I guess I should start at the very beginning.
The planet I came from was all about being perfection, from the moment you were born to the point you die, you are meant to be perfect. It was almost like a conceited race, striving to be the best in their field when it came to education and technology. Thousands of years of programming and breeding the best on the planet was all my parents knew, They were perfect in every kind of way, their brains, their looks and appearance, and how they went on in their day. It was almost a too perfect kind of planet that I came from. My parents wanted the same when they were told that they were going to have a child, and they had high hopes.
But when I was born, it was all shattered into a million pieces.
I was born with no hearing in my right ear, and minutes after I was born, I was registered as a "defect" in my community. That was another thing that was a bit bizarre to other communities when they look at our own. We were proud of how we looked and how we achieved out greatness, but for those who were born with something that was part of the criteria, they were automatically called second class citizens, even third class if it was severe. It's happened plenty of times, children born with one less finger or with a learning disability. For me, it was the hearing problem. My left ear was perfectly fine, but the right side had nothing in there. My parents were mortified, almost in shame for what was happening to me when they stamped my birth certificate with the 2nd class stamp there right on the top.
My destiny was already placed there, set in stone.
Those from a second class rank are treated differently, even from walking down the street to getting an education. I was not going to be at the top school, nor was I going to get the proper treatments at medical centers. My job criteria ultimately were going to be lower than the typical jobs, maintenance, and blue collar work. It was not going to be a good life for me, all from the deafness. Even with my parents trying to fit me with the best kind of implant on the market so I could have some kind of a fight chance, it was still too dim for me.
They knew it, and that's what lead me to their abandonment.
Planet Jakku
Something bright was now over me now, having me gasp awake from something shifting over me, almost like a jolt down to the back. I shot up, not remembering where I was and what was going on. Everything was hot, all over me was hot and sticky, almost too much for me to handle than as something was draped over me like a shield. It was a trap from one of the huts, and it was covering my legs and hips now as I was slowly understanding what was going on and how I got there in the first place. It was all coming back to me, over and over again like a broken replay button.
Poe, where was Poe?
I tried to get up, but I gasped out in pain as my leg was still injured. I moved the drape out of the way. finally seeing the damage of what happened there and I squinted from just seeing it. A large wound was along my calf, a clean cut but still looking a bit too gruesome for my sake. There was blood there, caked onto my skin and it almost made me get sick, and I couldn't tell from where I was on the ground on how bad it was and if I could really move it. I reached over to touch the outer edges, feeling it for a moment to two before I could find out what to do next. It stung, the aching feeling of a wound that spent hours in one spot and is now in need of being moved around. I couldn't really move it anymore, not too much now as I then looked around again, knowing that I would need to wrap it and try to stop any more pain to come over me.
"You can do this, you can do this," I said to myself over and over again, but the once I used my voice, I could hear it was off. No wonder things didn't feel right, my implant wasn't in anymore. It was moved, or someone took it out while I was knocked out. Was it the stormtrooper, his face was now back within my own brain, the helmet that had the blood there like it was marked like he was marked. It was haunting me, how he looked at me and tilted his head to the side at me. I then thought of what he told me before knocking me out finally.
"I'm Sorry."
I ripped some of the tarp that was still near me and got it small enough to wrap it around my calf. I got it around the muscle and the skin, crying out slightly now as the rough material was touching the one wound and it was making it feel a lot worse than before. I was going to take care of it later, much later, but for now, I had to get this taken care of now and in a way that can last me for such a long time. It got it tied up, finally, and with a bit of maneuvering around, I got up on both of my feet again and got to look around again to see what was going on around me.
There was only smoke, smoking rising up still from the ground below, and a full shift of a scent of something burning, something bad and nasty. I wondered what it was, and it almost made me cover my mouth from not breathing it in anymore. There were hardly any more huts that were still standing, let alone anyone there at all. God, how long was I out for? What else was left there to see? I wanted to find out more in the village, I still ended one more thing, having me find my gaze go to the ground a bit to see if I was going to find it Finally, there it was, along the side of the tarp and under it a bit and near the sand. I hobbled over to it a bit and grunted with every move went on my limb and reached down, dusting the sand off a bit and blowing the rest of it off and the other debris that was there.
My Implant.
I was still wondering why it was out of my ear in the first place, having me feel like someone did that on purpose as some kind of trick or a way to make me weak. But I placed it back in my ear again, getting used to it once more and the hearing was back to normal again. One thing was done, but I felt like there was plenty more to do then.
I waddled over to the village, or what used to be the village. it was all gone, blown to bits and nothing was left standing really. All of the huts that used to be there was now leveled down flat, and I could see where the blasters tore into the huts that used to stand. Everything was destroyed, beyond destroyed. But when I gazed over to the middle the village, I saw a huge pile of back there, and it took me a moment or two to realize what it was:
Burned bodies.
I kept my mouth covered from the stench of the burning pile away from me some more, more smoke was still coming out of it now as a turn of my stomach and making me hate the First Order more from what they did to all of these poor souls and people. Why would they do something like this? it was' right at all in the slightest.
I kept peering around, trying to find some kind of clue as to where I should go from there if I should even stay there in the blistering heat and the death that I was feeling over and over again. I had to start at square one again, and I was about to move to face the outer part of the town when something happened, something that has never happened to me before.
I saw a flashed image of a map in my head. Not really a map, but mostly of coordinates that looked like a map. It came across my brain and had me almost lost within a moment or two. I saw could it in my hear, clear as day and almost crystal clear. I saw where it was trying to point to, and before I could even figure it out, even more, the image was gone. I was back on Jakku again.
"What in theā¦" I trailed off, not realizing what it was that I was seeing. How is it that I saw this? Why was I seeing this? It was like it was imprinted in my head and I had no way or getting it out. This was just another thing for me to worry about and to figure out on my own. But I had to find my X-Wing again, and I hope that it was where I placed it last the night before and, after all, went down with Poe and the First Order.
I had to get out of here.
After walking for a good couple of minutes and seeing where I was locally now, I finally understood where to find my X-Wing again. My leg was killing me, my head was spinning from what happened the night before, and the heat was seeping under my skin and into my muscles. But finally, after plenty of walking and more of the wound aching all over my leg now, I saw the small kind of hiding spot I made for the X-Wing. it was well hidden behind a high sand hill, a tarp that was the same color of the sand there and the area was placed over the top and the sides to make it well hidden. I sighed in relief, seeing that I accomplished one more thing on my list.
"Hello you," I said in a blissful moment as I grabbed the trap and pulled it over and down from the X-Wing now, using a bit more strength because of my bummed leg. There she was, my X-Wing that I kept up every day and took good care of from the moment she was assigned to me. I loved this X-Wing, had my personal touches here and there now as I was limping over to touch the sides with my tanned fingers that were already about to be sunburned from the weather.
The metal was a bit hot, having a squint a bit from feeling it and then making my way over to the cockpit and the ladder that was still on the edge. If there was going to be any kind of way for me to get back to the base, I would have to start from trying to communicate to the base. Then again, I thought of Poe and where he might be. I was scared for him, since the last time I saw him, Poe was at the mercy of Kylo Ren, whoever that was. Poe could be anywhere, and that was scaring me right there next to the X-Wing as I touched it once again, feeling it being a wee bit cooler now under my fingers.
"Poe, where are you?" I asked in a harsh whisper.
Planet D'Qar
Six years earlier
They were looking at me, all of them were looking right at me now as I was walking with my mechanic backpack over my shoulder and y head down low now. It was another round of routine for me, having em walk over to my own X-Wing now that they assigned me to and I was about to be one of them: a pilot. After I was offered the job, by General Organa herself from seeing me and my handiwork with the mechanics of the X-Wings, she thought it would be best for me to try and learn how to fly. I didn't know whether or now if it was because she needed more pilots, or she saw something in me that she wanted, but she promoted me.
So why was I feeling like shit?
"Oh God, not the cripple."
"Anyone but her, she can't hear a damn thing!"
It was everywhere, all of those voices and those comments were hanging above me and around me like it was some kind of net that was not going to let me breathe and escape. I was used to it, the talks and the rumors, how they would underestimate me. Since I was a child and growing up with my grandfather as my caretaker I knew what it meant to be the outsider and to be judged upon. It was not a part of me, as much as I hated to admit it and say it, but it was. I only thought it would be better for me since I was older and on a different planet.
But I guess not.
The X-Wing they gave me, one of the more rusty ones that stayed on the last one on the left on the hanger strip outside of the base, having me look at it up and down, it could use some work, plenty of work, which is why I knew why they gave it to me. They wanted to give me the last X-Wing that was really a last resort, but in my mind, it was going to be one of the best X-Wings out there.
I was going to make it my own.
"You think Organa would have some kind of clue as to who to get as a pilot these days. But a degenerate? Good grief," I paused there, hearing the two pairs of feet that were right behind me and having me hold the straps on my shoulder some more in a vice grip. I wanted to turn around, to yell at them to leave me be since they still thought I was not good enough to be one of them, to be a pilot.
"Why don't you guys go and find something better to do, like working on your own flying. Leave her alone," Someone told them off with a bit of a vice in their tone, having me freeze there and not move since I didn't know how said that out loud. It was a new voice, maybe a new pilot there at the base.
"Whatever, Dameron. Way to be cocky." One of the other pilots said back to my savior of a person.
"And way to be an asshole," The first one, apparently named Dameron but back at him, the other two walking off then without saying a word or two as I stayed still. I didn't know what to do, frozen like I was stuck within cement in my boots there. As soon as I could tell nothing else was going to happen, I then felt it: a hand on my shoulder. It was shot, almost scared to touch my own shoulder then.
"Hey," the pilot said to me in a careful tone, my hands still gripping my shoulder strap and hoping that I was not going to be able to turn around and face him because of the shyness that was threatening to come over me, "You okay?"
"I'm okay," I replied back to him in a shaky tone, and I felt stupid then abounding like that because it seemed like I was about to cry in how I said it.
"Look, you don't have to worry about those guys. They're basic pilot jockeys that don't know how to be nice," He tried to reason with me, having me not know what he looked like but hear the kindness in his voice. It was very kind, almost like he really wanted to help me and was now just sounding like that to make it less of a pain.
"They don't know their compressors from their overdrive function any who," I said in almost a joke now, thinking that it was somehow the only thing that I could say to him. Out of the blue, he started to chuckle then, from my joke. It was kind of morbid for me to say that to him, but at least, he chuckled after all.
"I get that joke, actually," he voiced, having me finally looked over my shoulder at him, my cochlear implant was in clear sight for this Dameron man to see. There he was, looking right at me and I could see his face finally. He was handsome to see, that much was certain as I saw the shade of brown in his eyes, how they looked so young and yet seasoned at the same time. He had wavy trimmed hair, brown to the point of being black that fitted him so well. Wearing a pilot jacket over his regular attire, he finally released his hand from my shoulder now and he placed the arm back down at his side.
"I'm Poe Dameron," he introduced himself to me now, the kind tone was back there in his voice now as he then held out his hand for me to shake with him. I looked down at the hand, not knowing what to do next and if it would be the right choice to do this. He was the genuine first friend I made there that honestly cared. But this was the life I have chosen, to not let my disability be that, a disability. I shook it then and there, a small smile on my face.
"Atta," I replied to him, "Atta Teckno."
