Star Wars: Edge of Hope

Chapter Forty Four: What Lies Unseen...

The voices were high up, through the thrashing sprays of sea coming in steadily lessening waves Rey could hear the scream on the breeze. Pulling herself out from under Ben's protection she raced up the stone stairs leading up from the lowest levels of the island. As Rey's feet struck the wet broad bladed grass she felt the bottom of the world drop out beneath her...jerking her gaze upwards she watched sweeping train cradling the feathering descent of the body as it plummeted to meet the razor-sharp teeth of mountianous breakers below. She couldn't tell when the impact came, but Rey felt herself being drawn down through the cwnter of herself. Her face slammed hard against the ground and as if the compounded inertia was pressing her harder and harder against the ground. The pools of thick muddy water she was drawing in with each exhale and inhale began choking off breath after breathe she struggled to take. But as quickly the grip had taken hold Rey found herswlf being catapulted back, the force of the seismic shift threw her head over heels til she rolled onto her back staring at the sky.

Umbra: Soon, little sister...Soon.

Rey: Um..Umbra? Umbra?...

Rey jumped up digging her heels into the mud slipping and sliding trying to get traction as she felt Ben's hand pull her up. Rey wrung her hand free chasing the sound of the voice in her mind and the growing fear of what she'd seen, the girl...the dark girl flying on the wind. Ben called out to her as they fought their ways back up through the torrential down pour. Rey crawled hands over feet trying to take the steep stone stairs as quickly as she could, she couldn't stop...the feeling was pulling her, drawing her closer. As she crested the large mounded lip of the stairs leading her through the archway her toe caught a loosen rock and it sent her skidding over the cracked face of the large stone floor of the temple. When Rey looked up the frigid water dripping down her nose landing in splashing echoes in the pooling red beneath her. Her eyes focusing on the red covering the palms of her hands taking the breath out of her.

Ben: Rey!? Rey? Answer me...

She wasn't there. She was on her knees in front of a white marble stone, her hand interlocked with anothers, as they focused all their mind on the heavy stone drifting in and out of the blinding glare of the hot sun overhead. Rey cracked her eyes looking beside her at the small quiet child holding onto her hand like a lifeline. Rey took a step away from herself and looked back seeing the two of them bringing the stone down softly at the head of a shrouded form. Rey walked over  kneeling in the sand beside the body her hand hesitating just above the silky cloth hiding the face beneath it. But as she gathered the strength in herself to pull it away and look...

Umbra: Go ahead...Look if you must, but you aren't going to find what you're looking for Rey.

Her eyes slowly inclined to watch the hazy black gown caught on the hot breath of the desert whipping its way through her black hair, chaffing her pale cream colored skin. Rey squinted against the bright glare as Umbra made her revolution out of the shadow to stand opposite Rey in the light.

Umbra: It's been a long time, little sister. I see you never learned to keep you're skin covered like I taught you. Rough...like sand paper and hard as amber...still I see my beautiful little sister underneath it all though. You look more like her than you did before...same eyes, same mouth...

Rey: How are you doing this? Where am I?

Umbra: Don't worry, little Rey...if I wanted you dead why would I bother to have to remember all this...

Umbra glances emotively around her at the empty expanse of nothing but dancing sparkling infinite pale crystals on the humid air. A world of blinding heat and scorching flames, but at night under the moonlight...the stars fell from the sky and played among the sand dunes of the Jakku wastes. The cringing hands of old ships and fighters sailed on a lake of blue turqoise and lavender stars as they drifted across the seas of sand. No one could understand why so many people thought of Jakku as a bitter combed over nothing in the middle of nowhere filled with no one. But to the mind of a child, watching the sky change from pale blue filled from horizon to atmo with thin lipped smiling clouds and vapor trails of departing ships as they departed this uninhabitable wreck for other lush locales. To a child this was a magical place, where packs of desert Uckors races on icy white capped dunes of not sand but the crystal blue azure of desert snow. Or where the twinking lake of deep inky black, lilac purples, and cortesian pink made it seem like the most magical place they'd ever been. But that was different time, and different eyes were witnessing those wonders. Now the eyes of deep russet brown gazed out in wonder at little in wonder, and the garnet green of the others saw only the descending veil of the world beneath this mirage of familiarity.