Chapter 1 - Infected

Plot: It's been several months since Mortis and a mysterious sickness is spreading through the galaxy, claiming lives on both the Republic and Separatist sides. They all talk of a Slender Man, one who no one else can see. Anakin never realized how serious the situation was… until Ahsoka gets infected too.

WARNING: This is horror, so keep that in mind. :3

~ Tirana Sorki

"Well, maybe this really isn't a Separatist weapon," Ahsoka observes, as she watches the holonews reporter speaking on the screen.

She thought the war was bad but this, in so many ways, is worse. It's not something that anyone understands. Ever since Mortis, there's been growing rumors about a mysterious sickness that have been spreading. Though it sounds almost more like a form of insanity than a disease.

"Hundreds of reports are coming in from Separatist worlds," the reporter goes on, "Of people who are coming developing the same symptoms."

The screen flips to show a group of people of various species in a medcenter room somewhere, with the veins on their head and face a very visible black, and their skin a sickly ghostly pale.

"It's the slender man," a Rodian is insisting, as he paces and forth in the room, entirely ignoring everyone he keeps running into it, "He's here. He's right here and he's going to take all of us."

"There is no one here," a medical droid attempts to say but none of the others are listening.

"Yes, he is!" a Twi'lek girl yells at the droid, though there's something crazed in her eyes that makes Ahsoka surprised she's even coherent enough to speak, "He's right there!" She points at absolutely nothing on the other side of the room.

The medical droid turns around. "There is no one here,"

"He's ten feet tall," the Rodian insists, talking as though he's in a trance, "With eight tentacles and no face. And he's gonna take an apprentice."

"There is no one here," the medical droid repeats again.

The Twi'lek girl grabs the nearest object on a table in the room, hurling it at the droid. "Yes, he is!" And then she tries to jump the droid.

"The subjects are becoming increasingly violent, the longer they are infected," the reporter goes on.

Ahsoka shudders. "This is giving me the creeps."

Anakin reaches over, flipping the holonet off. "I no longer believe it is a Separatist plot either even if it would still not be hard to imagine."

It's not as if Dooku would be unwilling to do something awful to his own people if it meant winning the war, so Ahsoka wholeheartedly agrees. "Yeah," she agrees, darkly. "Something's weird about this, though. It doesn't make any sense. It's not how viruses should work."

Anakin nods, expression thoughtful. "The Force around them feels wrong. I cannot say what it is. It's almost as though..." He hesitates.

"What?" she asks, frowning, trying to ignore the chill snaking down her spine. She has no idea why she decided to watch that holonet report at night. And it's even stupider that it's shaking her up so badly when she's had to grow used to seeing people's heads explode right next to her and being unable to do anything to stop it.

And honestly, investigating a mysterious illness that's hurting so many people really feels way more like the kind of thing a Jedi ought to be doing than fighting in a war, so she doesn't know why it's shaking her up so badly.

"It almost feels as though they're telling the truth," Anakin explains.

A chill runs through her again, and she glances around Anakin's bedroom, where they both are. Everything is perfectly normal. No need to start getting jittery.

"I know what you mean," Ahsoka admits. There's just something there, something hovering around those people, that makes them feel wrong in the Force. They feel like something other and she doesn't know what that means. "Do you think the negotiations between the Republic and Separatists are actually going to go anywhere this time?"

The only good thing that might come up of this is bringing an end to the war after so long, and that's what she wants more than anything else. And at this point, it didn't seem like there was any other hope of bringing it to an end until right now. So maybe one good thing is coming of this... sickness.

Her desperation for the war to finally be over is half of why she'd gone with Padme to Raxus in the first place, a few months before Mortis. Which she can admit now had been stupid but she was desperate. And still is.

"If the Senates have enough motivation, this time they might," Anakin replies, though she can't blame him for how doubtful he sounds. She doesn't have much faith in the squabbling Senates anymore either. Though seeing how the Separatist Senate worked and how it genuinely seemed to spend way less fighting on the Republic gave her an entirely different view. It's a pity they're all being manipulated by Dooku.

He stands, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, Snips. It's late."

She hesitates, still lost in thought.

"Is there a problem?" he inquires, frowning.

"I just hope this might mean the war can finally be over," she blurts, "I mean, I know this sickness is bad but – "

"The Force does work in ways none of us can understand," Anakin tells her gently, "Nothing happens without a reason and perhaps that is the reason this is happening. There may be a chance that the end of the war is within sight. Whatever it is, something is... changing."

She nods. "I sense it too." But for whatever reason, she doesn't have a good feeling about it. And she doesn't want to have to keep worrying about it obsessively when it feels like this might be the chance for her to finally not be forced to become exactly what she doesn't want to be because it's the only way to survive.

And –

Maybe Anakin's right. She can think on this in the morning.

**w**

The feeling of danger is humming all around her, and it jolts Ahsoka awake with a start. For a moment, she thinks she's actually still asleep but she shouldn't be so aware of her surroundings if she is, right?

The door to her room opens abruptly, Anakin coming in.

He always shines with a brilliant light, so bright that it's addicting, that merely being in his presence for a long time can feel like a moon orbiting a forever infinitely brighter star, enough that she gets lost in it. But the imagery is rather true, because she can't imagine being anywhere else but with him.

But right now, he feels – off.

There's a certain chaos to how he feels. And a star can't feel chaotic like this.

"Master?" Ahsoka inquires, frowning. "Why are you here?"

Something's wrong. Something's wrong –

He smiles in a way that looks downright nasty and so wrong on Anakin's face because his smiles are always lighthearted and so teasing, or warm enough that they instantly melt her on the spot.

"Just taking out the trash," he replies in a voice that sounds so wrong and ignites his lightsaber.

Ahsoka jerks back, only having a split second of wild panic because what is even happening before he swings at her.

She tries to dodge purely on instinct and she's half expecting to be nearly stabbed but instead the blade slashes through her wrists instead. Or at least she thinks that –

All she knows is that all she can feel is a suddenly blinding agony burning in her arms.

She can barely think of anything past the sound of her own scream.

"What – " she gasps out, eyes burning with tears and sheer panic because this isn't happening. "Why – "

A wild, stupid voice in her mind supplies that maybe he's still angry about the Citadel thing. Because that would totally make a shred of sense. But nothing here makes a shred of sense because what –

His smile is too wide to be possible. It doesn't even look smug anymore. It just is. Though her vision is dancing from pain so she doesn't even know anymore. "You're pathetic."

The lightsaber swings at her again, hitting her in the neck. All she can feel for an agonizing moment is burning pain and she can't breathe. And what is even happening –

She shouldn't be able to breathe at all actually. She should be dead.

He grabs her shoulders before she can dodge and starts shaking her. She can barely feel a thing past pain pain pain anyway but what – "You're weak and useless. You never learn anything I try to teach you and you never have. I hate having you as my padawan."

That – he – what –

A shadow moves behind Anakin and when Ahsoka looks up sharply, she sees the slender man. He's standing behind Anakin. He's somewhere between ten and twelve feet tall, his face deathly pale, nearly white, and he's smiling too wildly to be real. He has eight tentacles on his back, just the way he's always been described and –

He's real. He's real.

**w**

"Ahsoka!" Anakin calls again desperately, hands on his padawan's shoulders as he tries to shake her back to reality but she's not responding to him. He sensed something wrong with her in the middle of the night, a sudden wild panic that he still can't understand the source of.

But no matter what he tries to say to her, she's not responding. She's just talking to someone who's need even there.

"Ahsoka!"

This can't be –

No.

They don't know if the sickness is contagious but it's safe to assume it is and Ahsoka hasn't been around anyone who was infected. It can't be –

But all he can feel from her is more fear.

Something shifts in the Force behind. There's someone else here. Anakin lets go of Ahsoka, reaching for his lightsaber as he whirls around. Except he doesn't see anything. But he definitely senses something, even if it's just as quickly gone again.

No, this isn't happening. It's not –

He doesn't even feel anything anymore, as though it were never there. As though he imagined this whole thing but he doesn't know how he could have. The one thing that has never failed him is what the Force whispers to him, something he knows he feels more strongly than anyone else, even if he can't quite imagine feeling anything any less strongly.

Heart pounding, Anakin spins around again. Ahsoka's sunk back onto the edge of her bed, and she looks – different.

Her veins are black. And her orange skin looks unusually pale.

"The slender man," she says, staring at an unknown point on the wall, "He's right here. He's here and he's going to take an apprentice."

No, no.

The desperation and panic in his heart is nearly enough to take his breath away. This can't be happening.

The people who get this slowly lose their minds and then – There's no cure for this. He's not going to let Ahsoka die like this.

She's his padawan, his little sister, his –

He's not going to fail her. He can't. There has to be something. There has to be –

All he can remember now is when he held his mother's body in her arms and when he saw Ahsoka motionless on the ground on Mortis. And that can't be about to happen all over again. This is why he was so afraid to have a padawan from the start, especially in the middle of the battle field, because he knew what could happen, but this –

No. He's going to find a cure. He has to. No Jedi have been infected yet, that he knows of. Maybe there's something –

"Ahsoka?" Anakin asks again.

Her only response is to continue staring at something past his shoulder, as she rambles non-stop. "He's ten feet tall and he's right behind you. He's right here. He – "

Anakin tries very, very hard to tune out what she's saying. How she sounds exactly like all the other infected people who they were just watching about on the holonet the night before.

Please let this be a nightmare he's about to wake up out of. But he knows it's not. He knows he –

First of all, needs to somehow remember to breathe when Ahsoka is slowly losing her mind. He lays a hand on her shoulder, tugging her upright. "Come," he says, and she doesn't resist, as she keeps on monologuing to herself.

He needs to get her to the healers. There has to be something he can still do. There has to be.

**w**

Vokara Che checks Ahsoka over repeatedly. "There is an anomaly in the Force around her," she tells Anakin, not as though he didn't already have that figured out.

"There has to be something you can do," Anakin protests desperately.

She looks sad. "I'm afraid we still don't have any way to treat this but Jedi are already looking into trying to find a solution. There may be something that can be done with the Force, but... I don't know right now. But Padawan Tano will have to remain here until we find a solution. You know that when the disease progresses, those around will start to become increasingly violent and a threat to those around them."

He feels numb with shock.

This can't be happening to Ahsoka.

It was awful enough when it was happening to other people and Anakin felt their fear deep within himself the way he always did. He wanted to be able to help them and he would have done anything he could if he knew what, but –

This is Ahsoka and it was never this personal until this very moment. He has to do something now.

"I'm sorry, Knight Skywalker," Vokara Che offers, finally.

Anakin looks back to Ahsoka, who's not even meeting his gaze. He doesn't want to leave her. He wants to stay by her side, but – He has to find a cure somehow.

Anakin goes over to Ahsoka finally, taking her hand, even if he keeps his back to the room so it's not visible. He's never comfortable with showing that in front of other Jedi and even in his present state of panic, that's still true. "I'll find a way to cure you, Ahsoka. I promise," he says fiercely.

She doesn't even look at him but he has to believe she's at least heard, on some level.

Now he just has to make sure that this isn't another promise he's going to fail.

**w**

Obi-Wan doesn't even need to hear the news about Ahsoka to know that something's wrong. He can feel a sudden whirlwind of emotion in his mind and he instantly knows something is going on with Anakin. Vokara Che is calling in to the Council with the news before Obi-Wan has the chance to call his former padawan, though.

Ahsoka was infected. She's the first Jedi who has been but all that he can focus on is that it's Ahsoka who was.

There's been countless nights throughout the war, when he was alone in his quarters or near his men, and he couldn't stop ceaselessly wishing that it was Anakin who was still here. He's grown used to not having him at his side constantly over the last two and a half years since Anakin became a Knight but there's still a part of him that constantly misses having him at his side.

And in some ways, it's even more true with the war because he has no idea what's happening to Anakin or if he's okay. He's seen him shrug off countless injuries as though they're nothing and in some ways, that makes Obi-Wan more comfortable with the knowledge that Anakin is far less likely to be taken down by anything out there than Obi-Wan himself is, but sometimes he can't help wondering – when it is that there will be a time when Anakin confronts an enemy he can't defeat.

Because sometimes, he has the gnawing feeling deep inside of him that that day is going to come. Even if he can't truly imagine anything being enough.

But Ahsoka... as the war grew worse, he began to see how easy it were for her to die. Or maybe, it was really Mortis that made him start to think about it. And the knowledge of what that would do to Anakin. Because Obi-Wan can't well imagine how unspeakably hard it would be on him. Anakin is strong, but that... is not something he thinks his former padawan could ever quite recover from him.

Obi-Wan knows himself that he certainly never could recover if something were to take Anakin from him forever, as unthinkable as that is. And for Anakin, who feels everything so deeply, it would destroy him entirely.

And now it's happening. And he has no idea what that's going to do to his padawan because they already know that there isn't a cure for this condition. Unless something changes and Obi-Wan isn't very hopeful that that's suddenly going to happen.

"There has to be something else we can do," Obi-Wan insists, looking between the other Council members, mostly at Yoda.

"Hmm, serious, this development is. A disturbance in the Force, it has caused," Yoda murmurs. Which really isn't an answer on what to do that they really need right now.

If there really is an answer.

"If nothing else," Windu speaks up, "We can watch the progression of the sickness on Padawan Tano and see if that will give us some insight on how to stop it and prevent it from spreading to any other Jedi."

His heart clenches sharply at the words. "Anakin would not take that well."

"Then he will have to learn to let go of his attachment to her," Windu replies.

Which is true but that doesn't...

That's not something Anakin has ever been good at, and Obi-Wan knows he's not one to talk either. He hasn't truly let go of Qui-Gon and he knows he never really could. Losing a padawan would be worse.

He tries to remember Qui-Gon's voice in his mind, telling him not to center on his anxieties and focus on the here and now. Which is what he needs to do if he's going to try looking at the situation rationally when he knows there's no way Anakin even could right now.

"I'll see if there is not something I can find," Obi-Wan decides finally.

He goes to find his former padawan the moment the Council meeting is over.

Anakin is in the Archives – from one glance at his screen, he's researching strange illnesses.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan asks, approaching him. "I heard what happened."

Anakin looks up, and it's not hard to read the devastation on his face. "I haven't found anything yet, Master."

"The Council said they'll look into it," Obi-Wan assures, but it feels pathetically inadequate. It is. He sits down in the seat next to him.

"Do they know anything about it?" Anakin asks, desperation in his eyes.

"No," Obi-Wan admits.

"I can't let her – " He cuts off with a shudder. "I'm going to find a way to stop this, whatever I have to do."

Now isn't the time to mention that the words leave him a little unsettled. Because he knows Anakin means that in every sense of the word.

"I will do what I can to help," Obi-Wan promises, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

Anakin nods, leaning into it a little, the sheer exhaustion already visible on his face. Or at least it is to Obi-Wan, even if it would likely not be to someone who didn't know him nearly as well.

Anakin turns back to the computer after a moment, though. "I am trying to see if there is anything I can locate here."

Obi-Wan nods. "While you handle that, I'll see if I can find anything in the holocron vault." Though he's certain Yoda would know about it if there were. That doesn't mean it hurts to check.

**w**

Anakin has no idea how many hours he's been here, but he was working all night long and he thinks it's somewhere mid-morning again. It's hard to tell when there's no windows. Doesn't matter anyway. All that matters is that he find a cure.

And – he probably needs to warn Rex about the situation. He was hoping to have found something before he does but it's been over a day already. Anakin dials in the frequency as he keeps scrolling through endless more documents.

And still nothing.

Obi-Wan didn't find anything either. He'd come back long enough to tell Anakin so and advise he get some rest, to which Anakin had flat out refused.

"It'll do you no good if you drop from exhaustion," he'd reminded him.

Not as though Anakin hasn't stayed up for far longer periods before. "I'm not letting Ahsoka die!" he'd snapped back.

Obi-Wan had dropped it after that, bringing him some tea before saying the Council was in session again. Probably to deal with more galaxy-related issues which he understands because that's important, but that doesn't chase away the bitter desperation eating him inside out. Because he's the only one who's doing anything.

"General?" Rex asks. His helmet is off and he looks worried. "Why am I hearing rumors about Commander Tano being infected?"

Anakin winces. He should've told him already. He hadn't expected the rumors to go that far yet. "She was," Anakin admits quietly, "I'm... trying to see what I can find."

"Is there anything we do, sir?" Rex inquires, expression tight.

Anakin breathes out heavily. "I do not think there is anything you could find in research that is not at the Temple but... it does not hurt to look."

Rex nods firmly. "We'll do whatever we can, sir." His expression falters. "How... how is she?"

"About the same as the others," Anakin responds solemnly, "It hasn't started progressively worsening yet." Yet, though. Because he knows it's going to. And he has to find something before then.

Anakin turns back to his research after he hangs up with Rex.

But suddenly, Anakin can't shake the feeling that he's not alone. Someone's watching him. He turns around slowly, hand reaching for his lightsaber, but then there's just nothing. No one's even there and now he doesn't sense anything anymore.

This is happening again.

What if –

Everyone's assumed that the slender man is just some of hallucination everyone is going on about, but what if he's real? As ludicrous as it sounds, maybe he is. So many instead of researching diseases, he needs to be researching some kind of... odd Force phenomenon. Which is about as vague as it gets but at least it gives him another very minor lead.

Maybe.

**w**

Everywhere Ahsoka turns, she keeps thinking she sees the Slender Man out of the corner of her eye. And he won't go away and nor will he actually step into view so she can see him properly. Anakin and the healer come in and out, but they aren't listening to her. They aren't making the slender man leave her alone either.

She has no idea how long it's been but it's not ending.

Barriss comes in to see her.

"I heard what happened," she says, expression sad.

Something moves out of the corner of her eye. "Barriss," Ahsoka calls in warning, "He's behind you."

"There's no one there, Ahsoka," Barriss says.

Why, why does everyone keep telling her that?

She's beginning to understand why that Twi'lek girl attacked the medical droid now.

"Yes, he is!"

Something shifts in the room around her.

Something about Barriss suddenly looks wrong. And feels wrong. The same way Anakin did when he'd attacked her in that – nightmare. Thing. Whatever it was. Because she knows that wasn't real but she's no longer sure what is anymore.

"You need to become his apprentice," Barriss insists, staring at her intensely.

"No!" she yells back.

"Become his apprentice or die," she hisses.

"Go away!" Ahsoka shouts, diving for her pillow and throwing it at her.

And then Barriss is just leaving the room, leaving her all alone with the slender man who's still there, lingering nearby out of the corner of her eye.

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