AN: Thanks as always for reading and reviewing! FYI, Rianna is my OC that I've used for Luke's wife in, well, several fanfic universes.

"The Pull to the Dark"

By EsmeAmelia

Chapter 16

Luke ran.

He ran like he was twenty again, like he was running from Imperial forces, but there was a distinct sense that he was running to something instead of from something and that if he didn't reach his destination soon, it would be too late.

Too late for what?

The sterile, white corridor seemed endless and the lights in the ceiling seemed to want to blind him, but still he ran, ran, ran . . .

The door!

Whatever he was looking for was behind the door – he was sure of it. He hit the button like he was punching someone in a fight and the door slid open, revealing a hospital bed in which an unresponsive patient lay, hooked up to machines to keep her alive.

"No . . ." Luke whispered, inching up to the bed, his mouth drying at the sight of the comatose patient: her light brown skin covered with festering sores, her thick black hair soaked in sweat, a breathing mask encasing her mouth and nose, tubes stuck up her arms.

"No . . ." Luke whispered again, ". . . Rianna . . . no . . ." He grabbed her cold hand, squeezing it as if the action would revive her. "Hold on, sweetheart, hold on, please!"

"You couldn't save her . . ."

The voice pounded into his ears, seeming to come from all around him. "You couldn't save her. You let her die."

An abrupt chill shot through Luke's body as he stared at his wife's still face. "N-no . . . I didn't . . ."

Then came the shadows out of nowhere, removing the face mask and extracting the tubes from her arms.

"No, NO!" Luke cried. "Stop that, she's still alive, SHE'S STILL ALIVE!"

"You let them unplug her . . ."

"She wasn't THERE anymore!" Luke shouted. "She wasn't . . . I felt it . . ."

"Then why were you just crying that she was still alive? What if you felt wrong?"

The long, loud, extended beep, screeching into Luke's ears that she was gone. "I-I . . . I didn't . . ."

"Dad?"

There was his twelve-year-old daughter, staring at him with tear-filled eyes. "Why didn't you save her, Dad?" she sobbed, her face reddening. "Why did you let them kill her?"

Luke wrapped his arms around Rey as tears streamed down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but she was already brain-dead, she . . ."

"How do you KNOW?" Rey screamed. "How do you know she wouldn't have woken up if you kept her on the machines?"

There was a lump in Luke's throat, as fresh as when this happened the first time. "Rey . . ."

"You killed Mom!" Rey's voice sliced into his heart. "You KILLED her!"

"NO!"

. . .

Rey sat half-asleep on the couch, listening to the holonews drone on and on, inhaling her mother's flowery hand lotion. She felt like she could sink down into the cushions, down, down, down, into an eternity of softness.

"Getting tired, sweetheart?" the soothing, accented voice asked.

Rey forced her eyes open, feeling vaguely like something was wrong, though she couldn't tell what. "No, of course I'm not tired." She stretched her arms over her head and glanced down at her mother's arm, which was covered in red splotches.

"Mom?" she gasped. "What's wrong with your arm?"

Rianna looked nonchalantly at the splotches. "Oh, it's just a little rash. A little cream and it will be fine."

Just a little rash. With those words, Rey saw it in her head – her mother lying comatose in a hospital bed, the splotches covering her entire body. "Mom, wait!" she exclaimed. "It's not just a rash!"

Rianna smiled at her daughter and patted her head. "Don't overreact, honey, I'm fine."

"No, you're NOT!" Rey grabbed Rianna's arm, feeling the rash's bumps under her fingers. "Mom, you're sick! You need to go to the hospital!"

"Rey, don't be silly. It's just a rash."

"Mom, listen to me!" Rey stared into her mother's green eyes. "If this gets treated early, you might get better! Talk to Ben – he detected Dad's neurological imbalance a few years ago, maybe he could help you too!"

"Rey, you're being ridiculous."

"No, I'm NOT! You're SICK! You're going to DIE!"

"Your mother was a fool."

The voice seemed to come from inside Rey's mind, sending chills through her body. "Wh-who are you?"

"Your mother was a fool. She knew something was wrong with her, but she did NOTHING."

Suddenly everything poured into Rey's mind – how the rash didn't go away, how it spread, how she went to the hospital too late. "She . . . she wasn't a fool. She just didn't know anything was wrong with her."

"She knew. She just refused to do anything about it until it was too late."

"No . . ."

"She didn't care enough about you to conquer her fear of a diagnosis."

"NO!"

. . .

"Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration, but don't worry. We will deal with your Rebel friends soon enough."

"No!" Leia gasped, but those, rough, metal hands held her in place, forcing her to look helplessly at her home's final moments, there one moment and blasted into billions of pieces the next – and some of those pieces were once her parents. The arms that held her, the faces that kissed her . . . now space dust.

"You killed them . . ."

Leia's breath devolved into short pants. "No . . . no . . ."

"If you had told the truth, your planet would have been spared . . ."

"Who are you?" Leia demanded, trying to lunge at whatever the voice was but finding that the metal grip still held her in place.

"Leia, why?"

She froze as the figures materialized in front of her. Bail and Breha, looking the same as they had when she last saw them alive, but instead of their warm smiles, their faces were hard, cold, scowling.

"You killed us," Breha said in an emotionless voice, her eyes staring blankly ahead.

"No . . . I didn't . . ."

"You killed us," Bail repeated in that same emotionless tone.

"No . . ." Leia lunged forward, reaching her arms out to her parents, but still the unyielding metal arms held her back.

Then came a sea of voices: hundreds, thousands, millions, all chanting the same thing.

"You killed us, you killed us, you killed us, you killed us . . ."

"NO!"

. . .

Proxima's goons whacked Han with their staffs, knocking him down into the sewage. His hands scraped against the floor as the sewage sloshed into his mouth and nose, the rancid taste of who-knew-what immediately stimulating his gag reflex and filling his mouth with another rancid taste – this one the sharp, acidic taste of vomit.

"Pathetic," Proxima said as Han emptied his dinner into the sewage. "You are undoubtedly one of the most useless scumrats on all of Corellia. No wonder your parents didn't care about you."

Han struggled to his feet, his head spinning. "Leave . . . leave my parents outta this."

"Your parents left you with NOTHING when they died because they KNEW their son was a worthless, disgusting scumrat."

"SHUT UP!" Han dashed through the sewage in the Grindalid's direction, growling in rage, but Proxima seemed to vanish in the darkness.

"Your parents provided nothing for you . . ."

Han skidded to a halt. "Who the hell are you?"

"Your parents cared nothing for their son, leaving him to become a scumrat on the streets."

"They were POOR!" Han screamed, trying to ignore how his insides froze. "They couldn't AFFORD to provide anything!"

"Do you know that? Or is it just an excuse you made up when they left you to starve?"

"They wouldn't . . . they didn't! If they had any way to provide for me, they would've!"

"You were a burden to them. Feeding you ruined them. They didn't WANT to provide for a worthless scumrat like you."

"NO!"

. . .

Ben could feel his heart racing – if he examined himself as a patient he'd probably tell himself that he had to calm down and get his heart rate back to normal before he could leave, but right now his heart rate didn't matter. All that mattered was getting to the small pool of light in the otherwise pitch-black world, where his wife lay slumped, motionless.

"Ara!" he screamed, sliding to his knees and gathering her into his arms. "Sweetheart, are you all right? Did he hurt you? What's going on?"

Ara's face was pale, her lips cracked, her eyes red. "Ben?" she whispered.

"I'm here, Ara, I'm here!" He ran his hand down her face, her shoulder, her torso – but then his hand stopped cold when it reached her abdomen.

She was no longer pregnant.

"Ara?" he exclaimed. "What happened?"

"Oh, how touching."

Ben gulped, immediately recognizing the voice. He wrapped his arms protectively around his wife as he slowly, slowly looked up.

There was the dark version of himself, masked once again, but he wasn't the one who spoke. The dark Ben was standing next to a throne in which sat an aged, deformed, bald-headed man with scars creeping up and down his face. He was decked in black robes and holding the baby in his arms, grinning menacingly at Ben.

It was as if all the warmth instantly drained out of Ben's body. "You . . ." He could only manage a whisper. ". . . you're him. The voice in my head."

"Yes," the man hissed in the voice that stabbed Ben's ears like lightsabers. "You once knew me as 'the Guardian of the Dark,' but I have other names." He nodded at the dark version of Ben, still standing motionless next to the throne. "My followers know me as . . . Snoke."