Star Wars Jedi: The Haunting

Chapter 7

Greez opened his eyes and found himself lying on the floor with Cal kneeling over him. Cal had a strange grin on his face, but Greez didn't know why. It unsettled him. What had happened to him?

"Oh, you've woken up," said Cal, still grinning.

Greez desperately searched his mind for any memories of what had happened before he passed out, but he found... nothing.

It was almost as if his memory had been wiped. But he didn't know how that could have happened.

"What happened?" Greez asked, unsure what else to say.

Cal's didn't like lying, but he couldn't let Greez know the truth. "You ate some bad food earlier. I think it must have been off. It made you feel nauseous and you said you wanted to lie down."

"OK, so why can I not remember what happened? I don't even remember eating the bad food. In fact," Greez said in a panic, "I don't remember anything in the past day or so. The last thing I remember is going to bed – but I don't know if it is last night or the night before that I'm thinking of."

Cal felt somewhat relieved. It had worked as intended. Greez didn't remember learning of his memory wipe ability. Nor did he remember talking to him about Kata. Everything before the Kata chat was fine – Cal had made sure of this as much as he could.

"Why can't I remember what happened?" Greez asked.

Cal strangely paused, as if he were lying. "You felt really bad, Greez. You were out for a while."

"I know, you said I was ill and I wanted to lie down. But that doesn't explain why I lost some of my memories."

"You were so ill, you fell down before I could catch you. When you fell, you hit your head pretty hard," Cal said. "Does your head feel OK now?"

Greez nodded. He got up from the ground.

"God, what was I going to do? I can't remember," he said, confused.

Cal knew he had to reassure Greez. "Whilst you were ill, you were saying something about playing a card game with Kata. Spending some quality time with her."

"I can't remember saying that, but that sounds good," said Greez, and walked off. Cal felt somewhat relieved. Greez had forgotten what he needed to forget, and thankfully telling him he had been meaning to play a card game with Kata had reassured him enough to not press the issue more.

Yet, he also felt ashamed. Not only because he had had to wipe Greez' memory. Although he felt somewhat ashamed about that, it had to be done, or Greez would have ruined his relationship with Merrin. And he couldn't let that happen. Merrin was his and only his.

He had been ashamed at how good it felt to do such a thing.

For whatever reason, it ignited something inside him to do it. It turned him on in a strange way, a way that he couldn't describe fully, but he had definitely felt some strange kind of pleasure while he was erasing the memories of Greez Dritus, delicately picking and choosing which memories to leave untouched, trying not to scar Greez, trying to harm him as little as possible.

Greez hadn't made it too easy. He had resisted before he fell unconscious. Cal regretted not knocking him out straight away. The initial stage – getting in his head - was the most difficult, and Greez had made it rather hard for him to get in. Once he was in, it was easier, even if it still required a lot of his concentration.

What Greez hadn't known – and what he should have told him – was that he risked brain damage if he tried to resist too much. It was similar to a surgical operation – when the patient was unconscious and unaware, it worked best. Cal just hoped that he hadn't accidentally brain damaged Greez. It didn't help that he hadn't had time to check before Greez became conscious again, so he couldn't be totally sure. But he was pretty sure, and that would have to do.