I am Euphoria

Ruins In Us

Sometimes we want them to be the villains.
But we do not know the pain, that runs through their veins.
And we never ask ourselves what happened to them, when they were just children.

So who are we to judge?

Leal

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Disclaimer: mentioning of assault and violence

My lungs were burning and the adrenaline was probably the only thing left in my bloodstream, that gave me the courage to do what I was about to do. Everything Stone had ever taught me, spoke against my next moves. It was suicide really.

But I couldn't run away, when Jamaan was alone and this squad meant trouble. And I knew Stone would shake his head, but would help me nonetheless. I hadn't the heart to turn my back on the old man as well. I just had to make sure he was going to be alright.

But at the same time I wondered, what was on Lothal, that could have awoken the interest of the empire? And then I noticed the direction from which the speeders had come from. My ship! If they had found it, it didn't need much to put one and one together. It was still full of things linking to me.

My lungs almost burst as I stopped a few feet away from Jamaan's house and watched the flames licking on the wood already. And this was all my fault. I immediately felt my heart sink and grabbed my blaster. Jamaan must have gotten dragged out and thrown onto the grass before his home, now only three troopers remaining. The other two laid scattered on the ground.

"Where is she?" One trooper growls and Jamaan tries to get up, but another one punches him. I muffle my cry as the old men falls again. "I don't know what you are talking about." Jamaan breaths out. Slowly I sneak closer. I had to help him. I was the reason he was in this position in the first place.

"Don't lie to us, old man. It won't help you." Another punch followed and I was almost there. "I'm asking you again. Where is CT-W-0102? We found her ship, she has to be somewhere and your house is the only one around here. So tell us."

Jamaan groaned as he kept quiet and the punches got even more. Something cracked and Jamaan screamed out his pain. "You think, I'm scared of you?" Jamaan suddenly said and I could see him grinning from where I was standing. "You may do these things to my body, but wounds heal."

I was almost there, but what happened next let me freeze. "If you do not cooperate, we have other tools to make you speak." On the troopers sign the remaining others ignited Jamaan's house more before his eyes and I gasped. All his memories of his wife where in there. He struggled to stop the fire and that got to me. I started shooting at them.

I got one of them to drop dead, before I had to hide. The two remaining ones shot around themselves not hitting anything. "She is here! Spread out. The admiral wants her alive!" I crawled through the high grass and kept my eyes trained on the remaining troopers.

"Go! Leave!" Jamaan yelled at me, but I was done running away for once. To my horror the trooper in charge grabbed a knife and stabbed him multiple times. Jamaan didn't get up afterwards. I gunned the next trooper down from my hiding spot and then started moving again, but couldn't see the last one. He must have used my inattention. And then I suddenly was tackled to the ground.

The flames had now risen to the sky and illuminated the night as if it was daylight. There was no hiding anymore. My back and side made contact with the ground and in the next the last one standing, who had given the orders, grabbed my foot. Somehow my blaster got knocked from my hands and was laying a few feet away and out of my reach.