Star Wars: Edge of Hope

Chapter Five: Reflections Of The Darkness In You & Me..

Kylo Ren stopped his hands pressed against the floor of the time ravenged ship. Inches away from his face the growling red beam of light hovered threateningly. His eyes focused on every detail of her, comparing and contrasting the way her smile curled across her face, the way she held her lips apart to take in hissing breaths. The way she looked at him now...Kylo Ren never felt threatened by Rey...because at her core she was a good person. But this creature was something completely different. He could see delight in her eyes as she watched him straining to stay beyond the caress of the sabers blade.

Dark Rey: Hello, Ben. So nice to see something's never change. You're still the same weakling Snoke caught in his web all those years ago. Still struggling to fully commit to the Darkside...and all out of this childish need...to feel loved..to belong somewhere. To someone. You cling to the Hope she represents like a lifevest in stormy waters.

Her laughter as she slowly pulls the blade away from him and turns her back to him as he stands careful not to startle her. The sound was melancholy dripping with a teasing mockery, but it was seductive in the way it called to him. Her movements were aqualine and meant to draw his eyes where she wanted them on her body. But the palor of her skin, the creasing in her lips when she hissed out air over her tongue, even the sound of her voice was almost intoxicating.

Dark Rey: She knows you don't belong with her...And you know it too. Deep down inside you there has always been this need, this hole that you've sought to either fill up with power and control, or silence through your anger and fear. But its still there...

Her tongue clicked against the back side of her pointed teeth making this sound that unnerved Kylo Ren.

Dark Rey: She can sense it, you know. I mean, how couldn't she? It's written all over your face. Tell me, Ben Solo, who does she see when she looks at you? The forgotten heir to a line of hero's, an array of legendary legacies? Or does she see Kylo Ren...commander of the First Order and the Knights of Ren? What do you see when you look at her? Her? Or me?

She lunges at Kylo Ren causing him to slip backwards to avoid her snarling face.

Dark Rey: This is what you want, isn't it? Her unchained and unbound to the anchor of the Jedi. I could give you so much more than she could. Without fear and the reek of sentiments, I could truly enjoy being yours. I would open all the dark desires I know lay inside of you. You could have anything you desired. I would deny you nothing, my Lord of Ren. 

Kylo Ren: What is this?

The Dark vision of Rey flexes and snaps her saver into its combat configuration. As she steps backwards into the vaporous shadows that sweep and move with her like fog over water, Kylo Ren reaches for his lightsaber. Just as his hand touches it, the shadow explodes and she rushes at him with rabid ferocity. Kylo brings his saber up to strike...

Rey: Ben! Stop!

Kylo feels the shade lift and his eyes clear, but as he looks to the end of the blade. He sees Rey illuminated in the red light the blade inches away from her throat. But possibly the cruelest mark against him was her hands held out in front of her...empty of any way to protect herself.

Kylo Ren: Rey...

As he deactivates his saber Kylo Ren backs away from Rey, unable to fully shake away the image in his head, or the sound of the vicious laughter filling the hollow of his ears.

Kylo Ren: I didn't...I wouldn't...

Rey: You...You're never going to change are you? You're so consumed with your own feelings. You don't give a damn about anyone, or anything else but what's of use to you. You were right...Ben Solo...is dead...

Her hand reaches and takes the saber off her belt...then with quaking sorrow in her voice and fire in her eyes she ignites it. The blue glow illuminating the tears in her eyes as they fall mingling with spray of the sea and rain blowing hard through the window.

Rey: And you are the monster...that killed him! Murderer...

The words stung Kylo Ren like an adders bite. But the way she was looking at him, the anger and the pain, the suffering in her eyes. The mask fell away...he didn't want this....he didn't want any of this...not if it meant she would look at him that way for the rest of their lives. He lost control of the connection, all he could feel was her broken heart fighting to keep beating. The flood gates began to release old memories he'd buried so deep they hadn't seen the light of day for a lifetime. They were fractured faces and jagged voices, they cut him to the quick. He took his weapon and attached it back to his belt.

Rey: This was what you were trying to tell me, isn't it? That there was no hope for any of it. Tell me,..is this the way you saw it? Is this the way you wanted it? This was where you always said we would end up, opposite sides of the board...So lets's end it then...

There was so much sorrow in her voice. The words were sticking in her throat as she tried to force them out. She didn't say his name this time. She didn't call for him as she had done before. There was nothing left for her to hold onto, nothing left for her of the man's life he had stolen, had betrayed to the thing she hated most. How was he supposed to keep her for himself? If it meant the Darkside would erase the person he loved here, now...
How could he damn them both?

Kylo Ren: No. Rey, this isn't what I wanted...what I want. I want you with me, Rey, but not like this...not if it means the person you are wouldn't exist anymore. This isn't how I want things to be between you and I. I want you to be happy and safe. If that means I have to end my days alone wishing you were there beside me. Then that's my burden to carry, not yours, never yours, Rey. I don't want to hurt you...I don't mean to...

Rey: There might have been a time when I would have believed you. But only because...it was what I wanted to hear and not the truth of what is. I don't know how to let you go...but I can't believe you. I thought...if you only knew, you only felt what this is like...it's destroying me. The farther I go towards the Light...the farther away from you I'm pulled, its tearing me apart. I'd ho..I hoped there would be a way for me to hold onto you...to the man you were. I thought I could bring you with me. But I can't...the weight of your hate is too heavy for me to pull you out of the dark. You...you were what I was looking for all this time and now that it's taken me so long to find you, there isn't any time left for maybe's or someday. I searched for you when I was younger...the moment you took the mask off...I knew I recognized your face from somewhere. I just couldn't remember...until our hands touched on Ahch-To. Then I saw it as if it were something made of reality and not wishful thinking. I've always known who you are...but now...I can't see you. I can't recognize that person in the one standing in front of me. You were my answer...

Kylo Ren: To what?

Rey: To where I belonged. That was all I ever wanted from life. To have someone stay with me, fight for me...

Rey could feel the wreckage beginning to shake around them and over head where heavy creaks rained down the flaking paint like burnt leaves in a metal forest. The shaking intensified as the pain in her chest rose to the surface to leak out of her eyes. His tongue felt like it were on fire, he couldn't quench the stinging sensation he was getting from not saying everything he wanted to say. He measured her as she stood there her grip tightening on the sabers metalic hilt. Then in a flash she changed....she was no longer the daydream...she became the nightmare inside him. She came at him throwing strike after strike at him the fury inside her finally unleashed.

Kylo Ren: Rey! Stop! Stop this right now!

Rey: Liar! You lied to me! Monster!

Kylo Ren: Rey! We're not doing this! I don't want to fight you...I don't want this!

Rey: Liar!

Her voice was smaller. Like the sound a child makes when they're faced with a bitterly unfair truth. She was unbalanced, her anger and pain driving her forward not thinking of the consequences if she succeeded. She would carry the guilt until finally under the heavy weight of it...
She would fall...
Just as he had...
The Darkside was watching...always watching and waiting...