Star Wars: I Am a Slave ✓

Chapter 42 - Luke's Lightsaber

Rey sprinted up the cellar steps—she did not know where she would go, but she had to leave that place! She had to run away! She had to escape Vader! She had to escape that creature! She had to escape her past! She had to escape her future!

There was no doubt about it. She knew she saw the future. That part of the vision felt so different—tingly. And then the voice. She had to escape that voice.

She stopped on the stairs, breathing heavily. She ran over the vision in her mind. She reached out and grabbed the cylindrical object. It had been calling her name. It had been calling her name. Immediately, she heard the regulator, and everything came flooding back to her.

She knew she was in Cloud City on Bespin. She knew Han had been there, had been frozen there. She knew her mother had been there. Vader stood in front of her with the dark suit, reaching out his hand to her.

The voice still echoed in her head. "Rey." It spoke again. She could not tell what was the memory and what was reality. "Rey, turn back. Take the saber. It was mine. It's now yours."

Rey yelled, "No! It was Vader's! I am not Vader! I am not that creature!"

"It was never Vader's. It was mine. It was Anakin's. It was my son's as well," explained the voice. Ani materialized in the stairwell in front of her—the young man from her dreams—the man she now remembered was her grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader.

Rey slowly sunk to the floor, remembering what Maz had just told her, "Whomever you're waiting for on Jakku . . . they're never coming back." That truth—and she knew it was truth—stabbed her in her heart. And then this vision. How was she supposed to fight that monster in the mask?

"The belonging you seek is not behind you; it is ahead." Those words had so many meanings to them. Was she talking about Luke? Was she talking about something else entirely?

Ani watched as Rey cried over the loss of all hope and dreams. "Rey, there is still hope. Your future is ahead of you, not behind. Maz is right. You must step out of the past to enter your future."

Rey glared at him. Her granddad, she recalled. She rubbed her temples as a headache of grand proportions was beginning. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your deepest desires cannot be fulfilled on Jakku, Rey. But they can be in your future, if you just follow your destiny," vaguely explained Ani. He was not quite sure how much of the mindwipe had been reversed by the Force during her vision.

"My deepest desires? I only have one," bitterly stated Rey. "My family."

"They aren't on Jakku, but they are in your future, Rey," informed Ani. "I promise."

"I remember your promises. Promises to my grandmother, which you broke. Promises to Calrissian, which you broke. Promises to me, which—"

"I never broke," corrected Ani.

"You abandoned me, just like my family did," accused Rey.

"I never did. The dreams, Rey. Don't you remember your dreams?" asked Ani. "And your last bout of radiation sickness. Who do you think cared for you? Stole water from Unkar for you? Prepared your meals and cleaned up for you? I was there."

Rey stood, not sure what to believe. She ran out of the castle, down the wet stones, under the pod racing flags. She knew what they were now. Some of her memory was coming back. She stopped at the edge of the forest to catch her breath, looking back at the castle, almost running back to take the lightsaber. But then she turned again, heading for the Falcon. She knew some answers waited for her on the Falcon, answers to who she was. She remembered now that Ani had told her it was her ship. Her ship. She hoped it meant—

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