A flash of light in the darkness illuminated the room in a sudden freezeframe camera shot. The Mandalorian was there, pistol held just overhead, the door between us closing as the switch was smashed, sparks from it scattering across the floor and fading into the darkness. Back within it, I reached for my lightsaber at my belt.
The cool metal of the handle chilled my hand as I gripped it. The weight was perfect, exactly to my specifications: heavier near the pommel to fight off the bouncing of the blade upon impact, wider near the top to protect my fingers, and just weighty enough to feel secure that it could take a fall. I wiped the sweat from my brow with my off hand as the blade erupted from the handle in an instant.
The soft blue glow cast eerie shadows along the walls as I passed them, checking each corner slowly to be sure we were alone. The Mandalorian and I. The soft vibrations of my weapon brought a sense of security with it that surprised me.
I approached the door and knew it wouldn’t open again after that laser shot. Instead, I held the saber aloft, perpendicular to my body with my main hand holding the pommel, and slowly pressed it into the door. The metal began to glow and bubble, eventually smoldering a molten orange that bubbled and boiled around the shimmering blue beam of light. I pressed forward until the blade sunk through to the other side and began to pull to the right and then back down about two feet across.
A moment’s hesitation later, and I was staring at a new, though much smaller, door within a door. I pressed my hand to it and closed my eyes, listening intently not with my ears for any sign of life.
Darkness, no, a hallway with a light flickering in and out of life. Several metal crates piled on the side and an overturned table. Numerous small bolts and tools beside a decrepit droid that was rusted and covered in holes.
I began to recede back into the confines of my mind when something caught my “eye”. A flicker of movement in the dark. The light flashed back on and sputtered, revealing nothing new. It went out again. That same motion in the back of the hallway returned and vanished as soon as the light appeared.
I pulled away from the door and focused on my empty left hand until it felt hot. I could feel it stinging and tingling as if it had fallen asleep or had a thousand tiny insects crawling about it. Sweat grew in my palm as I clenched it into a fist.
Then I had it.
I thrusted it forward so fast it was a blur to my own eyes. Instantly the heat dissipated and collided against the roughly hewn door with the sound of a muffled explosion. A sort of whoompf as the kinetic energy displaced the air between it and the door, then a loud metallic scraping as the heavy chunk of metal hurtled down the hall and crumpled everything within the room against it.
I stepped through slowly, lightsaber ready, and quickly leapt over the debris. No sign of a body. No sign of anyone being here at all. I cursed and entered the next room. Within it were a dozen generators, all the size of a small room. The whirring and monotonous drone of the machines were long gone here. These had not seen life in decades. Dust covered the floor here and hung in a sort of fog, swirling behind me as my cloak dragged over the floor silently.
The ceiling was low with numerous support struts stabbing into it seemingly at random. Whoever built this place must have been in quite the hurry. I returned my focus to the room and passed the generators one by one until I had found the center of the room. Sure enough, there was a small cot surround by crates of supplies and random food detritus.
Someone is here.
The emergency lights that covered the ceiling in even intervals shut off with the echoing sound of laughter.
Damn.
I looked about the room, staring into the darkness and saw just that. Only the few feet around me were illuminated from my weapon. I waved it about to shed some light but found nothing. The laughter grew slightly louder now.
I gripped the handle tighter.
“Velcome, Mastuh Jedi. I vas oping to ave a visituh.” The voice cooed. It had a distinct accent that was difficult to identify and a clicking noise behind it. “It isn’t often we ave guests.”
“We?” I inquired in an attempt of bargaining.
“Oh yes, Mastuh Jedi, my family is ere. You will meet dem soon enough.”
“And what would you have me do?”
It laughed a wheezy laugh and coughed before replying. “Feed.”
As soon as the words were said, multiple voices rose from the surrounding blackness. High pitched squeals of delight among a cacophony of guffaws. I turned toward the sounds with my saber raised. A sharp pain twisted in my back from behind and threw me off my feet.
I rolled across the ground and into one of the generators. I stumbled and turned back around, waving the lightsaber like a torch.
Only the dark smiled back.
I reached to my back and felt a small hole in my robes, sticky and warm. I grimaced and wiped my hand across my pantleg. I scanned the darkness again and waited. A few sniggers called quietly out to me.
I turned abruptly the other way and swung. A loud scream filled the air as the creature crumpled to the ground in a heap. I looked down on it quickly before backing away.
It was short, maybe a meter, with a thin bird-like head and reptilian body that walked on its hindlegs. It wore clothes but without further inspection I couldn’t tell whether or not it had weapons. However I did get a good look at its long, jagged beak; the end of which glistened with moisture.
Several yells echoed throughout the room.
“E got is, now you’ll get yers!”
I turned toward the voice again and leapt forward, somersaulting over the speaker and lashed out low. A meaty thump hit the ground just after I did. I approached it to see the headless creature convulse then still. I backed away until another sharp pain shot through me. I whirled about and swung too late. Then another as I was turned away struck me. I swung side to side as if waving off a bug in a feeble attempt of fending them off.
I can’t see a damn thing, I’m the only light around here.
Just then I flicked the lightsaber off and sat quietly. I felt my way to a corner and leaned against it, crouched. The skittering of talons and laughing called out to me. I remained still and reached out with the force, feeling my way about the room. The generators sat still and cold, taking up the majority of the space, meanwhile a few flickers of life bobbed about between.
A sudden movement caught my eye a few feet away and I lashed out, slicing the creature in half. Instantly I returned to the dark, weapon holstered, and waited. Sure enough, a second jumped out from the shadows. I pushed off from the wall and swung my hips about in a swivel until the back of my boot landed squarely against it’s thin neck. It cracked audibly, so fragile, until the back of its head hit the shoulders.
I reached out again and saw several more of them funneling their way toward me, somehow knowing where their siblings went. I pulled back from them when a faint glow simmered within one of the generators. I reached out again and inspected the invisible aura.
Heat.
Calculatingly, my brain worked to resolve this issue. The building was abandoned, practically quarantined, and decrepit. Completely devoid of anyone else.
Except for one.
I shrugged and waited, sensing their movements until I was sure of their positions. Suddenly I leapt from cover and jumped into the air spiraling, and using my momentum, threw my saber in a tight arc that swirled into the generator without slowing and passed through in a shimmering shower of sparks.
The wind hit me first.
It blew my hair back and pressed me against the wall, soundless and invisible. Then the fire came to view. The light was immense in the black room. The flames leapt out and licked against the other generators until they too caught and erupted, each reaching out with great tendrils of writhing inferno. There was a split second of sound, one like crushing metal, then all was silent.
I just sat and watched as the explosions shook the entire foundation and blinded me with a white glare. They were beautiful in a way, dancing across the ceiling and passing from one fire to the next. Mesmerizing. I don’t know how long I sat there or what it was that left me know it was time to leave. Maybe it was the large slab of ceiling that plummeted beside me. Or perhaps it was the growing flames that began to consume the floor and walls.
Regardless, I was running. Lightsaber flashed back to my hand and tucked safely into my belt, I was sprinting through halls and rooms alike, barreling over tables and crates and anything else in my path. My focus was on my breathing only. The world around me, still silent, was a blur as I willed myself faster and faster, knowing the complex was coming down behind me. I could feel the reverberations in my feet the few times they hit the floor.
A small glint of light in front of me, like a piece of silver, shone for a brief second. A rush of sound like a waterfall brought me back as the grenade exploded a few feet ahead of me. The impact was jarring but I don’t remember what the explosion itself looked like. But I will never forget looking up and seeing my reflection in the mask of that Mandalorian.
I looked scared. Frightened even. My eyes were wide like a child’s and my mouth turned down into a grimace. I had never felt so vulnerable before. The training had come so easily, so swift like I was meant for this. But the reality, if this was real at all, had hit me as hard as the grenade.
Shaken, I remained frozen as it reached down and gripped my collar. It pulled me closer to its helmet and said in a muffled and nearly robotic tone:
“Gotcha’.”
Then it was too much. I closed my eyes and screamed, terrified and angry at the same time. Not caring if it was truly his fault or if it was my master’s, no one had prepared me for this. None of us were. How could they be if I was top of our class? Were all of my friends and fellow students doomed to die like this? It was too much. I could feel the anger rising in my stomach and churning. A warm sensation that brought every feeling to a vibrancy I had only experienced in dreams. The definition in which I could see the burning room and my assailant who towered over me was astounding. So focused, crystal clear, even through the smoke. I stared back into the eyes I couldn’t see and roared defiantly.
The Mandalorian hit the wall with a resounding crunch as the cement broke against it. Debris and random items like screwdrivers and holotapes among rocks and cement pieces blasted away from me. Me, lying in a small clearing where even the smoke had been repelled. I rolled onto my shoulders and kicked onto my feet, reaching for my lightsaber.
What the?
An all too familiar zapping noise like static buzzed across the room. I looked up slowly to see the Mandalorian, armor and helmet now scratched and dented, wielding my lightsaber. Instinctively I reached out for it. It flew toward me willingly but pulled my enemy forward with it. The Mandalorian pulled against me, its magnetic gauntlet holding the weapon firm.
I held to it fast, struggling to free my weapon from its grasp. I could see the scrapes the armored boots were leaving behind on the floor as the soldier heaved itself away from me. The way the Mandalorian used its other arm to pull back the one I was tugging against seemed almost comical, as if it were fighting to keep from impaling itself on some suicidal notion.
Just then I felt the flames’ heat growing behind me to the point of being unbearable. I pushed away instead from the extended lightsaber and watched in grim satisfaction as the sudden shift in direction caused the lightsaber to flip back so suddenly it spun as if on an axis in the palm of the metallic gauntlet and bifurcated the Mandalorian longways.
As if automatically, I approached the body and switched off the gauntlet, took my blade back, and strode away. I knew it was just the adrenaline keeping me up right now and I needed to escape before allowing myself to risk going into shock as I looked myself over for wounds.
I resumed my run into the dark corridors and hallways, running up and down stairs and even through a few windows, until I was certain I was close. There was no possible way for me not to be. I memorized the way I came in to specifically avoid getting lost. But here I was, trapped in a burning complex, possibly injured, with no guide or direction as where to go.
Slowly, now walking, I could feel the energy ebbing from my limbs as the adrenaline faded and was soon replaced with anxiety. My heart hammered in my chest and sweat coated my filthy limbs. I shrugged off my singed and bloodied cloak and more or less collapsed. Pins and needles coursed through my arms and legs and sharp pains shot through my chest and out my back like lightning.
I cringed and grasped at whatever it was that was causing the intense pain, but dared not look. Not yet. I had to take my mind off of the pain so I began looking around the room. A small hallway filled with rubble and damaged goods, a large slab of metal indented in the backwall. I froze. The metal slab was rough around the edges and covered in areas that looked like frozen water that had bubbled up. I examined it closer and instantly realized my mistake.
The door I had hewn through wasn’t the way out but the way I had chased the Mandalorian back from the entrance to where I was now.
Even after you’re dead you’re trying to kill me.
I heaved myself to my feet, staggering and limped away down the adjacent hallway, to a sort of hatch which I had left open earlier. The ladder was bent and hard to reach but eventually I hauled myself out and slid down the rust covered incline of the complex until I was face first in the grass.
It took me by surprise how good the grass felt against my skin. Cool, slightly damp, an exquisite cushion compared to the rigid confines beside me. I breathed in deeply and felt the soft grass stiffen and whither until it was rough and crunched beneath me. I opened my eyes to find it all black and decimated as if charred.
That was when I realized the pains were gone. No discomfort, no pins and needles. I was healed. I rubbed my hands across my chest and back and found not a single sign of the battle.
But the grass, the one comfort I had had out here, the first thing to greet me and be a sign of life, was dead for it. Plain, common, old non-sentient grass. Something I had taken for granted my entire life had become the closest thing that cared about me and I had killed it to better myself when it was already doing that without such a costly price.
A gripped the dead grass in my fingers and watched as it blew away in the wind.
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