Exposure (Kylo Ren)

Recognition

At 0400, Vora woke up abruptly from the mechanical scream of her alarm. She seemed to always be deep in a dream around this time in the morning. It made the early shifts take a little longer to adjust too. Thankfully the First Order knew the importance of stimulants for their productive workers. If any room in the First Order could be referred to as a 'break room', that would be where Vora went to get her coffee. She grabbed a cup and pressed the appropriate buttons to let the drink flow through the tubes of the machine before her. She always filled her cup to the brim so that she could slowly walk away slurping away the surface tension before it overflowed. She'd regularly seen expressions of dismay and judgement from other Starkiller workers when she did this. However, it was usually the only time she'd make it to the coffee machine in the day.

Vora was working another half day. After she finished, she took another aimless walk, making sure to not go down the same corridor as the previous day. She supposed that, if not before, Commander Ren was now certainly aware of her presence on the ship.

Her walk took her past one of the garbage chutes, she watched a crude mixture of dead bodies and wasted food get tossed in. One of the bodies was the man who she had helped save the other day.
He had been cut in half by a lightsaber.
Vora approached the chute and the droids on duty. She whispered 'I'm sorry' as she looked at the dead man's clouding eyes as if he could see and hear her. The sight shook her and her fear was masked by her anger. She pictured the commander and cursed him for his petty need for performative power.

The sight had made Vora more abruptly aware of her surroundings. The sweet images of her first home, Ryloth, were violated by flashing images of the dead man's twisted expression. His mouth seemed to move in her mind saying: 'why did you let him kill me? You knew this could happen.'.
Vora had no answer. She was angry. She almost ran away from the sight of the body, wanting to distance herself from the death and the guilt.

Not long after, she met a few of the other MTs at the canteen where she had to slowly push down her dinner. She told them about the body in the garbage chute. Kenar was also saddened by the news. He leaned in towards Vora and grasped her hand with his own. Her green eyes locked with his blue eyes, neither smiling.

"You're lucky you didn't meet the same fate for speaking up to Commander Ren. From now on we play it safe, okay?" As if his gaze was piercing enough, his words also felt sharp like nails.

Vora nodded. She wasn't in the mood to argue. She had known eventually her brain would reach a limit at the First Order when she was reminded of who they truly were. It was hard to consider leaving when they had destroyed everything she'd ever known or cared about and given her a choice of death or servitude. Being a medical technician at least meant that she could save lives. There was a significance to that which Vora would never give up on. She'd always been able to delude herself into thinking that despite the First Order's true evil, she was still good, or at least good as could be despite circumstances.

After what ended up being a very long dinner due to how long it took her to finish all her food, Vora took herself back to her room. She sat, looking at the wall, thinking of how she could ever escape the First Order. She had only had a few flight lessons in her life and could hardly tell one button from the other. Unless the resistance infiltrated Starkiller and she hitched a ride, she'd be stuck forever.

Vora found herself going for yet another walk, rather than sleeping.
On Starkiller, sleeping conditions, such as darkening lights, were only found in one's room. The rest of the base was in a permanent state of wakefulness and bright lights.
She wanted to go for a walk outside on the cold icy planet of Ilum that Starkiller base had swallowed up with its size. The natural snowy terrain despite its horrific chill would be welcoming as a contrast to the greyness of Starkiller. She walked briskly down numerous halls to find an appropriate exit. Sometimes there were coats on standby by the exits for workers who were doing outside maintenance.
Before Vora could reach the end of the hall which had numerous coats to choose from, she felt herself being suddenly held still in place. She closed her eyes and felt the newly familiar presence of Commander Ren behind her. She tried to rotate herself to face him, but she stayed absolutely still as he came closer to her, announced by his boots stomping against the floor, conveying his distance as getting shorter and shorter before she could feel him right behind her.