https://twitter.com/OrangeSky_2019/status/1173458134888800256?s=09

(This is what it's based on)

nearly one year
That was how long he'd been here, caught in this substance. Caught in this horrible substance that confined him to the ground. He'd fallen from the Ark as it crashed here, having been unable to latch onto anything or anybody. He knew the circumstances were... rare, to say the least.

He was unable to dig himself out. No matter what he tried, and no matter what he used, he was trapped. Thankfully he had been able to get his helm above the substance before it got to his systems, leaving less of a chance that he offline.

Though today, both his main stores and his backup stores of Energon were nearly gone. It was a foolish idea not going into stasis sooner, he knew... but he simply hadn't. He had held onto the hope that the Autobots would find him quickly after the inevitable crash, but that never happened. So he wasted away here, waiting until the day he was rescued - or more likely, offlined.

He sighed quietly to himself as he stared at the sand. He'd only been able to get his helm and aservo, along with his shoulder above the grainy slag he'd come to hate. Warnings flashed across his HUD as he swiped them away, trying to avoid the thought of the only procedure that could keep him online. Emergency stasis, while something a bot could use to possibly save themselves, didn't always mean they survived. Not with circumstances like his, where this substance eroded his armor.

But he kept going back to it, knowing it was the only way if no one came to find him soon. He saved one last message should he not make it, and initiated the sequence. It took only minutes before his optics flickered, before they offlined for what Ratchet was sure was the last time.