She was a rat in a maze. Every turn she took seemed to have a Stormtrooper at its end, but somehow each soldier obeyed her trembling orders. She was dumbfounded. What was happening to her? The hangar was frigid, but beads of sweat covered her entire body, causing the delicate hairs on her arms to rise as she began to understand with every step the monumental gravity of her situation. Sure, she'd escaped. But she might as well still be imprisoned. How was she going to get out of here, and back to Finn and Han Solo?

One foot in front of the other, she thought to herself, a mantra picked up from her seemingly endless days of scavenging in Jakku's dusty heat. Her throat throbbed at each swallow, Ren's fingertips a ghostly presence even now. The anger spurred her on. One foot in front of the other. A sudden warmth flooded her stomach, and she raised her chin in defiance. I piloted the Millenium Falcon with none other than Han Solo. No one was going to get in her way-

"Stop right there!"

The blaster's tip was resting just under her collarbone. Her blaster, wrenched somehow from her grasp. In her prideful reverie, she had missed the Stormtrooper hidden in the shadows.

"You will remove this blas-" she began, but was interrupted by a scoffing laugh as a second soldier grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth with his gloved hand. She began to kick, bite and claw at him but the other soldier quickly helped to restrain her. She felt like a doll in their hands – ashamed, tired, and weak.

"You will come with us," the first stormtrooper said, mockingly," and be torn apart by Lord Ren."

The second soldier laughed scornfully. "You've got another think coming if you think your little Jedi mind tricks will be any match for him!" The terror in her chest became overwhelming, and she began again to fight as hard as she could, but she was no match for even these troopers. She was going to die. She prayed that the swirling blackness would take her more quickly this time, and less painfully-

Suddenly dropped, she collapsed to the floor in a heap and saw both soldiers to either side of her, dead.

"Rey!" Finn brought her to her feet, his blaster tossed aside and his eyes filled with tears, and pulled her into a tight embrace.

"How did you get here?" Rey gasped, as much in surprise as need for air. Chewbacca, looking quite emotional himself said gently that it was Finn's idea. Rey pulled out of the embrace to take Finn's face gently in her hands. "Your idea!"

He blushed then, changing the subject. "How did you get away?"

"I can't explain it," Rey said. Indeed, she couldn't. She barely understood this power herself. "And even if I did, you wouldn't believe it."

Humiliation colored Kylo's cheeks a deep crimson. He walked swiftly, searching for the girl, every step bringing with it a mounting terror that she was gone for good. Strangely, the thought of his certain punishment at Snoke's hands when she was declared to be escaped almost did not bother him at all. If he wasn't allowed to know her … well. He would rather be dead.

"Ben!"

He stopped short. His blood, already chilled, turned instantly to solid ice at the sound of his father calling his name.

"Han Solo," he said, as coolly as he could, turning to face his father. "I have been waiting for this day."

His father was decrepit. His hair, once dark and handsome, was white. He was still wearing the same vest he had always worn. What was this, some feeble attempt to be the man he aspired to be?

"Take off the mask, Ben," his father said. His voice wined in Kylo's ear like a drone.

He sneered. "What do you think you'll see if you do?"

The old man seemed pained. "The face of my son."

Kylo scoffed at this, reaching up to take off the mask. "Your son is gone," he said, lifting the heavy mask off and letting it fall to the floor. The crash echoed around the hangar. "Your son was weak and foolish. Very much like his father was. I destroyed him."

Han's jaw clenched at this. "He wants you to believe this, Ben," he pleaded. "It's not true. My son is alive."

And it wasn't true.

In the furthest reaches of his worn out heart, he knew it wasn't true. He knew his real name.

Ben.

At night he heard his mother weeping, calling out his name. He saw himself as a child, realizing the extent of his terrible actions that one day he lost control, and picking up her broken body from the floor and cradling it in his arms. "Mother," he wept, his tears falling like a spring rain her face, on the floor, on the pieces of the droid strewn so haphazardly about. Ben! It was an agonized cry.

But hadn't he killed Ben? Hadn't he destroyed him once and terribly for all?

"The supreme leader is wise," Kylo said, gathering his resolve around him firmly.

It was Han's turn to scoff now. "He is only using you for your power, Ben! Once he gets what he wants, he will crush you."

Kylo faltered backwards at this. Han was speaking what Kylo had long known, but was too stubborn to give into. He shook his head. "It's too late …" Kylo trailed off.

"It's not too late. Come home with me, Ben. I love you. Your mother loves you. She wants to see you!"

Kylo's stomach turned in revulsion at the old man's begging, but underneath the revulsion he knew the truth of what his father said. He desperately yearned for his father to take him away, to take him home.

But this simply could not be. How could he go home now? How could he face the people who knew what he had done? No. He wouldn't let Han Solo, of all people, prove him to be a liar. He was stronger than his father. As if to prove it, he tapped into the old man's head, enjoying the look of sudden, intense pain on his face. He read his thoughts quickly, obtaining the map out of duty, but swiftly moving back and back until he reached what he wanted …

The young Ben was still weeping over his mother's unconscious form when Han entered the room. Instantly, he wrestled Leia from Ben's grasp, and began to scream at him. "What have you done? What the hell have you done to her?" Ben covered his ears, rocking back and forth, his sobs convulsing his small frame. "It wants me, father," he cried out, between guttural sobs. "It won't let me go."

"Then fight HARDER, Ben!" Han screamed. "You are stronger than this. How could you do this to your mother?" When Ben looked up, he saw no compassion in his father's face. He saw only disappointment … and fear.

"It won't let me go, father," Kylo said, releasing the old man from his vice grip. Han stumbled back, then forward again, until he was touching Kylo's arm.

"It's not too late," Han said. This time, the disappointment was gone, replaced with empathy.

Kylo swallowed. He was ready to go home, ready to see his mother again. Ready to lay at her feet and beg her forgiveness. He was ready-

"I'm being torn apart, father."

"Let me take it, Ben."

"I want to be free of this pain, father. I can't take this pain anymore."

"It's over, Ben. We can go home now."

"It's over …" Ben echoed. Suddenly he was hit with a violent, nauseating force, so strong that he rocked backwards. Confusion flashed across Han's face, and he reached out and steadied his son. Tears, unbidden, came to Ben's eyes then. Humiliation surged through him, like a poison.

"I know what I need to do," Kylo said, without looking at the old man. "Will you help me with something, father?"

"Of course! Anything." His father was desperate. His stomach turned. In the embrace, he felt the old man's surprising strength. He pulled him closer and closer, wishing with all his might that Han could take him away to the warm arms of his mother …

With Leia's face firmly in his mind, Kylo ran the saber through his father's frail frame. As Han suddenly understood, Kylo retracted the blade and let his father fall into the void. Free at last …

As he watched his father's form grow smaller and smaller, a disquiet grew larger and larger in his soul.

He sank to the floor.

The torment he felt was almost as violent as Rey's screams from above.