"Just like the curse, just like the stray, you feed it once and now it stays,"
A droning alarm is what wakes me from my uneasy sleep. It was like I wasn't really asleep, I was awake behind my eyelids but my body had shut down. Plagued with thoughts and memories. I've seen a lot since the First Order rose up from its ashes, 6 maybe 7 years ago. When Snoke took something, a key piece in winning the war, mum and I listened and we heard the cries in the night. It was enough to move her to tears, I remember it vividly, watching her with frightened eyes as she turned to me and said,
"It's starting again,".
I know she saw terrible things in her time during the war, I know it was enough that she sometimes woke up screaming in the night when I was little. When I was older, she said that the hospital she worked in during the war was an almost constant stream of bodies. They didn't have enough rooms or beds for them all, they had to treat people in hallways, try and make them as comfortable as possible, sometimes they had to perform surgery in rooms completely unprepared. People gave blood in glass bottles and when the medicine started to run out, when few and fewer doctors started to come to work, they had to start making choices, heartbreaking choices. Who did they think could be saved. Who lived and who died.
"On your feet," The door slides open and I blink at the sudden light coming on in the room. I get up as the two troopers points their blasters at me, I keeping my hands in the air. What do they think I've got a secret stash of blasters in my butt? I'm defenceless here.
"With me," I nod resigning myself to this ridiculous escort service they're taking way too seriously, crossing my arms over my chest and walking between them. The corridors are long, bustling with life, Stormtroopers in constant motion, the occasional BB unit, people in black uniforms which are maybe like admin? IT workers? Even pilots I'm not sure. The corridors twist and wind, the same theme of black and chrome throughout, blinking lights, radio babble, whooshing doors. Eventually, a good 10 minute walk before we arrive in front of a large glass panelled area, a few people moving around inside in scrubs and doctors coats. It gives me comfort, seeing the familiar colours of bleached whites, blue and green scrubs, the navy curtains that hang around the rows of beds that act as privacy partitions.
They nudge me forward, the doors hissing as we step inside a middle corridor. Spotting the hand sanitiser, I automatically stick my hands inside the pod box and feel the cool rush of air and the gel rolling over my palms until I take them out and rub it in all over, in between my fingers and on the backs of my hands. That feels... normal. Like every other hospital I've worked in.
They lead me down the first row of beds, I keeping my eyes forward and not making eye contact with the staff now watching us as we turn to the left and into an office door with a name on it. One of the troopers steps forward and knocks before getting a crisp reply.
"Come in," He opens the door but I'm pushed in first, where my eyes settle on a small woman with a sleek black bob and impossibly thick glasses. She's shorter than I am, 4"11 at most, dressed head to toe in black, a high turtle neck jumper that reminds me of old records with trumpets on them that my mother had. Her eyes in comparison are startling. They are a pale shade of silver, almost translucent in the light. She looks up as we step inside and I hold my hands in front of me, meeting her gaze carefully.
YOU ARE READING
Surrender
Fanfiction"The victor will always be the judge and the vanquished the accused," Rosaline. Even her name reminds him of the fields and summers growing up. Kylo Ren not Ben. Even his name isn't the same. But in war, who really is that same person they were? ...
