Author's Note:This story was written for the January fanfic contest on TCA. While I purposely wrote this without any names mentioned, it was written with my personal fan-created Transformer in mind. So technically this is my second posting of a story with a fan-created Transformer, the first being Megatron's Master Plan Gets Dusty. Enjoy and please leave feedback on your impressions with the story. But no pressure. :)
Also, I would like to thank MariaShadow for her encouraging reviews of my stories, both here and on TCA, as well as the competitions that she host on TCA. I don't think I would have gotten this far with my fanfic writting without those competitions and the openess of the members.

Disclaimer: Well... no names are mentioned in this story, but better safe than sorry. Transfomers are copyright of Hasbro/Takara. I make no money off of this whatsoever and it is not intented to infringe on the copyright of said companies, but for my own personal enjoyment, and those of the readers.

Darkness.

Pitch black darkness.

It surrounded her, a never ending sea that swirled all around. No matter how hard she tried looking, she could never see anything else beyond it.

In her hands she held the only thing keeping it at bay. A candle flame, it's light barely enough to light her hands and face. But it was all she had against the cold blackness.

She use to have so many more, she remembered. Lifting her gaze from the flame in her hands, she gazed with sorrow at the snuffed out candles around her. Their wax was gray and lifeless, their wicks burnt black. They would never give out light again.

She could name every one of them still, and when they had all been burning brightly, they had created a circle of warm light for her to live in, where she could see the sun shining. Darkness had barely been visible back then. With despair she remembered when the darkness had intruded so rudely into her life, blowing it's frigid breath into her circle of warmth. With frightening swiftness it had snuffed out the surrounding candles, one by one, till only one flickering candle had remained in the frozen darkness that had became her world.

With a gasp, she realized the darkness had pressed in closer while she had been remembering, and inside she was starting to grow cold. Darting a look at her hands she let out a cry of dismay.

The candle had grown dimmer, it's light flickering and threatening to vanish complete. This would not do! If she could not keep this one burning, there was no hope that he would find her or she him.

She cradled it against her chest, trying to warm her core back up, pleading with it to grow strong and not leave her alone in the dark. She did not want to grow cold all over, even if being cold meant she could survive in the darkness. If she became that he would not recognize her, and besides, she craved the distant memory of warm light.

And as long as she was able to keep her one candle of hope alive, one day she would find it once again. One day, she would see him once more and then her world would be that much brighter. And one day it wouldn't be such a struggle to make it through the cycles.

She bent her head over the candle and cupped it even closer to her face and started deep into the flame. She would do her uttermost to keep it from vanishing. Even if that meant hiding it from the rest of the world. As long as she could keep it alive she had hope.

Doing her best to ignore the darkness and it's icy touch, she poured all her will into that one thought, that one hope that was her final candle. To live again, to see him once more, too feel the warming rays of light one day.

One day...

Just one...