Tethered

4: The Man in the Door

They were hurting you again. All the pain, they said, would make you stronger-would help you turn to the dark side. The Supreme Leader said that pain, fear, and anger brought out the worst in people and could lead them to the dark side.

But, although they had instilled all three in you, you could not submit.

This night was just another prime example of that.

You felt the Praetorian Guard's blade cutting through your skin, Snoke's power picking through your mind, pulling your body limb from limb, the pain all over. You felt them hurting you once more and you loathed them for it.

But you couldn't do anything. You were powerless to stop them.

They said you were strong with the Force, but you still didn't know how to use or control it and that frustrated you to no end. After countless years, you still couldn't do the wonders they said you were capable of. You couldn't move things, you couldn't hurt people, you couldn't sneak into their minds and make them do things, you couldn't do anything.

You hated it.

Your skin stung as you leaned back into the wall of your barren cell. Snoke had let his guards pay special attention to your back for today's round of "training." You were told to fend them off with your eyes covered and using the Force or you'd be hurt.

You were hurt.

Their blades had drawn patterns in your skin, drawing streams of blood, until you collapsed from the pain. It was only then, when you were too hurt to move, that the Supreme Leader let them take you back to your cell.

You hissed in pain as the wounds made contact with the metal behind you, but the chill soothed it shortly after. Your head fell back against the wall and you let out a shaky sigh as your eyes began to burn.

"Don't cry," you whispered to yourself. Crying would do nothing but dehydrate you and you couldn't afford for that to happen. You couldn't cry; you wouldn't let them have that satisfaction.

Instead you squeezed your eyes shut and closed yourself off from the world. Your happy place was in your mind, in your body where you could feel it .

You couldn't use the Force, but you could feel it. It was always there, slumbering in the pit of your stomach. It was warm and knowing and comforting as it rested there. It'd been there all your life, you'd learned, you just didn't know what it was. But now you did and you needed it more than ever.

The Force was the only thing that reminded you that you were alive. It was the bond between all things, living ones included. If it held you, that meant you were alive too. You needed to know that every night as you lay down to sleep-that you were alive and that there were other living things in this world besides Snoke and his guards.

Oh, how you wished that you could just see someone else alive. Snoke's face had been the only one you'd known for so many years that you'd all but forgotten what another human-or any creature for that matter-looked like. You just wanted to know that there was something else on this damned ship.

They kept your prison floor vacant save for you. They figured that isolating you and giving you countless hours to meditate or whatever would help you. You knew they really just wanted to drive you mad with loneliness so you would submit. It nearly worked. You didn't know what your role in the Force was, but you knew it wasn't to be alone. You were meant to be around life, meant to exist in something other than yourself.

You found yourself dreaming about others in the night.

Men, women, children.

Flowers, trees, grass.