l.
Smoke filled his lungs as Luke wheezed through, like a newborn taking their first breaths. A thick cold knife sliced through his back, what at least felt like it. The white buzz around his ears grew steadily around him. The heavy metal and wood pushed through and finally, he could see what with a short buzz the Force was screaming about and everything settle into his bones.
The smoke cleared, leaving but the lingering smell of the burned plastic and metal behind. His hair stuck into his skin, his lungs trying to keep oxygen in rather than out. The breeze brought his attention, looking around himself for the first time. There was so much pain. He sobs, unable to denied his body as he could feel his body screaming at each hiccup.
A soft beeping, steady yet uncertain. Artoo. The droid made it, he twisted, the body immediately jerking, and spamming. Something warm was traveling across his waist, looking down he realized a second too short that it was his own blood.
Another sentence of beeping, worried, and afraid. "I-It's okay Artoo. . . We'll make i-it through," He was lying though. Artoo could make it, he could call for help, he could get the Rebellion to come for them. He started to lose the feeling in his legs.
He remembered. He remembers feeling the creeping dread of something that was about to happen. That something was what brought Luke's actions and now, kneeling in the dirt and grime and gore, something broke. After all of the dead, the galaxy wasn't satisfied for the sacrifices they had made. He knew, deep down in the marrow of his bones, that something brought his dread. And he wasn't wrong.
Testing the waters he tried to get up, to peer around, he tries to clear his mind, like the Master's before he had once instructed. But those screams. Childishly Young, shrinking and if he listens close enough he could hear older ones of the past. No animals, just the fire cracking as he watched his present burn. He couldn't hear anything else, just his labored breaths. Hissing he pulled the lower half ( he was starting to lose movement, which was never good.) His arms shivered, never pulled dead weight like this, it wasn't long before Luke gave up for the burning pain shocking his system.
He leaned back, the beeping of Artoo keeping him grounded in reality. But he should have seen the trap being laid down, as he could feel that there was something at the mist, something he was missing. But seeing hope in both Leia, and Han's faces he couldn't help but muffled his dread, and say he could do this.
It hurts to breathe. It hurts to blink at the light. It hurts to listen. To smell. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts-
Artoo's frantic finally forced him to open his eye, letting the light burned the back of his eyes. There above the hill was a rising grey smoke, filling the dark skies with such a medical way, Luke might weep. He had failed.
He was about to slay someone down. His own blood and flesh, but he could not let the death and sacrifices of the fallen go to vain, not again. Not like Lothal, not like Tatooine, not like a dozen other planets that deserve justice after all these years. Sluggishly he swung his head towards the direction of the grey smoke, that was no longer there. He felt that there was something missing, dangling in front of him, mocking him of his ignorance. He could finally feel the force, screaming in warning. Why was it acting like that? Was there danger?
He couldn't keep his head up for too long, the metallic taste in his teeth didn't help either. Artoo somehow managed to get out, his beeping faster, louder, frantic. Why-?
Because right there in the top of the hill stood a hazy blue figure. The edge of his eyes, dark dots floating and dancing, the figure drew closer. The realization finally was wearing down on his bones. Had he failed so badly that even the Force abounded him?
Another series of beeping, with a hiss of electricity? Why-?
"Oh, Luke, this wasn't supposed to happen," Luke finally opens his eyes again, weird he doesn't remember closing them, and peered out. The old voice, it clicked like a cord to the final piece. It's familiar and old as rain and fire because even though his death he could still understand the voice of Obi-wan Kenobi.
The hazy figure and the coldness that was creeping upwards his flesh, it all too similar to Hoth. Here he was too, in the verge of dying.
He so desperately wanted to sag under his own pain and exhaustion, finally putting an end to the struggles and conflict. But the voice of the ghost demanded digital justice.
"Master. . . Have I failed so miserably that even you had to come all this way to tell me about it?" He almost felt like a child again, asking a stranger for some form of consolation on what to do.
"No young Luke, you have not failed. I come to give you a chance others had," Suddenly the burning smell of flesh that was clotting his noise cleared the way, and the screaming blissfully stopped.
"Tell me, Luke, what if you had a chance to change history?" Change history. What an unimaginable concept of daydreams. What could he change? His ignorance? His failings? What was there to change?
He was still lying down, the stars streaking across the sky. They were familiar, too familiar. The ground underneath him changed to its fundamental atoms, and the coursed sand took its place. The hills of the burning temple had been replaced by a sea of a calm golden ocean.
The dim lights to his right- His childhood home.
"Luke, please listen to me." Obi-wan, wizened faced and hunched, but he was no longer dressed as a hermit of the desert. New, and clean, like a proper Jedi Master.
"Master, what is this?" Some strange, new Force vision? If so then the Force is truly trying to impress him.
"This is a temporary sanctuary, like a rest stop for you to decide," The old Master stepped forward, he was no longer a hermit he witnesses in his younger years. "Others before you had this chance, to go back to a critical moment to change the Force for the better, for balance."
Luke frowned, if so then they did a merry job at that. Look where his temple was, on the ground being raided and left for ash. "Who? Wait- You want me to go to the past and take a gamble for the better or worse?"
"Some were not of this universe, that's why history is this way. I know from some sources that a version of me went back. I'm unsure if he succeeded or not. I highly doubt it of course, but this is beyond the point." Old Ben, the wizard of the Land, straighten his back into one of steel, commanding attention and the silent echo of armies marching to his command. And he looked at him straight into his eye, "Tell me, do you want to do this?"