Salt in a Wound
Red slashed across white like an angry wound on pale skin. Salt burned the vulnerable flesh of the planet. Black cauterized into scars. Engines roared, explosions rocked the ground, the dying screamed.
But the hollow echoes of loneliness were deafening. All that hurt was loss.
Shut it all away.
Chaos reigned below, for that now was all that there was in the world, but that was manageable. War was death, and death would be avenged. Within, however, the heart ached for its missing half, searching the shadows for even the dimmest response that would assure it it wasn't utterly alone. The heart burned from betrayal and anger, to have been made so vulnerable and then deceived when what it needed most was the soothing touch of one who understood. The heart wept to realize no one but the one who had torn it apart would ever come so close.
That chaos was unbearable. It crippled the soul and broke the body. All at once, to feel rage and sorrow and longing and despair, in two bodies that were meant to be one.
It's not supposed to feel this way.
A fabricated bond was a bond nonetheless. A bond, forged in deceit and cruelty, that stretched and pulsed like a muscle that pulled too far. It never should have existed. In fact, it would have been better if it never did.
Or no, not better. Without it, life would have continued without ever knowing something was missing, that things could be different. That there was purpose outside of one's own ambitions. Even that one's ambitions can change when exposed to the quiet reflections of another, when one's own vulnerabilities are exposed and told it's alright. To find, after years of self doubt and fear and bitterness, that you are not alone. To feel relief. Trust. Love.
And yet solitude has never been more the truth.
There's nowhere for these feelings to go but out. They come out as violence or desperation or anger, but never as what they truly are: regret. The time for apologies and forgiveness is past, if it ever existed at all.
That only makes it harder. You wonder if there was ever even a chance for it to work, or if the feeling was only there to reiterate just how alone you were. To have come so close, and lost more than that with which you started.
Like salt in a wound.
Battle raged. Hope failed and was renewed. Bitterness paralyzed the living and shook the dead into action. The parallel paths of balance grew ever more shadowed.
IOIOIOI
A/N: I have not submitted a story to in... years, so I'm nervous, and hope this quick drabble is well received. The Last Jedi inspired me to write for Rey and Kylo, who are the focus here, specifically about their emotional connection. The speaker of the story is intentionally ambiguous, so you may decide for yourself which one it is, or perhaps it is both. :)
Thanks for taking the time to read, review if you would like.
Manwathiel