Chapter 21: Suffocate

Rey's fingertips barely made contact with the mirror.

"Show me my parents...please" her voice echoed in the cave.

The outlines of two shadows began to advance within the mirror, each one moving with a unique gait as they drew near. In their approach, the two became a united shadow that halted on its side of the reflection; a moment passed before it slowly raised a hand to meet hers in the mirror. Rey's breathing increased with anticipation, but when the mirror transformed the shadow, she was disappointed to only see herself looking back.

"I thought I'd find answers here...I was wrong. I'd never felt so alone."

"You're not alone anymore", the man coaxed her as he held a glistening palm out to Rey, still in shock as she processed who stood before her.

The constant dripping echoed in the chamber around them as they were standing at the edge of the water. There was a chill in the air underground without the sun as a source of heat, and Rey wondered how they just emerged from the water and stood casually in sopping wet tunics like it didn't matter. The cool moisture had goosebumps rising on the back of her neck.

"I don't understand" she began to say but was at a total loss of words. A storm of emotions rolled over one another inside her chest; intense grief and joy, confusion, and lying underneath it all was anger and blame. "You abandoned me. You left me when I was just a little girl..."

Her mother looked down ashamedly at the water. "We left because we had to...we needed to find a better life for all of us." Her father nodded as he put an arm around the woman. "That's right" he conferred. "We realize you may not trust us after what we did."

They sold you off for drinking money.

Tears began to fill Rey's eyes, threatening to spill. "Why didn't you take me with you?"

Her mother touched her lightly under her chin. "It was far too dangerous my dear, and we wanted to keep you safe."

They're dead. Buried in a pauper's grave on Jakku.

"But you've been alive here on Jakku for all these years?"

"In a manner of speaking" her father eluded before taking her hand. "Come, let us show you something."

His hand felt strange wrapped around Rey's as he pulled her along further into the water. The shocking cold travelled up her exposed calves and she shuddered audibly as the shiver continued up to her shoulders. The command chamber was quite large, and they moved as one through the waters until it rose up to her chest. She was lead past what appeared to be a round, glass monocle on a metal frame that peered out a black window; a flashback of her being diverted mid-air, forced to see through the looking glass on Snoke's ship felt eerily similar to that contraption. They approached a simple throne at the back of the room, it's back high and menacing, lined with dark violet fabric.

"Touch it" her mother said excitedly, oddly enamoured with the chair that was partially submerged in the water. Her father lifted her hand up over the end of the chair arm, and released it from his grasp; Rey hesitated as something nagged a warning in her brain the moment before lowering her palm to the cold metal.

Something small and sharp pierced Rey's palm instantly, and she shrieked in surprise as her palm began to throb. Immediately she tried to yank her hand off the chair, but it was cemented to the steel arm. Warmth flowed into the flesh, spreading like a fire through her veins up into her arm; Rey's free hand grasped her shoulder tightly in a vain attempt to prevent the dispersion as it continued its journey. The invasive heat crawled through the muscles up her neck and deep within her chest, a penetrating wave cresting down powerfully on anything in its path. Her spine arched of its own accord as she threw her head back, poised in a silent scream as the onslaught of heat finally consumed all her thoughts.

Rey awareness of her body faded away into nothing as the party of two gently helped her into the water, hand still clinging desperately to the chair arm. She floated on her back in the dark water as it lapped at her cheeks, rocking her body from side to side as her eyes stared into another place unseen.

*

Kylo Ren could barely fit down the shaft after passing through the hatch. After sliding for as long as gravity would take him, attempted to get to his feet, but he was hunched over so far in the tunnel that it would almost be more efficient to crawl. Hissing loudly, he kept an arm tucked against the bruised side of his chest as he moved forward awkwardly.

As he made his way through the shaft, the circuitry and design jogged his memory. As a young apprentice under Snoke, he'd toured many of the First Order vessels, including the remains of prototype death stars. It was an uncanny resemblance to one of the first models in a series he'd only seen once; if the Empire had built one out on the outer rim some number of years before the completed model destroyed Alderaan, his mother's home world, then this one had been lost.

It's not possible that an entire death star is buried on this forsaken planet, he thought to himself. Around the bend of the shaft, Ren came across an open panel; his compounding claustrophobia receded as he peered out into the chasm to see the bridge above him and studied what he recognized as an imperial designed channel for the core. He looked down below, squinting in the obscurity to observe movement at the bottom.

Water filled the channel below, a clue to how far down the depth of the debris reached. The channel had no other access points except for the bridge suspended several meters above the panel door. A shred of fabric was hooked on the edge of the panel; he removed and examined it against his gloves, recognizing the piece of woven beige material as that of Rey's. He let the fabric shred float through the open air of the channel before preparing to exit the shaft, removing his gloves and tucking them inside his belt.

The ascent was challenging; it had been some time since he had done any climbing, and although his height gave him the advantage, the span of his hands and boots detracted from it. Finding a crevice or ledge deep and reliable enough was stressful, and by the time he reached the bridge, he had taxed the muscles of his forearms and fingers. Throwing his body onto the bridge was a small victory, and he dare not sit down for a rest lest he waste any time. The door behind him was ajar with a space small enough for the petite frame of Rey to squeeze through. He gripped it using the force and yanked violently to the side, the loud screeching sound of metal against metal echoed in the channel.

Ren entered the overgrown corridor through the doorway. His pace slowed as he took in the eeriness of the vegetation that had somehow thrived in the darkness of the ship debris. The air was cloudy and moist, with a cool clamminess settling beneath his clothes.

An unintelligible whisper in the corridor stopped him in his tracks, his heart beating faster as the release of adrenaline responded to the prick of fear penetrating his facade. The silence was like a roar as he waited for it to speak again, and his hand went to the lightsaber on his belt. He wondered briefly if it was Rey.

"Ben" it whispered, distinctly male with a softer tone this time.

Ren shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably as he stared down into the dark, seeing no entity that spoke his given name. A noticeable wave in the force passed through him in that moment, carrying Rey's distinct signature and it gave him relief. He walked forward again through the walls laden with vegetation.

"BEN" the voice whispered loudly to his left, this time sounding as if it was behind something.

He halted at a spot of the thickly covered wall, overgrown in the dark green foliage and he studied it intently before noticing grooves in the metal behind it all.

There's a door behind all this.

Using his hands, he gripped the mossy tubules and taking handfuls of leaves with each fistful; the foliage pulled away in a loose sheet of greenery all together, disconnected parts dangled at the end, formerly separated sometime ago. A black, oily substance oozed from the broken pieces, glazing everything it came into contact with. Once he cleared the door, he worked his fingers underneath the overgrowth to the right, palpating for the spot to engage the door.

A soft hum emanated from the wall, the door sliding open to reveal a dimly lit room. A wretched smell collided with his senses instantaneously; he held his breath to prevent himself from retching on the spot and holding his leather glove tightly against his nose. It was impossible to see anything from the door, making a full entry the only option to search. Ren glanced down the corridor one more time before entering the room.

The low lights in the room ebbed and surged, highlighting the thick humidity clinging around them. The walls and equipment in the room were discernibly medical in nature, surgical tools visible on tables, and a decommissioned 2-1b medical droid was racked in the farthest corner. He walked past two empty beds on his left with the sheets strewn about, and a spot of old blood on one of them. Ren sucked in a short breath between his teeth, and the stench was so tangible that he could nearly taste it on his tongue as he arrived at the third bed; it was not empty.

A decomposing male corpse with gaunt, sunken eyes stared up from the bed, it's arms resting alongside the body. Ren had only returned to old battlegrounds a handful of times to view the corpses left behind from hunting down clans, and it was difficult to say how long this one had been in this place. Perhaps only just a week.

Before he could turn to leave the place, he spotted a second generation escape pod against the wall just beyond the corpse's bed. He walked around the bed carefully, and knelt beside the old pod. The hull was tarnished with age, yellowed and smudged with dirt. The looking pane was fogged up with moisture, and he took his forearm to swipe most of it away in one motion.

The skeletal remains of a woman were all the pod contained, nothing left on the limbs or face save for some strands of long brown hair falling against the clavicle bones of the shoulder girdle. Something about the way the hair fell touched a memory in Ren's mind; he walked back to the male corpse and pulled the blanket down from its torso to reveal simple blue trousers; they were worn in the knees and had dust in them. It wore a beige, long-sleeve tunic bunched up on one hip, lashed down by a slim, brown belt.

I've seen them before, he thought, when our hands touched.

Images flickered before his eyes as he stared over at Rey; a ship leaving orbit with two people on board who cheered, toasting with a grungy bottle of amber liquid. They were laughing with inebriated delight just before the engines failed, spiralling the ship in a smokey descent that crashed into the sands.

The pair of junk traders had familiar features, particular the woman with her dark hair and determined eyes as she stumbled to the hole ripped out of the hull; the man was right on her heels as he still clutched the bottle. Before they could reach it, a hooded figure in a black cloak climbed through the shrapnel, hunched over with an ignited lightsaber in its hand. The smoke was illuminated with the red glow of the blade as the man and woman stumbled back over themselves in shock and surprise, clutching at each other in sudden fear.

"You will now fulfill your purpose" the hooded figure whispered menacingly.

The scene changed and began to show a timeline. They were fighting side by side together. He held his hand out to her in the throne room. Tears were falling from her face. Then he was kneeling, and his arms were around her, and they kissed tenderly as the smoke rose around him. The lingering sensation of her lips and tongue were vividly remembered as the image faded.

He stared down at the corpse almost with pity, knowing Rey would mourn that she had only missed her father by over a week.

"I know when the moment comes that you'll be the one to turn. Rey...I saw who your parents are."

Ren touched his brow as he shut his eyes for a moment, trying to make sense of this place. His memory of Jakku and the vision had led him to believe that her parents were already dead, and judging by the state of her mother's body, it was at least half true.

"Ben," an audible voice called out, as a blue figure materialized before him on the other side of the corpses' bed. It was shapeless at first, forming itself proportionately from head to toe before finally revealing the body of a man in Jedi robes with shoulder-length hair. Ren went stiff with surprise as the ghost made eye contact, his gaze soft with understanding and an unseen breeze blowing wisps of hair around his collar. Ren touched his scar with a gloved finger in wonder, noting it was almost a mirror image of the one on the apparition.

"Learn from my failures" the ghost warned. "Don't let the dark side have her," his expression changed to one of sadness, "losing Padmé will always be my biggest regret."

The realization that dawned on him as he breathed quietly "Anakin".

"The truth is the only thing that will break its hold on her, Ben."

He opened his mouth to ask a question, but a terrified shriek echoed in the corridor and he turned sharply to the doorway, his mind taking a couple of seconds to compute that it was Rey.

When he turned back to Anakin, his ghostly form had promptly disappeared.

"Go!" the ghost shouted, his voice sounding at a distance.

Shaken from the encounter with his grandfather's ghost, Ren's reaction lagged before he pulled himself out of his stupor, heading for the door in the direction of Rey's scream.

*

The world was transformed instantly just as the time Rey touched the lightsaber in the wooden chest at Maz's; nauseated and disorientated all at once as everything in her view tumbled with her onto wet, stony gravel with a remarkably familiar chill in the air. She turned over to stand, seeing the shore of the cave on Ahch-To. Shivering as she brushed wet hair back from her face, Rey's mind worked to comprehend what was happening outside of her body.

Turning on the spot, Rey found herself face to face with the mirror again, it's cold and frosted appearance less than comforting; there was no reflection just as the first time she stood before it.

This feels so real.

Once again she found herself reaching out to the mirror, barely touching it with two fingertips and her heart beat anxiously. The mirror wall moved forward, a solid plane erasing her hand before taking the rest of her arm behind it and finally inhaling the rest of her body within it's reflection. A delicious feeling of pleasure crept into her body during her transition through the mirror, a darkness that rose up through the core and invigorated her flesh from the inside out.

The surroundings inside the mirror had changed; it was a snowy forest like the one on Starkiller Base when she'd battled Kylo Ren. Rey couldn't understand the feeling of euphoric satisfaction she was experiencing; it flowed through her, but it wasn't quite part of her. The logical side of her brain struggled through the feelings, attempting to find the reason for such contentment, but there was no searchable answer; she wanted to laugh in delighted victory despite this.

The sound of a lightsaber igniting stopped her short of that action, and she turned to see another Rey in scavenger attire with an expression of shock and confusion, with a blue lightsaber held at her side. Rey looked down at her own body, grasping at the black robes that hung all around her feet.

She wondered a single, panicked thought. Who am I?