THE APPRENTICE ➛ Kylo Ren

⁽ ¹⁷ ⁾ ❝ ɴ ᴜ ᴍ ʙ ❞

Numbness.

It soaked through the skin like ice water through fabric. Paralyzingly, physically and emotionally draining.

Jana's body was slumped in the corner, scabbed-over cuts streaking her arms. The result of breaking a mirror with her bare hands days earlier.

Her throat was raw.

Her hair was matted and twisted

Her eyes were swollen and streaked with red veins.

There was nothing in her stomach. No water in her system. She hadn't moved since the guards had literally dragged her here.

She had been like this for two weeks.

The day Ren told her of the deaths of her friends and sister, she'd had to be tranquilized and taken to the medical wing. After that, she was transported to her room, where she'd laid motionless until the next morning's premature hours.

That was when the Finalizer had landed on the Starkiller Base.

Once again Jana was relocated.

She remembered coldness and snow. She remembered blurry halls. She remembered fragments of a memory.

But for the most part, she could only comprehend the numbness.

And that was how she'd come to be where she was now.

Her room on the base was for the most part identical to the one on the Finalizer. The walls were black, and so was everything else. The quarters were less extravagant due to the fact that this was a military base, and every utilizable square inch was used as such. There was no room to waste on unnecessary luxury.

But Jana didn't think about this. She didn't think about anything except for Rey. She pictured her death repeatedly. The scenes played before her eyes.

Rey being shot, bleeding to death in agony. Maybe being stabbed in the back, possibly crushed under the lash of Stormtroopers.

They all ended the same.

In pain.

In suffering.

In death.

Why did Jana feel like she was being constantly surrounded by it? Why did she feel like she belonged in it? Why did she feel like she should deal it?

The thought would've terrified the old Jana.

But this Jana wasn't bothered by it. This Jana wasn't bothered by anything anymore.

Not by the evil surrounding her in the form of the First Order.

Not by her situation: prisoner. Pawn.
And not by the increasing volume of the Dark Side's beckoning.

Her grief-induced emotionlessness dulled it all.

Even the feeling of vengefulness at the back of her mind.