"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."
-William Shakespeare, The Tempest
That night, Isaj dreamt of nothing but singularities. The wind howling against her windows. The hum of a lightsaber. The feeling of confusion. The feeling of betrayal. The need for self preservation. The color black. The color red. Screams of agony. They came at her one at a time. No overlaps. That was odd for a dream.
Footsteps.
The footsteps were what woke her. She felt herself jolt awake. More footsteps. Someone was in her room. Eventually, as she drifted out of her waking haze, she felt a presence in the back of her mind. She always felt it whenever he was near enough.
"Come here, Ben," she said, rolling over to make some sort of room on her small bed. Not bothering to open her eyes, she patted the empty space next to her. "I can always tell when something's troubling you. Talk to me about it. I assume that's why you're here, anyway."
He said nothing. The only sound was that of the wind howling against her windows.
She sat up, opening her eyes. The figure in her room did not look like Ben. It couldn't be Ben. So why did she feel as if it was? He looked at her through some bastardized version of Darth Vader's helmet. But he said nothing. The howling of the wind grew louder.
Isaj swallowed a lump in her throat. "B-Ben?" she asked.
Still, the figure in her room, towering above her bed, didn't answer. And yet, he made no move to correct her, either. Ben's presence in her mind grew stronger. She sensed his sadness, his anxiety, his resignation. But most of all, his hunger.
"You need to talk about something," she said. It wasn't a question. "Talk to me. You know you can always talk to me. About anything." She felt her entire body shake with dread. The howling of the wind against her windows stayed persistent.
He was hesitant to say anything, but he did speak.
"I have the ability to become one of the most powerful Force-users in the galaxy," he told her. His voice sounded odd through that mask.
Isaj nodded, unsure of what else to do. "Of course, Ben. You've always had so much potential. Master Skywalker was telling me the other day about how your capacity for power could-"
"Skywalker is weak!" Ben hissed, making her jump.
"You mustn't say such things, Ben," she told him. "I-I know that you and Master Skywalker don't always get along, but he wants what's best for you. He is your master, and your uncle, for that matter."
"He is nothing to me," said Ben, who had regained his composure. "Not anymore. I have a new master. Snoke."
Her fear only grew. Ben had a new master? "I can't say I've ever heard of this Snoke."
He chuckled darkly. The noise sent shivers down her spine. "No. But someday the whole galaxy will know who he is. He has offered me power, a place at his side, order in the galaxy. But first I have to complete a task for him. A simple task, so he calls it."
"It sounds too good to be true," Isaj warned him.
"But it's not," he said, slowly approaching. "All I have to do is kill the Jedi."
A sound rose above the howling of the wind. A sound she recognized. She practically grew up with that sound. It was normally something familiar, comforting, even. But now. Now it chilled her to the bone. Ben held at his side a lightsaber, which hummed loudly into her ears.
"You can't… You can't just kill us. We're your friends. Your family," she pleaded.
"You are," he corrected her. "I could care less about the rest of them. And I did talk to Snoke about sparing you. You're so good at taking orders. So obedient. So submissive," he praised her. She turned her gaze away from him and towards his lightsaber as he pointed it towards her neck. "But in the end, you all have to die."
"Ben…" she whispered, near tears as the hum of his lightsaber nearly drowned her out. "You're just proving them all right. Don't be like your grandfather."
"My grandfather was a great man," he told her. "He could have ruled the galaxy. His kind of power had never been seen before."
"And how did he get that way?" Isaj probed him. "By doing things he would regret. By committing evil deeds. Evil deeds that you're about to do right now. You're acting just like him. Murdering your friends. Murdering a woman who loved you."
He had no response to that for a moment. He simply breathed heavily and lowered his lightsaber. The hum died down for the time being. "You…" he whispered. Incredulously perhaps? She couldn't tell underneath that mask. Try as she may to search for some sort of tone, all she could hear was a robotic answer. "You love me?"
"I did," she admitted. "But now…" she trailed off, trying to find the right words for how she felt. The best she could come up with were "I'm so confused". Tears stung at her eyes, but she pushed them away and continued speaking. "You don't have to do this, and yet you're about to go through with these… these atrocities. Ben-"
"Enough," he told her, bringing his lightsaber back up, ready to swing it down upon her. "Your pleas fall on deaf ears, Isaj. Ben is dead. I am Kylo Ren."
"Well, whoever you are," she countered, "You cannot hide from me. You never could. I know what you're feeling. You don't want to kill me. You don't want to kill anyone. So why are you doing this?" The feeling of confusion wrapped around her like a blanket that would eventually smother her to death.
He didn't answer her. He only made to strike a fatal blow. And she couldn't let that happen. In a split second, her hand was reaching for her own lightsaber, and it flew to her. She had to use the hilt to block his strike- she couldn't actually activate it in time, the blade nicked her across the hand. She gasped out in pain, and knew there was no other option but to fight back. The blue of her saber illuminated the room better than the red of his, and as she got a proper look at him, she felt something else rise in her- betrayal.
He swung at her again, and she jumped up to counter. The bed provided unstable footing, but it would be easier to push him off of her when she was above him. The blades crackled as they connected, and he drew back again. This time, when she blocked him, he was able to knock her to the floor. There was a certain ferocity to his strikes that she wasn't used to- he had never revealed this side of himself during training, but she knew that he was growing careless. If she bided her time correctly, she could get a strike in.
He pulled the same move he had for the past three times, and she slashed down at her, his height beating hers any day. Quickly, she jumped to the side and pulled upwards with her lightsaber, cutting him across the shoulder. Not deeply, but enough so that she could gain an advantage.
"You know that I don't want to hurt you," she told him, jabbing at him again and missing this time as he stepped out of her reach. "If it was just me you had to kill, just me, I might let you if it meant I'd be able to spare your life."
When he didn't say anything, she brought her lightsaber up to meet his and pushed forward with everything she had. "But if you think," she continued, "for one second that I am going to let you kill innocent children in this insane genocide of the Jedi, then you are dead wrong."
He seemed to be losing his strength, or his will, perhaps, to fight, and she pushed forward even harder, bringing both lightsabers to his chest. If she pushed a little harder, she could do it, but… Save yourself, something said to her. He's lost. The only way to stay alive is to kill him. Save yourself. Oddly enough, the voice sounded like Ben. It drove her to put just a little more effort into her attack.
Suddenly, she felt the air around her throat constrict, almost as if someone had put her hands on her neck and began to squeeze. She dropped her lightsaber. The blue of its blade disappeared, and it fell to the ground with a soft thunk as she put her hands up, desperately trying to pry something, anything off of her throat. But it was no use. He had always been better at manipulating the Force than her.
Her feet dangled off the grounds as Kylo Ren moved his fist upwards, clenching it even tighter. Isaj opened her mouth, hoping to gasp in air, but nothing came in. Her lungs burned from a lack of oxygen, and she had tunnel vision. The color black prevented her from seeing anything other than that mask. Her vision was turning black and the night was black and that mask was black.
Just as quickly as it began, it stopped. Her neck was free and Isaj fell to the ground, gasping as air flooded her lungs. Her vision was still covered in spots, and she felt weak, but nevertheless she pushed herself up on all fours. Extending a shaky hand, she called for lightsaber. It slid towards her, across, the floor, until Kylo Ren stepped on it, stopping it dead in its tracks. He bent down next to her, and at that point, she knew she had to accept this.
"You're right," he told her. "I don't want to kill you." He took off his helmet in order to properly look her in the eye, and she felt herself relax ever so slightly. It was good to see his face. It was good to know that maybe, just maybe, Ben was still in there. "Isaj, if you were to help me, Snoke would have to accept you. He would train you, as well. I'm sure of it."
She leaned up to him in order to stroke his cheek. Tears fell from her eyes freely now, as she shook her head sadly. "Ben, listen to yourself," she said. "Listen to what you're asking me to do. I can't." He was silent, contemplating his next move. "Please," she begged him. "Please reconsider this. We can still go back to the way things were. It's not too late."
Instead of answering, he pressed his lips down onto hers and cradled her face with one hand. She could feel her tears mixing with his, and in that blissful moment, she was truly happy. He pulled away, and they looked at each other. The only noise in the room was that of their breathing. And then the hum of a lightsaber.
The color red was overwhelming. The jagged red blade was everywhere- in front of her, behind her, in between her ribs. It even illuminated his face. There was a hard, determined look to it, and she knew this wasn't Ben. Not anymore.
Kylo Ren deactivated his lightsaber. She screamed out in agony once before falling to the ground. She was dying. But all he did was stand up, brush himself off, and put on his mask. He looked down at her once more before he left and saw wide eyes, unseeing and vacant. The image burned into his mind. This was his first kill. Somewhere inside of him, Ben mourned her loss.
But Kylo Ren felt nothing.