The Stars Still Remember

Hey guys. For those of you who don't know me, you can call me SBI. I used to write fan fiction a few years ago, but stopped after life got in the way and the site that I was on shut down. I'm new here and a little nervous, but I hope you guys like this story! Please comment and tell me how I can improve.

Message to my CN friends - I'm sorry it took so long to find you guys and write again. Unfortunately, I lost chapters of Safe and Sound and nearly half of CRASH, so I most likely won't continue those stories, especially since I've forgotten much of how they were going to end. I don't know how often I'll be able to write, but I just thought I'd give it a shot with something new and I'm sure it's already been done, but I'm just gonna start off easy because to be honest, I need to really get familiar with all the Star Wars terms and characters again. I hope you like it : )

Chapter 1

The door glided open smoothly and without sound. He walked in such fluid movements, one would think he was hovering over the glossy, black floor and as he silently approached her bed, positioned against the wall of the limited square-shaped room, he knelt beside her sleeping body.

"I'm glad you are getting your sleep, my dear, but it is time to rise," he whispered in her ear, with a voice so low and smooth, yet insidious in its true intent.

The girl, who had awaken the moment he walked into the room, opened her eyes to acknowledge his command. She gave no words in response, only stared at him, trying to protect whatever secrets she still possessed within her, but knowing full and well that he could see any piece of her mind he chose.

She blinked at him in the darkness, and together they stared, trying to see the innermost part of the other's soul. Only he, of course, is ever successful.

"Don't fret, my apprentice. This hope you possess is not inexorable," he marveled. He stood up and turned, leaving the room as quietly as he entered, and the door slid shut behind him.

She watched for a few moments more, unable to gather her thoughts, as though she had locked herself out of her brain, unable to see her own ideas.

Ideas? She wondered into the void. A small orange spark danced across her blue eyes as they flitted their attention to the window. It was at the foot of her bed and was a mere box just a foot from the ceiling and only being about six inches by six inches.

Hope, she thought. Suffering. That is why he put the window in her quarters, that is why he put it where he did. Her room was always black except for the window. There was no light except through the window. And so in that window, lied all hope. The window was therefore made small, and positioned in a place she would have to strain to see, so that every time she fought to look through and saw nothing but more darkness lit only by occasional stars, a piece of that hope would dissipate. She refused to give in to this plan he made for her, and has therefore hardly ever left her bed. She lay on her right side, facing the door, always watching, always ready. Even when she slept, she never really slept. At some point in time, she had been cursed to that land in between sleep and awake, always drifting in and out of dreams, jolting awake at the terror which they contained. She never dreamed in color. Always it was black, a few dots of light here and there, and on very rare occurrences, there would be fire and blue circuits bursting and writhing within them, as though she were watching a machine being burnt, and as though that machine were alive.

But always, she heard voices. While she drifted into that in-between, she heard his voice often, and he would speak to her in that way, invading every corner of her mind. He tortured her with memories of her past, all the scars that had been left along her time line. He brought out her insanity with her own devices, twisted and enhanced to drive further and further into the mind-numbing darkness. When he was through, she would be plagued with sleep paralysis and a deep, knotted pain in her chest, as if the world itself was pressing down on her while she was left immobile.

After this feeling faded, as it always did, she would open her eyes and often see him beside her where he would again give her an option and she would again refuse it. So it goes, the darkness never leaves. It circulates through her, sometimes dormant and other times self-destructive.

The girl tried to form a coherent thought after her encounter with him, and while tangled with her attempts, a small orange light began to glow on her floor, staying in once place at first, then starting to grow. The flicker moved along her eyes, drawing her attention to the window, her box of hope. Slowly, she lifted her skeletal body across the bed, which was no more than a rectangular platform, and craned her neck to look out. She saw a Republic ship nearing its final stages of warfare, the fire eating away its flesh and turning it to charcoal, to make it black so it will now belong to this world. The sparks were orange and blue, as the wires exploded and tore apart from the ship and the ship in its entirety was now a molten ball of fire moving slowly through the vacuum of space.

She watched with a stone face, wondering if anyone was there, wondering if anyone could see her, knowing they didn't care anymore. She acknowledged the irony as the parade of death being presented through her window.

Window. Hope. Hope?