The room was lit by nothing but six candles. The dim shimmering light emanating from these candles barely lit up the circle they were carefully arranged in and the paragraphs of arcane runes and letters that circled them further, nor did they light up the three 'offerings'.
The small set of Energon lit itself up, the tiny dead animal insecticon barely cast a shadow itself, and the plucked roots gave away their position with their earthy smell.

The only other thing lit up in the room, was the dim outline of a person.
They hummed, faltered and stuttered a series of strange alien words put together and crafted eons before time was recorded.
They flipped a page in the book they were holding and continued reading. The mere fact it was a book with pages, and not a datapad, was testament to just how ancient the actions being performed were.
The persons chanting reached a loud crescendo as they thrust their arms into the air.

Nothing happened.

"What a load of shit" The lone entity in the room muttered.
A switch was flicked and with a few blinks light filled the room.
It was a plain rectangular room, a cushy couch was the most obvious piece of furniture as it faced a large inset televisual screen. Behind it there were a few bookshelves containing datapads and various other miscellaneous items. The room ended in a window, which currently had the curtains drawn, a kitchen branched off from this main room also, there was no door separating it, just a counter. There were two doors on the opposite wall, one lead to a respite chamber which contained a bedside counter and a wide comfortable berth topped with a blanket for extra heat regulation. The other door lead to a small washroom consisting of a shower, bath and a waste receptacle.
This was a standard room for a student.

Said student and occupier of this room stared tiredly at the circle at their feet, sighed and placed the book upon one of the available shelves then chose to sag down into the couch.
They were very tall with large broad shoulders to match. Their plates were a dull steel-y blue with some parts that bordered on purple. Their sharp faceplates were accompanied by red optics glowing a dark shade of red, their helm held their most noticeable feature. Two large horn-like protrusions. Behind all of this their wings, small by Seeker standards, did not make much of an impression.
This large mech went by the designation: Cyclonus.

Slouching on the couch Cyclonus pondered cleaning up the painted circle or if he should catch any late night transmissions.
With a groan he regretted staying up so late to mess about with some ancient text he found.
It was too tempting however. Bound books were rare on Cybertron people could go about their entire life cycles without ever seeing one.
The one Cyclonus found prattled on about demons, spirits and the ways to summon them.
It was nothing but ancient superstitious drivel, spawned from nothing more than a lack of understanding of natural occurrences.
It just felt like something fun and amusing to do.
The tedious humdrum of the life of a student had left him feeling rather desperate for something fun, silly and stupid to do. How could he resist it when he found such an ancient thing that came with instructions no less?.
Studying had been a bit of a drag, but now he was tired and not going to get a proper recharge cycle in before the next day.

Something groaned before he had the chance to.
Cyclonus frowned but guessed it must be another student in the same set of apartments as himself, another who must regret an ill-planned late night.
Aching joints popped and groaned as Cyclonus stretched out on the couch, even sitting down for a few minutes his systems had already slowed to a near-recharge rate.
Grasping the back of the couch Cyclonus used it to heave himself up into a kneeling position on the seat. Tired optics squinted at the sloppy circle and he wondered how many, if not all, of those 'ceremonious' words he'd butchered.
Obviously quite a few, whatever he summoned seemed quite lame.

With a confused whirr and a few blinks Cyclonus's optics hastened to adjust, trying to view what was in front of him clearly.
A figure was curled up in the centre of the circle.
It had it's feet tucked under it's aft and fore-helm pressed to the floor.
The way it groaned felt as if it hadn't used it's ventilation system for a good few thousand years, It's weak gasps barely kicked up a speck of dust.
It had purple plating and a white band around it's waist. The majority of it's back was taken up by a odd spike-like protrusion. On certain parts of it's body it had red markings that did not seem etched into it's plating but still throbbed gently as if a quiet pulse motioned behind them, a white tail with a darkened purple tip coiled around it's body.
Slowly it tried to move.
The audible creaking of it's shuddering movements sounded painful, Cyclonus could hardly imagine how they felt.
One pair of arms slowly slid across the floor while another curled around it's helm.
Four arms. This thing had four arms.
It's legs appeared to end is somewhat insectoid feet, Cyclonus couldn't tell, it had shackles on both of it's legs, the chains that once connected them to each other, or to another place now stopped at three links.
The creature wobbled as it struggled to move.
All six limbs were splayed out as it desperately tried to move in any way possible, it's tail waved about erratically as it struggled to balance the rest of the body, Limbs twitching erratically as it grunted confirming the pain of it's creaking joints.
It moved as if it had never moved before.
It's strained groans were gentle and pained as it wobbled to some sort of vertical life.
Slowly it seemed to remember some kind of action akin to walking.
Awkwardly one clawed foot pulled it's way in front of the other. Toes dragging along the floor as it failed to lift.
The chains made a heavy clunking scrape as they were pulled along behind it.
It, whatever it really was, whined in response to the noise, twitching as if it tried to curl in on itself before taking another wobbly step forwards.
It reminded Cyclonus of a badly performed puppet, bobbing around on it's strings with little direction.
Now it was upright Cyclonus could see more of it's features like a tri-pointed crest upon it's fore-helm with something in the centre, It's chest plates pointed out in front of it a little and were marked with the same redness that decorated it's upper body but was lacking on the lower half.
The way it wobbled about so precariously Cyclonus wondered if he'd needed to catch it before it went clattering to the floor.

It practically collapsed onto the small desk in front of the window.
One pair of arms propped it up while another slowly patted their way towards the curtains.
Red. It's Optics were red. The thin slivers of red twitched as each optic tried to open fully but seemed incapable of managing.
It patted and stroked the curtains several times as if examining their validity, the entity confused by the sensation of the fabrics, before slowly peeling back the edge to look at the city below. Quiet and still in it's sleepy state.
The sight of the city seemed to mesmerise it and Cyclonus made his move.

It was just a bad dream after all.
His memory circuits were just kicking up a fuss during his recharge cycle and playing back a distorted view of his room to him and this being in front of him, was just a mish-mash of various other mechs he had passed during his time.

It coughed and gagged in shock as it spun round to look at him. It's entire body heaving at the motion.
Some nightmare.
The 'something' in the centre of its crest was another eye as it snapped round to stare at him with all three wide in shock.
Cyclonus froze.
It froze.
There was an uncomfortable near-silence as the two stared at each other.
Cyclonus had no idea what to do and it shook as it breathed heavily, maintaining eye contact.
Two slits on it's face twitched and it's lips quivered.
Cyclonus swallowed, and carefully went to stand upright.
The moment he moved the creature hissed and turned away from him. It's body flattened and faded into a shadow on the wall as if it had never existed.

"Oh." Or some noise similar passed through Cyclonus' vocal unit.
Wobbling away from the main room and to his berth Cyclonus vowed never to consume whatever he had eaten or drank last that day.
It gave him the weirdest of dreams.


Author's Notes:

I just wanted to upload the first chapter to 'test the waters' a bit.
This fic will currently be on hold until I've finished one of my other fics so I don't have too many ongoing stories.