The Broken Ones | REYLO [Complete]

30. Fire

A/N: The beginning of this chapter is GRAPHIC. If blood and gore bother you, you might want to skip ahead to where Ben's POV takes over. Don't say I didn't warn you.

--REY--

The dream begins the way it has the past five nights: I wake up alone in the middle of a cavernous room, surrounded by countless faceless, hooded bodies, all watching me silently from afar. The towering throne is empty as expected, and I walk toward it knowing what comes next. For nearly a week now it's been the same, and tonight will be no different.

"I won't join you," I call out, my voice echoing off the damp stone. "Nothing you say or do will convince me to take that throne."

An ominous laugh reverberates inside my head and all around me. The faceless bodies begin to chant in a foreign tongue, the sound like the buzz of thousands of insects swarming. Well that's new.

"My dear girl," Palpatine snarls, still somewhere out of sight. "Perhaps I haven't been clear." The ground beneath me rumbles and groans, splitting open as skeletal hands emerge and claw at my feet. "Your destiny lies with me." His voice is in my head again. "You will be my successor. It is inevitable."

I close my eyes as tight as possible, willing myself to wake up. Still the bony fingers hold me immobile, crawling their way up my legs. Cold sweat drips down my body, fear gripping my heart in icy tendrils. "This isn't real," I whisper to myself. "It's a dream. It's just a dream."

"REY!"

Ben's agonized scream tears a hole in my chest and I tear myself from the dead hands, opening my eyes to find the world gone black. My feet shuffle blindly across the uneven stone floor. I reach out through the Force, desperate for guidance, but I'm blocked. "Ben! Where are you?" I cry out.

Thunder crashes overhead. I shuffle forward and my foot collides with something soft. My hands and knees hit the ground in a jarring impact, sending a wet and warm substance splashing up onto my face.

Lightning flashes and Ben's lifeless gray eyes stare up at me from a battered, nearly unrecognizable face. I scream, heart pounding, scrambling to run away from his broken body, but my feet slip in his blood and I topple over on top of him. My hands clutch at his face, begging him to come back. Something squelches in my hand. I look down to find a human heart in my stony grip. Another flash of lightning reveals the gaping hole in Ben's chest, his ribs broken outward from the force of whatever ripped his heart from his body. Did I do this? I couldn't have. I look at the heart again and realize I can't drop it. My fingers are tight against the organ, squeezing until it explodes and my face is drenched in blood.

The chanting is deafening now. I'm on the ground, sobbing, desperately swiping at the blood covering my body. I want to die. Please, just kill me, let me DIE.

"Not quite yet. I still have much to show you," Palpatine sneers. His voice is directly behind me and I turn, gasping. He's shrouded in darkness, yellow eyes peering at me from within his hood. He reaches one mangled hand toward my forehead. Searing pain erupts from the contact and I whimper, unable to pull away from his grip.

Suddenly his hand disappears and I open my eyes again. The throne room has vanished. I stand before the ruins of the Resistance base, watching helplessly as people lay bleeding on the ground around my feet. I see Poe's black and orange X-Wing a distance away, broken and burning. BB-8 is in pieces below it.

"This is what will happen if you try to kill me," my grandfather hisses in my ear. An involuntary chill runs down my spine, but I try to keep my fear from showing. "You cannot defeat me, Jedi," he spits. "Try, and I will make you watch while I slaughter your precious friends." His voice is mocking. "You think they care about you? They fear you. You are nothing to them but a means to an end. But me," he laughs cruelly. "I'm your blood. You cannot deny the truth that is your true family."