( tf idw 2019; gn!user; tw! )

It felt as if your spinal strut or your entire exoskeleton was being ripped out, leaving behind an empty shell. Your shoulders were slumped, your head hung limp and lifeless, and you yourself looked so... wrong. The gleam in your optics had died – they were empty, matte, devoid of the gaze she loved so much. You looked as if you had been forged from the wrong metal or painted the wrong color – you were supposed to be different.

Something painfully pricked at Pyra Magna's spark, giving her no peace and eating away at her from within.

The desire for justice, rage, had clouded her vision – Pyra Magna couldn't think of anything back then except saving the prisoners, punishing Exarchon, and making him answer for his sins. She broke the amnesty by attacking Exarchon's ship, and in the end, it exploded with all the prisoners on board – it exploded for unknown, mysterious reasons. She knew you were on that ship, and she intended to save you. She thought she could rescue you from the enemy's grasp – but Pyra Magna couldn't.

Something inside Pyra Magna faltered and went askew.

The sight of your corpse, crumpled, mangled beyond recognition, was unbearably painful, heavy – she found it among the wreckage of that ill-fated ship on that terrible day. She would cover her optics, and every time, you would surface in her memories, killed by her mistake. You were everywhere, wherever Pyra Magna's gaze landed, haunting her like a phantom – ahead, behind, to the right, to the left.

Maybe she was simply losing her spark – the living shouldn't see the dead.

Was she the cause of your death? Did you hate her? Would this story have had a different outcome if she had acted differently? She had questions for which there were no answers. The guilt she had willingly shouldered became yet another unbearable burden on her spark, which she stoically accepted; the guilt she had taken upon herself slowly but surely corroded her from within, like rust.

"Do you hate me?" her voice was even, smooth, like polished metal, and in her blue optics was the light of bitterness. "Do you hate me for not saving you?"

You were a product of her tormented imagination, a processor that couldn't handle the crack that had formed within it, and yet she wanted to talk to you. Hear your voice.

"I wanted to save them, save everyone. But I lost." In the weight of her voice was emptiness. Her gaze slid over your battered frame before fixing on the floor. She needed to keep herself together, but the slick feelings of guilt, anger, and self-loathing clung to her lips. "I thought I was trying hard enough, that the situation was under my control, but in the end..."

She fell silent, letting the words hang in the air without continuation.

Nominus had already passed judgment on her. Soon she would be placed in stasis for megacycles – Pyra Magna hoped that would help her, but before that happened, she had to speak with you. She wanted her last memory to be a conversation with you.

Yes, you were a hallucination, and she was slowly losing her spark, but couldn't she allow herself a moment's respite just this once?