Star Wars 'What If?': The Force Awakens

Chapter V

She never reached outside's fresh air. Instead, she was distracted by a mysterious voice. A voice not quite like what she's heard before. She can be sure that was no Master Kenobi's voice like earlier and it isn't welcoming in her ears. She looks around to make sure the voice is just in her head, and everything at the cantina seemed normal. Nobody seems to hear the voice as loud and clearly as she can.

Then the voice calls her name menacingly, "Rey..". She looks around to see whose that voice belonged too, it gave her chills down to her spine. Suddenly, a wooden door caught her intention, that's when she decided to see what the voice is possibly trying to tell her. She opened the door and it leads down to a spiral staircase. Without any hesitation she went down as BB-8 saw her and follows along. His presence surprisingly didn't startle her, instead she told BB-8 to walk behind her to protect him incase something dark is waiting for them down below. Rey steps down into the basement corridor slowly and warily.

When she has only a few steps more to go before stepping into the hallway, she could only hear the voices clearer. And this time she recognizes all of it. 

'Rey, please go. Please leave. I don't wanna hurt you', came a young boy's voice. 

She can also hear her mother's singing. A lullaby she used to sang her. 'It's a cavern full of memories. Will you stand against what you fear most? Can you faced what the cavern knows?'

'They'll kill you', those words made her shiver. 

'I am not afraid', her younger self's voice answered.

'Ben...help', the voices continued. 

'You leave me no choice'. 

She saw flashes of her battle with the Knights of Ren. And she also saw her father's sacrifice leading up to her revenge. 'No!'

Sounds of slashing weapons intensifies. 'Kill her', a voice had commanded young Ben Solo, but he refused.

Then the flashes of memories stopped only for it to be continued  by even more terrifying voices. 'Dad!', she could hear the horror in her younger self's voice. 

'Rey, my love, be brave', her dad had told her just before Athena carried him into the White Wing. Those were Cassian's last words to her. It still pains her to hear them even though it was just through her visions or dreams.

 'But can you brave what you dread most? Will you face what the cavern knows?', her mother's lullaby echoed through the the hall once more as if truly asking her. 

'Cass!', came the terror of Athena's voice. 

Master Kenobi!', followed by Leia and Luke's voice. 

She hesitated to take another step, but she was still tempted to see what's behind the metal door just in the end of the hall, BB-8 was still there behind her as he beeps a couple of times. She suddenly stops herself. It was the voices from her darkest memory.  The voices of her loved ones on the day Luke's Jedi Academy crumbled. The day she lost her father and her grandfather. The day Ben Solo turned. She remembered all of it now. She couldn't believe Kylo Ren was that soft and caring young boy she'd met at Alderaan Marketplace. A part of her still hopes that somehow...she's wrong. Unless...she has been the one to see who's really under that menacing mask for herself.

She wished she would never hear those voices ever again. But, it tempted her to follow where it leads. Walking carefully and confused, she's not sure why she's down here. She can hear the echoing sounds of her memories, cryings, and screamings once more but this time she tried to ignore it.