The Sands of Jakku

On a Dark Night

She had always imagined that death would be a void of emptiness. She had imagined that she would fade into the dark inevitability of it. But now, as she surfaced, heading towards a blinding bright light and taking a deep cleansing breath, she supposed reincarnation was more likely.

"Rey!" Finn shouted frantically, gripping her shoulders to steady her. Rey sputtered and wheezed in response, vomiting the water from her lungs. She could barely make out the world around her. It was all shapes, and darkness, and the smell of Finn.

"Hurts," she muttered, trying to get her eyes to focus on something. It proved too difficult. Her body fell back to the bed, chest and lungs burning from her effort to breathe. She moaned softly before her eyes flutter closed again. Back to oblivion.

It was dark here, but she could hear far off voices. She felt like she was still underwater, and the thought made her chest clench uncomfortably. Her vision was clouded by darkness, her eyes fluttering between open and closed. All she could see was black.

"Can you hear me, Rey?" someone asked. She tried to respond to them, but her mouth wouldn't move. Her whole body was paralyzed except for the fluttering of her eyes. She tried for a long time to speak, to moan, to gesture, anything , but none of it worked. When she finally gave up, she slipped back into the quiet oblivion of sleep, heart hammering.

The room was blinding when she woke up. It hurt for her to open her eyes for longer than a second. She moaned, sound actually escaping from her lips. It startled her at first, but she was thankful for the change.

Next to her, someone shifted. She could hear the rustling of fabric, the scraping of a chair on the floor.

Rey tried to speak then, her lips forming words that she couldn't say. Soft sounds escaped, but nothing coherent. it frustrated her, but she didn't give up.

Distantly, Rey was aware of strange background noise. Voices, footsteps, a soft and rhythmic beep, beep, beep . She was somewhere unfamiliar, she realized. A nervous sweat settled over her skin.

"Rey?" Finn asked cautiously, and Rey finally surfaced. Her eyes fluttered open in surprise, narrowing at the brightness of the lights above her.

"Finn?" she croaked, her throat raw and damaged. She could speak. She could finally speak. Finn's arms are around her in an instant, pulling her close and crushing her to his chest.

Despite the discomfort this brought her, Rey grabbed Finn in return, desperate for his comfort and presence to be near her.

"You're awake," Finn sobbed into her hair, and for the first time Rey was aware of the gravity of the situation. She jerked away from Finn to stare at him with curiosity. There were tears in his eyes as he stared back at her.

"Obi-Wan?" Rey asked, avoiding the heavier topic for now, in favor of knowing whether or not she had completed her mission with only a minor failure.

"You're safe," Obi-Wan said from nearby. Rey gasped and jerked in surprise, turning hastily to look at him. He smiled at her fondly. "You're alright, Rey," he continued. "I heard you." His ethereal blue glow had returned and he looked much better than she remembered. Rey smiled back at him.

"Heard me?" she asked, still somewhat delirious.

"Too difficult to explain now," Obi-Wan responded hastily with a shake of his head. "You need to rest."

Rey shook her head back at him. It felt as though she had been asleep for months. She needed to get out of bed, she needed to know how she survived this.