"From the top." The inhuman voice ricocheted off the soundproof walls of the bunker, reverberating through my bones in a manner I couldn't quite understand. It was the only thing I could hear through the screeching whine rattling my skull, that endless noise that started up the last time my head bounced off the concrete floor. I could barely move, it felt like, my legs were numb, my feet unresponsive, and whether it was from the freezing temperature of the room or some sort of injury, I couldn't quite figure. I tried to pick my head up off my chest and push my eyes open, but somewhere between the last swing and now, my lids turned into lead and my neck into jelly.
It didn't matter though, my captor was impatient, I'd figured that much out hours ago.
A cold grip clasped my chin, jerking my head back and my face upward, and against the blaring white lights, I squinted instinctively. Through the blurring ripples and smearing colors, I could barely map the features of that apathetic face, but the eyes- those red eyes- were not something I could easily forget. I felt them piercing into me, even now, as I drifted between consciousness, threatening to keel over unresponsive just as I had done only moments ago. Cold metal pressed just beneath my eyes and applied force to my crooked, bloody nose. It was enough to make me scream, but I could barely hear that, too.
"From the top." the stranger stated again.
"Imperial... Assembly... meeting... told... selected for guard duty..." I felt my breath fogging the steel hand still pressuring my face, "hadn't... done that before... thought odd..."
The hand fell away from its obstruction and I could gasp for air again. "Who told you that you were selected?"
Greedily, I gulped down breaths of air, ignoring the burning pain it caused in my chest. At the raise of the same malicious hand I shrunk back out of reflex, and as a result, felt the sharp stab of the zip-tie binding my wrists cutting even deeper through my skin. "It was... an officer... a c-captain... I think..."
Something obscured the light beaming down on me from above, though I was too afraid to focus on it long enough to figure out what it was.
"What did this captain look like?" the voice pressed more sternly, far, far closer now. Right in front of me. I tried not to flinch again.
"W-white... uniform... Navy... maybe?" I struggled to remember but the last few weeks had been nothing but a blur for me, endless question after question, regret, grief, I couldn't escape from any of it. I had disgraced not only the Empire, but myself, and my comrades as well. Those of us that survived the bombing and made it out of the Sith butcher house that followed after didn't realize then that the nightmare was only just getting started. I felt like I was never going to escape it. I'd been assigned to Ravelin, Fortress Imperator, it was a dream, really. I could see my family daily. I was not under the constant fear of dying every time I opened my eyes.
How did this happen?
"Navy, what's a naval officer doing giving you orders, hm?" Another question, this one sounded like it came through gritted teeth and with it, the return of the horrific pain that twisted my guts into a knot. I screamed, at least I think I did, I couldn't really tell. My head fell forward, only this time my forehead struck something solid. I couldn't tell what it was either. "I need you to think very clearly for me." The voice was right against my ear, "What did this captain look like?"
It felt like my lungs seized up.
"S-she... zabra-zabrak..." I spat it out, tasting iron with each syllable. The pain intensified. I knew for sure I screamed then, as the blood pooling behind my teeth splattered the object supporting me.
"A zabrak woman in a white naval officer's uniform told you that you were on watch during The Assembly meeting, is that right?"
I couldn't move. I couldn't think. Fear had overwhelmed me at last, boiling the blood in my veins, but there was absolutely nothing I could do. I was at the mercy of the one questioning me, and it didn't seem like they had any to spare. "Y-ye-"
"Good, that's all I needed."
I gasped a final time as the shadow left my vision and the surface holding me upright left, leaving me to tumble forward and collapse against the cold, concrete floor. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw only a flood of red pulsating from the gouge just beneath my chest. I swore, for a moment, I could see the sterile light of the room peeking through the split tissue from the other side. I screamed for my hands to press over the wound, to do anything to save me, but even as my shoulders twitched and twisted, my wrists remained bound behind my back. There was nothing I could do.
The icy floor started to fade from my cheek. It was... warm.
Red trailed from where I lay to where my captor stood, and with the few dying moments of clarity I could grasp, I stared at the monster in the room with me. The cyborg stood there silently, wiping my blood from the blade one of her cybernetic arms ejected. The same stained the shirt she wore. It soaked her pants and glistened off her boots. There was too much of it to be just mine.
I felt those red eyes on me, though their pierce did not chill my blood, not anymore. No, now there was nothing but this soothing warmth and numbness. It was overwhelming me now, a gentle lullaby, a voice in the deep, luring me into its embrace.
I looked into those eyes.
And I felt nothing back, even as I faded away into the dark.
Izoshi
Don Belkora
