Darth Vader felt cold. Not that he felt such changes in temperature anymore encased in his suit, but as if leaking through, a sensation he had not felt for a while, would have made him shiver had he not long ceased such unnecessary functions.
He strode through the crumbling ruins, not minding where he stepped, the half rotted corpses and skeletons of those killed before they could rise against the empire littered the floors. It was quiet, nothing could be heard but the loud exhales of his respirator as his lungs were forcibly expanded.
Dust and dirt and corpses were all that remained of the traitorous Jedi and the half crumbling ruins of a decrepit corrupt order.
Still, there…Ahsoka had run to him, her call of "Skyguy!" echoing through the halls..The room of 1,000 fountains was dry as a bone, caked with grime, barren, and dark—Obi-Wan's warm voice as he bent down, "Here, Anakin—"
Ghosts…
"Nothing but ghosts." he spoke aloud, deep voice reverberating. Vader centered himself, he couldn't forget his hatred, Kenobi left him to burn. Tano left him. No one remained. But, his hate did, his anger, and he would see justice.
His feet had somehow managed to lead him down a familiar path, seemingly unaware he was doing so. Crumbled flimsi and debris littered the floor from the subsequent raids for information from the temple—and there—
He bent down to retrieve a few scattered pages barely bound together—remnants of a journal—
free my mother and the rest of the slaves
I thought she was an angel…
let me go back to Naboo someday..
If he could have held his breathe he would have, but the ever constant pressure and pain of the respirator continued, expanding damaged tissue, reminding him again, he lived…she died…
