Note: The parts in cursive are, almost all, relating to Vader's thoughts, cause in Spanish is very understandable, but I didn't know how to translated it in English, thanks for your understanding.
Darkside's Nightmare
(English Version)
By Wolfrider
He had already lost the combat, and he knew it before try to give one strike with his lightsaber.
Had seen it in the bright eyes, that seemed to flame as an enraged sea of blue lava. Seen it in the nice, but deformed by a fury grimace, physiognomy of the blond young man. And suddenly, under the heavy armor that kept him alive, he again felt what he hated most in his life.
He felt... fear.
Dark and compelling, the same black tide that had oppressed his heart in the moment he found his mother, tortured and hurt beyond salvation, in the Tusken encampment. In that time fear had became in something else, something powerful and intoxicating.
Hate. The dark energy that had transformed him in one of the mightiest Jedi of the history. In a feared being, whose the only mention of his name brought terror in the souls of his enemies, in a being only inferior to the great darkness that ruled the Empire.
But this time the feeling subdued him too ferociously, taken away the strength of his artificial limbs, immobilizing him in a frozen metal embrace. Only thing he could do was to watch helplessly how the power of his hate left, diluting slowly, leaving him empty of everything. Devoid of everything.
Except of the fear. No, not fear.
Terror.
Because what he watched in the young face in front of him was pure hate, savage one, much more profound than his own. Suddenly he watched himself turned into a tatter, kneeled in front of the blond kid and the emerald ligth of the young man's lightsaber. A true enraged dragon, awaked by his own evilness. Was so terrified that never sensed the moment when the young Skywalker had cut off his right hand.
Skywalker.
¿His son?
A boy which, because of his guilt, never could felt the soft touch of a mother's lips, neither know the calm of her arms cradling him. A young one who had endured losses that matched his own. And, however, nothing had transform the boy in the monster he had become, the young one still believed in his friends, still had hope.
A pain and a shame not known since childhood filled him. It had been needed something so despicable, so vile, to had make the kid almost fall in the darkness.
It had been needed of him. For drove the kid to the limits, the same way Sidious had done with him.
And the image appeared in his mind, clear as the stars he had saw from the dessert that was the origin planet for both of them.
He was in the position that Dooku had been. Defeated, humiliated beyond all measures. With all the dark power at his service become... nothing.
He expected the stab, the flash of emerald light that would end with bad imitation of life in which he was trapped. Suddenly he felt a light relief. Just a moment of pain and he would be free, free from the cruel grasp of the memories of friends killed by his own hand, free of the darkness, of the light... free of everything.
But the strike never came.
He opened his eyes, and what he saw left him speechless.
Everyone else could only saw that the boy's face showed only calm now. Looking only tired, with a sad smile, as if his endurance had been tested in a ultimate test... and he had surpassed it.
But what he saw, under the prism of the Force, was something different.
The Force surrounding the young one, glowing with a blinded light, but with an infinite peace.
– Never –he heard– I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You'd fail your highness. I'm a Jedi, like my father before me.
At the boy's words everything changed, he could see how the dark hall light up with the presence of the ones, whom he forgot long time ago. He could see the figure, little but wise, of Master Yoda. Felt the calm, cheerful and benevolent essence that emerged from Obi-Wan. Saw, with aid of the Force, another presence, one that seemed the exact reflection of his son, even if he couldn't realized who was that person. But suddenly, something darkened all that light.
A light even more shining, one mourned every single moment he had been trapped in his mechanical fake of body.
– Ani –he heard.
The voice, soft as silk, had gotten that his heart fluttered as it didn't had since that time in Coruscant, when he just had reached his twenties.
– Pa... Padme? –was able to whisper, with his old voice.
He saw his hands, astonished. He could watched them, all his body, and it was as before his battle with Obi-Wan over that damned volcanic planet. No, all were as before his first encounter with Count Dooku.
Could feel the softness of Padme's hand caressing his cheek, and could look her smile, full of love and compassion. Only a little phrase reached his ears:
– Remember... I love you.
In that moment he woke up.
With the sound of his mechanical breathing, odious and unalterable, despite of his disturbance. Confined inside a cloud of darkness and power that exiled his recent dream (or vision), to the bottom of his heart, burying it under a heavy, thick, layer of shadow. He recovered himself fast.
After all, his master had warned him about the traps of the Light Side of the Force. He thanked about the fact of have no more time to meditate about it.
General Veers had entered into his personal chamber, and with fear written all over his pale face, had informed him that they just reached Hoth system. He was coming near his goal, at last.
He would trap Skywalker, and take him to the emperor. He was more than willing to continue his fake of obedience toward Darth Sidious, leaving the boy to fall into the Dark Side. He almost was able to fulfil the reason of his life.
Have an apprentice of his own, which would help him to overthrow Palpatine, installing himself in the throne.
He smiled, mercilessly under his mask, when he killed Admiral Ozzel for his incompetence.
The future seemed so precise, so unalterable.
But in the depths of his soul, in the viscous and dark swamp where he had buried the corpse of Anakin Skywalker, a thin thread of light arose, as a ray of sunlight infiltrating a covered window.
The images of the dream didn't seem to die, as the others dreams he had previously.
And the conflict, the one he believed finished years ago, reborn, even if he failed to realize that.
Because love and hope could turn into something bigger than just feelings.
They could turn into a nightmare.
A nightmare for the Dark Side.
The End
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Well, first of all, I've to say that this is my first translation (of a text I wrote in spanish little time ago). I am chilean, and I found that, for me at least, is more easy to translate something from English than the opposite. However I dare to give you my story, hoping it was, at least, understandable...
(Just mention the fact that I translated almost literally, so if you don't understand something... or you are good translating from Spanish to English just click in my profile and read the Spanish (original) version, or pm me to me to try to explain what I was trying to tell)
Hoping you could forgive my bad English, and enjoy my story. So... Good bye, and good luck trying to deciphering it.
(Wow, there are times when I didn't understand myself... even if I talked in my own language ^___^')
Wolfrider