I'm sorry for the wait again... To tell the truth, I'm slowly and slowly getting disinterested in writing. I still wish to finish, but... I got nothing to say. Just read and enjoy. :-}

Anakin's POV

There I was. Crawling through sand... I-I hate this planet! Hate everything to do with it! If I had my way, it would rain here everyday of the year with nothing holding it back.

I mean, this place is ridiculous! Nothing but sand, fewer landmarks, fewer settlements. I feel sorry for everyone who is trapped here and hate everyone who oppresses the people who are trapped here! What part of a person makes them willing to hurt or enslave others. I never understood it. I hope I never do...

The Great Chott Salt Flats led into mountainous- I take that back. It was a large group of boulders stretching for miles.

Numa was in there. I could sense it! I just can sense it!

Whatever the case was, I had to go in there, a land infested with Tusken Raiders due to the shade, occasional cool winds that wasn't a sandstorm, and trekkers who get trapped in the maze of rock. Occasionally, they would find an oasis and never finding (or wanting) to escape it. Tatooine outside Jundland, if it wasn't for the Tusken Raiders, was brutal. And I mean brutal.

I was only six years old, trying to run away from Gardulla the Hutt, a nasty gastropod that treated me and my mother cruelly, as any slavers would. She, the Hutt, would send me in podraces expecting me to crash and incinerate. Luckily, that never happened, but I still remember her cold nature, always scheming more than even a Hutt normally would. Either way, she lost me and my mother to a bet with Watto and, well, I was more fortunate under his oppression than Gardulla's.

But when I was a slave to Gardulla, I tried to run away; to escape slavery. Ended up starving in the Dune Sea and lucky not to have been eaten by a sand bat, scyk, or even tripping into a sarlacc's maw. I was found eventually; of course they couldn't leave a poor boy to die but instead let him wish it for the rest of his childhood.

And they turned my punishment into emotional pain, too. After I was recollected, they had me watch my mother be whipped. For years, I couldn't bear to see those scars anymore, but they made me watch. If I blinked away, the whipping would continue.

Oh, Mom... Yeah, she's somewhere, somewhere inside me..., but gone forever... All at the same time.

Rigorously, I shook my head which made me realize the lasting pain in my neck from the pounding sands and radiation from both suns. Ow, it hurt just to sag my head or back. No need to mention how much I hated that.

But never quitting, I had to press on through the pain. No one has to suffer anymore... If the galaxy was run my way, no one would need to suffer ever again. Oh, utopia... The only thing I dreamed but could never exist..., anywhere.

Once I hit shade, darkness engulfed my body. I swear, the surrounding temperature dropped ten degrees! All that was needed was a light- no- strong, cool wind... Air movement circulated from an overhead windtunnel. Ah, yes, I needed that.

Sweat still gleamed against my skin, but it was drying away... Yeah, even in the shade it was still numbingly dry.

My feet started dragging. Whenever I slid downhill (cannot really control going downhill with an uneven ground of sand), the dust would rise and encrusted my face ever further...

A familiar contraction was in my core. I coughed, but to anyone's ears it sounded like a gag, like I was about to vomit. Would make sense by now... It was still the same day..., but it felt like it was days on end, with my body definitely dehydrated and emaciated. I 'gagged' again.

Cough, cough, c-

I spewed entrails of vomit all over the sand, with whatever liquid I regurgitated sinking immediately into the ground. Chunks of half-digested food, whatever it was, remained for whatever desperate animals to consume... I still felt woozy, feeling another wave of sick coming-

I vomited all over again, with the sick splashing on top of itself, sizzling in the hot shade like ground meat on a stove.

The sizzling sand reminded me how fortunate I was to wear boots on the presumably first-degree burning sand.

Ever been to the beach where you forgot your sandals and had to run all the way to the ocean, saying "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow", until finally having to cool the burnt feet in the cold water? When I was in the dune sea, escaping slavery (and failing at it), I was burned a ghastly red that it's not even remotely funny... And I had no shoes. Yep, the Hutts couldn't bother giving their slaves sandals or shoes.

Contraction occurred in my esophagus as I puked again, spurning the food that was supposed to nourish me as waste in a Waste.

After it was all over, I felt empty. Not emotionally empty; never. Just physically empty. Like there was no energy left... I spat whatever churning taste that was still in my mouth into the sick. Not that the salvific aftertaste was going away anytime soon. I had absolutely no water inside me but in my blood.

I kept my hands on my knees, trudging one step further, avoiding the sick.

Another step..., then another... So much sweat had already perspirated that my body was screaming, 'Water! Water!Water! Just a drop! Who cares if it's unsanitary! Who cares if it's revolting! I - NEED -'

I collapsed into the sand.

I saw only blackness. Lighter than can't-see-in-front-of-your-nose blackness, but almost pitch darkness.

I must be dead. I must be seeing things through the heat, but there was nothing. I was dead. I had to be.

Finally, I must have fulfilled my wish as a six-year-old. Dead. Finally dead. Lifeless. No more sensation. No more pain. NO MORE LOVE. No need for it anymore, I'm dead. Finally..., dead...

But I felt pain... It was between my lungs... I felt my heart beating rapidly, but weakly. 'Oh, joy...' I thought sarcastically. I was alive after all.

I tried moving my hands over my face but I couldn't see anything but faint light...

I was alive.

My feet and thighs got cramped when I tried to move and- There was a voice, steadily growing louder the more conscious I became.

"My Lord and, uh, his alien lady-wife. Yes, yes, I'm taking care of the man. He was face-first in the sand, red as a mad Reek. I-"

Light flooded into my eyes, becoming a scarlet flash, before colors formed a half-second later. I groaned, eyes squinted. I realized, probably a minute later, that I was indoors. Still hot, no ventilation, but at least cooler- Oh, who am I kidding, it was still hot as hell here. The light that flooded my eyes came from an overhead skylight that hit my face with sunlight, but at least lacked its burning radiation. No, it was just warm.

Twisting my head, I noticed my legs were elevated and I was laying down. My arms were perpendicular to my torso, creating a sprawled T-pose. I still squinted, hearing that faint voice once more. "Oh, he's awake, my Lord!" He gave a nervous chuckle, as his face focused in the blur of my eyesight.

He was a middle-aged Human, with long graying hair, and poorly shaved chin that must have been where he had an impressive beard. When he talked, I noticed his yellowed teeth, some missing, along with his cuts and scars on his face from where he must have been shaving. His breath smelt of feces and his lips were drier than decaying firewood, though had scab-like yellow or purple blisters.

He seemed surprisingly fit for what I presumed was the hermit who took me from the wasteland, though I had a feeling I was still in Jundland.

"Wh-wh-who..., are you..., talking..., to?" My voice strained just from speaking, ears possessing a subtle ringing.

"My Lord, he speaks! What should I do!?"

Silence.

"Give him water? Nourish him? Pity him? What sort of Imperial are you!?" The man exclaimed.

"I-Imperial?" I coughed, this time not remotely like that gag from earlier.

"Okay, okay, I'll speak to him." The man said to what must have been his imaginary friend. He sounded insane, but didn't seem to be. From what I presumed, I was saved from the desert by this man, as well as brought back to health from my heatstroke. The cloth that he took away was watered again and I realized the earlier 'blackness' was the cloth that covered my eyes like a Miraluka.

I pestered him with questions. "Are you crazy?" Yeah, I know that's the worst way to start a conversation, but I had to reason with the fanatic.

"If I was, would I know how to cure your stroke..." He didn't wait for me to answer. "The name's Quinn, a last name to my ancestor, Malavai. True imperial to a traitorous one. Don't know how the Lord got away with it all in the Empire, but I'm grateful that he did."

I grumbled. "You are crazy, aren't you?"

He seemed keen to roll his eyes. "Then ask me any questions. I'm not some nutball with Dust Rot!"

I didn't have time for an extended conversation. "I don't care about your IQ." Slowly, I got to my feet and stretched my legs. It cramped again, but I endured the pain. "But I do need to know who you are, sane or insane."

The man rolled his eyes that time. "He's not grateful, my Lord. Why should I continue goodwill if the man's not even grateful?" He spoke to the wall once more.

"And who's this imaginary friend you keep talking to?" I had a feeling Quinn lost his mind in the desert, but it didn't matter right now.

He turned his head back to face me. "The Emperor's Wrath, formerly so. My Lord is now the purgatory leader of the Sith Empire."

"Sith? Empire?" Wondering how much of what this man was saying is fiction or false.

"Amazing, isn't he. Anti-Darksided Lightside Sith. Truly the miracle that the galaxy needed in order to survive. Hero, paragon, but still Lightsided Sith."

"If he's a Sith, I imagine he wasn't always one with the Light Side-"

"I was just getting to that, young one, whoever you are. Now, he vowed to redeem himself from his dark ways and secretly become one with the Light Side..." The enthusiastic man frowned in a 'Believe it!' manner. "It all started here! On Tatooine! I did the blood test on the child. She's their ancestral son! I don't know how because the Light Side Sith was Zabrak and his slave-turned-freed-wife was a Twi'lek, but the little girl is in the Wrath's bloodline! Small galaxy, isn't it-"

"Numa!?" I shouted louder than I needed to. "You've seen her!? Where is she!?" Suddenly, this homestead begged the question for me. "Where on Tatooine is this place!?" Unnecessarily, I was intimidating Quinn.

Turning his head, he looked at his houseplant, nourished by a ray from an another skylight. He gazed at the tying plant, pricking a leaf from its stem.

"This is the ruins of the Imperial outpost of Mos Anek. Here, I'll show you." He motioned for me to follow him outside. On the edge, I couldn't help but follow.

Once outside the ruined homestead, I saw what looked like a shambled Tosche Station situated upon a hill. The buildings were crumbling away like chalk, seeming to be thousands of years old. Still, large boulders dominated both sides except for a path going down in both directions. Looking left, I saw more of the cascading Jundland Wastes and to my right, it seemed to end with another but smaller flat with an outline of klick-high boulders stretching across in the distance.

Quinn continued his monologue, "Everyone who still lives in these ruins are off hunting Sand People at the moment. Can't have too many dead, ya know. It was just yesterday that I saw the fabled sand demon out in its cave by the long-gone Outpost Varath. Nasty thing, but-"

"Where is the Twi'lek child you saw earlier?" I interjected.

From where I was standing outside his homestead, he pointed out to the left at the gorge. "Now, I knew she was the ancestor of the Wrath, so I sent her to the cave. That cave is special for the Sith Lord went inside and changed completely. The cave will guide her, as well as anyone else who enters, whether it has a positive or negative impact on your will. There, the Force shall guide her."

"She's not Force-sensitive."

The man guffawed. "You should know that the Force resides in all living things, reminding all life to give to the Force. Probably why the Emperor wanted to snuff it all out."

I squinted my eyebrows. A part of this wanted to believe it was true. I just looked at the man, trying to grasp his history on Tatooine while still self-debating his sanity. A part of me couldn't trust him. "Why did you actually sent her alone...? What..., are you? Still dehydrated, my migraine brain still throbbed with questions, not answers.

He looked down, thinking to himself. After a minute of pondering, he finally spoke up. "I-I'm really-"

A shot wrung out, hitting him in the head. I swung out and ignited my lightsaber, realizing a second later that the Living Force was completely gone from Quinn. He was dead.

Growling through gritted teeth, I noticed that the shot came from the cave (or in its general area). I raced off to the cave that was about a quarter-of-a-klick away, nearly stumbling down the sandy hill... Dusting myself off, I got up and kept running, ignoring the annoying pile of sand in my boots. Ignoring how I was molted with the dust of the planet I grew up in.

It was sunset by now. I realized that I had to find Numa soon! No more sightseeing!

I even, trying very hard, wanted to forget everything the man said. He might have been crazy, from what I got out of him, but he must have saw Numa and sent her needlessly to this cave that is probably filled with Sand People, or worse!

The cave was right in front of me during the fructuous sprint, though due to my exhaustion, was as fast as a jog. Numa was in there, I can sense it now!

The cave continued to zoom forward as I approached the area as twilight became the new darkness on Tatooine.

I huffed in exasperated breaths: "Hold on Numa, I'm coming!"

Thanks for reading!

For those of you who play Star Wars: The Old Republic, yes, I am referencing the Sith Warrior storyline from the game; from my avatar. Even if you don't play the game, I hope you found this chapter to be most intriguing because I guarantee the next chapter will be even more intriguing.

Promise to update sooner next time!