Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Regency AU)

VII

Rey, Scavenger

Finn left.

I watched him go.

Something rubbed against my legs and I looked down. It was BB.

I knelt to strike him and was startled when someone screamed. Nobody else seemed to notice.

The screams were coming from a doorway leading to downward-bound stairs.

I glanced down at BB. He took a step down.

We walked down the steps to a long hallway. The screams led me to the last door, which opened.

Inside was a chest, among other junk. I opened it.

A peculiar weapon rested inside.

It appeared to be a sword hilt, but without the blade.

I reached in to pick it up and was flung into a vision.

I was in a hallway. Strangely shaped, narrower at the top than the bottom. And the sounds of someone breathing heavily.

It started to turn, and I ran forward.

But you can only run so far like that before you fall. I hit the ground, hard.

Rain pounds in my vision and I try to look around.

A cloaked man reached out with a mechanical hand and rested it on a blue-grey dog's head.

Lightning flashed and I flinched.

I heard something behind me and turned. A man stood above me, with some sort of unidentifiable weapon. Before I could react, or he could strike, a glowing red blade protruded from his chest.

I scrambled to my feet.

Several men in black surrounded the man who'd killed my potential attacker. But instead of feeling grateful, I was more afraid of these men, their leader especially, than I'd ever been in my life.

Then they were gone.

The screams were back. I turned.

A little girl was held by the arm with a fleshy hand. I recognized that girl.

The girl was me.

"No! Come back!"

I gasped and turned around.

A ship was sailing away.

"Quiet, girl!"

It sailed into the setting sun. The red turned to the red sword's blade.

The man and I were standing in a snowy forest.

He twirled his lightsaber and I took a step back.

He walked forward and I stepped back.

What did he want?

Again, he advanced and I stepped back.

Faster and faster, until I tripped over some buried stick or log.

I fell into the hallway.

Maz and Han ran down the hall to her.

"I'm sorry. I was not supposed to come down here."

"That lightsaber was Luke's. And before that, it was his father's. And now, it calls to you."

I shook my head. No. I wanted nothing to do with this.

I ran past them, through the bar, and out to the woods.

Leaning against a tree, I struggled to catch my breath.

Something meowed.  I looked.

"BB.  You have to go.  It's not safe here."

He meowed again.

"I can't.  Go.  Get that to the Resistance."

BB turned and took a few steps.

"That's it, there's a good boy," I crooned.

He loped off into the woods.  I sighed in relief and apprehension.

I was alone.

I heard someone talking.  It was a stormtrooper.  I shot him before he could alert anyone of my presence.

Something hummed.  This time, it wasn't BB.

I went farther into the woods.

More hums.

I crept through a rock formation.

Suddenly, from behind me, the man from my vision emerged, turning his red sword, his lightsaber, as Maz called it.

I pulled out the gun Han gave me and shot.

He deflected it.

Again, again, pushed out of the crevice and up the rock.

Finally, he outstretched his hand and my arm was pinned behind me.

I struggled against whatever invisible force was holding me still.

"This is the girl I've heard so much about?" he asked.  His voice was gravely and dark.

A black mask covered the top of his face and a hood cast the rest in shadow.

"You've seen the map," he said, circling me slowly.

"Sir."

A stormtrooper stood on the edge of the clearing. "The droid is nowhere to be found."

"Forget the droid. We have what we need."

Before I can even wonder what that means, everything goes dark.