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The doors of the elevator close off, leaving you alone on the platform, deeply troubled. Everything is calm around you: night has enshrouded your surroundings. Over your own loud breath, you only hear the slumbering whisper of the leaves in the wind and the creaking of Imperial transports.
You gaze upon the lightsaber that you are still holding in your robotic hand. Similar to your own, once, long ago... That time is gone, lost in a distant past, yet it seems to catch up with you despite all your efforts.
You take some irritated steps that reverberate in the silence. You feel the presence of the young man who just disappeared behind you, but his emotions are carefully hidden beyond your perception. Your short discussion with him plays endlessly in your mind, bringing back a world of unwelcome memories. That quiet assurance walking straight into the lion's den, those deep and sharp eyes, those words he boldly addressed you... Everything in his demeanor reminds you of old, blessed years you'd rather forget all about.
Anger slowly rises in you, but you do nothing to hold it back. It numbs your senses, amplifies your strength.
How you hate that all too familiar face! How you loathe that naive, serene certainty, that determination to take you down a path you've violently rejected! You can't wait for the morning sun to rise. You will then take the boy to your master, and watch with an immense satisfaction the Emperor crush all of his silly beliefs, shatter his stubborn spirit into pieces, break him and tear him apart –
And yet the thought of your son enduring your master's wrath makes your insides tighten. You wish he was easier to reason with. You want him to finally take his rightful place at your side, where he should have been all these years. But that doesn't seem to be his opinion. You've never felt such resolve, such faith before : it captivates and frightens you. With that attitude, he will most certainly be dead before even considering to give up... The thought exhales a shiver along the remains of your limbs. That isn't what you want.
In a sudden surge of fury, you set a tree nearby on fire, combining the might of the Force and your own resentful despair. Haven't you been punished already? Wasn't it enough to see everyone you cared for cruelly ripped from you one after the other? Wasn't it enough to be reduced to a scorched mess, burnt and charred, forever trapped in an iron cage that brings you pain every hour of your life?
It's been more than twenty years since that fatal day, you realize, while watching the tree lit up like a torch. More than twenty years of going straight on day after day, delighting sordidly in your new-found abilities. You love to feel the Force bend to your will like your fearful legions. You bask in your domination, enjoying the knowledge that worlds will bow down at your smallest whim. You revel in the screams of the enemies you mercilessly torture, in the agonizing gasps of the officers you strangle with a vicious joy. You take savage pleasure in making others pay for all you have lost. Never has any shadow of doubt lingered on your actions. You are strong, they are weak, and that's it.
But even that, now, is being taken away from you. Since the boy's appearance, your strength is cracking apart.
He revives wounds in your chest you'd thought long healed, summons emotions you'd deemed buried forever. He awakens a part of you that disconcerts you and that you've never truly understood. He obsesses you, haunts you. His words, despite their inanity, manage to strike a chord deep within you, to stir an insufferable yearning you didn't know you harbored. You desire nothing more than see him stand next to you, know him, understand his mind's mechanisms. You want to darken his bright but so vulnerable light, mold it into something stronger. You want to show him the true nature of the Force, to guide him in this exhilarating power. You want to hold him and possess him, make him yours entirely, son and apprentice.
But he refuses you, eludes you endlessly. Even as a prisoner, his soul escapes your grasp, and this resistance hurts you more than you care to admit. So you struggle to hate him, you turn your anger against him, you persuade yourself you desire his destruction, but even those weapons that usually serve you so well are nearly inefficient against him. You feel frustrated, helpless, like the apprentice you once were.
For the first time, you hesitate. You question yourself, you realize you don't like the decision his stubbornness forces you to make. You think of his peaceful face, of his senseless promises, of his foolish hopes. An iron grip clenches your useless lungs.
For the first time, you realize you still have something to lose.
The fire looks like spreading to the neighboring plants, a gesture of your hand suffocates it, condemning it in mere seconds. You don't really feel like seeing the Empire's formidable technology reduced to ashes. Of the tree, all that's left is a couple of smoking fragments.
You quickly come back to reality, and your moment of reluctance fills you with shame. Your son's efforts are admirable but vain. You know you have no place in his delusions. You are more damaged than he thinks: a broken, mutilated creature, detested and despised. You aren't even sure whether you're still human. It's been such a long time since you fell to the Dark Side, you don't know anything else anymore. The darkness is too strong for you to withstand its intoxicating appeal, and to tell the truth, you have no desire to renounce it. Your power and your allegiance to the Emperor are all you have left, you are a Sith Lord and intend to remain so. You fervently wish he will eventually understand and join you. You will do anything to convince him.
Yes, Luke is wrong. Your destiny has been written for a long time, and by coming to you, he sealed his. You know what you must do.
Tomorrow you will bring the boy to your master. He will turn, or he will die.