There was a fire. That much, Rey remembered. They were being pursued by the First Order and as soon as they tried to switch to hyper-drive, something had gone wrong. It wasn't the usual wrong that could be fixed by simple tinkering and maybe even brute force; no, it was disastrous. She couldn't pinpoint where the flames had begun, which wires had sparked to create the inferno that was consuming their ship at such a rapid rate that if C3-PO was there, he would probably have said that their chances of surviving were a flat zero.
But by some divine intervention, she was alive. The searing pain at the back of her head was enough indication that she was still up and capable of feeling. She couldn't recall how she'd ended up on a life-pod, but there she was, strapped and aching as she stood in place, but most importantly, alive.
Rey struggled to reach for the button that would release her bindings. The straps retreated to their holder with a click and with her body no longer constricted, she fell forward. With a grunt, she pulled herself up and tried to regain her bearing, pushing the hurt in her body away with the thought that she could still be in danger. Adrenaline flashed through her veins and she forced herself to keep moving, to figure out where she had ended up and to find out if the others on the ship had survived as well.
Still a little bit disoriented, it took Rey a while to recall the sequence that would unlock the door of the pod. The screen of the pod, though cracked, said that she successfully landed on a planet, though which one, it didn't say. Rey would have to find out for herself. Once the hatch unlocked with a long hiss, Rey prepared herself for whatever could be waiting for her outside by holding on to the hilt of her lightsaber, her thumb ready to activate the weapon, her mind prepared to face whichever malicious lifeforms could be on this planet.
When she stepped out, though, nothing greeted her but a gust of wind, blowing at her loosened wrappings and unclipped hair. On instinct, Rey closed her eyes. The sands of Jakku weren't ever pleasant to have in her eyes, so it became an ingrained reaction for her to shut them whenever she felt wind on her face. When she reopened her eyes, Rey saw a world full of green. It was different from the shades she saw on Takodana. That green had been flecked with blue skies and grand lakes. This planet contrasted the light of Takodana with the dark hues of the forestry around her. The trees stretched upward and didn't seem to end. The sky was nowhere to be seen, but light was still able to filter its way through the leaves and branches, casting shadows all over the forest floor. From where Rey stood, she could see nothing but trees ahead of her, no paved path to tell her which way to lead her to any semblance of comfort.
She was alone, and this terrified her more than she cared to admit. Despite her own fears, she couldn't afford to not do anything. Outside of the peace of her surroundings, there was a greater war ongoing in the universe – one in which she accidentally fell into and now had a greater role in. She was not quite a Jedi, but she was a half-baked warrior with a strong connection to the Force that could help the Resistance turn the tides in their favor. Rey was finally someone now, but being trapped on a planet she couldn't name wasn't helping anyone, except perhaps her cause's enemies.
"Hello?" she called out, not loud enough to merit an echo in the vastness of the woods. "Is anyone there?"
She held her breath and waited for a response of any sort, but nothing came. It didn't come as a surprise as Rey neither expected nor hoped for someone to be in her immediate vicinity. Once she felt she was safe from any possible threat, Rey put herself at ease and replaced the hilt of the saber to its pocket at her side. She thought of the action steps she should take. As a new fighter of the Resistance, she had been briefed on various situations, including one wherein she was stranded. Those lectures had been rushed and a lot of things were only brushed over, but that didn't matter to her. Rey was a survivor. In one planet or another, she'd find a way to take care of herself. She always has.
Her first step, she knew, was to try to contact the Resistance and alert them of her status. If they could afford to dispatch someone to rescue her, they would. She went back into the pod and went straight for the panel. She remembered seeing it cracked earlier before she went out, but not completely inoperative. Rey pressed a few buttons until she reached the prompt to send a distress signal back to the nearest base, then – nothing. The screen displayed its inability to be used as a communication device, the error being traced to jammers in her surroundings.
The trees? Rey thought to herself. There were only trees around her – could they have been interfering with her communications? She was frustrated, but knew that not remaining calm in her situation was worse. Luke Skywalker had only trained her in force matters for a few weeks, but he had made sure to ingrain in her that frustrations were not to be acted on in any violent manner, that doing so was a step to the darkness. She took a deep breath and centered herself. Now that she wasn't running on the momentum of her initial adrenaline, she was beginning to feel weary. She felt the weight of her previous quest, of the fighting that went on at the end of her reconnaissance mission, when the First Order had caught on to their presence and chased them as they fled.
She shook her head and cleared her mind. What had occurred did not compare to her current circumstance. First and foremost, she felt herself unwinding – and it wasn't just because of her mounting fatigue. It had been hours since she'd eaten, and with all the energy she had physically expended, she needed to consume something to keep her going.
Rey turned around and slid part of the wall that revealed a shelf. On it was a small rucksack which contained packets of instant food and a few bottles of water. On Jakku, Rey would have been desperate to keep the water – but here, she was confident that she'd find water almost anywhere. Trees didn't grow on desolate soils. She took the packets and counted ten of them. If she was smart – and she was – she'd be able to stretch them to a little over two weeks. She'd have to go without eating for a while, but she'd been used to hunger when she was a little girl that the thought didn't scare her. Now, however, she had to consume one pack because the pricks of pain at the back of her head added with the pangs in her stomach made Rey feel herself on the verge of fainting.
Once she had her fill, Rey felt better than she did just minutes ago. She set aside the bowl she filled her food in and stepped out of the pod again. While she didn't know where in the galaxy she was, at least she wasn't on a barren one where she'd have to struggle for water or one where she had to fight off unfriendly aliens that wanted her flesh for whatever nefarious purpose.
She walked a good few meters away from the hunk of metal that was her pod, then she sat on the firm earth, folding her legs beneath her. Rey closed her eyes and took deep breaths, finding peace in the constant pattern she built for herself. She had learned this from Luke Skywalker and while she wasn't very adept at using the force with an exercised control, she was getting better at it – or so she wanted to believe. The force was supposed to connect all things in the universe and this planet was no exception. After a few minutes, Rey could feel the roots of the trees, the underground network that ran deeper than she could imagine, that connected each plant that grew on this planet. She felt the vastness of this world, how it was covered with foliage all around, towering over her and clouding the skies. She felt the life of each plant, how they breathed to give her the air she was consuming. She felt—
A human heartbeat.
It was unmistakable. The lives of the succulents were all entangled like their roots; what she had felt, on the other hand, stood out like a sore thumb. Whoever else was on this planet wasn't calling out to her in particular, but she could still feel their presence nonetheless. The more she sought it out, the more she tried to isolate the source, she felt the person's heartbeat weakening, slowing down. She opened her eyes and gave in to the compulsion to help. It was just her on this planet that could help the other person and it wasn't in Rey's character to simply disregard a life, especially one in need.
She took the small device that would alert her of any attempted communication with the pod and strapped it around her wrist. She had spent years of her life hoping someone would take her away from the last planet she was left in; in comparison, this didn't feel as emotionally heavy and Rey knew she would be able to handle this new waiting game. She took one unopened bottle of water and the remaining packs of food and placed them back in the rucksack she found them in earlier. There were other items in the bag that Rey found useful – such as a torch, a knife, some medicine and creams she could use to treat injuries, among others. She sealed the pod as she left and did not look back; she tried to feel for the other person, to let the force direct her where she was needed to be. She was on a mission that no one could deter her from and with her eyes closed, she navigated through the woods as though she had spent her entire life in it.
It felt like hours had passed when her feet stopped moving to the motions the force dictated. When Rey opened her eyes, she found herself at the edge of a clearing, a small field of wild grass and bright flowers. Sunlight streamed through the large gap between the trees where she stood and the ones across the meadow. Rey looked up and saw the sky was fading into the night, taking on deep tints of purple with an orange gradient. Everything about the scenery was beautiful and if Rey hadn't come here for any other purpose, she would lean against a tree and sit and just watch until the sun completely fades. But she was here for someone who needed her help more than she wanted to watch the dusk settle on this planet, so she trudged on, searching in the semi-dark for whoever she had felt.
"Hello?" she called out once more, louder than she did earlier in the forest by herself. "I know you're there. The force brought me here to you because you needed me."
Like before, she heard no response. Am I too late? Rey thought, before shaking the negative thought out of her mind. She knew she wasn't; she could still feel the other person. It was getting darker with every second passed wherein she didn't act. The grass was tall enough to conceal a person lying down, and the field stretched for more than a mile in all directions – she couldn't afford to just blindly walk through and hope to stumble across the one she was looking for.
She closed her eyes and felt it again, the other person's heartbeat. She followed the sound in her mind, the echoing against her ears, and when she reopened her eyes, she saw a body lying on the ground only meters away. She didn't even give it a second thought. Rey sprinted and was on the ground beside the person in seconds.
"Oh," she said, her own heart raising as panic set in. "Please, please don't die on me."
They were lying prostrate and Rey didn't know if whatever injuries they had sustained would allow for her to move them. However, indecision had no place in this meadow as she could hear the ragged breathing of the person – man beside her. He was too big to flip over by herself, so she took a few steps back. She hadn't been able to move something with the force that was bigger than her, but she had to try. Rey concentrated on the man and willed him to move, to turn him over as gently as possible. It was a struggle, but by the time she was able to pull off the feat, darkness had taken over the world and the stars twinkled in the heavens above them, casting their distant light on the field Rey and this stranger were on.
Rey took out the torch from her bag and once she pointed its' light on the man's face, she dropped it on the ground with a sharp gasp. The torch fell with a thud and rolled, yet still illuminated the stranger.
Except, he wasn't unfamiliar to her at all.
It was Kylo Ren – unmasked and wounded; and just a few hours ago, he was trying to kill her.