May the Force be Ever in Your Favor

}« Twenty Three »{

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"Rey." A far away voice called to her, as though she was underwater and the person calling was above the surface. "Rey, please. You need to wake up."

     When the command solicited no reaction, the voice continued from across the dark room, "Come on. I know it's going to be difficult to get moving, but you can't stay here forever. We have stuff to do today."

Rey rolled over in the bed and stuffed the pillow over her head. Whoever the voice belonged to needed to get out of her room.

     It'd been two days since Rey, Jude, and the rest of her surviving teammates had returned from the Arena, alive and victorious. The 7 of them, along with the 5 others who had survived the final match, had been separated from each other and whisked away in hovercrafts back to Coruscant as soon as the announcement had been given, and they'd all been taken to medbays and medics to ensure that the Victors were fixed up before any audiences with the First Order.

     After that, the girls and their stylists, mentors, and prep teams had all been celebrated at the Victor's Ceremony, a grand applause of all the survivors of the Games and a few final interview questions. The entire show had been a daze for Rey, as she'd hardly been paying attention for the entirety of it.

     If such a drastic turn of events hadn't happened on the last day in the Games, Rey was sure she'd have been out partying over Naysori's quick recovery and everyone else being relatively unharmed on top of surviving the Arena after the Ceremony had concluded.

But nothing could overshadow the harsh truth of the final canonshot. After Faesh's death, everything else had turned into a nightmare.

     Rey had instead spent those past two days after returning from the Ceremony bundled up in her room on the top floor of the penthouse, in a fluid and ever-changing state between lucidity and unconsciousness as she tried to sleep the horrific sounds and images of the Games away. Her curtains had been drawn, the door had been locked from the inside, and she'd tried to push away the memories of seeing Faesh’s lifeless face that seemed to be burned into her brain.

Nobody had bothered her hellish slumber until now. But even after all this time, coming back to reality after something like that still felt like too soon.

     "I know it's hard." The voice- Rey was awake enough now to determine it was Thane's- said quietly. "Trust me, you deserve time to grieve and recover. I know that. But, I'm afraid you can't afford to do this any longer. Today is for goodbyes. We're leaving Coruscant in a few hours. For now."

"What do you mean?" Rey said hoarsely (it'd been two days since she'd actually used her voice) from the bed, catching onto his absentminded, foreshadowing remark.

      "The Victor's Homecoming." Thane said gravely, either not understanding her question or simply ignoring it. "You, and I, and everybody else who was a part of your victory that stood that stage with you gets to go home and look happy that we've won. Hopeful. Excited. Ready to embark on the next adventure that Coruscant will generously allow us to take." The words were dripping in sarcasm.

"Next adventure?" She emphasized again, waiting for him to elaborate on the words.

"This isn't the end, Rey." He said darkly. "You may be out of the Arena, but the Games aren't done."

     "I don't understand." Rey murmured. But enough of the words resonated in her head that her heart began beating faster. There was no way that was good news. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and sat up in bed to look at Thane, bracing herself for whatever would come next.