Chapter 4

Anakin bolted upright in his bed, breathing heavily. Glancing at the clock that rested upon a table beside the bed, he realized that it was very early morning. In fact, the planet's moons were still high in the sky. This was no time for anyone to be awake, but wide awake described exactly what Anakin now was.

Running his single flesh-hand through his hair, Anakin contemplated what had woken him. He had experienced a nightmare, and a peculiar one at that. The images in the dream had been mostly blurry and unclear, and it wasn't the images that had caused this dream to be classified as a nightmare. It was the intense feelings, feelings that were not unfamiliar to the young Knight but seemed out of place. It almost felt as if those emotions weren't his own, but someone else's.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep until he at least tried to puzzle this out, Anakin climbed out of bed. He grabbed a glass of water, then walked out onto the balcony. The city below was dark and quiet, while two moons shone dimly up in the sky. Anakin crossed his arms on the railing, leaning forward a bit while he considered the odd dream. He couldn't for the life of him figure out what those blurry shapes represented, but he distinctly remembered the feelings that went along with the images.

First, there was confidence and determination. Anakin related this to the way he felt on missions. That bold feeling you get when you are determined to win, and you are certain that you can. When you have a perfect (and often crazy if you were Anakin) plan, and despite all the things that could go wrong, you are pretty sure it will work. If it doesn't... Well, it's best not to think about that sometimes.

Second, there had been suspicion, a bit of wariness. Then a sudden burst of shock, horror even. As he thought about this scene, Anakin noticed there had been an underlying sinking feeling of... Failure. He shivered a bit, though it was quite warm outside. This was not what one would consider a chilly planet, with warm nights and even warmer days. But that feeling of failure... It had been like a ball of lead, pulling him down. He hated failing, and it had felt so heavy in the nightmare even though it wasn't the most prominent feeling in that part of the dream.

Then, a quick streak of something Anakin couldn't identify, and then nothing. At this point, the dream had turned to utter blackness. He had floated in this nothingness for what felt like an eternity, before the nothing eventually faded into something.

When the scene changed, it had become clearer. The shapes were not as blurred, like the way a fresher memory is clearer than an old. There was a lot of white, and a lot of brightness. He was in a room of sorts, that much he was able to determine from the somewhat blurry scene. Accompanying the images were muddled feelings of confusion and disorientation, like waking up from a long sleep. Perhaps that's what was happening in the dream, someone waking up. Then, a whole mix of feelings, one after another and sometimes at the same time. Confusion, irritation, pain, sadness, suspicion, and many others. One of these feelings really stood out to Anakin: immense loyalty. Something had sparked feelings of loyalty, of caring, maybe a bit of attachment.

That bit of attachment was kind of... Worrisome? No, that wasn't quite the right word. Attachments were something Jedi were forbidden to form. Anakin was of course guilty of forming attachments, especially to his mother for example. He never felt fully guilty about this, believing that it was wrong of the Council to forbid attachment. Jedi were supposed to care, weren't they? Didn't attachment just encourage a person to care for someone more? But at the same time, he could see the logical side of not forming attachment. Attachment could (and had in the past in Anakin's case) lead to fear. Which lead to anger, which lead to hate. Which could possibly lead to the Dark Side.

Pushing aside his personal conflicting feelings about attachment, Anakin tried once again to focus on the dream and figure out the feelings in the dream. It didn't feel like the sort of attachment I formed to my mother Anakin thought to himself. More like... Hmm. It felt more like my bond with Obi-Wan.

So what did it all mean? Why had he experienced this strange nightmare? The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed. He felt certain that it was not a vision, not a dream that predicted the future. Nor did it seem like a casual dream, a collection of thoughts. It was almost like a historical dream... Like it was conveying something that happened in the past. Yes, Anakin was almost sure that it was a dream that showed the past. But of what? Who's past was it showing? It couldn't be his own, because everything in the nightmare felt foreign. He had no memories even remotely similar to what took place in the dream.

Turning, he left the balcony and walked back into his room. He placed the empty water glass on a table, sat down on the side of the bed, and let out a sigh of frustration. Anakin was confused by the dream, and irritated by the fact that he didn't have the slightest idea what it meant. Maybe it meant nothing. Someone else would probably have brushed the nightmare aside as merely a random nightmare, but Anakin had a history with strange nightmares and so he was not so quick to ignore it. There had to be some significance to it. He could practically sense that there was something important about it.

Glancing over at the clock and realizing that he had been trying to puzzle this out for over an hour, he finally got back into bed and resolved to try and sleep. There would always be time for thinking tomorrow.

For the rest of the night, Anakin didn't have any more strange dreams. In fact, he had no dreams at all.