Stoke grabbed my arm, twisting, dragging my feet forward through the dirt. My eyes stung with cold night air as the panic welled within my chest. My fingers dug into the dry fracked palm of my brothers wrist as he pulled me. I realized the immediate danger of the situation but my feet stumbled with fear, tripping just over the other as we ran. Stoke was more acclimated to this sort of fighting, ever since he'd joined the rebellion, and I was left alone. Stoke wanted me to stay out of the fight, safely at home, and I couldn't deny him that right. Our parents had been killed by the people Stoke wanted dead...the Empire.
Stoke stopped suddenly doubling back in a seized shock. He grabbed both my shoulders rapidly staying my body before it crashed into his. His eyes were wide, brimming with alertness that I did not harbor. The fog of sleep still clung as a shroud over my brain.
"You have to go!" He shouted. The noises enveloped is in a wave that my mind was suddenly hyper aware of. I turned deftly scanning the mass expanse of forest surrounding us. Lights flashed rapidly burning my eyes as things hit the ground around us. It took a moment to realize the things raining down around us were laser cannons and blasters. It was an ambush in the middle of the night. My heart skipped a beat as my eyes finally settled back on Stoke's in realization.
"No!" I screamed back clawing for grip on his forearms that held me still. "I will not leave you!"
Stoke's brow creased over his cerulean eyes as he watched the determination on my face. I would not lose my brother, the only thing I had left.
"You have to go Shallik! You must..." He pleaded.
"I will no..."
Everything exploded within the very instant my words formed. I was thrown backwards, my back slamming against the cold ground.
My head reeled. I felt as if someone had taken my head and slammed it against a wall. Blood bubbled up from the back of my throat and I groaned trying to right my body. I ended up in a half turn, using the ground and my elbows for support, as I coughed vividly.
"Stoke!" I shouted with a hard rasp. My throat burned as I whipped my head around vividly trying to sort out the desperation of the situation.
"Stoke!" I screamed harder scrambling to my feet shaking. This couldn't be happening. This could not be what was happening. I needed Stoke. I needed him like breath to my lungs. He was everything I had left!
"Shallik..." I heard his voice call softly from just feet away.
I ran in his direction. Stoke would survive. Stoke would be alright.
"Stoke!" I gasped rushing forward falling to my knees at his side. My knees crunched against the hard dirt scraping into the pebbles beneath them. I couldn't bother with the pain. My arms scooped under the shoulders of my brother as I held him flush against my body, pulling him closer.
Stoke's hair was matted against his forehead with a dark liquid that looked like ink in the moonlight. Tears welled in my eyes. I knew what this meant. I knew what was going to happen.
I wasn't prepared.
Stoke gently gazed up at me, shallowly breathing, his ribs shaking against me as he stuttered to speak.
"Shallik," he whispered as puffs of air fell from his lips. I knew it would be amount his last. "You have to get away. You have to run. Get away from here as fast as you can."
There was an undeniable rage that filled me. My heart felt heavy as his chest slowed. My eyes faded into a blackness from which there was a tunnel of hatred bearing down on my back.
I felt my fingers grip my brother as he lay dying in my arms.
Something called to me, in the dank stench of blood and night, something was beckoning to my soul.
Loss.
Grief.
Anger.
Hatred.
Darkness...
I felt the battery of emotions impale my shaking body.
It ripped apart my bleeding heart.
My head was swelling with the mass amount of an innumerable climate of the bare skeletons of the emotions that I could not even begin to grasp.
Stoke breathed out.
My mind shattered. In one brief elastic haze of a second, my entire being was nothing more than unadulterated pain.
I was broken.
As I stood from the spot in which I had been kneeling with Stoke, there was a fully encompassing vibration that enveloped my body.
I felt a pull, a twinge, against my mind in which I had never felt before.
I narrowed my eyes ahead on the oncoming storm troopers that invaded my home.
My brother was dead.
I knew but was not aware of bringing my arms up with my hands curled in a sadistic manner.
There was a bright intense wave of heated vibration that suddenly ripped lose and rolled off my body.
I screamed, snarling uncontrollably, as the wave rolled off of me.
Trees cracked breaking at the trunk as the wave hit them.
Two storm troopers fell to their knees as blood splattered from hinges left uncovered under their armor.
The air around me was rippling and charged as I fell to my knees.
I still felt my voice trailing off as the scream died.
He was dead. Stoke was dead.
Stoke watched as Shallik stumbled away from him. He wanted to shout out to her. He felt utter hopelessness well inside his lungs as he fought to attempt and make a noise for her attention. Stoke registered that he was unable to make noise any longer. He couldn't speak. His entire body felt cold.
There was a heavy pressure that built in an instant around him where he laid.
Stoke panicked. It couldn't be. Shallik could not be force burden as well. His father had lied to him if she was.
No! No, she wouldn't be safe!
Damnit!
The energy that rolled from Shallik's body was a level of which Stoke was stilled as he breath left him.
Shallik's force was dark. It was as dark as it could come.
It was bare with rage and hatred of which he'd tried to hard to protect her from.
He'd failed.
Shallik had instantly turned to the dark embellishment of the force and let it cripple her mind.
Stoke watched through glazed eyes as she fell to her knees...
His last breath escaped him.
She was alone.
