Ghosts
Chapter 1: Praxians Pt. 1
They all saw ghosts.
Not ghosts in the sense of a friend, lover, relative or sometimes, even enemy, "making contact from beyond the grave." Usually. Most were...memories, really. Images, the kind who stood silently just behind the living, sometimes accusing, sometimes pitying. They haunted dreams, shadowed their every step.
He's lost count of the friends he's lost over the millennia. The enemies he's killed. Relatives. The few more-than-friends-but-not-quite-lovers he'd taken. It...hurt too fragging much, so he stopped counting.
Most disappeared after a few vorns. Except one. It was a face he didn't recognize, but still haunted him daily. He wished he knew why. He had described the mech a few times to several different 'bots, but no one would give him an answer, and that frustrated him.
It had something to do with an injury he had sustained during the attack on Autobot City. A severe head trauma caused his memories to scramble. It had taken several Earth years for them to come back to him. They all returned but the ones involving the mech, who he knew had to be relevant to him somehow. Why else would he see him?
Eventually, after another trying year of failing to get answers, he'd reached the point where he had yelled at the mirage to go away. To his surprise, it did. Reluctantly, it seemed. Before it faded, he heard something that made him pause and lower the datapad he had prepared to throw.
He swore the mech had said, "My name was Prowl."
...I...don't even know...