Orym Fett: The Fires of Hoth

Chapter 5: A Lost Hope

Orym stirred in pain, an empty sleep fading to an emptier wakefulness. He could hardly bear the pain, yet it wasn't from his bonds or the unforgiving surface that jutted into his back at odd angles or the hard cold floor that held his sprawled useless legs. No. This pain had been building for, he couldn't tell how long. Clawing and gurgling its disapproval, quietly, at first, behind the more obvious and taxing discomforts. Deep in his gut, hunger had been steadily growing louder. But, sometime in this retreat from consciousness, it had begun to scream and pull at him until it overtook every other pain. The pangs howled as Orym moaned off the last blissful nothingness of empty sleep.

As his eyes focused, they were nearly blinded. There, just before him, and endlessly out of reach, two pools of green light bathed a small section of the darkness. Though blinding to eyes that had become accustomed to the pitch blackness, the lights were actually quite dim, only lighting their most immediate surroundings, fading so quickly that he could still not make anything out of his environment, or even see his own legs stretched out before him.

The two luminescent pools were about the width of a cup and were around a meter apart. From the pools, a luminescent mist rose low and spilled an eerie verdant glow over what appeared to be a medium sized table. The table was loaded with steaming bread, meat that smelled like gamey bantha, vegetables, and bowls full of savory smelling soups and stews. Pies, cakes, and puddings that Orym had only read and dreamed about filled the rest of the table, and there among the vast buffet, two goblets of a light, amber colored, sparkling liquid stood.

By all the lights in the universe, nothing had ever looked so good! He closed his eyes and devoured the scents wafting over him, filling himself with the aroma. Those breaths alone were better than any meal he ever remembered eating. He opened his eyes and strained forward, tugging at the shackles, trying with all his might to get his legs under himself, hoping to gain leverage on his knees. Useless! His back was pinned to the wall by the shackles around his arms. He had not enough leeway to move his legs underneath himself or get the tiniest bit closer to the smorgasbord. Further, it seemed, the more he pulled on the bonds, the more they tightened, leaving scarcely enough room now for him to spread his fingers or unclench his fists.

"Why do you fight what cannot hold you?!" The sickening voice that had taunted him before, hissed in apparent exasperation. "Do you want to be free? Or will you simply remain in imagined chains until your will is broken and you power is wasted, fading back into the Force that gave you life!" Again, the words seemed to spew forth from a cauldron of hatred and loathing.

Of course, there were two goblets. One for him, and one for the phantasmagoric figure barely silhouetted by the green mist. He could make out the same pale and gnarled hand that he recalled from his last nightmarish memories of his Kaminoan home. Then, it had stretched out from the shattered remains that had been his home and, without even coming close to him, had crushed his throat and lifted him into the smoke filled air, tearing him from all he knew. Now that same hand rested on a table filled with all he could imagine desiring in this moment, the slightest movements away from the end of the pain that pulled at him from within. Yet it made no such movements. It offered no such help. It sat there, passive, freely slipping out from a heavy dark cloak that covered the phantom tormentor, keeping him in darkness even as the light glinted off the folds of his misshapen form. The only visible features, a sharp nose, aged wrinkled lips curled in the deep frowning lines of a contemptuous sneer over a pronounced cleft chin, and that cruel, waiting gnarled hand.

"Please," Orym pleaded weakly, desperately. "Please. Something. Give... something. Why? Why are you doing this? What.... have I...." he started to weep, "why me?" He sobbed, "why..."

The lips parted and pure hatred gave voice. "Don't cry to me boy." Each word was heavily punctuated. More than a command, they were like a dare. Fatal consequences lay in wait.