Burning skies. A lightning storm of incomprehensible intensity. The roar of fire, explosions, death. A world cracking underfoot.
Sara was somewhere else.
Exegol. Fear entered her heart, even as steel closed around it.
This isn't real. It's gone. I made it out. I survived-
"Commander..."
The white sands of Exegol tossed in the wind, shrouding the place in a blanket of sand that whipped at her face, even as she could feel the helmet around her. Sara turned to the voice, in a direction that was nowhere at all.
The dessicated, broken corpse of one of her soldiers, bearing the emblem of the Battalion, stood there, skeletal sockets staring into her gaze no matter where she looked, the voids lit by baleful starlight. The jaw hung open, the body crouched, meat hanging in the breeze.
"
What-"
"You know what this is, Commander. You've been seeking it. Ever since-"
The world tilted, and sunlight came upon them. So sudden, so alien compared to the grey hell of Exegol. Green fields now sprouted around them, a beautiful blue sky dotted with the flaming hulks of Maw ships.
"Do you remember? Your first moment in the spotlight, hero," the corpse sneered. This was where Sara had first come to the attention of her superiors. Holding off the raid on this unremarkable world with little support.
She looked upon the burning spires rising to the sky, and remembered this too was when the icy fear first entered her heart. War as she'd first seen it. The butchery of the Mawite forces, and the harrowing screams of flesh and concrete in the collapsing spires.
"
Not a hero, not then, not ever. I just... was the last of my unit."
"
But you let the praise go to your head." Another dessicated body appeared- sprouting from the shallow graves in the grass. One of the volunteers who helped Sara defend this world, so long ago. She'd died following Sara's orders. Her skull caved in, rebar through her gut.
"
You ignored the doubts. And you accepted the promotion and command and all the praise, because you were just so damned special."
"
What? The Marines assigned me. And the enemy had to be stopped- and you're just a corpse! This. This isn't real."
The air suddenly vacated her lungs, replaced by a growing pressure. Sara fell to her knees, choking on dust, on stale air. The sky shrouded and
shrunk- like walls closing in.
"It's real enough."
"And you're about to become a corpse, like us. Haven't you been wishing it?"
"To join us."
Air filled her lungs again, but the pain remained, and her vision began to swim, more than before. Images blurred and moved. Across a dozen battlefields... but she saw it. New Alderaan. Ilum. Raiders in red and black seemed to blur and morph into white-clad stormtroopers.
Her voice echoed in her ears.
The enemy had to be stoppped.
"And them too?" It was cold. So cold. They were on Ilum now, and she was shivering in the trench when the spectre of an Imperial Army trooper, his body blown in half from her blaster cannon, fell out of the melting walls. He crawled towards her, accusatory hate in his one preserved eye.
"Did you enjoy playing at war with us too?" It asked in a voice that set her ears ringing.
"
You're not real... You're spectres of the mind. Doubt and regret. You won't win," Sara growled in gasps, trying to fight for air. It was so hard to breathe.
"
I can't... I'm not giving up yet. I can't just die now!"
The first skeleton laughed- a hideous vision of rotting meat and scorched bone, the sound a cross between a screech and a wail. The skies changed to a stark grey, and the smell of ozone crackled.
"Don't make me laugh- my jaw is hanging by a thread already, as you can see."
"Cannot just die? We could. You're not that important, Sara. The Galaxy will continue spinning on without you- or come to an end, but yours will not be the hand that stands in the way of its fate."
"
I... I know that!"
"Then why do you cling on when all you know is gone?"
Sara was sitting now. A warm chair- large, luxurious, like a throne. Medals weighed on her uniform, like claws grasping at her skin. Her helmet was in her lap, scorched black and glowing red, like the eerie visage of a Sith. Below her and ahead, as far as she could see, stretching to the broken mountains of Exegol, where the last of her unit was destroyed, were soldiers- allies and enemies, and civilians, in parade formation.
Hundreds, thousands.
And she knew them all. Her squads, her platoon. The Marines who died, and the replacements who followed them into the charnel pits and graves, as her unit fought the Second Hyperspace War to its bloody end. Enemies of all stripes- Maw raiders, New Imperial troopers, rag-tag militia and cultists. Here there was a squad blown up by an artillery strike called in by Sara's voice. And there was another, their armour melting in from coordinated flamethrower attacks. There were allies too- soldiers of the Crusade, their golden armour gleaming with blood and vomit, of the Concord, their silver trim made of tears, falling apart and pooling with the blood on the ground, and Mandalorians of every stripe and colour, their helmets broken, grinning skulls shining through. How many had died in her place? How many died because she failed- or because she succeeded, by the vagaries of fate.
At the head of the formation was the squad she lost on Coruscant, now a lifetime away. The ones who died so she could carry out a foolhardy plan that ultimately did nothing. Freshly joined, their corpses still held meat on their bones, brightly displaying the large gashes inflicted by the Mawite raider's blade.
The first Skeleton looked up from the head of the formation, up at Sara on her throne of egotism.
"With heroes like these, who needs enemies?"
"No, I refute this- I... I did not do this. I only fought to preserve the Alliance, to preserve life from death."
"And what a wonderful job you've done." The woman of the grass spoke in her ear.
"Why hold on? There is nothing for you to prove. We know you feel guilty. Responsible."
"So responsible."
"You have been seeking us."
death
"Join us. We can forgive you."
"Forgive"
"Forgive"
"Forgive"
Her stomach dropped- the swelling despair forced the cry from her lips, and her face felt wet.
And all
the
walls
came
crashing down. Doubt and fear and guilt. She could hear the chanting of the dead.
As she spiralled, falling, down, down, into the dark, into the safe embrace of Forever.
"Why do you resist?"
"That occupational therapist was lying for money."
"Feel-good affirmations are nice words for the living."
"Why continue?"
"Why subject yourself to this torture? Why keep us in your mind?"
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Why?"
There was only one place for her to go. The idea of a future of more war and sorrow struck her mind like a dagger, reopening the wounds again. She could not live through that. Not again. Not again.
Not again.
Never again.
The words once meant something else. But she could not remember, it was
In the ink-black sea of sleep, Sara floated along. There was a great pressure on and in her chest- it was uncomfortable, like a lump of clay where there should be meat.
Someone entered her field of view. The sky brightened, harsh and pure white, before softening to the weak blue of a summer's day back home on Carida.
It was a young girl. Could not have been older than thirteen. Her hair was like Sara's when she was young, before she was shipped off to the academy. Her eyes held the same proud blue.
"
Are you okay?"
In her eyes, Sara saw reflected a vision of war and death and Chaos.
"
Not really."
"
There are strange things looking for you, I think. They look like soldiers, but their bones are sticking out wrong."
Sara could not help but let out a breath. Not a laugh or chortle, but a sad puff of a cough. Even now, her guardian spirit reminded her of herself.
Maybe they have a point. Maybe I am too full of myself.
The young girl reached out a hand, and Sara floated up, to her feet. Her armour was gone, left only with a tattered bodyglove and sweater inside. The sky shone bright on her. Simultaneously too exposed, like to the open air, yet claustrophobic, as if the walls had fallen in. The girl was counting seeds in her hand, and deposited one in Sara's hand.
"
They say you want to talk to them, but got lost inside the tunnels of... I think they said it was a mine."
"
Mind."
"
Yeah." The girl looked around, obviously uninterested. She was wearing oil-stained overalls, and stuffed the seats in her pocket.
"
They say you missed them."
Sara looked away. In the invisible white horizon, she thought she saw a darkness.
"
I do."
"
They seem angry and sad. Why? They have nothing to worry now."
Sara looked down at the girl, who was folding some paper. She looked up to meet her gaze, curiousity in her orbs.
"
They have a lot to worry about. They died in pain and fear. Injustice- whatever form they believed it to be."
"
In justice? Do they want out?"
Sara sighed, feeling the weight of the years upon her.
"
No. It's me that wants out."
"
Out of what?"
Sara blinked.
"
I don't know. Out of war. Out of pain. Out of fear and guilt."
"
There's none of that here." The girl threw her paper plane, watching it sail off and down into the nonexistent ground.
"
Wouldn't you like it here." A statement, not a question.
"
I... maybe. But I..." Sara sat down, and frustration and sorrow filled her eyes again. She clenched her fists and looked down, into the endless sky below.
"
I don't want to die for them. But I can't keep living for them either. I can't avenge them all- or how I even could. But I... I know it's selfish, but I don't want to die for my guilt. I don't want to be defined by my failures, or my success in dealing pain and death. I can't bear the weight of rank and responsibility day after day."
"
I want out of the pain... and to live. Just live for me. For the people I can still love and cherish. Before I no longer even have the choice. To be me."
"
Then do that." Sara looked up. The girl was gone, and an unfamiliar but familiar face was there. Like an amalgamation of her demons. But the face was neither vengeful nor cruel, yet not benevolent either. It was impassive. Honest.
"
You can never forget us," the strange warbling voice intoned. "
We will hide in the dark tunnels of your mind until the end of your days. And we will crawl out of the darkness to catch you when you least expect it."
"
But we are not the only ones in your mind. Not if you let others in. Others you can fight for, that you can live for and with. Live with words and actions. Not just your thoughts."
Sara stood up. From the dark portal in the distance, voices-
real ones, that boomed and rebounded with acoustics, filtered across the wind.
"Hey! We got a live one!"
The strange figure offered its hand.
"
The waking world calls. But it is a burden. It is a scar that not all can carry, and there is no shame in sharing... and no shame if you need to... stop. That is life. And death. So, do you wish to come with us?"
Sara let go off her clenched fists. The icy fear melted, and her mind was clear again.
"
I... I can't go. I'm sorry. Not because I don't miss the friends, the family, the comrades I've lost. It is because I miss you. All of you. I have to keep going. For all of you. For all the you's I have not met yet, and the ones I never will."
The seed of understanding began to glow warm in her hands, and she beheld it. Slowly, it sprouted.
"
And for me."
It disappeared then- both the seed and figure. The white sky began to fall away into a nothingvoid- then a real darkness. Sara turned and walked briskly towards the dark portal. Back to life, to pain, to regret. Back to being human, to life and love.
Back to her duty. She took a deep breath as she stepped through-
