Star Wars Jedi: The Haunting

Chapter 4

Cal suddenly jerked awake and saw Greez looking over him with a concerned expression.

"You were talking a lot in your sleep, Cal," said Greez.

Cal felt as if he'd been in a crash. He felt nauseous and dizzy, his jaw throbbed badly, his leg had cramped up, and he had been sick.

Cal groaned as he sat up. "I... had a bad dream, Greez."

"It must've been a very vivid bad dream if – wait, what happened, Cal? You've been sick."

As Greez said it, Cal realized how bad the vomit smelt. It was horrible, a truly ghastly odor. "I must've had some bad food last night."

Greez frowned. "I thought the food was fine, but – are you OK, Cal?"

"What?" Cal asked.

"Your jaw looks really bruised." Greez handed Cal a mirror. He saw that the entire left side of his jaw was a nasty red. He must have been hitting himself in his sleep.

"I'm... fine, Greez. Really."

"You don't look fine, Cal," said Greez. "Sometimes I really worry about you," he said after he had cleaned up the vomit on Cal's bed.

Cal didn't tell Greez what the dream had been about. What was the point? It'd just make Greez even more worried.

It had been a very vivid bad dream, like Greez had said. So vivid that he felt he was in it. He had been dimly aware that he had been dreaming at first, but then it had become more and more real.

He knew that that dream was going to haunt him for a while. Locker, showing the amount of suffering he had caused the galaxy. Rex Dawson and his ghostly white armor. Tapal's disappointment. Their hate towards him. None of it would ever leave him as long as he lived.

But the one he feared the most of all was that Purge trooper. Locker.

Rex was right; he appreciated his sympathy even more after the episode with Locker. Locker had shown him none. Don't expect me to feel sorry for you, Cal he had said. He had been the angriest of them all, but also... the smartest, in a sinister kind of way.

He had been the one to put the suffering into perspective for Cal. Only then did Cal realize he had orphaned and widowed thousands. He had been the one to show how vulnerable Cal truly was. The Force hadn't stopped Locker's arm from hitting him. The Force hadn't stopped Cal from projectile-vomiting due to the pain. The Force hadn't stopped his jaw from aching. 1 more hit and he probably would have shattered all the bones in his face. So much for the Force.

Locker had also been the one to realize the flaws of the Jedi.

The Jedi had forbidden Cal from forming proper emotional attachments. Locker had realized how emotionally stunted he was. It wasn't natural behavior to not form attachments, but the Jedi didn't know that. Only the Empire seemed to know. Locker had realized how little the Jedi actually stuck to their own code. Cal felt guilty as he recalled the fact that he had swung first against Trilla. He had been the one who had initiated the fight. Furthermore, many other Jedi had slain just as many, if not more, opponents than he had. Imagine they pain they had caused to many families across the galaxy.

Were they really the peacekeepers he had been taught to think they were? He didn't know anymore. Was he really the person who he thought he was? Locker had only made him more uncertain.

You're clearly emotionally stunted, Locker had said. Nobody had ever told him to his face before, but... it was true.

He had never had a proper father figure. He had never been able to attach to his blood father, having been taken from him too young, and Jaro Tapal was more of a mentor than a father. He had never had a mother figure at all; although he had a very, very distant memory of his father's face, he had no memory whatsoever of his mother, and the Jedi Order had not provided him with a mother substitute. Growing up in such a way wasn't normal. And he had not fully realized how abnormal it was until Locker pointed out his emotional state.