Bonded in the Silence: A Reylo Fanfiction

Chapter 21: Suffocate

Rey's fingertips barely made contact with the mirror.

"Show me my parents...please" her voice echoed in the cave.

The outlines of two shadows began to advance within the mirror, each one moving with a unique gait as they drew near. In their approach, the two became a united shadow that halted on its side of the reflection; a moment passed before it slowly raised a hand to meet hers in the mirror. Rey's breathing increased with anticipation, but when the mirror transformed the shadow, she was disappointed to only see herself looking back.

"I thought I'd find answers here...I was wrong. I'd never felt so alone."

"You're not alone anymore", the man coaxed her as he held a glistening palm out to Rey, still in shock as she processed who stood before her.

The constant dripping echoed in the chamber around them as they were standing at the edge of the water. There was a chill in the air underground without the sun as a source of heat, and Rey wondered how they just emerged from the water and stood casually in sopping wet tunics like it didn't matter. The cool moisture had goosebumps rising on the back of her neck.

"I don't understand" she began to say but was at a total loss of words. A storm of emotions rolled over one another inside her chest; intense grief and joy, confusion, and lying underneath it all was anger and blame. "You abandoned me. You left me when I was just a little girl..."

Her mother looked down ashamedly at the water. "We left because we had to...we needed to find a better life for all of us." Her father nodded as he put an arm around the woman. "That's right" he conferred. "We realize you may not trust us after what we did."

They sold you off for drinking money.

Tears began to fill Rey's eyes, threatening to spill. "Why didn't you take me with you?"

Her mother touched her lightly under her chin. "It was far too dangerous my dear, and we wanted to keep you safe."

They're dead. Buried in a pauper's grave on Jakku.

"But you've been alive here on Jakku for all these years?"

"In a manner of speaking" her father eluded before taking her hand. "Come, let us show you something."

His hand felt strange wrapped around Rey's as he pulled her along further into the water. The shocking cold travelled up her exposed calves and she shuddered audibly as the shiver continued up to her shoulders. The command chamber was quite large, and they moved as one through the waters until it rose up to her chest. She was lead past what appeared to be a round, glass monocle on a metal frame that peered out a black window; a flashback of her being diverted mid-air, forced to see through the looking glass on Snoke's ship felt eerily similar to that contraption. They approached a simple throne at the back of the room, it's back high and menacing, lined with dark violet fabric.

"Touch it" her mother said excitedly, oddly enamoured with the chair that was partially submerged in the water. Her father lifted her hand up over the end of the chair arm, and released it from his grasp; Rey hesitated as something nagged a warning in her brain the moment before lowering her palm to the cold metal.

Something small and sharp pierced Rey's palm instantly, and she shrieked in surprise as her palm began to throb. Immediately she tried to yank her hand off the chair, but it was cemented to the steel arm. Warmth flowed into the flesh, spreading like a fire through her veins up into her arm; Rey's free hand grasped her shoulder tightly in a vain attempt to prevent the dispersion as it continued its journey. The invasive heat crawled through the muscles up her neck and deep within her chest, a penetrating wave cresting down powerfully on anything in its path. Her spine arched of its own accord as she threw her head back, poised in a silent scream as the onslaught of heat finally consumed all her thoughts.