• Amanda slouched in her seat and stared out the window, with no particular interest in first hour Literacy Class. After a few moments, she watched a comet-shaped light plummet toward the earth's suface a few miles away from school, in the direction of her home. At the instant of impact, there was a deafening roar, and the ground shook mercilessly, knocking the computer to the floor, and misplacing many files and papers among the debris that fell from the ceiling. Students screamed and tried in a vain attempt to crawl under their desks and protect themselves from the ongoing chaos. The lights flickered, before finally turning off. Amanda was the only student to remain sitting in their seat. The tremors slowly faded away as everyone regained calmness. Immediatley appearing in the sky were four more bright lights. They were much smaller than the first one, and they landed farther away. Mrs. J got up and dusted herself off, still a bit confused by the mishap. "Okay everyone, calm down and....and...hold on" She cautiously stepped over a fallen bookshelf and a pile of ungraded papers, she was going to have a lot of organizing to do when everything is back in running order. After about five minutes Mrs. J came back. "everyone, school has been cancelled until further notice, the Elementary and High school have suffered similar damage, so has the rest of the town. Bussers, come with me, the buses are ready to take you home. Walkers, stay here." Amanda and a handful of others followed Mrs. J out in the hallway, grabbed things from their lockers, and followed her to the doors where, as promised, the buses were waiting to take them home. The roads, surprisingly, showed no evidence of an earthquake, making the ride home easier with less bumps and obstacles. Amanda thought to herself, what just happened? Is this the apocalypse, the end of the world as everyone knows it? What if there are such things as aliens? . When Amanda got home and started walking up the driveway, she cought a glimpse of a silver Mazda Miata driving up the street. Amanda could have swore there was no driver, but she dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. She entered her home and flopped her backpack on the dining room floor in front of the sliding patio door, took out her mp3 player, turned it on, and quietly slipped out of the door as if she never came in. Snow started to fall from the December sky. The chilly air nipped and bit at Amanda's face as she walked behind her house into the pasture and followed a path she had made herself that led into a dense forest. As she walked she felt like she was being followed, but continued walking in fear of looking behind herself. Something with a large clawed hand grabbed her from behind and seemed to squeeze every living breath out of her. All she saw was a giant shadow and a set of red eyes that burned intensely before her vision went black and the rest of her body went numb.

    Amanda woke up, head aching and vision blurry.
    "Get up, Squishy," rumbled a deep and menacing voice from across the room. A giant black and white mechanical form got up and walked over to where Amanda was lying on a huge makeshift table in the middle of the room. The exhausted "Squishy" looked toward the cieling of the abandoned warehouse wearily before finally turning her headto look at the red optics staring down at her angrily.
    " I said up, you stupid squishy!" The silhouette slammed a clawed black fist on the table with a loud thud. Making the table shake for a brief second.
    "Barricade...leave it alone, you almost killed it on the way here," A larger shadow with wing-like protrusions on its back emerged from the darkest corner. It's optics were red, but the weren't as bright as Barricade's. Barricade turned around sharply and growled at the much larger shadow before walking away to stand in a corner, arms crossed, and seething. Doing what looked like trying to glare a hole in the other's back.
    "Hmmm, how interesting..." The shadow cautiously poked Amanda in the side with a claw that was sharp, yet blunt.
    Barricade narrowed his optics. "Why are you poking it, Blackout? You told me to leave it alone." Blackout tilted his head up slightly, "At least I won't accidentally kill it," he looked back down at the human lying in front of him. Amanda finally found the strength to speak to the staring behemoth. "What...what do you want from me?"
    Barricade walked over and stood next to blackout with high interest. Barricade spoke first, "We want to know where Megatron is, and why you have a strange energy reading."
    "Barricade," Blackout interrupted,"It probably doesn't know who Megatron is."
    Amanda blinked stupidly, "What's a Megatron?" She was now sitting upright. Barricade was frustrated at this point."RAHHH!!" he gripped the table with so much force, he left deep, jagged marks in the table's metal surface. Amanda flinched and curled up into a pathetic ball.
    "Barricade, you fool! How do we expect to get answers when you're scaring it half to death?" Blackout shoved Barricade. Barricade muttered a lenghy string of Cybertronian curses under his breath, before exiting the warehouse through a large hole in the wall, probably made by either Blackout or Barricade. Blackout crouched until he was eye level with her.
    "Well, where were we? Ah, I remember now. Megatron is the fierce and might leader of the Decepticons, but he was killed by one of your kind, Samuel James Witwicky. We are here to recover the shard of the Allspark that survived, so that we may try to resurrect meagtron's lifeless shell below what you squishies call an ocean." Amanda frowned deeply at being called a Squishy, resulting in a menacing scowl from Blackout. "Well what do you want me to do about it?" Amanda asked fearlessly.
    Blackout growled. But when she stuck her tougue out, Blackout grabbed her and took her outside, grip tightening the more she protested and flailed.