[The camera is shaking so violently, those of you with motion sickness problems may need to go find a toilet. It's shaking because Dirge is holding it and he's shaking too. The screen catches a blurry grin before the communicator is tossed onto something solid.]

Okay I knew human food was good but I never got to taste all of it the last time and there's this stuff that I found in the junkyard called 'candy' and its loaded with sugar and sugar tastes AMAZING and its in other stuff too- hold on.

[He needs to stop and take a deep breath, because weirdly enough he can't talk non stop as a human without this burning sensation in his chest.]

Anyhow there was these brown bags with all different colored little circles with an 'm' on them and also a couple of boxes of these squishy square things named Debbies and they're so good even when you mix the two together OH AND DON'T FORGET THE ROLLS OF WHITE MUSH I CAN FIT THREE OF THOSE IN MY MOUTH AT ONCE BECAUSE I AM THE KING OF TWINKI- .....


U...urgh... [He doubles over suddenly, clutching at his midsection.]

H-hold on again.

[Dirge lurches off camera and there's the sound of...yup, wretching. Candy wrappers and empty boxes of snack cakes litter the ground behind where the jet turned human had been standing.]

OH WOW ITS EVERY COLOR!

[Anyone passing by a certain area of Nexus's quadrant may have heard a terrible crunch of metal and some spectacularly loud howls of pain a couple minutes before this recording. The camera flicks on and it shows mostly Dirge's face, scrunched up in pain, a stream of energon sliding down one side of his jaw.]

...I'm stuck.

[The zoom adjusts, revealing the teal jet pinned to the ground on his back like an exotic butterfly by a sharp, rocky outcropping piercing him straight through the gut.]

What's worse... my lunch got away.

So many mechs dieing around here. It feels like home. [He sighs wistfully.]

Speaking of dieing- I have a question. I want to know about sparkeaters. Someone mentioned there might be others around here who know about them. I'm very interested.

[Only Dirge's upper half is visible above a pile of scrap- he's been spending most of his time in the junkyard rather than the living space provided at the temple. Every once and a while he's been leaving with armfuls of stuff and heading back towards his room.]

...It's hard to think. [He's mumbling, mostly to himself but somewhat directed at the camera.]

I have enough trouble with that without something else crowding my processor. [He's sorting trash, slowly and methodically, with much less enthusiasm than usual.]

I want to go somewhere. To look for something. But I don't know what it is. [Growl] It's very frustrating.

[When the camera clicks on, all that's visible above a mound of junk is a pair of yellow wings. They twitch, wiggle, and then suddenly go straight as someone murmurs something that sounds like Oh, yes. That's lovely~.

The junk shudders and then explodes outward as Dirge climbs his way out of it, shaking off random scraps.]

Another day, another new world! And this one is so full of things just lying around...

[He's holding something that looks like it could be a mangled old gas mask, pinching experimentally at the long tube hanging from it.]

This place is mine now, understand? I've marked it. [He gestures and the camera swings to the word 'DIRGE' spelled out in old cans.]

So stay away. [The screen is obscured by a pointing claw, then narrow red optics, and then....just junk. It seems he's gone back into the pile.]