To the Rhythm of the War Drums

The silence of the room was broken only by the faint echo of boots somewhere in the distance. That sound, once a dull irritant, had become the only thing that kept her tethered to reality. The click. Click. Click. She would listen to it for hours, her mind swirling with madness.

How long had it been? Days? Weeks? She had lost track. Time had become an abstract concept, something only marked by the faint scratches carved into the metal walls. A twisted kind of record. Each scratch was a new moment of unbearable waiting. The marks began as jagged lines, deep and desperate. Then, as the days bled together, they became little tick marks. One, two, three... Azzie couldn’t remember if they were a count of her victories, defeats, or to hold time.


You're too weak.



You fight for a galaxy
that claws itself apart.





The shadows in her mind slithered and curled, their voices a constant, gnawing presence. They spoke in half-truths and twisted memories, whispering of her failures — how her stubbornness had led her here, how her bleeding hands and trembling limbs were proof of her weakness. They reminded her of the faces she couldn’t save, laughter now silenced. The echoes of chains rattled beneath their words, mocking her strength, daring her to rise again. Every beat of her heart was a betrayal of peace; every breath she drew felt stolen from the dead.

Azzie's body ached, a mixture of hunger and pain, but it wasn’t the hunger that gnawed at her sanity. No, it was the deep-seated sense of having her very soul chipped away one slow, agonizing day at a time. Sometimes, the shadows in the corners of her cell moved. She’d see flickers of movement, something out of the corner of her eye, and her heart would lurch in her chest. Was it a rat? Or something worse? Was it them? Her captors? Or something far worse—something the mental manipulation, or her mind itself, had conjured to fill the emptiness of the space?

Her chains rattled as she shifted, her body barely able to respond. Her muscles ached, withered from weeks without freedom. She no longer pulled at her bonds, neither the physical nor the tethers of the Force. There was no strength left for that. The faces in the darkness didn’t leave. They were always blurred, as if the world around her was slipping out of focus, her vision distorted, her sense of reality cracking like a shattered mirror.

"There's a flower field in the darkness, send me away..." Her voice muttered in a broken, sing-songy tone while she stared at the ceiling above her to try to block out the ghosts and moving shadows that crept across the walls. Words hummed to the tune of a lullaby that didn't seem to have any meaning together, yet strung haphazardly. "Feel the fire in the wind… take me home on the cries of shadows—"

Azzie tried to laugh. The sound was dry, rasping. It caught in her throat like broken glass and caused her to cough almost uncontrollably. She didn’t know why she laughed. Maybe it was because it was the only thing she had left. She could feel it, even now. The rage. The injustice. The need to fight. Finally, she screamed, but the sound twisted into something else. Laughter.

Wild, unhinged laughter that echoed off the scorched walls. It poured from her throat, shaking her frail frame. Tears streaked her face, cutting clean paths through the dirt and blood. She laughed as the shadows writhed. She was losing herself. She knew it. Yet, the laughter wouldn’t stop or be silenced. It bubbled up from some place deep inside her—an ugly, broken thing, twisted and raw. It pulsed out from her body, shaking everything around her. Scraps of metal shot embedded themselves into walls and would sizzle as they hit the plasma wall, but she didn't seem to notice.

"—And trickery that bathes in sunlight..."

Click.