His ears were ringing and everything hurt. He tried to move but something was holding him still. Dust in the air was making it hard to breathe and he could feel the roughness of stone pressing against him. "Where am I?"
He saw a light shining through a hole above him. Around the edges he could see rock or concrete, so he was buried. He began to breathe harder but stopped as the dust burned his lungs and the tight space squeezed his chest. He looked through the hole again and saw something moving so he began to scream, "Help!!! Is anyone out there!? Someone's in here!"
Outside he could see a large, metal hand reaching down towards the rubble. "The Autobots are here!" he exclaimed as tears of relief formed in his eyes. But relief turned to fear when the rubble shifted and he saw who had pulled him free. Megatron, leader of the evil alien robots known as the Decepticons.
The malicious machine lifted his sore, limp body high into the air and smirked. The boy looked around and saw that he was in the ruins of his local shopping mall. The other humans had been herded into the wide open area in the center, surrounded by Decepticons with giant cameras filming their frightened expressions.
"It's time to begin!" Megatron yelled, causing the ringing in the young man's ears to return. Several of the cameras turned to Megatron while the rest stayed focused on the crowd. "To all Autobots! I am aware that you recently came into possession of a large cache of energon. Given how much you claim to love the worthless insects that call this planet home, I propose a trade," he smiled.
"I call them worthless, but I suppose that's not entirely fair. After all, they built my new favorite toy," Megatron lifts his arm cannon to show the camera. "The Null Ray, it violates the laws of thermodynamics and entirely erases any matter and energy caught in its beam."
The leader of the Decepticons pointed the weapon at a region of the mall that the boy prayed to God was empty.
Then he fired the beam. The human had heard of a shade of black so dark that it looked like a hole in reality. If he had to describe the weapon, that sounded about right. A pure black beam. When it hit the wall it created a sphere of the same shade and when that sphere was gone, so was everything that had been inside.
"You have exactly one day to provide us with the energon, or all of these humans will suffer the fate of this one."
The young man began to struggle violently after he heard the giant's words. He began to push and heave against his captor's giant fingers as Megatron pulled back for a throw.
In an instant, he was tumbling through the air not knowing which way was which. For a brief moment, his spinning slowed and he saw Megatron pointing that gun at him. He could see the shot charging in the barrel. As he continued to flip he felt something hit him from behind and everything became black.
Everything hurt, again.
The young man tried to push himself off the ground but his muscles and joints screamed at him to stop. So he just laid there on his stomach and tried to think. There was grass under him and it was dark, so he was probably outside. He moved his eyes as far to the side as he could and saw the trunks of trees. "A forest?"
He remained motionless for a while longer before he could gather the strength to push himself into a sitting position against a tree. The boy then did his best to collect his scattered thoughts and find out where he was.
"I was in the mall.... I was going to the movie theater connected to the mall. I needed to kill some time before my movie started so I was window shopping and then.....the floor went out from under me," his blood ran cold as he remembered the terror he felt when the second story walkway gave out. "The Decepticons came and used me to set an example, but then how did I get into the woods?"
He let out a sigh of relief that he was still alive. "Maybe that gun doesn't do what Megatron thinks it does. I might have gotten thrown here," he wondered aloud to himself. "Yeah, that would explain why I hurt even more than before. I can't hear any fighting so someone must have shown up and beat the Decepticons already."
The teen slowly rose to his feet, leaning against the tree for support. He looked around himself to see which way he should go to get back to the street. Instead, all he saw was forest mixed with some debris that looked like it was from the mall. He limped over to it, hoping to find out which way it had been blasted from.
As he reached the rubble, he began to feel uncomfortable. It was that same feeling he got whenever his friends snuck up on him for a prank. He quickly turned around to see what was behind him.
It was not his friend.
The boy screamed as he fell on the ground and scurried backwards under an overhanging slab of concrete. The thing was as large as a bear but it didn't look like any that he had seen before. The creature began to reach under the overhang and swipe at him with its claw. With a yelp, he reached his hands out to find anything to defend himself. He pulled back a piece of rebar with a tiny lump of concrete on it.
He swatted at the animal's paw to keep it from getting too close. It may have been no more effective than a fly swatter, but if his grandma had taught him anything it was that flyswatters can hurt like hell.
Suddenly it stopped. Something else had grabbed the beast's attention. Without all of the swiping and growling he was able to hear something. Someone was yelling at it! This was good for him but whoever that was definitely in trouble.
The animal moved away from the boy's hiding place and he could hear its paws thud against the grass as it began to charge at his savior. He darted out from under the concrete and looked around for the beast. He saw it crouched over something, no, someone. He didn't have time to think about how afraid he was.
Enough people had been hurt today.
He charged the creature's back, raised the rebar over his head, and let out a great scream. He momentarily felt a bit of pride as the creature turned to face him and jumped back with surprise. But once the creature was out of the way, the person underneath jumped in the way.
"Stop!" the little pink and yellow thing yelled as he skidded to a halt.
They stood there for a moment, nobody moving as the teen failed to comprehend what he was looking at. The beast that had been attacking him was a giant lion! But it had bat wings and a terrifying stinger for a tail.
His eyes darted around and he saw that the little yellow thing was some kind of tiny pegasus pony, and there were more of them! They started to walk up to him right as his breath began to get short and his vision blurred. He fell to the ground and everything grew dark again.
The last thing he heard was someone wondering if he was alright.