I
Kylo Ren has always known he is hollow.
From his earliest days he was a vessel for expectations, poured into him by his parents, his uncle, and finally, his master. Snoke. Who now lies dead, so much meat and gristle among burning remnants of blood-red grandeur. A twisted ruin propped up by hubris and an unflinching ability to wield power; twisting, snapping, and grinding less ruthless beings under his heel.
A demon who walked in nightmares, the bogeyman of a thousand systems, pitiful at his end. Outdone by hubris at last, his pride a more fatal injury than any Kylo dealt him, unable to see his death turning nearer, inch by inch.
There is no time for a state funeral, for battalions of stormtroopers in gleaming white, ranks of officers in coal black, and the praetorian guards are dead, redder by far than any blood that ever flowed through the wizened veins of their master.
No. Snoke is dead. Kylo ascends. Supreme Leader of all he surveys.
And he is hollow.
He knows this, has always known this. It used to trouble him, make him uneasy. Make him feel lesser; a pawn for better, stronger, more ruthless men. At the mercy of something enormous, overwhelming, a wave that crests and thunders and whelms, never ceasing or drawing back.
His trouble and unease has changed with his status. The entire galaxy lies before him, and he means to have it all. For now that there is no one left to fill him, he hungers.
Not for the past. The past is dead. He slaughtered it, cut it out, burned it root and stem. Ben Solo is gone, destroyed in a night of fear and rage, destroyed by Luke Skywalker just as surely as if his old master's lightsaber had sawn him in two.
The past is dead.
Kylo Ren—Supreme Leader Ren, Master of the First Order—now hungers for the infinite possibilities of the present.
Snoke taught him many lessons. He can see the clarity of them all, now that he has transcended that gray lump of bloated flesh. He is unabashed in his power; his wrath falls on people instead of things, twisting, snapping, grinding. Hux cannot heal his bruises before new ones sprout like night-blossoms on his face, his back, his knees.
Kylo likes to see them. He likes to smell fear, hear thunderous hearts beating a terrified chorus at his approach. They used to fear him because of Snoke. Because he was an instrument of something greater. Now, they fear him because he has finally become the monster the Force decreed. He is God and the devil, both.
It is not enough. Systems fall as the Resistance flees, and it is not enough. His ranks swell with new stormtroopers, his prisons fill with spiritless husks of once-free men and women, and it is not enough.
He hungers. Fear, obedience, capitulation. What does any of it mean? The galaxy is overflowing with nobodies, useless little creatures it is no triumph to make bend or bow. No matter how much he conquers, it fills only a tiny corner of the gaping void inside.
Kylo Ren rarely sits on his throne. His throne, not Snoke's. It is an empty symbol of a creature that fell before him without a hand raised in his own defense. He does not, he will never appropriate that monument of failure for his own.
But Snoke chose that stone for a reason. Hard as durasteel, so dark that light cannot glaze its ebony surface, it is a perfect conductor and amplifier for the strength Kylo now wields with abandon. Wherever Snoke found that stone must have been a Dark temple of the highest order.
Kylo will not rule from it, but he will not refuse the power it offers.
Every day, alone, he sits. Closes his eyes. Reaches out. Hungers.
So long twisted inward, now he screams his lust to the stars, and the stars tremble.
Rey.