwards, Sam said something about having to go on an errand run, left immediately, and did not return until night fall. Meanwhile, Mikaela and Raven shared several awkward silences over some herbal tea.

Finally, after a slow day, Raven lay down on the sofa and pulled the blanket up to her chin. She had trouble sleeping, but was persistent and kept her eyes closed. Sometime during the night, Raven heard Mikaela and Sam walking quietly down the stairs and out the door, closing the entrance behind them. Outside, Raven heard several cars pull up and then an odd whirring, and clicks. After a moment, she heard a low, rumbling voice, and she could no longer keep her curiosity at bay and walked barefooted to the door that the couple had left, opening it a crack to see.

Outside, four giant robots were looking down at Mikaela and Sam, speaking as quietly as they could. Although her eyes widened, Raven was not surprised to see them, and for some reason or other, she felt as if she had met them before. She did not know why she felt this but she did. She watched the robots for a moment, observing all of them, a hint of familiarity from all of them, but when her eyes rested on the biggest one, the one who was apparently the leader, her whole body froze and only one name came to mind.

“Optimus Prime.”