Lyra pushed through the dense jungle. The air was thick with moisture, making breathing difficult. The voices continued to whisper, leading Lyra further away from the clearing. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead, she took in her surroundings. Trees, vines, bogs. Nothing else. There was no one around. Who did the voices belong to? Was she going mad?

"Lyra," the female voice said again.

"Lyra," the male echoed.

"Show yourselves," Lyra said in her most commanding voice. "I'm done playing this game."

She began to walk again, finally coming to another clearing. The air was slightly cooler here, mist rose up from the ground. Frustrated, Lyra sat on a rock and sighed. Suddenly, she wasn't alone. Two figures had appeared before her. They were the translucent forms of a man and woman. The man, a tall figure with a mop of black hair, spoke first.

"I can't believe it. You're so beautiful." He looked at the woman and smiled. "She looks just like you."

"You're so big," the woman said wistfully. She was much shorter than the man, beautiful but sad. "You were so small the last time I saw you."

"Who are you?" Lyra asked. "What are you?"

"Your parents," the woman answered. Her voice was shaking. "I'm your mother, Rey."

"That can't be true," Lyra replied. "My parents are dead. I'm alone."

"You've never been alone," the man who claimed to be Kylo Ren said. "We've always been with you."

Lyra didn't know what to think. Could these figures really be her parents? If they were, where had they been all her life? Why hadn't they helped her?

"We couldn't show ourselves, Snoke kept us away from you." Rey seemed to be able to read Lyra's mind. "But we've been with you your entire life. "We've been guiding Finn and Hux. We knew they could help you."

"You have to let them," Kylo Ren insisted. "Let them be there for you the way your mother was for me."

Lyra was overwhelmed, sad and angry. "Let them be there for me? Hux murdered you, he let my mother die. And he's hiding something, I don't trust him."

"He's kept his promise to me," said Rey. "He promised to look after you and he did. The promise changed him, his love for you changed him."

"But that doesn't change what he did!" Lyra cried.

Kylo reached out, as though he wished to touch his daughter's face. "The past is the past. Nothing can change what Hux did. It doesn't matter."

Lyra couldn't believe what she was hearing. "But he let me stay with Snoke all those years, he let me believe those lies! He let me think you abandoned me!"

"I was abandoned as a child; it breaks my heart to think that you went through the same thing." Rey stepped closer to Lyra. "But Hux did his best, Snoke is persuasive."

"I'm an orphan because of Hux," Lyra snapped. "I hate him."

"Hux isn't responsible for what happened. It was Snoke," Kylo answered. He seemed angry himself. "This was all his plan."

Lyra was fuming. "Snoke. I swear, I'm going to destroy him."

"We don't want you to seek vengeance," Rey said firmly. "We want you to live a good life. All I've ever wanted is for you to be happy."

"I'll never be happy while he's alive," Lyra insisted. I'm living on borrowed time as it is. He's probably searching for me already."

"Leave that to the resistance," Kylo said fiercely. "Find your grandmother, she'll make sure you're safe."

Lyra was unconvinced. "She won't accept me, not after what I've done. No one will."

Kylo looked at his daughter and sighed. "You may look like your mother but you sound exactly like me. I never thought anyone would be able to accept me, not until your mother. I couldn't see the truth. My mother would have taken me back in a heartbeat, no matter what I had done. And she'll do the same for you."

Lyra felt herself beginning to break down again, tears were welling up in her eyes. "Why couldn't you have just stayed alive?" she whispered. "Wasn't there anything you could have have done? You left me all alone." She wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"I did everything I could, Lyra. So did your father." Rey looked as though she might start to cry too. "But Snoke wanted us gone, there was nothing we could do."

"Believe us," Kylo Ren begged. "We wanted to stay with you so badly. All I wanted to do was protect you. Watching you suffer like this is the worst pain I've ever endured."

"It's so unfair," Lyra muttered. "And it's all Snoke's fault." Lyra looked at the ghosts of her parents, the people who should have been around to keep her safe. The people who should have been there to love her. Snoke is going to pay for this, she thought. He'll regret the day he decided to kidnap my mother.