authors note:
Hello beautiful watchers! (intro stolen from Dominic Noble) Here's a heads up about this fic: I'm super writer's blocked. Like super duper. Nothing unusual about that, happens to me a lot. This particular block is more resilient than any before though. SO this story right here is just a random idea of a scene and setting that I felt temporarily inspired by. I've got 1-3 chapters worth of content in my mind, but I'll warn you here and now that this is very unlikely to have a resolved ending. I just really need to break through my block so I'm going to end it whenever I get bored with it. I know a lot of readers don't like incomplete stories, but I'm hoping a few of you will give this a try just to enjoy what I hope is an interesting mini-plot and an atmospheric setting. If you like it, you're always super welcome to leave a comment or say hi to me on tumblr at lost-inthesunlight :)
"So you have the Hex. That's what you're telling me."
Rose looked away as she said it. Rey imagined every thought that must be going through her head, and each one was worse than the last.
The silence stretched and stretched, dragging the distance between them further and further even though neither one had moved an inch. Rey kept waiting for her friend- her only friend- to get angry. Or be afraid. Or walk away like they both knew that she should.
Finally, the silence became too unbearable to withstand.
"I don't know for sure," Rey offered. The single bulb above them flickered along with the tension in the air. "It's the only thing that makes sense, but..."
She trailed off. But what? But she should have been dead by now. The Hex kills in a matter of days. At the best maybe a little over a week. Death by cursed blood was one thing, though. Hardly the real problem.
"If the Knights find out," she continued, "then they're going to come after you to. After everyone in the Group Home. That's why I had to tell you. Tomorrow is-"
"I karking know what tomorrow is!"
Rose's composure broke, her hand flying out to slap Rey across the top of her thigh and stop her mid sentence. She grabbed Rey's hand again, though, and this time she didn't let go.
"You shouldn't have told me."
"Rose-"
"It's a lie. It's not true. Tell me this isn't true, Rey."
The pleading look on her friend's face was even worse than her cold silence. Rey closed her eyes, swallowing down the sharp wave of guilt that threatened to completely overwhelm her.
She'd kept this from her for so long. A heck of a lot longer than a week. Years. It should have killed her by now. The fact that she was still alive and about to drag the only person she'd ever been close to down with her with a cruelty beyond any other.
She tried to stand but her friend's grip on her hand only tightened.
"This should have been my problem alone, Rose. I'd thought that… I'd prayed that, when the next Day of Fate came to us, I'd be… out."
Out. That word. Not an option. What did that even mean? To them, out meant death, or something even worse than that.
"Out of the Group Home," Rose clarifies.
Rey nodded. It had only been seven years. Just seven.
Rose gave a shaky sigh. She finally dropped Rey's hand and fell backwards, slumping against the crumbling wall behind her as she wrapped her arms around herself. She opened her mouth to speak but a light flashed outside the window and they both fell silent. The patrol droid slowed, floating above the ground in place but Rey couldn't tell which way it was scanning.
They were allowed to be here during these hours, but not together. Humans were only supposed to be in close proximity during nighttime and in a Group Home or Workhouse. Normally getting caught would be only a mild infraction, but in Jakku they were being enforced tenfold now the Knights of Ren imminent arrival.
The overhead flickered again and Rey held her breath. The droid started to spin, and now she could see its scanner eye slowly circling around its body towards them.
"Rey-" Rose whispered.
She shook her head. Rey hated this. Absolutely hated this. But she had to do it.
Her index finger twitched, the tip of it drawing a minuscule circle in the dust covering the floorboards. The dark energy of the Hex came to her immediately, just the barest murmur but even that was enough to make her shudder with revulsion.
The light turned off and Rey closed her eyes as the room spilled with darkness. Dimly she heard Rose gasp, but she tried to ignore her. Tried to concentrate. She felt the droid. Felt its mechanical mind fulfill its programmed compulsion.
Jakku citadel sector west 17
Maintenance Building beta, 3rd floor, upper east wall
Status…
…
...
Rey pushed. She didn't know how she was doing it, but she pushed. Mind over metal. Will over programming. This had to work.
Status…
Human. Alone. Identity Rose Tico, primary repair worker assignment 111042: repair defective electrical lines.
Authorization…. …. …. authorized
Rey severed her connection to the Hex. It hurt, the pain of it shooting along her veins but she held back any signs of pain. The droid bot obediently floated out of sight, disappearing higher into the air to begin its patrol of the next floor.
When she finally opened her eyes she was grateful she could only partially see the look on Rose's face.
"That was you, wasn't it?" she asked, her voice remaining in the same hushed whisper it had been last she spoke.
Rey nodded. She couldn't explain. The Hex was like a drug. She'd even heard of some people who actively sought it out. For a few days it made you more than just a human. Something closer to them. Sithlike. Godlike.
Then it killed you. The choice if that was worth it or not shouldn't have been so muddled.
"Rose, I have to leave."
She started to stand, but Rose moved faster. She lunged at her, this time grabbing Rey's shoulders with both her hands.
"You can't! Rey, I won't let you!"
Rey's shoulders slumped. Her friend's fingers dug in, holding on tight.
"Rose, I don't have a choice. They're going to call me in tomorrow. I know they will. We both know it. And if they find out I have the Hex-"
"You don't. I'm sure of it."
Rose's voice held conviction and an awful edge of hope. She took a step closer and subtly pulled at her to bring them closer eye to eye.
"If they find out that I have it, they're not just going to kill me. They're going to think everyone at the Group Home is infected."
And what would happen next would be unbearable. Rey would give anything-
"You don't!" Rose shook her and the light flickered again as Rey lost her control of her sickness for a brief second. "You can't have it, Rey!" she insisted. "You're too good of a person. These- the impulses that you have. These things that you can feel and do. It has to be something else. We don't know what it is but we'll find out. We just have to get through tomorrow."
Rey finally stepped back, pulling herself free of her friends iron grip. She gathered on every last bit of resolution she had inside her. There was no choice, none at all, but that didn't make this any easier.
"You're going to have to lie for me, Rose. When they do count tonight, I'm not going to be there. You're going to have to turn me in before that. Tell Plutt that I broke out and-"
Rose slapped her. Not hard enough to do more than sting, but it stopped Rey in her tracks.
"They'll put our Group Home on lock down. They'll give all of us three more years. Maybe more."
Rey took a step back and nodded. Her gaze flicked for one moment to outside the window. To the distant green glow of the perimeter wall. Freedom. Freedom and torture and an absolute unknown. The most frightening place a lowly human could dare to dream, or so the Sith had whispered into them.
When she looked back at Rose, the look on her friend's face told her she'd given her plan away.
"No. Rey. Don't. Don't you dare."
She took a step forward. Rey stepped back. She stepped forward again.
"You don't have it, Rey," she insisted, "you can't. You said you've felt it since you were- were- what, thirteen? This. Is. Something. Else. You run away tonight and you won't ever make it to the fence. And… and, if you did, you'd just die out there. Out of Jakku's safety." A sound came from the hallway outside the door and Rose immediately dropped her voice to a lower whisper. "Is that what you want?" she mouthed.
Rey had an answer to that, but it wasn't one she knew her dearest friend could accept.
A quiet knock came. One of the others on Rose's maintenance team must be looking for her.
Rose stepped closer, her eyes imploring as she whispered soft enough that Rey could barely hear.
"I can't lose you too, Rey. After what happened to my sister, I can't go through a Day of Fate without you. Promise me you're not going to do it."
The door opened. A young woman the same age as both she and Rose looked at them with large eyes. She was in the same beige uniform as Rose and Rey remembered seeing her before but didn't recall her name.
"You're needed down below," she said meekly. "Plutt's holding us to schedule tonight and we've got two more left on our route."
Rose looked from her back to Rey.
"Promise me," she whispered.
Rey hated lying to her. So she didn't.
She bent down and gave her a stiff hug just as Plutt's voice bellowed from down the hall.
"Rey-"
Rey took her friend's shoulder and turned her, lightly pushing her for the door. The other girl gave an audible sigh of relief and grabbed her hand, pulling at her to join her.
Do it and I won't forgive you.
Rey heard the words clear as day in her head even if Rose didn't say them out loud. Her friend held her gaze as long as she could until the door closed between them.
Then Rey sighed, all the resolve washing out of her into a shaky tangle of fear and doubt. She slumped against the door, sliding down it until she was sitting and could pull her knees tight to her chest.
One more brush of the Hex. A heartbeat of its fatal addiction. The light turned off and she sat there in silence and darkness.
Anytime between midnight curfew and simulated dawn was usually a deadzone. Tonight it was much more literal than usual.
Rey had never seen this much security on the streets. Not even right before her first Day of Fate. Seven years ago. Times had been so different then. Back then some humans had even sided with he Sith willingly. After the war the Sith had been vicious at first, but never so heartless. The Hex had changed a lot of things, and not a one of them for the better.
Rey ducked into another pool of shadows as the patrol bot passed overhead. It paused, the red eye of its scanner assessing the malfunctioning streetlight before she told it to send off its report and move on.
She hated having to use her disease so much, but here was no choice. Her usual way to the perimeter wall was blocked by heavy security, so she'd had to improvise a new route. It had brought her into Central.
The Central District was what passed for Jakku's prosperous financial hub. Here the buildings kept a patina over their layer of grime and, if you didn't look to closely, you might almost forget how rough the edges underneath were.
This was where the Day of Fate was to be held tomorrow.
For a moment Rey lets herself pause. She's hidden in a shallow pool of darkness in an alleyway between two towering buildings. Unlike most of the other districts, Central keeps its street lights on all night long and there are many of them. Hardly an ideal place to have to pass through, but it was the shortest route to only the gap in the perimeter that Rey knew of. Once Rose- if Rose- did the right thing and saved her own skin by reporting her missing, Rey knew that her difficult escape would become that much harder. Droids city wide would be on the lookout, and they'd start with poking exactly the little hidey holes of darkness like she was hiding in right now.
A distant approaching rumble has Rey flinching back. She'd been about to sprint across the street towards a lower and easier building. She'd wanted to catch a glimpse of the Proving Grounds. Just a peek. Give herself an echo of another life of where she would have been only twelve hours from now.
The rumble grows closer. A protector droid zips past, scanning in every direction but hers. Protector droids were personal armed security, and its calm determined path here meant only one thing. Rose hadn't done it yet. She'd better. Rey prayed to any force that would listen to make her to. Maybe Rose thought that she'd change her mind, but it would be so much worse if she stayed silent until ti was too late.
The first cruiser floats by. It's windows are dark, and the black steel of its shape reflect the multitude of artificial lights bouncing off every surface but Rey's hiding place.
A Knight. Rey knew what their procession looked like. A Knight of Ren's cruiser, followed by a second in short order. Rey hunkered lower. They were going slowly, and she was surrounded by darkness. She didn't know if the Knights themselves were inside or they simply had their own security prepare the area for tomorrow.
A third and final cruiser creeps past the alley. This one was moving slower than the first two, and I was different. Darker if possible, and more sharp angles.
Fear shot up Rey's spine, making the cautious breaths she'd been taking falter mid-inhale. She knew who that was. She'd seen that ship- seen him seven years ago nearly to the day. Her first brush with her Fate. She'd ran away then just as she's running away now.
That night she'd gotten hexxed. Punishment or fate intervened?
As if summoned her curse starts to bubble in her veins, begging her to let it free. Rey's eyes widen, her whole body starting to tremble as the Hex's call flares brighter and brighter within her.
She can see him. The Master of the Knights. He's right there, only thirty paces from her. The mirror-finished surfaces of his cruiser don't offer a single glimpse inside, but they don't have to. Her Hex shows her exactly who it is within. Alone. Looking right at her.
Rey's eyes snap open. She hadn't realized she'd closed them. She reels back, pressing herself to the cold and unpleasant concrete of the wall behind her. There's nowhere to go. Nowhere if-
The cruiser keeps going. Slowly. Very slowly. Rey's Hex is practically begging. It drags on her limbs, making her eyelids feel like concrete themselves. She fights its influence with everything she has. Her disease is going to kill her, but not like this. Not until she's has even just a single breath of freedom.
The small ship's engine rumbles away. Rey inhales. First breath since she'd stopped before. Relief hits her next, followed by spinning confusion.
It was well into the latest hours of night now. Artificial dawn would be coming before too long, and with it Rey's last chance to change her mind would be made for her.
So what in the bloody hell were the Knights of Ren doing out here now? Didn't they stay on their big, creepy ship that loomed like a spider over the city? Why would they go to the Proving Grounds now? Of all times?
But something else was wrong, too. Rey had started to creep forward towards the edge of the streetlights. She could climb here if absolutely necessary, but the buildings on the other side would be much easier and faster. Speed was everything tonight. There was a tiny window of just a few hours when she could slip out into the Great Open and still find a place to hide from all who would pursue her and all who would inevitably seek her.
Still...Something made her stop. She didn't hear it, but she felt it. Her bloody Hex, her curse, felt it, and it had been there the whole time.
It was the protector droid. It hadn't gone far, but Rey had been too focused on the three cruisers to pay it any more attention. Now it was coming back to her at- no, it was here.
Rey froze as the black and multi-limbed orb snapped in front of her. It's red eye found her face, scanning her. About to identify her. About to damn both her and Rose as well.
Her illness surged and Rey didn't fight it. Her arm slammed out, sending a wave of the Hex's chaotic energy right into the droids central computer.
It sputtered and hissed, sparks followed by smoke shooting out of it as it fell lifelessly to the hard asphalt below.
That saved her for a moment, but ruined the next. More were coming. At least half a dozen now, all connected on the same network and now racing to find the cause of their other units malfunction. Rey felt their mechanical interest closing in on her.
And she felt something else as well. Something altogether less mechanical. Someone.
The droid has been sent to investigate her hiding spot, and now she'd given him a reason to suspect.
Rey didn't hesitate. She couldn't. No time to even properly anesthetize her Hex.
She climbed. Up up up. Scaling the highest building she'd even attempted. By the third floor she was already shaking, but she heard them below. Three of the protector droids. They were scanning right where she ad been crouched, and every minimal flickers of their lights that catches the edges of her vision only propels Rey further.
Hand over hand. Foot over foot. They were rising, checking the other floors quickly but efficiently. Rey pushed herself to the very precipice edge where she wouldn't have been able to stay silent if she'd pushed any harder. She gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the needy tugs of her Hex. She'd used it too much recently. It really was like an addiction. The thing that would kill her was the thing that she craved the most.
An artificial hum whizzes from just one floor below. Oh they were close. They hadn't seen her yet, otherwise Rey knew they'd have shocked her into convulsions and she'd have fallen to her death by now.
She gets reckless. Might as well. Three points of contact becomes one which becomes none as she leaps, bounding blindingly up higher and higher. When the strength of her trembling fingers begins to give out she lets her curse out. Just a little. The barest thread. It gives her the strength she needs to go that little bit more.
She reaches the top and throws her leg over the concrete edge. Then she heaves and rolls, her body on the verge of spasms as she collapses right next to a vent on the roof. Steam rises up, and Rey almost thinks she can see the sky and stars through the top of the perimeter field.
Seven years. Rey had almost forgotten what they looked like.
One final push of her curse before she recovers enough to force it back down. Awful thing. Sweeter than sin. No wonder some people choose evil. The thing that will with absoluteness destroy them but almost be worth it all the same.
The droids are only halfway up the building. She'd pushed herself harder than she'd thought she could, and the droids own programming demanding absolute precision had worked against it in her favor.
Now she just has to get down the other side.
Luckily, the next building was only two stories shorter than this one. Rey stands at the edge, and her mind should be calculating the best route forward but something else has captured her attention.
There, in the close distance, are three specters of black. They are standing in the center of the Proving Grounds. A small group of other people, humans not Sith, by the looks of them, are gathered around. Rey can see their mindless nodding, brainless obedience, even from her high birds eye view.
One of the Knights is taller than the others. Standing apart from them. Something about him is very different, even though he's dressed much the same as the other two. Licht. An undead warrior. That's the only apt comparison, and Rey knows that's the one she had seen long ago. The one who had almost caught er the first time she'd ran. She almost hadn't made it. Fate had given her a second chance at life. It would be selfish to ask for a third.
Rey swallows, forcibly tearing her attention away. From this high up she can see nearly the full shape of the perimeter wall. It forms a dome that covers Jakku from above and likely from below as well. The energy of it is Sith powered but, like all things, flaws develop over time.
Beyond it lies the Great Open. Rey almost smiles. It's a… it's a funny thing that everyone is so afraid of it. Rose too, because she's only been told one thing. Beyond the perimeters of the Sith's protection lies certain death. Told that from birth, and they should give their thanks.
Go out into the Great Open and die. The perimeter is to keep them out, not just you in. Keep the savages, the deserters, the murderers and far worse away from society. You're better off here. Be grateful, lowly human.
Rey had been thirteen barely when she'd first ran away. Her old home of Niima Outpost had been under a dome too, but a much smaller one. Getting out hadn't been a challenge. Her death hadn't been certain then, and it wasn't now either. A whole world existed beyond that glowing green barricade. It wasn't a good place, the Sith hadn't lied about that. It was dangerous and brutal and barren, but if a child could survive than surely an adult would as well?
Rey climbs onto the edge, eyeing her options to get to the next building. Jump from here or split the difference and go down a little? She was only one district away now. So damned close.
She can't stop herself, though. She give him one last glare. One last silent accusation. She can't help herself. She felt drawn to him from the moment his spiked dagger cruiser had edged by her shadowy safe.
The Master of the Knights of Ren. She'd been a normal, miserable child until her first Day of Fate. She hadn't been hexxed then, but she'd still been afraid. During the ceremony he had looked at her. Her, amongst all the other children and young adults. Something inside Rey had broke then. All at once like the flip of a switch.
She had run. They'd tried to stop her, but her childlike bravery had inspired several others too. Thirteen year old Rey had made it through the cracks. She doubted anyone else had as well.
That night, hiding under a cold rock and surrounded by brutal desert air and not so much as a blanket on her shoulders or shoes on her feet, the Hex had found her. Infected her.
Rey had always blamed him for that. The high Sith lord. He'd cursed her. He must have. It was the only explanation. Her punishment for running and a death sentence for escaping.
The blaring beep snaps her out of her captivation in an instant. Rey had been staring at the Knight the whole time, so completely captured and unable to look away. The droids had found her.
Their alarm cuts through the quiet night air one second later. Long enough for Rey to just barely dodge the stunner shot into the concrete right where her feet had been.
She leaps. Her Hex beckons, tempting her to let it infect her further. Her feet slam brutally hard into the roof of the next building. Pain reverberates along her bones, but by a miracle nothing shatters.
The droids alarms echo, building on each other and filling every space she could hide. All eyes- human and Sith and mechanical, are on her now.
No place left to go but right straight karking ahead.
authors note:
Aaaaaaannd… scene! Cut! End!
All done :)
That's basically it. That's all the ideas I had for this drabble. Just a sequence suspended in time somewhere. As I was writing this I can of wanted to write a later scene of Rey out in the desert wastes. Maybe I will? Dunno.
If you have any questions I'll be happy to try and answer them :) Obviously there's like a billion plot holes since it's just a scene out there somewhere, but I have a few thoughts on where this might go if I ever decide to continue it.
Did this help me with my chronic writers block? Dunno. Probably a little? I mean I wrote nearly 4.5k words in 2 days which actually isn't a super fast amount for commercial authors but for me in an epic dry spell this came surprisingly easy. Next project is a vampire gothic-y plot bunny that bit me :)