Ruin had come to Csilla. The ravenous forces had descended upon her people like predators, ripping her society to pieces and shedding blood for the sake of it. Vultures plucked out eyes and ripped at gasping throats, destroying what had only barely survived the first time. The shock had numbed her to reality at the time while she was in the present, herding and corraling as many of her people as she could onto the overcrowded military transports to evacuate them with the threat of imminent annihilation made known. The helplessness she had felt in that situation paled in comparison to the despair of the collective, and the dark cloud that situated itself over her mind. Izoshi hadn't paid that any attention, either, as she had done everything in her power to save as many innocent people as she could.
Yet even still, despite her best efforts, not all had been saved.
The hellish forces of the Maw had still penetrated the Chiss defenses and sowed carnage within them, and it was by the indiscriminate hands of the psychosomatic Moon Children that she had been personally wounded. Gashes threatening infection had been carved through her, spilling the wrath-bubbled blood coursing through her veins. She had won the scrap, but it had stolen precious time from her, and narrowly after, was she able to sprint and slide onto the last evacuation ship to depart from the port.
What came after was naught but a blur, a swirl of spiraling colors that bled into one another until nothing was distinguishable. Imperials barking orders and shoving her. Wailing children. Rooms and spaces packed so tightly she could barely breathe. Durasteel corridors. Grey, rationed food. Grey, faceless soldiers. White stormtrooper helmets. Harsh, guttural growls of voices. None of it had struck any noteworthy chord within her, nor had it filled her with any sense of hope for recovery. Everything had been lost. All had been taken from her.
Finally, after what had felt like ages of standing in stuffy, cramped rooms, she had been assigned a dormitory within a barrack to herself, though she suspected the solitude she was so thankful for would be short-lived. There were far too many refugees and not nearly enough space to tuck them all. The chiss sighed heavily, staring with indifference out of the circular window fixed opposite to her small alcove-bed, watching the horizon as if any second the damnable Maw would appear to destroy this world, too.
The thrum of voices cluttering the hallway outside of her door had grown familiar, and she had learned to tune it out, as had the frequent knocks and bangs against her door as people came and went. It wasn't until a distinct voice spoke after pounding at her door that she stood up and limped over, sliding it open to reveal an exhausted-looking man in an Imperial uniform clutching a clipboard.
"Rommi-" the officer started, pinching his brows together as the more challenging syllables of her name came to his tongue.
"Izoshi is fine, thank you," she cut him off before he could butcher it any more than the countless others before had at this point.
"Very well, Izoshi, then. Your group is up for chow. Please come with us, we'll escort you to the DFAC." He tried to smile, though it looked as though the expression was immensely painful to him.
"I've no appetite at the moment, I will wait until breakfast, thank you." The woman tried to be as polite to him as she could, though her tone fell awfully flat, and ultimately she sounded disinterested.
"Ma'am, we're required to make sure you eat. Please, come with us."
She bit her tongue, holding back the nasty, venomous words she wanted to spit in his face. It wasn't his fault, at all, he was just doing the job he had been assigned. Instead, she closed her bruised eyes and drew a quivering, deep breath. "Fine, let me get my boots on."
Izoshi was moving down the hall soon after, corraled with a handful of other refugees, escorted both from the front and rear by a group of stormtroopers and the Imperial officer at the helm.
