Delving into the seemingly endless jaws of the abyss, the concept of time and its passing ceased to exist, leaving the brown-haired man alone with his confused, conflicted, and, worst of all, clouded mind. At the very least, the descent did not pose any noticeable problems, as the passage adjacent to the chasm was smooth and wide enough so the former Jedi Master did not need to cling to the wall's cold and solid surface that marked the mining shaft's boundaries. With his grip strangely enforced on his lightsabre's handle, he steadily pressed forward, finding his weapon's constant and quiet twitching a source of calm amidst the moment's uncertainty.

Contrary to Obi-Wan's silent wishes, the deeper he descended, the more intense the unexplainable feeling of evil lurking within the shadows became. No matter how he approached it, he could not calm down. His rapid heartbeat pounding inside his ears. Step by step, the passage widened, slowly curving to the left. Considering the man had pictured the mining shaft as a vast, circular-shaped construct, he expected to move towards its centre, but as it turned out, his speculations were flawed. Taking this realisation into account, he stilled momentarily, deeming his distracted mind a problem that he needed to address immediately.

After a few moments passed in near-complete silence, only disturbed by the energy blade's twitching, he slowly exhaled, emptying his lungs entirely. Then, he energetically shook his head, determined to discard all the bothering and contradicting ideas flooding it. With these steps taken care of, Kenobi finally looked around, intently inspecting his surroundings. Akin to a blindfolded child, he followed the path, not paying enough attention to the changes around him.

A heavy sigh escaped Obi-Wan's slightly parted lips when he realised that his initial and partially unwitting decision to keep the wall in the hand's distance led him astray. As an unfortunate yet completely deserving result of his lack of concentration, he failed to notice that, at some point, this solid barrier was mutilated as someone had a long manger drilled through the solid layer of stone. Furthermore, this purposefully created wound led to a narrow tunnel's entrance that took a sharp left turn. Compared to their surroundings, these two constructs seemed relatively new and rushed. Considering the amount of smaller, unevenly shaped rocks scattered around, the observation seemed correct. Nonetheless, the former Jedi needed to make a decision quickly. With more than slight hesitation, he took a few steps forward, resuming his interrupted stroll, deeming it a priority to investigate this rather abrupt and forced scenery change.

Thankfully, as soon as Kenobi fixed his mind on this temporal goal, the hesitation dissipated, replaced with a drive fuelled by newfound curiosity. With its help, he wasted no more time, vanishing into the narrow pathway. It was truly intriguing how easy it was to allow his body to move on its own and disregard the rules he had been taught for many years. Jedi should suppress and conceal his emotions and approach any situation with an open mind, ready to adapt. That being said, he was no longer the Order's member, leaving it behind to be with a woman of his dreams. Still, it felt surreal. As people say, old habits die hard. It was a challenge he had hardly faced before … to live his life as he deemed appropriate, not bound by any code. No matter how many times he had already reminded himself of this apparent fact, he still dreaded that one day he would wake up only to find out that all of this was but a dream.

Delving deeper into the hole the tunnel seemingly shifted into was a slow and tedious process that Kenobi hardly enjoyed. For the majority of his time spent there, he was surrounded by vast layers of unsymmetrical and rough stone that, even though inherently different, seemed alike in the man's eyes. That, however, changed at some point, with concrete tiles replacing the natural formations. For a moment, a pang of accomplishment washed over him, filling him with hope. Then, as soon as he stepped over one of them, numerous tiny orbs of light flared throughout the corridor, casting shadows away. Even though a thought of stilling briefly crossed his mind, he discarded it, pressing forward. Already anticipating the worst-case scenario, the brown-haired man did not dare to turn off his lightsabre. He found the pathway relatively narrow and claustrophobic, which he certainly did not like, but there was no telling whether the long corridor he currently traversed through was not connected with some side branches. Picturing the design akin to a spiderweb in the depths of his mind, he concluded it would leave him vulnerable to potential ambushes. As much as he would want to believe he found the facility the strange transmission originated from, it would have been a miracle. After all, he had picked this location because it was the closest area he could investigate. No … there was no point in speculating.

With nothing better to do, the brown-haired man kept counting the distance between each illuminated orb he passed by. As if a perfectionist had designed this passage, these glowing points were separated by precisely fifty steps. Considering the situation's gravity, Kenobi suppressed a slight chuckle already forming inside his throat. That being said, he found the whole ordeal rather ridiculous. After all, if he had been tasked with the creation of anything, the perfect distance between the construction's parts would be pushed down his list of priorities.

After a while, the former Jedi Master finally realised that the temperature dropped significantly as his breaths turned to vapour and occasional cold stings affected his exposed skin. He shrugged off the unpleasant sensation, forcing himself to continue the delve. That, however, did not mean he calmed down his mind. Quite the contrary, with each step he took, the more dark visions appeared, seemingly from thin air, flooding his subconsciousness and planting a seed of fear.

Even though the initial change to the surroundings was wordlessly welcomed, even if creepy, the sensation was long gone, replaced by a feeling that Obi-Wan was all too accustomed to boring consistency. It got so near to the point of no return that every few seconds, his footsteps rang in his ears as if a brass bell was tolling nearby. Perhaps all of this was a construct of his conflicted mind, but he doubted that. He was not sweating extensively due to some weird hallucinations or daydreams. No … there was something wicked closing by, but strangely enough, the man could not sense it physically even though he was certain of its presence.

After ten more segments, the corridor finally opened up with two branches, one per each side. The former Jedi Master halted briefly, considering which path to take. At first glance, they seemed entirely alike, but before he could even start deconstructing these passages and their potential differences, something blurred in the corner of his left eye. Without as much as a split-second of hesitation, Obi-Wan rolled forward, putting all his trust into his Jedi training. A loud crash filled the corridor when something collided with the concrete tile, most likely shattering it into tiny pieces. Before the man could process this information, he was already on his feet, taking a defensive stance and slowly exhaling to ready himself for combat.

The first thing he noticed about his unexpected opponent was its mechanical limbs. With most of its frame still obstructed by the wall, only the spider-like legs clad in armour were visible, but it was enough to disgust the former Jedi Master. He took a few slow steps forward, tilting his lightsabre and anticipating the next attack. It came swift and deadly, but years of rigorous training allowed him to react accordingly and perform two quick slashes before he found himself standing behind the cyborg, eagerly awaiting a loud thud sound marking its demise. A physically painful and stressful second elapsed before the expected sound filled the air. The air the man held contained in his lungs was let go as his grip only enforced as if waiting for another opponent.

Kenobi slowly turned around, not all too happy to witness the monstrosity he was forced to slay. His speculation appeared justified long before he did the full turn. What he saw was an abomination that only a crazy scientist could have come up with. The cybernetic limbs he had noticed previously were attached to a young man's torso that was marked with uncountable scars. Considering how thin and underdeveloped its flesh was, the original host must have been between thirteen and twenty years old when he had been mutilated and turned into this thing. Even looking at this pitiful state pained Obi-Wan. At the very least, he gave it a long-sought rest in the embraces of nothingness. The monstrosity's death was quick and painful; one slash tore off one of its legs whilst the second one beheaded it.

Even though every single piece of the brown-haired man urged him to tear his gaze off this creature, he could not muster enough strength to do so. For the next couple of moments, at least he deemed the state to last this long, he did nothing but observe, analysing the abomination and storing each little discovery in his mind, having a feeling it would not be his last encounter with this type of opponent. Then, however, he noticed something that froze his blood. His boots and trousers were covered in thin, pretty much invisible wires, partially resembling a spider web. Taking a hasty step towards the wall only further enforced this tension, as unfortunately, but expectedly, the same strings were attached to it. Given their size, he could have only noticed them earlier if he had any prior knowledge about them, or he would have inspected the walls thoroughly.

As Kenobi swallowed a heavy gulp that had already formed inside his throat, he realised his every move must have been monitored, meaning more of these abominations would soon start to hunt him down. As if this news were not dreadful enough, the man found numerous smears of caked blood covering the centre and right passages. With this in mind, he made the only seemingly logical decision, choosing the left branch, vanishing into it momentarily. As his heartbeat continued to race, he could not help but fear what else he would inevitably find there. One thing was certain: it was not the source of transmission, but now, with this discovery, he could not turn around and leave this abomination factory behind. He might have left the Order, but till his dying breath, he would fulfil his role as defender. After all, there was always a decent possibility of these cyborg's hybrids venturing onto the surface. It was Obi-Wan's duty to prevent this from happening.

With thoughts like this flooding the man's already chaotic mind, he quickened up his pace, trying his best to discover this facility's secrets.

Author's notes section:

As I have mentioned previously, the main focus for June and July 2024 will be rewriting as many "My home is where my heart lies" chapters as possible. I'm currently working on rewriting the 5th chapter. As it will take me quite a while to finish, I'm providing you with this piece. I hope you will end up enjoying this chapter while waiting for another rewrite.

I'm struggling with the rewriting process ... hence, here's a WIP to take my mind off it temporarily.

It's finished ... I ended up rewriting a decent part of the WIP as I found the quality lacking. Anyway, I hope you will like it :)

Please note that the dialogues written in italics are thoughts.

As always, I would like to thank you for everything. See you soon :)

Changelog:
[2024-07-14] - A preview was released.
[2024-07-16] - A major update applied and the final revision released.

References:
- Iron Maiden - Starblind

End of the author's notes section.