Part 1: Sleep

Vader

For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Temple had been a sacred site, as holy and pure as the Force currents said to course throughout the building's structure. More importantly, it was a sanctuary—a place totally sealed off from the remainder of the galaxy, shielding those dwelling inside. While chaos, violence, and selfishness reigned in the outside world, within the Temple lived harmony, peace, and selflessness. To some, this aura of tranquility was almost physical, almost palpable, as if one could reach out and touch it if one so wished. And perhaps, at one time, one could. Not with a hand or an appendage, of course—or anything physical, for that matter. No, it was the Force that allowed one to reach out toward the peace washing over the Temple, bathing it in a soft, white tide. Otherwise, the tranquility—the absolute and utter harmony—of the Temple went unnoticed, like a distant star that is too far away to be seen.

Now it is simply gone.

Gone from the entire galaxy.

True, the war has ended—perhaps even more abruptly than it started. Indeed, it came to a halt in a moment, when a single command was issued from the Supreme Chancellor himself. But just because the fighting has ended—just because there are no more armies clawing at each other's throats—does not mean there is peace. It doesn't even mean there is an absence of death. On the contrary, the command that brought about the end of the war also sparked one of the most far-reaching acts of genocide the galaxy has ever seen, snuffing out the lives of ten thousand souls in one moment.

That command was Order 66, the command to destroy all Jedi.

No, not destroy: Purge.

For that is what happened, in the end: the Jedi, from the youngest to eldest, were wiped from existence. They weren't killed, put to death, or even murdered; they were slaughtered. Exterminated. Someone didn't just want them dead; he wanted them eradicated from memory.

In retrospect, some historians—especially those working for the Empire that will soon spring from the ashes of the war—will realize that the Jedi had fallen from their once great heights, bloated and ineffective from their centuries of servitude to an even more bloated and ineffective Republic. Worse, the Jedi became distant, aloof, almost to the point of coldness. Some might even say they were frigid, uncaring. And indeed, many of them were, their hearts frozen through by centuries of self-righteous dogma. They could do things—awful things, things the venerable master and knights of the Old Republic would have never even fathomed—without feeling the slightest bit of remorse. Without feeling anything, really. For that was, to the last line of Jedi, the ultimate sin: To experience emotion. Even waging war with an army of slaves—as some historians will claim the Jedi did—was acceptable as long as it was done without anger or fear.

A judge would not be totally unjust to condemn such beings to death.

But not every Jedi was totally lost. Some Jedi were just misguided, fooled by the teachings and mantras drilled into their minds since infancy. They suppressed their emotions because they couldn't fathom doing otherwise. They waged war with a slave army because they couldn't see how it was wrong, or because they were simply too young or naïve to realize what they were doing. Others were not yet totally hardened to feeling, were not numb to emotions or love or wrong or right; part of them was still alive, still breathing. They didn't love with the same unbridled capacity of normal beings, certainly—they were still repressed, choosing to hold other at arms' length—but they were not totally incapable of care. In fact, some of these Jedi cared deeply for others, to the point that the few who survived the Purge would never fully recover from the deaths of so many of their comrades, friends, or even loved ones.

Still others were just too young to be held accountable for the misdeeds of the Order.

The latter had been slaughtered just as mercilessly as the other Jedi, their bodies strewn across the floor like a mass of discarded old dolls. Some had fought back; tiny lightsaber hilts, now unlit, were still grasped in their small, clenched hands. Others had tried to run but had been cut down as they tried to flee, as evidenced by the scorch marks cut into their backs. A few simply hadn't known what had hit them, had been too shocked, too frightened to do anything; they had been killed where they stood, like a tree line cut through with an ax. After all, that is what their attacker—the shadow that escorted them to the netherworld—had done: Had sliced through them as carelessly as a butcher dicing up a carcass.

The shadow had relished killing them, for with every death—every Jedi killed, whether man or woman, young or old—only added to his power in the Force, made him stronger. His new Master had told him as much; only after the merciless killing, the slaughters, would he be strong enough to save the one he loved. To save Padme. Why that was, the shadow couldn't be certain—perhaps each death made him more comfortable with the Dark Side of the Force, made it easier for him to tap into that unnatural power the Sith of old had once fed upon. Or perhaps it was merely because with each Jedi death, the Light Side grew weaker and weaker, allowing the Dark to surge and grow like a tidal wave. Whatever the reason, however, the shadow welcomed the rush of dark power that oozed into his veins with each fresh kill, continuing on his gruesome crusade until the last Jedi body struck the floor.

It was strange to him, how clean it all was. All of these deaths—these hundreds of bodies spread across the floor like refuse—and there wasn't any blood. Of course, he should not have expected there to be any; anyone who's ever fired a blaster or wielded a lightsaber knows that neither weapon will let blood. Rather, the heat put out by both weapons instantly cauterizes wounds, so that the air surrounding the shadow reeked of burnt flesh and hair rather than spilt blood. If not for the pungent tang filling his nostrils, he would've regarded the killings as…pure. Without blemish.

But in the end, however, the Jedi's death was pure. Not because they had been innocent, mind you, like some animal sacrifice offered up to an insatiable god. No, this is because their death meant that for the first time in over 25,000 years, the Light Side of the Force was no longer a deafening current slicing through the very fabric of the galaxy, filling his ears with its ceaseless, intolerable noise. The current—once mighty, once unstoppable, unrelenting—had been dammed.

The Light Side hadn't just been pent up.

For the first time in more than 25,000 years, the Light Side had fallen silent.

Kylo Ren

Thunder bellowed across the open field like an anguished god, and for a moment that seemed to stretch out to eternity, it was all anyone could hear. They were to deaf to the desperate screams and cries that had enveloped them a second earlier, as if the dozens of beings pleading for their lives had suddenly vanished into the night. The gritty cacophony of metal scythes and clubs connecting with living bodies had ceased in their ears, making the incessant stream of blows and strikes seem distant, dissociated, like it was happening anywhere but here. Stark, pungent smells—the aroma of seared flesh, burnt hair—were the only indication that the crimson blade that had worked its way through the shrieking throng of beings was still lit, for its angry, restless hum had seemingly fallen silent. Close your eyes here, cover your head with your hands, and it would appear as you were merely caught up in a storm—not a senseless bloodbath.

But it wasn't senseless. Not really. It was chaotic, yes, with dozens of hysterical children and teens flitting madly about, their terrified screams drown out by the storm raging overhead. And to most—to the beings who had and were in the process of being dismembered, their body parts tossed haplessly about the muddied ground like fallen leaves—it seemed random. Unbidden. But unbeknownst to them, there was beauty in the chaos…and purpose. The latter filled every blow of the attackers, every slice into living flesh, lending the strength required to act and to act again. If this were a symphony, then each attack was a note performed at just the right place and time, forming a single flowing, seamless piece.

It was a masterpiece.

As the thunder finally fell silent, that masterpiece could again be heard in all its gruesome, macabre glory. A heartbeat a later, as lightning flashed across the darkened sky in a white-hot blaze, you could also see that work once more; like a flare released into the night, the lightning illuminated what was quickly becoming a battlefield. The illumination did not last long, of course, as it died almost as quickly as it was born. But that didn't keep the architect of this unholy masterpiece from gazing upon his work, drinking it in. Absorbing it into his soul.

Taking a second to relish the moment, Kylo Ren looked upon all that he done.

And saw that it was good.

Certainly, Ren was not the only one responsible for the unfolding carnage. His followers and comrades—the Knights of Ren—had followed him into battle, and were even now unleashing destruction and ruin upon the New Jedi Order…or at least the untrained children and sniveling adolescents who constituted its meager ranks. But all of this, all of the blood-letting and gore and death, had been his idea. His vision. He had been the one to propose a cleansing of the Force; he was the one who saw the New Order as the pestilence that it was and decided it was due for eradication. After all, he was the one who knew his history, had read accounts of how another man had once carried out a similar massacre. A purge. As such, he knew that a slaughter of those proportions was possible—and that it could, after everything was said and done, be oh-so beautiful.

Ren had realized early on that his massacre—his purge—would by no means equal or even rival the devastation wrought by that other man. It was unlikely that any other person, regardless of his or her power, would ever be able to unleash destruction on such a massive scale; there simply weren't enough light-siders or Jedi remaining. That was the downside of destroying one's enemies, Ren had discovered—but it was a necessary downside nonetheless. While it pained Ren to think of day when there would no longer be anyone to oppose him, he knew that the overall good of the galaxy depended on his complete and utter domination of anything and anyone who stank of the outmoded ideals of the Jedi, for it was they who had once nearly torn the galaxy in two with a war that should have never been fought.

The war his grandfather, Darth Vader, had brought to an end.

Ren could only hope he could one day live up to the legacy of such a man.

But until then, he would follow in his footsteps, toppling corruption and dogma wherever they happened to appear. In the past, that corruption had taken the form of the Jedi Order and the Senate, both of whom had been complicit in the Clone Wars as well as the downfall of galactic society. Today it was the New Republic and the fledgling Jedi Order his uncle, Luke Skywalker, was trying to form; who knew what it could be tomorrow, or the next day, or the next? Undoubtedly, someone else would try to resurrect the Republic or the Jedi—or some version of it, at least—and the same cycle would continue, over and over and over again. The Dark would dampen the Light; the Light would remain dormant, comatose; then the Light would experience a resurgence, roaring back into full strength. So far, that had yet to fully happen, as the Light side had remained subdued since the first Jedi Purge. But after the Empire had fallen and his uncle had taken to returning to the old ways, the Light had begun stir—stir only slightly, but enough to give Ren cause to worry. To make him fear that the Light side would at last break its nearly 60 year silence.

According to his Master, Snoke, the dominance of the Light side was what had so greatly unbalanced the Force in the days of the Republic. In the years before, Light and Dark had dwelt alongside each other like peers; neither side had been stronger than the other, nor was either side weaker. They were equal, harmonized. But once the Sith had been destroyed, wiped out in a manner that was not unlike Vader's Jedi Purge, that had all changed; the Light side had grown into a tidal wave that threatened to overtake the entire galaxy, while the Dark had atrophied and withered. As a result, those who served the Light had grown powerful and complacent, assured of their own power and status. Certain they would never be toppled. Those who served the Dark side, on the other hand, had become…resourceful. Subversive. In a way, they almost became too powerful as well, for in their years of exile the servants of the Dark side had amassed enough power to remake the galaxy in their own image—just as the Jedi and the Rebellion had done. The only difference was that despite the balance that both the Empire and the Rebellion—along with its successor, the New Republic—had caused, people had at least recognized and railed against the Force's imbalance when the Empire had reigned, fighting to topple the dark side and restore harmony to the galaxy. With the Rebellion and the New Republic, people actually welcomed the imbalance, the dominion of the Light. They embraced it.

Snoke's reign would squelch that tendency.

Unlike those who came before him, Snoke would not build a kingdom upon neither the Light nor the Dark side, as if the two could exist without each other. Instead, his reign would be the epitome of balance: both aspects of the Force would work in harmony, possessing equal power. Never again would one aspect overshadow the other—the Dark would not eclipse the Light, nor the Light banish the Dark. Selfishness would be balanced out by altruism; destruction tempered by creation. Death undone by new birth. That was why Snoke prized Ren: as a former Jedi pupil, he could access both sides of the Force, without being overcome with one side or the other.

Only one other being in the galaxy rivaled Kylo Ren in this ability.

Ren knew Luke was harboring her here somewhere, trying to hide from Snoke and the Knights of Ren. He could sense her close by now, in fact, could feel her fear and terror coursing through the Force. The problem was that he had yet to actually see her—and despite the fact that her presence was almost palpable to him, he began to doubt she was even on this planet. Perhaps she was strong enough with the Force to project her feelings; such a phenomena wasn't unheard of, after all. When Vader had died above Endor, Snoke said he had experienced the Sith Lord's agony, despair, and acceptance as he passed into the netherworld of the Force—from several star systems away. What would stop this girl from doing the same—from feeling the combined deaths of other Jedi, and then projecting her reactions back to Ren?

Ren's gaze surveyed the muddied—and ultimately bloodied—battlefield, looking for some hint of this rumored child. To his surprised, he discovered that he and his fellow Knights had already accomplished their goal: all around them, lying in heaps on the ground, were the bodies of each and every one of the New Order's Jedi pupils. Luke, unfortunately, had not joined his students in death, for Ren could find no sign of the Jedi Master's body amongst the carnage. Neither had he sensed his uncle during the battle. Indeed, Ren was beginning to wonder if Luke, like the girl, might actually be somewhere else—somewhere safe, biding their time until the Knights of Ren had withdrawn.

Ren was about to inform his comrades to do just that—to return to Snoke as a way of drawing Skywalker and the child out of hiding—when one of the other Knights began moving toward something in the mud. He moved slowly at first, cautiously; then he practically broke out into a run, hurrying toward whatever it was that he saw. It must have seemed threatening, however, because the Knight was drawing his weapon, a saber pike he had used to disembowel several of the bodies he now stepped over.

"Malek, hold your position," Ren called after the Knight, his voice muffled and deepened by his dark mask. "I want to know what you found."

No response from Malek.

"Malek, what have you found?" Ren repeated, beginning to move forward himself.

Again, Malek failed to response. Instead, he raised his pike above his head, as if preparing to bring it down upon whatever had drawn him forward. He broke out into a spring, and this time, Ren could see that he wasn't merely trying to draw closer to what he had seen; he was preparing to pounce on it. Ren could already feel Malek's body tensing up, ready to leap. Ready to unleash whatever violence he had planned for the unseen threat.

Moving faster now, Ren sifted through the possibilities. It could be a Jedi survivor—someone who hadn't quite succumbed to the extensive injuries he and the other Knights had doled out. It wasn't entirely impossible, after all; Ren had heard stories of soldiers in the Clone Wars receiving fatal wounds on the battlefield, only to find the strength to rise up and kill their attackers. But when Ren reached out in the Force, searching for the feelings of physical agony and shock that would be projected by someone so grievously wounded, he was greeted with a surprise.

It was the girl.

She was here.

How she had managed to evade the Knights' massacre, Kylo Ren could not be sure. Perhaps, being so small, she had simply escaped their noticed, darting between aggressors and victims like a scurrying mouse droid. Or perhaps she hadn't arrived at the battlefield until now, and had been hiding somewhere else while he and the Knights unleashed hell on the Jedi pupils. She could've escaped from Luke's care while they fled from the unfolding battle, perhaps drawn by the screams and feelings of pain emanating from pupils she most likely knew—only to find herself in the pathway of Malek's pike.

It was then that two things occurred to Kylo Ren:

One: Malek was going to kill the girl.

Two: Kylo Ren couldn't let that happen.

He arrived at the latter conclusion partly because unlike those who wielded the Dark side alone, he was not a monster. Certainly, he had taken life before; the carcasses blanketing the muddied ground were proof enough of this. But this fact did not necessarily mean that he relished killing. On the contrary, where the Sith and others like them had killed for the sheer pleasure of the act, Ren only took life out of necessity. Some part of him had actually regretted his slaughter of the Jedi trainees—but in the end, he had decided not to allow his own feelings to stand in the way of what was best for the galaxy. So he had killed them, every single one, with a mixture of glee and remorse. Glee, because he bringing balance to the Force, just as his grandfather once had; remorse, because the aspect of him in touch with the light viewed every life as sacred.

He had also arrived at that conclusion because he knew that in grand scheme of things, she was more vital to the balance of the Force than he was.

"Malek, stop!" Ren shouted, now springing as well. "You can't kill her!"

Malek hesitated for a moment, wobbling on the muddy ground. His momentum continued to carry him forward, however, causing him to stumble to his knees. Catching himself, he had to momentarily let go of his pike—not long, but just enough so that it took him a few seconds to grab his pike, steady himself, and return to his feet.

Enough time for Ren to catch up with him.

As Malek raised his pike once more, Ren launched himself forward, lightsaber hilt in hand. A moment later, he pressed its emitter to Malek's back; then he pressed the activator button. With a hiss, the crimson blade sprung to life, plunging so far through Malek's back that it protruded through his chest. It must've gone straight through his heart as well, because before Malek's body struck the ground—before Ren's blade could even be withdrawn—he felt the fellow Knight's life fizzle out in the Force, a flame doused by a downpour.

The girl, crouching behind the body of fallen Jedi, stared up at him with wide eyes.

Kylo Ren starred back.

They stood starring at each other for just an instant—for a heartbeat—her brown eyes gazing up at his darkened visor. Then he started toward the girl, blade still lit, intending to grab her before Luke or any of the other Knights could reach her. The other Knights, enraptured by the night's bloodlust, would undoubtedly want to kill her as well—and his uncle would try to sway her to the Jedi cause, to the side of imbalance. If she was to live up to her full potential and fulfill what was probably a galaxy-shattering destiny, he would have to ensure she was guided by Snoke's principles of harmony and balance or—better yet—take her under his own wing. Snoke would…change the child too much.

Just as he was in reach of the child, however, alarm and horror rang through the Force as clearly as the thunder had less than an hour earlier. The sensation emanated from behind him, and when Ren spun around to find the source, the air filled with a chorus of shrill screams. Alone, the sound was enough to fill Ren's veins with ice; the gurgling noises that followed, along with the sight of the five remaining Knights of Ren falling dead to the ground, was enough to turn him to stone.

Standing over the fallen Knights of Ren was Luke Skywalker, his fierce eyes illuminated by the glow of his lightsaber.

"Stand down, Ben," Skywalker shouted above the sound of the rain. "I won't warn you again."

Ren straightened to his full height—which, in comparison to Skywalker, was not unimpressive. "Or you'll do what? Kill me? You and I both know that if I die, Snoke will simply intensify his search for the girl. She's the only other one capable of bringing balance."

"Snoke isn't interested in balance, Ben; all he wants is power. He's just another Palpatine."

"Palpatine was a slave to the dark side," Ren countered. "That was why he craved power and manipulated my grandfather. Snoke, on the other hand, just wants the Force to be balanced again. Isn't that what the Jedi always wanted?"

"His version of balance means crippling the Light side. How is that any different from Palpatine?"

"My Master rejoiced at the downfall of the Sith!"

"Only because it meant more power for himself."

"Your answer reveals your ignorance, Jedi. If you knew Snoke, you would understand."

Luke's eyes hardened, and with the glow of his lightsaber still reflecting in them, Ren could swear they were ablaze. "Ben, it's because I know Snoke that I want to protect the girl."

"You'll have to kill me to get her," Ren growled, his mask giving his voice a feral edge.

"You'll have to do the same," Luke replied, raising his blade in defense as Ren sprang toward him.

It wasn't until after their duel—when Luke left Ren writhing on the ground, broken but still breathing—that the last Knight of Ren would realize that the girl had already disappeared.

And the Force, just like the bodies spread around him, was even more silent than ever.