II
Kari awoke to an even greater rumbling within the fortress than before. She felt an overwhelming pressure from the force, far stronger than anything she had ever before sensed. She slowly rose to her feet and held the back of her head, struggling to stifle the pain she felt not only in the back of her head, but also the pain of having been so easily defeated by her former teacher. She stumbled forward, raising her right hand outward ahead of her and pulling her lightsaber from the ground with the force. She clipped it to her belt on her right hip and ran her hand through her heavily disheveled copper hair, brushing it from her face so she could better take in her surroundings. She was nearly surrounded in darkness, lights flickering at random intervals. She could tell, both from what light she had available, as well as from her sense of balance, that the hallways were no longer level. Ignoring concerns over what might have caused this, or what could further happen, she took off at a sprint toward the heavy pressure of the force filling the fortress.
Panic took her as she got closer. She could feel Trilla, but only barely. She was dying. Kari could sense this as if she was watching it happen. She ran, faster than she possibly ever had before, winding through doorways and turns until she found herself at the upper level of the central chamber of the fortress. She had been here before. It was a torture chamber. She had been made to watch Trilla be subject to such torture several years prior. They had contemplated subjecting Kari herself to it as well, but she had willingly joined them, following Trilla after she had been turned. She looked down where a staircase should have been but found it had been torn from the doorway. The room itself looked as if something a bomb had gone off. Ceiling and floor panels were ripped from their places, many jammed into the walls. Near the edge of the outer ring of the room, Kari, her breath leaving her as her eyes fell upon the unmoving body of Trilla. She lept down from the upper level and ran to the fallen woman's side, dropping to her knees a few feet away and sliding the rest of the way. She placed one hand on the woman's stomach, and the other beneath her head, lifting it slightly, but stopped as a gasp of pain escaped her quivering lips.
"Tril…" Kari spoke gently, fear flowing from her every slow breath.
"H…help him," Trilla spoke slowly, nearly inaudible to the younger girl. Her eyes moved from Kari's face toward the door to the torture chamber, which had been ripped inward from its place, before rolling back as the last of her life left her.
Kari could no longer hold it in. The tears rushed from her eyes as she pulled her friend and mentor against her body, embracing what warmth remained. Her hand ran across Trilla's back, feeling the wide cut that ran nearly vertical along her entire back. 'Help him,' she thought to herself, forcing her anger back as she gently lowered her fallen friend to the floor before getting to her feet. She ran through the broken doorway and saw a massive space of nothing, where a bridge had once been. On the other side was a tall, black armored figure, pulling the blood-red blade of his lightsaber back out of a closed elevator door. He calmly turned it off and stepped through another doorway, the door blowing away outward from himself. Without further thought, she ran back into the torture chamber, running through a door opposite from where she had first entered, going into a long, curving hallway. Unsure of exactly where the black figure was heading, she followed the darkness his very presence gave off, fighting with each fast step she took, to not fall to her knees from its overwhelming power.