Star Wars: Apparitions -- Scenes from The Last Jedi

Chapter 1 - Shadows

Rey started awake and launched upright on her cot. She tightened her fingers on her thin blanket, shivering as she looked around her hut for what had woken her; she was sure something had.

    But all was quiet and still. The early morning sun streaked through the cracks in the door and poured in through the high window above Rey's head, casting a brilliant square of light on the floor of the otherwise shadowed hut. But something felt wrong. Rey just couldn't put her finger on it.

    Something stirred in the shadows on the far side of the hut. Rey's breath caught. She launched to her feet, scrambled for her blaster, and pointed it into the shadows.

    "Show yourself!" she commanded, her voice ringing off the walls.

    Then she realized what was wrong: everything was silent. The waves she knew to be lapping the cliffs outside made no sound. Neither did the porgs swarming the hills. All she could hear was breathing— her own... and someone else's. It pounded in her head with her racing heart. Then...

    "You," uttered a voice— a dark, metallic voice that made Rey's breath catch.

    "You," she breathed. She gritted her teeth, aimed her blaster toward the sound of the breathing in the shadows, and fired.

    The figure gasped.

    Several seconds passed; the only sound was breathing. Rey grew uneasy.

    "What are you doing?" Kylo Ren's garbled voice finally asked, shattering the silence.

    "Why aren't you dead?" Rey snapped, pointing her blaster at him again. "I shot you."

    A beat of silence passed. "No, you didn't."

    As the dark figure stepped aside, Rey noticed the new, smoking hole in the wall behind him, as it flooded the shadows with sunlight.

Kylo Ren's outline was relieved, and Rey glared as his dark cloak and silver mask became visible. She frowned as she noticed his stance was defensive— caught off guard....

"What are you doing?" he repeated, more sharply.

Rey huffed. "What do you mean, you—?"

"Save your insults— you know what I asked."

Rey looked over her blaster for signs of damage- anything that could explain how her shot had somehow gone beyond her target.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she muttered.

Kylo Ren raised his gloved hand in her direction, and Rey scrambled backward as she braced for the pull of his power at her mind.

A moment passed, then another.

Then Kylo dropped his hand. Rey, confused, let go of the breath she'd been holding.

"You're not doing this," Kylo murmured. "The effort would kill you."

Obviously, Rey wanted to snap.

But, frowning, she slowly realized: if he'd thought... whatever this was... was her doing, it couldn't be his.

"Can you see my surroundings?" Kylo asked, turning around slowly. "I can't see yours."

He completed his circle, and Rey felt his eyes fall on hers, even behind his mask.

"Just you."

Rey stared at him, trying to discern his game. He couldn't be present— he couldn't read her mind, and it seemed she couldn't shoot him either.

She fired at him once more just to be sure.

Kylo's hand instinctively flew to his chest, but he quickly dropped it this time. Rey grumbled as she saw the sunlight from a new hole behind him.

He wasn't present, so why could she see him, hear him...?

    Rey pinched her wrist as hard as she could to be sure she wasn't dreaming, then quickly dropped her hands when Kylo's silver mask turned back to face her.

"No," he mused, studying her a moment, then tilting slowly around again. "No, this is something else."

Rey was desperate to know everything he seemed to know as he talked to himself, but she wasn't about to ask him anything.

"You are gonna pay for what you did," she snapped instead. The anger behind her words loosened her chest, made her able to breathe again...

Kylo turned back to her.

"Oh really?" he said. "And you're going to make me, are you?"

"Yes," Rey spat.

Kylo laughed, folding his arms. "I'd like to see you try."

Rey growled and seized her staff from beside the door, sprinting forward and swinging at him.

The staff passed straight through him just as the blaster fire had. A painful shock went up Rey's arms as her staff slammed into the wall.

Kylo stared at her as she recoiled, then reached out his hand, summoning his lightsaber from somewhere to his right. It flared to spitting, crackling life in his hand, casting a blood-red glow over the whole hut.

Rey hadn't realized how audibly she had gasped until she saw him watching her. She glared disdainfully at him.

"This still scares you?" Kylo said, weighing the saber in his hand.

Rey was caught off guard by the genuine curiosity in the question.

"No," she snapped.

Kylo's visor flickered in the red light as he gazed at her again.

"Hm." 

Rey snarled and swung at him again. Again, her staff rebounded off the unrelenting stone wall. She growled in frustration.

Kylo watched her as she did so, but something abruptly drew his attention over her shoulder. Rey whipped around to see what he was looking at, but saw only the stone wall.

She assumed that meant he'd seen something on his own end, but then his voice crackled out of his mask, barely a whisper: "Luke."

    Rey's lips parted as he vanished, and she stumbled backward as all the sounds of the world came crashing back against her ears. It was so powerful that it took her a moment to realize Luke was calling her name from outside— from exactly where Kylo Ren had sensed him.

    She gathered herself as quickly as she could and sprinted out into the blinding sunlight.

"What's that about?" Luke asked, frowning and gesturing behind her.

Rey's breath stuck in her throat as she whipped in the direction he was pointing, desperately hoping he hadn't just seen Kylo Ren.

But instead she found a group of squat green creatures in white robes, studying the holes she'd shot in her wall. They were chattering angrily, and one shook his fist at her when he saw her.

Rey turned back to Luke and stammered, "I was... cleaning my blaster, and it... went off."

Luke studied her long enough that she tucked a strand of hair nervously behind her ear. But all he eventually said was, "Hm," and motioned for her to follow him up the stone stairs.

Rey let a sigh of relief fall from her lips. She grabbed her staff from beside the door and ran after him.