After Breha left, we had something called a quiet hour at twenty hundred. Most people took naps or read, like Chance did. My first day here I did too, not knowing what else to do, but I was having nightmares, and chance gave me a book to read which I basically skimmed and tried to comprehend but couldn't. I called Master Yoda about the issue and asked if maybe I needed pills or something to get through this hour.
"Chosen One you are, Young Skywalker. In this time of reflection, surrender to the Force, and find peace you shall."
Wait, when did we establish I was the Chosen One? I thought that was still up for questioning. How do I surrender to the Force? What does peace even feel like? How will I know when I find it? I was going to ask Yoda all of these questions but the mysterious master clicked off. So now I was in my room sitting cross legged on my bed trying to calm my heart, and just keep my breathing even so Chance didn't get distracted from his reading.
Okay, surrender to the Force. Surrender. I let my eyes close and I just felt my heart slow down for a minute. Surrender. Surrender what? What do you want me to surrender?
Images flooded though my mind. Images from my past. But they went so fast I could not place them or figure out what they were supposed to mean. All I could think was this one word. Surrender.
"I have had a dream that one day I would be a powerful Jedi, and come back and free all the slaves," I said to Qui-Gon Jinn. "Have you come to free us?"
"No Anakin. I can't."
"Surrender to me," came a voice. I knew that voice, it was the Force.
"I can't do it, Mom, I just can't do it," said a few days later after being freed.
"Ani," pleaded my mother.
"Will I ever see you again?"
"What does your heart tell you?"
"I hope so. Yes. I guess."
"Then we will see each other again."
"I will come back and free you mom. I promise."
She smiled, and caressed my cheek. "For now, be brave, and don't look back. Don't look back."
I turned and followed Qui-Gon. Although I cried, I didn't look back.
"Surrender," came the echo again.
Then there was the horrific image that came to my mind. I cut into a side of a Tusken Raider tent and kicked my way in. My mother, my beautiful young mother, was hanging on a cross bleeding and bruised from where the had done god knows what to her. I free her from her bonds and she collapses in my arms.
"Mom," I say. "Mom."
Once she gets her eyes open, and she focuses on me, she smiles. "Ani? Ani? Is it you?"
"I'm here, Mom. You're safe."
"Ani? Ani?" She brought her hand up to me and stroked my cheek. "Oh you look so handsome."
I kissed the palm of her hand.
"My son. Oh, my grown up son. I am so proud of you Ani," she said stroking my cheek.
"I missed you," I confessed.
"Now I am complete," she said. "I love y…"
"Stay with me mom," I pleaded. "Everything-"
"I love… I love…" Ant then she went limp.
"Surrender!" came the command of the Force.
"What's bothering you?" asked Padme following me out onto the veranda.
"Nothing," I said, and looked at her. She was wearing a beautiful silk nightgown but also the necklace I had made for her when I was nine. "I remember when I gave this to you."
"How long will it take us to be honest with each other?"
I sighed. "It was a dream."
"Bad?"
"Like the ones I had about my mom before she died."
"And?"
"It was about you."
"Tell me."
"It was only a dream." I didn't want to talk about it, but she would drag it out me eventually. "You die in childbirth."
"And the baby," she cried clutching her stomach.
"I don't know."
"It was only a dream."
"I wont let this one become real."
"Surrender!" came the voice.
"I found a way to save you," came a voice, my voice.
"Save me?" said Padme.
"From my nightmares."
"Is that what is bothering you."
"I won't loose you the way I lost my mother."
"I am not going to die in childbirth Anakin, I promise you."
"No, I promise you."
"Surrender to me," came the voice.
"No!" I screamed. My eyes popped open and my body fell back on the bed. Rocking backwards, I slammed my head back with a loud bang, and the hit rattled my brain in my skull. What is worse, I hit the edge of the bed and lost my balance, and my body collapsed onto the floor.
"If I have to come into this room one more time this month," said a nurse I hadn't met yet.
"Relax Nurse Ratched," said Chance. "He was doing some Jedi voodoo and fell off the bed and hit his head."
"Anakin," she said, "Are you ill?"
"I'm fine," I choked out. I got up and shook my head. I was a little dizzy but it was nothing that I couldn't walk off.
"I better treat you for a concussion," she said. "Come with me. Chance go to process group."
"I don't do groups," he said.
"I can put Jasmine on a different floor. Go to group now! Come with me Anakin."