It seems like another boring uneventful day in Jakku.
At dawn, the increasingly brighter sky endowed with a rosy hue is in sharp contrast to the dull yellow sands beneath.
The vast desert, the vaster sky, and several scattered relics of old wars are usually all you can see in this forsaken planet.
As there are so many trashes left by the war several decades ago, you won't be surprised when knowing that many local habitants are involved in the industry of picking up and fixing trashes.
In such a severe living environment, survival itself is luxurious.
For Rey, a 19-year-old girl who lives as a scavenger, this bitter fact could not be truer.
In the little broken nest she calls her "house", she just awakens from a long long dream filled with images of sea, island, forest, rain, snow... in short, almost all the things she should not have seen. At least memories tell her so.
However, she still believes that there is another possibility, maybe they are about her experience before being left in this cursed planet, which she has forgotten unconsciously.
A stranger thing she could not explain is that, in her dreams there is always a boy, tall, thin, dark-haired and gloomy.
Sometimes the boy seems to know her presence and tries to speak to her, but she could never make out what he exactly speaks.
She finds this experience disturbing because each time meeting the boy in her dreams, she wishes to soothe him, asking him why he is so sad and telling him there are many beautiful things in the world to make life worth living.
She does not know where her compassion comes from, but she is sure such feeling really exists.
However, in order to survive, she has no time to think about the phantom of a boy.
Now it's already morning, and she should leave her shelter to do her job.
This day will be a difficult one, for she has no food reserved, it means something valuable must be found.
In order to protect herself from the ray of sun, she wrapped her head with a big scarf from the dump, and to defend herself against the possible enemies trying to steal her trophy, she takes a long stick as her sole weapon.
Now she is ready to start a new adventure.
Today she plans to explore a large wreck of the old ship in deserted battlefield. Its inner structure is very complicated, and entering it would be more dangerous. But she has no choice because in safer places nothing valuable remains.
Her destination once witnessed the epic battle between the Empire and the New Republic, the evil and the good. At least legends say so.
She is not fortunate enough to receive formal education, so all her knowledge about history is gained from heroic stories through self-learning. Therefore her understanding of this discipline is always a mixture of imagination and exaggerated facts.
Thanks to her self-learnt knowledge about ship and machine, the exploration is not as dangerous as she supposed. Fortunately she found some broken and dirty parts repairable, and according to the current market condition, she could trade them for sufficient food to live three days longer.
She is very happy, and what makes her happier is her discovering something not so useful but beautiful.
It's a red rose.
Although it has been cut from its root, withered and dried, its beauty delights this scavenger girl and makes her dull day brighter.
She imagines to decorate her house by this flower. Definitely it is the best gift she finds recently.
Maybe in Jakku anything would be dried, but at least her soul will not.
In the First Order, the mighty Kylo Ren is a mystery.
He is the Supreme Leader's apprentice, the head of the Ren Knights. Very few people know where he comes from, and as he hides his face behind a heavy metal mask and destroys machines and chokes officers when losing temper, if not necessary, nobody wants to be near to him.
It seems like that, he is the man no one around him would like.
Maybe at the same time he likes no one around him. Compared with talking to others, he is more inclined to be alone.
Furthermore, as he manages to keep a rather strict schedule, his pace of life is very incompatible to his living environment.
This schedule for a hermit is the legacy of his past training. Although he has left his family, what his family left in him still works.
In the endless space, it is always difficult to distinguish the day from the night. But he is good at it. Each day, very early at night, he would retreat to his simply decorated room and remove the mask from his head.
Now because there is no one else, he needs not to create a scary image to hide his sense of insecurity. He could be liberated from his childish disguise and be another man, the true himself.
After finishing his simple supper, he prefers to read or practice calligraphy or do anything making him calm, until it's time to sleep.
Then he would lay on his narrow bed and wait a long time for the visit by dream, the only thing to drive his loneliness away.
Dream is the only place for him to meet her.
Since several years ago, a brown-haired girl has entered his dream and life. Her identity? He doesn't know. Her name? He doesn't know either. He even has no idea whether she really exists.
Especially after searching so many planets without any hint found, he seems to be convinced that she is just his imagination, although more real than it should be.
When first meeting her, he was still a boy trained by Uncle Luke.
Desperately missing his parents, he cried even in his dream, and suddenly a teenager girl appeared.
"Why are you so sad?" she asked softly.
He cried too fiercely to answer her.
"Something bad must happen, where are your parents? Why are you alone?" she continued.
"They sent me to be trained by Uncle Luke." he said. "Maybe they think I am a burden and by doing so they can get rid of me."
But the girl did not know what he was talking about. "I can just see your lips moving, I can hear nothing." she explained.
"But don't be sad, no matter what happened, there is still hope, isn't it? A boy like you always have boundless possibilities." she soothed him.
She reminded him of his mother, not the General Organa or Senator Organa others know, but a young mom of a toddler.
Afterwards, each several months, the girl appeared in his dreams.
"My parents will return to take me away. I believe they will." she smiled sweetly.
"I hope so." he said gently. He realized that although he could clearly know what she said, she totally had no idea about his words.
They could never communicate in the normal way, and in dreams they could not see each other's features clearly. They are both dim phantoms for each other， but he was rather happy and satisfied.
He once considered the possibility of asking Uncle Luke how it happened, but he was too shy to tell his uncle his dreaming about a girl.
After he fled to join the Supreme Leader of the First Order, the girl becomes more important for him. She is like the remedy for his misery and bitterness, as well as the only thing bright at the lifeless ship in the vast space.
Now, while waiting for his dream, not very sleepy, he fills his head with wild thoughts.
What if the girl really exists? Maybe she is just living in a place he has not reached, and if destiny will finally be kind to him, he may someday meet her physically.
Just like day goes after night,
And darkness meeting the light,
Even if they are going to fight,
To encounter is just to reunite.
(End)