Author's Games: Star Wars

Task Four: Sul Juuk

Sul-Juuk bent over the broken body of Kiernan. He lied lifeless on the solid floor beneath him. Dark purple blood spilled from his cracked skull and amputated wrist. His open eyes were hauntingly vacant, staring across the smooth surface of the planet. Her hand floated just above his chest, afraid that if she touched him, it would be real.

He had finally stopped running. And it ended him.

The stillness of his corpse moved something inside Sul-Juuk’s soul. The kind of death that surrounded him sent a single shudder through her spine. It was premature. It was unnatural.

She remembered every excuse she had given to herself disregarding the significance of his life.

 A slave. A hobby. A thing. An object.

But what had he really meant to her?

A spirit. A hope. A future. A friend.

Why couldn’t she see it before? Why couldn’t she accept it? Why didn’t she?

What she really wanted – what she meant when she pursued him to remote areas of the galaxy – was to protect him.

She met him when he was young. He was stubborn, rebellious, and filled to the brim with hope. There was a resolve in his heart; a resolve to live and live for. She was reminded of herself when she resolved to be free and be free for.

There was a power to living for someone else. When you could not live for yourself, someone gave you reason to.

Not only did she live for her daughter, but she came to live for Kiernan as well. He was a lost soul trapped in a nightmare she knew all too well. When she found and shackled him, she claimed him as her own. She offered him what little was left of herself to give.

Somehow, he understood.

Sul-Juuk rested her hand on his chest, clinging to the lack of a heartbeat. The part of her she had put on Kiernan was now damned, void and dead as his body.

In the end he had resolved to die and die for… die for her.

Kim-Ny sat in her lap, softly crying against her chest. It was just her now. Kiernan wanted them to go on. So they would.

Sul-Juuk gathered Kim-Ny into her arms and stood to see a stormtrooper approaching them.

“Follow me,” he demanded.

She obeyed, holding her daughter closer.

The surviving rebels were corralled into the Starship that had landed on the force-forsaken planet. As they walked on, fatigued and broken, Mayek and his brother came up beside Sul-Juuk.

“I’m sorry to see your friend go. He was a good guy,” Mayek said sympathetically.

She nodded, “He was.”

Everyone was escorted back to their cells, each one knowing deep in their souls that this wasn’t over and only the worst was to come.

Anxious silence and solitude followed, trapping the mind in four metal walls to mirror the body. Sul-Juuk could feel the passing of time as everything around her remained still. Her only assurance that life went on beyond her own self was the soft breathing of Kim-Ny as she slept, curled in her arms.

Sul-Juuk stared at the dull-hued wall. She had detached her heart from the rest of the world for so long, she'd forgotten what emotions felt like. She forgot what they meant. She forgot what they did to her.

When Kiernan fell to his death, she felt emotions she hadn’t felt for years. She felt guilt, remorse, sorrow, and grief, but she also felt anger. Out of all of the emotions, this was the one she knew best. She latched onto it, clinging to the one feeling she understood.