"Eyes open, Caleb"

I pried my eyes open, blinking through old tears. I couldn't sleep. They would find me and… and I didn't want to know what they would do.

I had run, and I would keep running for the rest of my short, pathetic life.

The Jedi were all supposed to be dead. I was supposed to be dead. My master was dead. For me. It should be me. What was the point anymore? I would be shot the second anyone found me.

Dead dead dead dead dead. The word marched on like battle droids, pounded into me like blaster bolts, pierced like a lightsaber.

The Holocron was heavy in the pocket on my Jedi robes.

Just yesterday, I was one Jedi Padawan in thousands. I was one soldier in a war, playing a game like I knew the rules. Winning battles, training. Sleeping peacefully under the stars. Life was good. I was blind.

Today, I run from my friends. I had fled in fear for my life. But what now? The real battle is catching up to me.

The Padawan Braid hangs loosely from my neck, useless and stupid. A symbol of something long gone.

I pull out my lightsaber, connecting the two parts. They fit together like clockwork, a familiar routine. If anyone saw the glowing blue blade, I would be dead.

The blade shoots from the handle. I'm not a Knight. I will never be a Knight. I'm not a Padawan either. I'm lost.

"Where is home?"

I scoff at my own stupid question. There was no home anymore. The lightsaber hums next to my neck, the heat scalding my scalp.

I cannot do it.

The lightsaber deactivates, falling from my hand. It clatters to the ground. I could not cut of my own Padawan braid, just as I can never cut off my connection to the Force. Even when my connection to it would get me killed.

I close my eyes.

I dream of Clones. White armor and familiar faces and voices, all the same. They surround me, blasters leveled at my chest. I am backed up against a wall with my own wanted poster amongst dozens of other Jedi's mug shots. They peel off the wall and flutter around me, coating the floor and my picture is crunched under the Clone's boots.

I throw out a hand. The Clones do not shoot. They fly away- vanishing like puffs of smoke in the sea of paper posters.

I have something they don't. The Force.

My feet feel steady underneath me now. I will keep something I was supposed to lose. Hope.

I will live. I will not be blinded by fear or hatred or my past. I will not be hunted by ghosts. I will survive.

And I will keep my eyes open.

I am ready to start my new life, a hard life, the real life. A life where you steal, you cheat, and survive. A life where secrets are kept, where others are kept blind for one's benefit.

(Based of of Taylor Swift's "Eyes Open". Listen to it, think about Caleb. You'll cry. I own nothing.)