Note: ouch, just realized all the mistakes in the first chap. that's what happens when you don't have a beta. Oh well. They shall be fixed, when I get around to it.

…………….

…Plague…

I sit next to my fire, feeding it sticks. Trying to think. Figure out how it all started. How my master was dead, how this whole world was dead, every higher life form. Except me. Gone. That was the galaxy now.

This plague had spread. That was why he was here. The mission, to make sure the quarantine stayed put, so that the plague didn't come here. But it did. It did. And they died.

The holonet had carried coverage. How it popped up on the worlds. One then another, then another, consuming everything in its path. The sickness was fast and focused on neural pathways. That is how it managed to kill so many, not just one species, any sentient life form.

Jedi had been dispatched to uninfected worlds, to oversee quarantines. Qui-Gon and him had been sent here, Sal'na. They had stopped all traffic to Sal'na. Nothing was to come in or go out. This planet could afford that. They had the resources to isolate themselves. Still it came. Somehow it came here. Qui-Gon had been one of the first infected. He lasted a lot longer than most, but he did die.

I watched him, those last few days. I never left his side. He was the one to tell me to leave. To go far away from the city, to live. He told me to live. Said if I didn't he would make me do crèche duty and KP in the temple Cafeteria. I don't think he knew we where not on Coruscant.

The plague caused hallucinations. It also caused your bodies chemicals to go haywire. Effectively you where poisoned to death. It was a disgusting sight. And horrifying.

When he died I contacted Coruscant, the plague had just begun to hit there. I talked to Garen for the last time that day. Two days later Bant contacted me; I was still in the city then. She told me Garen had it, and killed himself. She said he jumped off the center spire. She said that she was working with others to try and find a cure, but that when she got it. She would do what Garen did. Fly.

I was never able to contact the Temple after that. Coruscant went down, all lines of communication cut.

For a while I was able to keep contact through the net, but planet after planet went dead, soon there was no more news feeds. No more signals. Sal'na to had stopped transmitting local feeds. There was no one left to run the cameras.

One of the most horrifying sights, the one that finally made me make a run for it, was when one of the news men set up the camera, the feed, and filmed his own death. I was transfixed by it. His last desperate attempt. His last blasé of glory.

That night I headed for the hills.

…Night…

The sun is lower now. I can feel the first few chills of night creeping. I shiver, and get closer to the fire. The sun hasn't set yet, but it will soon. Night is the worst; at night I can still hear them. All of them. Their voices and souls crying out.

I watch the sun lower and the sky turns into a myriad of colors. It is amazing how something so beautiful can hearken something so horrifying. The Night.

I want to make the fire larger, to keep the night away. It is like when I was little. Afraid of the dark. Thinking that monsters where going to come and eat me, or worse the sith.

The sith. I think about them a lot now. I have to wonder, if some how this is their fault. It's the only explanation for such evil. Such darkness. The sith would know how to destroy the light, destroy life. You destroy life, you destroy the living force, destroy the living force and you destroy the unifying force as well. All that is left is chaos.

Which is all that is left. I see chaos. There is no connection left. What used to flow is now jagged and abrasive. The force itself is fragmented. It still exists, just different. In a way I cant understand anymore.

That is the most painful. Worse than being cut off entirely. This fragmentation of the force, the disconnectedness of it. It is painful. Which is why I no longer try to touch the force.

The moons are up. The sun is down. I know the stars are there, but I don't see them. All I see is blackness, darkness, and cold. Beyond my little fire there is total dark. Some part of me can't help thinking something will jump out of the shadows and get me, kill me. I feel off balance. If I stand up I know I will collapse.

I sit very still and try to meditate. This used to come easier. It's hard now, to meditate. The farther my center strays the more difficult this becomes. But I don't want to sleep and I need energy. I need to try harder.

I let my mind fall to empty, normally I would let the force take over here, but I have no force now. I carefully direct my thoughts inward. I have decided to check my body for infection and sickness. Oddly it's not the plague that bothers me. I know the food and water I have gotten lately hasn't been good. I worry about scurvy.

I check my body's functions. This is hard without using the force. I notice the malnutrition. I am prepared for that. Also there is some swelling in my right ankle. That I also expect. I fell a couple days ago, almost twisted it. I make note of the to irregularities. I can't do much about the malnutrition at the moment so I focus on the swelling in my ankle. I don't expect to do much. I know that without the force, my ability to heal myself is limited to my body's natural defenses. I can produce more white blood cells and chemicals that will help relieve pain. But the healing ability that comes from using the force is absent.

…Decision…

I stay in the trance for hours. I am latently aware that the fire is little more than embers and that the sun has near risen. I open my eyes, blink, blink again.

I take the last few branches I have left and make an effort to revive the fire. I need to boil more water now. I need to keep myself hydrated. The fire revives and I am relieved. I don't want to use the matches. They are valuable, as is the food. I wont eat this morning.

I get the fire going strong. Throw stones in it. I walk over to the river. I get my outer tunic ready. Prepare to scoop out water. A body is floating; this one is a little girl. She cannot be older than 5. Strangely she is not puffed up and saturated with water yet, this means she only came into the water recently. She might still have been alive yesterday. But I doubt it.

There is a rock up ahead of her. I can already tell that she will become caught on it, and I will have to spend hours staring at her nearly angelic face.

I don't want to get water now. I do anyway. Pour it into the stone bowl. Boil it with the rocks. I let it go longer this time. Half of it steams away. I let it cool. Then I drink it. Today it tastes worse than usual.

I know it is the little girl; she is making the water this way. She is making me guilty. Just there, up ahead on that rock. She makes me know. I should not be here; I should be dead like her. One with the Force. I feel guilty because of her.

For a long time I sit and watch her, she has yet to break free of that rock. I wonder if she ever will. I cannot stay here.

I feel a little bit of me die, every moment. This girl is killing me. I want to scream, cry, do something, anything. But I can't, I can't move. I can't tear my eyes away. Again with the can'ts. Shut up, shut up. "SHUT UP!" I scream.

I scream, I scream, I scream. I am loosening it. I am going crazy. Jedi don't go crazy. Yes, I am. I am losing it. What is there left? I scream again. I scream like some sort of animal, wordless noises with little meaning.

I need to get out of here before it's too late. It is already too late. That is it; I will go to the spaceport. There ought to be a ship there. I can get away from here. Away before it is too late. The smell here is killing me and that little girl is in on it.

If I go somewhere else, maybe I can feel light again.

……….

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