"You're a savior and a star, Kylo Ren," said the general. He was clenching his fist. Below his rolled up coat sleeve, the veins on his arm popped up with the help of a tourniquet. He had a rule about the drugs he used to keep his captive alive. Kylo got half a dose of painkiller at a time. Matthias got the rest and maybe an extra full dose. The drug did well at keeping his eyes glassy and his shoulders relaxed.
"It was the First Order that taught me about proper torture, you know." Matthias talked as if he'd just handed Ren a drink at a bar. "They had unwritten protocols for medical treatment of torture victims. Whatever the standard dose was for a drug in the database, give half or less and keep the rest for yourself. Some nurse let that slip one day."
The needle slid into Matthias's arm with a practiced grace. He had older puncture marks everywhere.
"Anyway, the compliment was for a different reason." Matthias was trying to sound neutral, but his voice was a bit breathy. That drug worked fast. "All the credits go to relief efforts for people affected by First Order conquest. They would let all the military prisoners do this kind of work for them, but trials are also satisfying, in their own way."
Kylo moved his head, ear and cheek scraping against the floor. It was the only response he could give. Matthias turned, ready to re-start the electricity and turn on the broadcast.
"I hope Hux hangs first," he said, lowering himself into a nearby chair. Kylo convulsed, choking on bile and saliva. "Or last. Either order would make sense."
He crossed his arms.
"It's interesting, though. Lots of people caught that little religious experience he had last session. General consensus seems to be that he's finally having the psychotic break that was coming to him." He seemed to consider his own words for a moment before standing, unlocking Kylo's cell so he could step in. Being so close to the electrified chains didn't faze him. Bones cracking, Matthias squatted down and didn't blink when Kylo rolled over to vomit near his shoe.
"But I knew Leia, and I know what someone looks like when the Force is calling to them. And, unfortunately for you, I don't actually keep secrets from the top. This," he gestured all around him, "is something the top is fine with, so I have nothing to hide. I told them what I thought about what we saw with Hux, and what I saw in you."
He got up to shut off the shocks, then returned to Kylo's limp form. Calmly, he set his boot on Kylo's neck and pressed down.
"Did you use the Force to contact him? You don't need to say so." He pressed harder. "Just nod."
Kylo stared at the ceiling. Part of him wanted to laugh at this absurdity, but that was a constant feeling now. The rest of him hid behind that desire, uncaring. General Hux and his looks of awe and Matthias's intuitions meant nothing.
When Kylo didn't respond, Matthias shrugged and turned to leave.
"Never say I didn't give you a chance."
Maz Kanata studied Kylo with tired, defiant eyes. But the sentiment was not toward him alone, of course. Matthias was hovering over her. To the general's right, a dark-skinned, severe-looking woman was fiddling with the blaster at her waist.
"What do you think bringing me here will accomplish?" Maz looked up at her surroundings with even more distaste than she did Kylo. "You have both of them, and they are across the galaxy from one another."
"It's not what I think. I only relayed my thoughts to the Grand Council's liasons," said General Matthias, unfazed by Maz's glare. "They want a neutral party to assess the situation. It's true that we'll be doing away with both of them in due time, but you can never be too cautious if someone magically decides to show their Force-sensitivity while a Force-user decides to have a random seizure."
"The First Order is gone and there is no more 'neutral'," Maz replied. She pointed a thin finger at Kylo. "The dampening chains on him are unlike anything I've ever seen. He may very well be reacting to those. I don't have an opinion on Hux." Kanata faced Matthias and the woman, staring them both down in spite of her short stature.
"In my view, the Grand Council is full of paranoid fools, but if you leave me alone with him so I can concentrate, I'll have an answer for you."
Matthias and the other woman exchanged looks, but decided not to argue and left without another word.
Maz sucked in a breath through her teeth once they were gone. Kylo remained curled up in his favorite corner.
Maz let herself in to the cell, approaching Kylo quickly, showing no fear. She avoided stepping in puddles of fresh and dry bodily fluids without even trying. If his throat worked, he might have sneered at her, just for the off chance that it would make him feel less weak.
"Ben Solo," she said lowly. In spite of everything, even that name he hated so much, her voice was not unpleasant. "Look around you."
She was a curious, stupid little creature, but Kylo indulged her. Aside from the technological marvel of his chains, the cell and the room beyond it were gray and unremarkable. If there were no physical pain grounding him to this world, he might have thought he was dead and trapped in limbo.
"Do you think that the Force intended for you to end up here?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kylo rasped, lying. He wrapped his arms even tighter around his knees, pressing his forehead against the closest wall.
"Do you feel whole, Ben? Is all of your being, your Force power, contained in this cell?"
Kylo's lips twisted. He hoped his smile was horrifying.
"Aren't you supposed to know? I'm starting to wonder why they brought you here."
"Oh, I know," she smiled, "but I'm not going to achieve your destiny for you. I can only give you advice on how to proceed."
She stepped closer to him, placing warm fingers on Kylo's temple. Hating it, he leaned into the touch.
"I'm not a Force-user. That's why I'm here. They know Rey and Luke are principled. Maybe they hate you, maybe they don't, but what you've been through would enrage them both." Maz paused, breathing in. Strangely, Kylo felt his mind calm a bit at the sound. Still, he wished she would leave.
"Get to the point."
"As I said, I have no allegiance to Light or Dark, but if there is one thing I know about the Force, it's that it always gets what it wants in due time. I saw it with Anakin. I saw it with Luke and Rey. Now, I see it with you."
"And what the fuck does Hux have to do with anything?"
"Ah, now that's the interesting part - one that I know nothing about. I can only see you, Ben Solo, and the fact that you are incomplete."
Kylo cringed. Maz put her hand on his knee.
"Something did leave you when you seized during the trial, but it is not lost. Meditate, Ben, and you will find it. Sleep may help, as well."
Finally, Kylo could laugh again. When was the last time he'd slept? Maz only tilted her head, a sad look wrinkling her face.
"I see," she said, turning to leave. "Then I am sorry for what I am about to do."
Maz let Matthias and his minion back into the room, putting on an unimpressed face.
"It is as I said. Pure coincidence. I looked as hard as I could and found nothing that connects him to Hux." She looked pointedly at the fidgeting woman, narrowing her eyes. "But if you really want more information, you'll have to get it directly from him."
Matthias inclined his head at Maz, allowing her to exit. He followed her, pausing to place his hand on the woman's shoulder and giving her a nod.
"Don't broadcast this, and don't kill him," he said. She rolled her eyes after he was gone.
"Kill you? So you can rest in peace with mommy and daddy?" she said, striding towards Kylo. "Now, why would I ever do that?"
"So anyway," the woman, Rakshata, said as she leaned against the cell wall next to Kylo, "that's how my sister became a Stormtrooper. I got lucky, I was too frail. After the recruiter decided I wasn't in, he dropped me on the floor and walked away with her. We were about eight months old."
She reached over to prod the knife she'd driven through Kylo's foot and into the floor, trying to wiggle it around. It wouldn't budge.
"After that, I killed my way through some mercenary gangs, hung out on the edge of the galaxy, all that stuff. It's more lucrative than you think, and I somehow got myself on the Council's radar after Yontu went down. They're sweeping up a lot of people like me. Whatever their reasons, I'm glad they did. They give me money, and I end up here."
She crossed her legs.
"Atana deserted after Yontu. Tried to hunt down our parents. All she found of our home planet was a gaggle of refugees who hated the First Order even more than I do because you had some soldiers ransack their towns. Somehow, word got out that she, a baby stolen from her home, had once fought for you. Then they lynched her. Used some thick rags tied together and hung her from a tree. I went back to my hometown to visit my parents' graves a week later and heard the news. They dumped the body in a ditch. At least I got to bury her next to mom and dad."
Rakshata smiled sadly.
"My story is only one of many. Billions, in fact. I know you wouldn't care, though, even if you heard them all one by one." She grabbed Kylo's left wrist, produced another knife from nowhere, and pinned his hand to the wall. His voice was gone, so his screams were silent.
"So what say you, Kylo Ren? What do you care about? Grandpa? 'Leader' Snoke?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "General Hux?"
No response. Ren lolled his head to the side, unconscious. Rakshata snorted. She dipped her hand into fresh blood and rubbed it between her fingers.
"Another time, then." She tipped her head back, closing her eyes. "I'll be here for a while."
He awoke to darkness choking him. He had no body to feel with, barely a mind to let him think, and yet he could feel himself consumed by nothingness, his being dispersed in a void. This was a place with no time, no purpose, no physicality to speak of. He was alive, trapped in death.
Thoughts flitted from him, uncontrolled and small.
Help, Kylo Ren begged the abyss. Help.
The Dark Side did not respond. Several eternities passed by.
All the while, Kylo learned. Now and then, there was a realization that left him along with pleas for a savior. Snoke was here. Somewhere parallel to his own being, Snoke's essence was languishing in this hell. Dead Sith were here. Emporer Palpatine was here. They had no language, and their beings never touched. All of them no longer existed, and nonexistence was now all they knew. All were whispering. All were insane.
The Dark Side embraced them, keeping its followers separate and cold.
I am dead, thought Kylo. I am afraid.
Eternities came and went.
Mother. Father, thought Kylo. I'm sorry.
Sometimes, he tried pushing against it, waging a fruitless war against that which he had sacrificed himself to in life, but every time he made himself bigger, the Dark made him ten times as small.
Kylo tried to cry. He could not.
Then, in the middle of some eternity or other, there was a pinpoint of white that Kylo could somehow see. It became a single line that pierced through the nothingness, hurtling towards him. Still and silent, the Dark Side let it through.
Suddenly, it was if he possessed an arm. Something was grasping at him, warm and fragile.
Help, thought General Hux. Help.