Bishop Ratchet's Log: YEAR [DATA EXPUNGED] A.P. CYCLE 43

I was on graduation duty this time around. Usually I'm not, but since the Prime issued a new method of baptism, the other bishops have been drawing straws for who does them. I thought it was silly at first. Why were they all so unwilling to volunteer for such an honor as ushering young ones over a new threshold of their lives as children of the Allspark?

Now I know why.

There was a monoformer who came through the line today by the name of Chromia. She had such a warm smile and such an earnest passion to learn more about the good word. In fact, she wanted to become a medic like myself; she had already made herself a prosthetic leg from just some spare parts, a creation born of necessity after a wartime tragedy. She was so excited to see the Prime in person and bowed so deeply before him that I feared she would fall over. When she laid back in that baptism chamber, she reminded me of the sight of my late mentor's frame in her casket.

I should have taken that as a sign. She didn't sit back up. She didn't open her optics. She didn't go back to smiling. She didn't move an inch. A check of her vitals showed that she had offlined.

I was the one who turned the chamber on. It was my duty to turn the chamber on. I killed her.

I stood there frozen and watched as they took her sparkless frame away to the chute. I felt like my spark was just watching my frame perform the entire rest of the graduation ceremony. My optics zoned out into the middle distance and let the strut memory take over. Before I knew it, it was over. The Prime looked at me with an unreadable expression when all was said and done. I was too scared, too dumbfounded to speak up. He issued this. I can't do anything to change it, but I don't know how I would change it because I don't know how it was before. I don't even know if this is better than what we had before, and frankly, I don't think I want to know the answer.