Hello Folks, ready for a story that I will get halfway through and then never finish? Well, me too friend! While everyone is busy making Rogue One fics, I'm still making Kylo RenxOC fiction because I'm a rabid fanatic with a seriously problem. Weee!
The alarm made the small girl's eyes open with a start. It was low and rhythmic and it caused the girl's heart to jump in her chest. She sat up and squinted in the dark. Past the foot of her bunk, she watched the shadows of the footsteps flash in front of her face as other kids were already up and running down the corridor.
She looked over at her bunk-mate, Kyla as she was crushing her uniform into a knapsack over her bed. "What's going on?" She managed between pulses of the alarm.
Kyla just shook her head, her dark, kinky curls bouncing around her head. "We have to go."
The girl got to her feet and started pulling out her knapsack from underneath her bed. She already had a change of clothes in there. "Always be prepared for the moments you cannot see." Master Luke once said as he paced back and forth in front of his padawans. "And anticipate all the outcomes for the moments you can."
"Come on! We have to hurry!" Kyla pulled the her out of her memory with a tug at her wrist. The dark-skinned girl's hot palms cinched her arm so that they would not get separated as they made their way into the throng of other kids that were rushing down the hallway. The steady alarm and stampede of footsteps combined together in a rushed, anxious symphony.
"What's going on?" The girl asked again, this time yelling at no one in particular. Were they being invaded? Is someone attacking the small, abandoned world of Dantooine? But no one answered her, they just continued to press forward, faces set grim and determined.
A high-pitched scream in the distance made everyone freeze. A chill came over the girl, like dark, icy fingers penetrating her very core. Someone died in the Force. No. Someone was murdered in the Force.
The girl turned to Kyla, who's expression was wide, frozen eyes. The clench on her arm grew tighter, almost to the point of where the girl wanted to cry out in pain. "What's going on?" She whispered. But she knew what was going on. Someone was coming for them.
This broke one of the older kids out their frightened state. Oly, a tall, olive-skinned boy that was always very patient with the younger kids during exercises. He turned to face them. "Get the younglings out first." He barked over the sound of the alarm. "Mikal and Ward, come with me." The boys turned and started back down the hallway towards the source of the scream. Older kids took up their assigned supervisory roles over the young one around them, taking hands and shoulders. An older girl came through and started pushing the younger pair down the hallway, a hand on either of their backs.
"Let's get to the hangar." She breathed. "It's going to be okay." The girl noted that she sounded like she was reassuring herself more than she was reassuring them.
There was another scream. The girl shuddered as the chill came over her again. This time it came from the very hallway they were in. She craned her neck to see to the front, to see what was going on, but the older girl yanked both of them back by the shoulder. All of a sudden they were both being pushed into an empty bunk room. The older girl bent over to the level of the pair. "Stay here and don't move." She ordered with a small push and then the bunk door slid shut. The girl watched in horror as the light on the door's control paneled activated, signaling that the door had been locked from the outside.
Kyla dropped the girl's wrist and her bag on the floor and walked over to the bed that was still messy and disheveled from its last occupant's hasty retreat.
"We can't stay here!" The girl cried, her voice hoarse with anxiety. She tried hitting the open button, but came to a resistant tone of the lock.
"What else are we supposed to do?" Kyla asked, a sad tone in her voice. "Did you feel it?"
"Feel what?" The girl turned to face her best friend. "The chills?"
"The Dark Side." Kyla corrected. "The Dark Side." She repeated in a whispered, like if just saying it would bring the power and destruction into the small bunk.
The girl turned back towards the locked door. "What do you think is going on?" She repeated herself.
"I don't know." Kyla finally answered. "But it's not good."
Anxiety penetrated every breath, every sigh, every blink and shuffled noise the two girls made in the bunk. Kyla took to meditating from her perch on the bunk, the dark-skinned girl's eyes closed, lips slightly parted, her hands folded on her lap. The girl couldn't meditate, though. She couldn't stop to think, because thinking would bring worry, worry would bring panic. And she couldn't panic. No. She was training to be the next generation of Jedi. She had to remain calm. She paced in the space between the bunks at the beat of the alarm and focused on keeping her breathing even.
"You're going to tire yourself out." Kyla said, her eyes still closed.
"Maybe that's a good thing." She responded. "Who do you think it is?" The chills made her shudder again. It was quiet now. No more movement on the other side of the door. No more pounding of shoes hitting the corridor floor.
Kyla shrugged. "I don't know. But they should have been caught by now."
"Maybe we should check!"
"How are we going to get out, dummy?" Kyla crossed her arms over her chest.
It was the girl's turn to shrug. "The Force?"
Kyla pulled on a curl of hair. "Do you think it's safe?"
"Well we have to do something." The girl responded, a shot of anxiety bringing her voice up in pitch.
Kyla rose to her feet and took the girl's hand. "Promise you will stick with me." Her green eyes shone in the dim light. "Promise me."
"I promise," The girl whispered, squeezing her best friend's hand tight. "No matter what."
They both went to the door. She watched Kyla hold her hand out and close her eyes, gathering the Force. She did the same, letting the Force guide her around the mechanism of the door lock. With a collected effort, they shut down the lock and the door slide open with a hiss.
The hallway was empty, just as the girl had assumed. The alarm was the only sound that they could hear. No more worried faces, no more shuffling of boots on the floor. No more screams. The girl shuddered at what they were going to find.
Hand-in-hand they made their way down the hallway toward the hangar. A pang of dread dropped in the girl's stomach. What if they were left here? What if they were forgotten about? What if everyone had escaped and the the murderer was still here in the barracks?
No. Master Luke would have everyone accounted for. He wouldn't leave his students behind. It is not the way of the Light.
It concerned the girl that she hadn't see anyone. Not an elder or a Master or one of her peers. There were even any droids. The usual activity of the temple was completely silenced. It made her feel uneasy and she could see it make Kyla feel uneasy too.
They hurried down the hall, moving quickly but silently. They made it down to the large double doors of the hangar and managed to open it with the Force.
The girls both audibly gasped. All over the empty, large floor of the hangar were bodies. Mangled corpses and body parts laid on top of each other, curls of smoke rising from the where limbs were separated from torsos. Larger kids laid on top of the little ones, their last moment spent trying to protect them in vain. Blood made the floor sticky and there was a sickening smell of charred flesh.
"No," Kyla cried, breaking her grasp with the girl as she dropped to her knees. "No."
The girl just squeezed her eyes shut, forcing tears out of them. The scene was seared into her memories though. Eyes rolled back into heads, tongues caught between teeth. She couldn't get away from it.
"Marci!" Kyla cried and the girl opened her eyes to her best friend running towards their tutor, Marci. An older girl of the Twi'lek species. She was good at sparring, and excellent at being a great friend. Her eyes were still open and she was clutching her arm, her blue hand laid ten feet away.
The girl watched Kyla run from person to person, crying their names. The girl sat frozen in the doorway, the icy fingers squeezing her chest, making it hard to breathe. She couldn't move or talk. She just watched and recognized faces from her studies and felt tears roll off her face. Some she was very close to, some she only knew in classes or in passing, some she didn't recognize at all.
"What has happened?" Kyla finally sank in the middle of the carnage. "What has happened to our family?"
What has happened to our family? They've been destroyed. Eradicated. Cut down. They didn't have a chance.
There was one face that was missing. "Where is Master Luke?" The girl managed between ragged breaths.
Kyla looked around. "Master Luke?" She called quietly. "Master?"
"Master Luke is gone." A deep voice said. They both jumped at the intrusion and turned towards the opposite door of the hangar. An older boy entered. He was tall and thin in frame, and his curly black hair framed his dark eyes. The girl recognized him as Ben Solo, Master Luke's nephew. He was quiet and much older than her, so she had never interacted with him before, but according to the rumors he was powerful with the Force.
"Ben!" Kyla got to her feet and ran to him. "Ben! Who did this?"
Ben regarded her softly, kneeling on one knee and placing a hand on her shoulder. "We must hurry." He said, his voice low in octave. "The danger is still here."
"Where are we going?" Kyla said, her voice breaking with tears.
A chill like a lightning bolt of ice struck the girl in the chest. A darkness moved in, it moved quickly around Ben, like a menacing halo of power. The girl could see the future in the present, she knew what was about to happen. Time slowed down, but it was too late. Ben swung out a lightsaber. A red arc of light cut through Kyla. The girl gave a choked cry for her best friend, a weight hitting her in the chest at the loss of her favorite person. But she couldn't hesitate, in the moment of clarity while the Force made time stand still for just a second, she saw an escape, a separation between the upper deck and the lower, just big enough for a small girl like herself. She moved quickly to roll herself into it before Ben Solo could notice.
She dropped to the lower deck and scanned her area for a second. She saw a door, running full speed ran to it, forcing it open with a loud whoosh of the Force. She didn't know where she was going but she had to get away before he could find her. She leaped over the bodies of the other students, and hit another door, this one leading to the grassy open of Dantooine.
She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the sun and ran around an outcropping of rocks and ducked down, she could just make out the large door of the hangar, 300 meters away. She wondered for a second if Ben even noticed she was there initially. And her suspicions were confirmed when the large door opened and she watched a cruiser take off into the sky. That must've been him. She waited and watched until it became a speck in the blue before she made her way back through the open door of the hangar.
"Kyla," She cried and found her best friend among the bodies. Kyla's eyes were open and to the girl's surprise, she was still alive but barely. Her hand covered a wound in her neck and blood oozed out between her fingers, into her curly brown hair. Blood stained her lips as she wheezed breaths through her teeth. "Kyla, it's me." The girl picked up her other hand and waited for Kyla's eyes to focus on her.
"I-I'm dying." Kyla said, an air of disbelief in her voice. Her eyes darted around. "The Light is bright."
"Kyla, no fight it." The girl cried, tears making everything blurry. "Kyla, please."
"I can't. It's so bright." Kyla said, her eyes finally finding hers. "Promise you'll stick with me."
"I promise, I promise." The girl cried.
"Promise, Emre."