Kenobi Chronicles

Episode 8 (part 1)

"Kenobi—"

It was a dark voice, laced with such intense hatred that it threatened to send chills up Kenobi's spine.

"Oh how far the Jedi have fallen—"

There was a flash of white teeth—a passing of red and black skin—a glare of yellow eyes ringed with fiery red.

"But all fall to the Sith in the end—"

A dark figure stood before him—but it did not belong to the yellow eyes or tattooed dathomirian skin. It was rather the figure of the Inquisitor he had seen on Tatooine—and then again on Daiyu. Her back was to him and she seemed to be in a deep meditative state.

But it couldn't have been too deep, for she began to speak. Her voice was low and rumbled the very ground he walked on.

"He was your padawan—Obi-wan Kenobi."

He stared in confusion at the back of the Inquisitor's head.

"You were his Master—you trained him—"

A sickening feeling churned in his stomach as began to understand. The figure stood to her feet.

"And he slaughtered them—"

"He chose his own way," Kenobi tried to say calmly. How many times he had said that to himself, but still it did not deaden the ache in his heart.

"He slaughtered those children like animals—"

A flash of another angry face passed over the Inquisitor's and was gone.

"I did the best that I could—" Kenobi's voice cracked, almost drowned out by the roaring wind around them.

"You created a sith—"

The Inquisitor stepped nearer.

"You have brought about the fall of the Jedi Order—"

In the far reaches of Kenobi's mind, there was a sudden groan as if a door were being thrown down—and then a terrible onslaught of wailing voices, the same ones he had tried to block out for ten years. He pressed his hands to his ears in an attempt to block them out, but instead it only hemmed them in. Every wail—every dying breath—brought him to the side of each dying Jedi, each master, knight, padawan, and youngling. All at once, he was there with them at each of their deaths.

"Stop!"

His voice was a whisper among the wails. The Inquisitor loomed over him, her eyes dark brown, glaring down at him—along with the eyes of hundreds and hundreds of Jedi, mouths agape.

Just when he thought his mind would burst and his chest would crumble—as he lay there like a boy, grasping at his ears, tears streaming down his face—he heard it.

"Kenobi,"

The tone was gentle—like what a father might use when waking a son from a terrible nightmare. The wailing stopped, and the old Jedi loosened the grasp he had on his ears. He sat up to look around. All of the figures were gone, and he was back in the cargo hold of the transport ship to Timora.

"You must have the strangest dreams, my friend."

Haja was looking at him curiously from where he was leaning on one of the crates. Kenobi sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"We must prepare—we are on Timora." Haja continued. "At the first opening we will need to slip out. The docking man—"

Haja was cut off by the ramp making a great clanging sound and beginning its descent to the ground. Kenobi jumped to his feet and followed Haja into the shadowy corner where the Princess was now waking.