Something jolts me awake and I scramble to sit upright. I must've been laying on my side for over three hours. As soon as I did so, however, I awkwardly fell over and instinctively tried to catch myself with my arms. My frame hit the floor with a loud 'clang' and I wondered why I couldn't catch myself. I tried to move my arms, but they seemed to be bound together by some sort of restraint. Great.

"Hey, what was that noise?"

Fantastic. Someone heard me.

With a soft groan, I stayed as still as I possibly could. Pedesteps echoed off the walls, coming closer and closer. I heard a door open and risked a peek, spotting a dark figure standing a few feet away. I held my breath as they stepped closer to me, their piercing red optics becoming more visible to me in the darkness.

"You think he's awake?"

A second voice, scratchier than the first. Almost sounded like Starscream, but I doubt it's him. I haven't got the slightest clue as to what's going on at the moment, and I'm not that eager to find out either.

"I'm not sure. Let me see."

I nearly yelped when someone kicked my side sharply. I managed to get to my knees and grumbled a low string of curses, tilting my head back to look at the two mechs who had been speaking to one another. One of them had pitiful green armor with dull yellow markings, while the other had navy blue armor with the same yellow markings. They looked like twins to me.

"Where am I?" I demanded, narrowing my optics when their gazes hardened. My fear was reignited when the navy blue colored mech took a threatening step forwards and I shrunk back, immediately knowing that I had overstepped my boundaries.

"You are not in a position to be asking questions, Doctor." The mech hissed, his sharp denta just barely visible behind his parted lips. He glanced over his shoulder at his twin and nodded, stepping aside just a bit to give him some room. "You will come quietly and obediently, understood? Misbehave and you will be given the proper punishment. Skyquake, bring him to be stored with the others."

My optics widened just a touch as the green mech, whom I now knew was Skyquake, roughly took me by my bound wrists and pulled me to my pedes. "Others..?" I mumbled under my breath, surprised that there were others being kept here. It seems I wasn't the only prisoner after all.

Skyquake tugged me out of the room and silently led me down a long corridor, which was unnecessarily dark and gloomy in most parts. Nothing new there, almost every Decepticon-held building was like this. Wait... if I'm in a building, then what jostled me awake a few minutes ago? Was this a ship instead of a building? A pit of dread settled in my stomach as I reluctantly walked alongside Skyquake, my gaze locked on the floor for the time being.

A few minutes went by before Skyquake halted before a door and produced a keycard from his subspace. He kept a tight grip on my wrists while he opened the door, only letting go to shove me inside the room once it opened. I heard the door slam behind me and let out a soft sigh, glad to be away from him for now.

And then I got the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched.

Tearing my gaze from the floor, I looked up and saw several other bots staring at me with wide optics. There was something unsettling about them. They were obviously terrified, of course. I was too. But there was something else that just bugged me...

They were all medics.

I didn't recognize any of them, which confirmed my worst fear that I was most likely the sole survivor of the attack on the Iacon Medical Center. They each seemed to be from a different city state or settlement on Cybertron. Uraya, Praxus, Nyon, Polyhex, and so on. In all, there must've been about ten of them in there. Eleven, including me. There was some sort of pattern here, but I couldn't put my finger on it at the moment.

"Y-You're from Iacon, right..?" One of them hesitantly asked me, his optic ridges furrowed in a fearful frown. He looked like he was from Nyon.

I was slightly taken aback by his question and it showed in the expression on my face. "How did you know?"

A different medic, probably from Polyhex, stepped up and looked at me. "We heard someone talking about bringing in a mech from Iacon with Him." The mech seemed to shudder when he said the last word and he shrunk back into the safety of the small crowd.

I rose an optic ridge and cautiously approached them, keeping my movements slow and smooth so I wouldn't spook them. They were all restrained like me: wrists bound and ankles free. "Him?" I questioned.

"We... We don't speak of his name out of fear that he'll come for us...." The first medic mumbled in response. "You must know who he is. He's the one who did this to us. The one who did this to you."

"Megatron?"

"Shhh!" I was immediately shushed by the same medic, who reached up to cover my mouth with his hand. "He'll hear you!" He hissed into my audio receptor quietly.

I nodded slightly and lowered my voice the next time I spoke. "Do you have any idea why he's keeping all of us in here?"

The mech shrugged before gently taking me by my arm and pulling me closer to the group. "We don't know for sure, but I'm certain it's for some horrible purpose." He mumbled softly. He stared at the ground for a moment before looking back up at me. "What's your name?"

"My name is Ratchet. Yours?"

"Fuse. My name is Fuse."

"Well, Fuse..... it looks like we're in this together, huh?"

"Us and everyone else."