In the newly renamed Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center on Coruscant, a hypersophisticated prototype Ubrikkian DD-13 surgical droid moved away from the project that it and an enhanced FX-6 medical droid had spent many days rebuilding.

It beckoned to a dark-robed shadow that stood at the edge of the pool of high-intensity light.

"My lord, the construction is finished. He lives."

"Good. Good."

The shadow flowed into the pool of light as though the overhead illuminators had malfunctioned.

Droids stepped back as it came to the rim of the surgical table.

On the table was strapped the very first patient of the EmPalSuRecon Center.

To some eyes, it might have been a pieced-together hybrid of droid and human, encased in a life-support shell of gleaming black, managed by a thoracic processor that winked pale color against the shadow's cloak.

To some eyes, its jointed limbs might have looked ungainly, clumsy, even monstrous; the featureless curves of black that served it for eyes might have appeared inhuman, and the underthrust grillwork of its vocabulator might have suggested the jaws of a saurian predator built of polished blast armor, but to the shadow—

It was glorious.

A magnificent jewel box, created both to protect and to exhibit the greatest treasure of the Sith.

Terrifying.

Mesmerizing.

Perfect.

The table slowly rotated to vertical, and the shadow leaned close.

"Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?"

This was how it felt like to be Darth Vader in another life:

The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.

The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.

You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.

You don't even have lungs anymore.

Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.

"Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?"

And you can't, not in the way you once did. Sensors in the shell that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain.

You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.

Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.

Yes, Master...Where is Padme? Is she safe? Is she alright? you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat.

"Yes, Master...Where is Padme? Is she safe? Is she alright?"

"I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her."

This burns hotter than the lava had.

"I...couldn't have! SHE WAS ALIVE, I FELT IT!"

You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death.

Never.

But you remember . . .

You remember all of it.

You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader's blood. You remember the furnace of Vader's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth—

And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.

That it was all You.

Is You.

Only You.

You did it.

You killed her.

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself. . .

It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith—

Because now your self is all you will ever have.

And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow.

In the end, you do not even want to.

In the end, the shadow is all you have left.

Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself—

And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.

"NOOOOOO!"

This was how it felt to be Darth Vader in that past life. However, that life was past, gone in the blink of an eye, now Darth Vader felt different…almost human.

He would awaken every day to see the sun rise before starting his spar with his adopted son, Harry, feeling far more like his original self than he had ever been.

However…that shadow still haunts you, cackling in the darkness of his mind every night.

It will haunt you until your final day, but you know a better way of dealing with that shadow.

By being the person your son saw inside yourself, a good man and one that can do what is right.

But that shadow will come back every night, whispering in its old, broken tones:

"Eventually, Lord Vader, even stars burn out!"

But you ignore it and try harder, doing better than you had in the past. All for yourself and your son's, even in that dark helmet and slightly annoying breathing, you are better.

This is what it feels like to be Darth Vader right now.

Elsewhere in the galaxy, another black clothed figure sat before a small pillar, helmeted head bowed. The figure slowly looked up and his voice, though filtered through the mask, came out clear, almost broken.

"Forgive me. I feel it again... The pull to the light... Supreme Leader senses it."

The man looked at the helmet remains of the most recognizable Sith in the galaxy, the dark aura it gave off was overwhelming, almost seductive.

"Show me again... The power of the darkness..."

The helmet seemed to come to life, almost like it had heard him; a deep almost unheard breathing filled the room.

"And I'll let nothing stand in our way... Show me..."

The figure fell to one knee, nearly quaking as the power washed over him, showing him the power of the Dark Side once again.

"Grandfather..." He whispered before standing. "And I will finish... what you started."

With that, the new Sith, Kylo Ren, got up and left the remains alone. The whispering sounds faded into nothing, as the room became silent. The mask lay there, alone in the room, waiting, watching, planning…

On a distant planet, Darth Starkiller stood in front of the clear cylinder that held the body of his master after Vader. Working on different parts of the room were Susan, Padma and Parvati, the force was strong here but around the cylinder was nothing but a void. A void caused by a lizard that had been used to push away the force that caused clones to be ineffective.

He would be awake soon, time was beginning to combine and it would begin to converge soon. He must be ready for everything that the Future held, even if he had to be under the one that forced him into this body.

He would rule over the Empire!