Warrior ◊ Star Wars

chapter twenty-five: get back up

Present

Takodana

It felt like being underwater. All of her senses were dulled, waves whooshing in her ears as she kept her eyes shut tight. She felt suspended and floating in air, as if her mind had briefly been separated from her body. No limbs to grip onto the world, no anchor to pull her down.

It felt as if she'd dreamed for months before Mara began to come to it. She laid on the forest floor, not being able to move as she wished. Her fingers dug into the dirt, the cold unwelcoming and foreign to her skin. Her eyes took in splotches and bursts of green above her, the leaves creating a canopy in the new environment.

Where was Rey? Where was Rey?

She rolled onto her back as sticks that had fallen from the over hanging branches snapped under her weight. Her head pounded, feeling as though her brain had been split open and rammed back together. The desecration of her mind left Mara writhing in agony in unknown territory. Her eyes were wide as she wished for her sight to return, but her irises refused to focus.

Where is Rey? Where is Rey?

More hammering took place inside of her skull, the numb feeling that coated her skin breaking as her cells let pain roam all over her body. All she could hear was throbbing as her cheek met the wet leaves, much like an icy hand touching her face. Mara tried to stagger up, but her muscles did not conform to the actions she wished them to do. Every attempt to sit seemed to become fruitless, her mind still screaming at her in a way that she had never known. She'd experienced several, she had thought all, different types of discomfort. While each seemed to leave her quite bloody, the form of torture Ren had just performed was one that starkly contrasted from the others.

Mara felt like she had lost something. Something was missing from her brain, forcibly removed by the infringing of her memories. Her thoughts had been clawed apart, each notion stripped clean before being shoved together and crammed back into her body. The entire experience was a breach of privacy and her right as a human being, and it left the question of her mental stability as of now.

Where is Rey? Where is Rey? Where is Rey?

Slowly, Mara's senses came back to her. She smelt the burning of smoke and the fresh dirt that served as a bed underneath her. Iron tasted bitter on her tongue, her own blood dripping from cracked lips. The cut on her forehead burned as the light breeze kissed it, and the large bruise on her back ached at the odd angle she was sprawled out.

Rey was gone. Rey was gone. Rey was gone.

She reached out her arms, trying to grab at the earth once more. Her fist found a handful of leaves, their substance odd in her hands. She dug her palm into the ground, body practically yelling at her to stop. Shoots of pain ran through her at every angle, particularly her torso which had been grazed by shrapnel, but she managed to lift her upper body to prop up on her elbows.

Mara was shaking, putting all her weight on her arms as she sat back. Her muscles were too sore to hold her up, so she was able to scoot closer to the tree she been slammed into earlier. She rested her back on it, suppressing a cry as an open wound met the jagged bark.

Rey was gone. Rey was gone. It was her fault. It was her fault.

Tears of both struggle and emotional turmoil pooled up and leaked from her eyes. She swallowed, allowing more air into her pained lungs after being cut off from an invisible choke hold prior to her blacking out.

Where was Finn? Where was BB-8? Did they get Rey?

Maybe they had been able to stop Ren. She wanted to believe that, wanted to believe where she failed, they had succeeded. Yet Mara had seen the fallen Jedi display his talents several times, and overwhelming odds told her otherwise.