Star Wars: Scars

Part 3 - 5

"You will never match them. You're soft. You could've been the greatest monster ever created, but you will never amount to anything. You can't even call yourself a soldier, let alone a man. You are nothing."

Creed grimaced as the words rang through his head again. He'd been trying to get the lecture out of his head for the past two months, but every time he saw or thought about the Sergeant, those words returned. A reminder that the man hated him with all his being. Creed knew he would never please him, he didn't strive to. Even so, the words hurt. Perhaps more coming from someone he knew cared nothing for him.

So what if I'm nothing to him. Haze, Specter, Dawn, Tadem, they thought I was something. To Chaos I'm something. Maybe I'm not what the Republic wanted, but I'm who I should be, he told himself after a moment, turning over and dragging the covers over his shoulder to fight off the cold. He sighed a little, wishing Chaos didn't have night training. He knew it was important that they learn how to fight at night, but he hated not having his little brother there. He missed him.

You can see him in the morning, just go to sleep, he told himself, closing his eyes as he tucked the blanket up to his chin and tried to imagine it was a thick quilt like he'd had on Specter's ship. He missed the warmth and the comfort, but it didn't hurt as much to think about anymore. He still feared the memories might trigger the monster lurking in his mind, though, so he shook the thought from his head and curled up tight, trying to get a little rest. He needed it before 0400 came and he had to be up bright and early to get yelled at and reminded that he wasn't worth anything to the universe if he couldn't fight.

Creed set his face and tried to put that from his mind as well, taking a few deep breaths as he sank into sleep. It took several restless minutes, but finally, he banished all the thoughts from his mind and drifted into the darkness for a few hours.

"What's going on?" 17 was whispering to him, looking around the large laboratory with a nervous gaze. He looked the same way 90 felt, but 90 was trying his hardest to keep it out of his expression. If the other's felt the same terror they were definitely hiding it better.

"I dunno..." 90 answered after a moment, taking a deep breath as he surveyed the Kaminoan's moving slowly around the room, checking all of the large plexiglass tanks situated on the far end of the room. Everything was a pure sterile white, seeming to blind him. The tanks looked like bacta tanks, only they weren't filled with the same clear liquid, but rather a dark sludgelike substance.

There were faint voices, but 90 couldn't make out any of them, looking around. So much of the room seemed to consist of just a blank white as if something was supposed to be there, but it had been blurred out. It all felt surreal and absolutely terrifying.

90 quickly averted his gaze back to 17, watching his brother's worried face, just taking in all of the other boy's features to keep himself calm. They were all about seven, and all had the same face, hazel eyes, tan skin, a slightly stocky but mostly lean build, and dark black hair.

They looked like every other clone in existence.

90 felt something like a shadow pass over him and he looked up some, shrinking back as a figure loomed ahead of them. The dark figure of the Sergeant, hardly any features discernable, just stood there like an all-consuming darkness, glaring down with glowing red eyes. 90 could feel them boring into his mind, his soul. He wanted to cry but could muster no sound.

Through the fog of darkness, the Sergeant spoke, but the words were muddled, slurring into one another. An order heard, but not understood. With the words came a sense of heavy dread, seeming to pull 90 down like someone had suddenly grabbed him and was dragging him into the shadows. He screamed, twisting, but was unable to escape.

The invisible hands soon turned real, claws of darkness pulling him under as he was dragged down into the tank. A facemask clamped over his face, needles, and tubes strapped to his body, primed to inject their inky black substance as he was submerged in the black liquid. It burned his skin, his eyes, his nose, but he could feel a thin stream of cool oxygen through the mask and screwed his eyes shut, struggling to writhe in the heavy substance.

Then came the sickly sweet smell of gas, filling his nose and mouth as he tried to hold his breath or spit it out. His struggle was short-lived, though, and he sank deeper into the ink-black liquid, hyperaware of the needles in his arms and body, the clamps holding tubes against his skin, the rubber band of the mask, and the plastic cutting into his face. He could feel, but couldn't move. A foggy numbness washed over him and he felt for a moment as if he were suspended in a dream.

Then all he could feel was pain.

His body was screaming. He was screaming. It coursed through his whole body as if someone had turned his blood to acid. It was burning him from the inside out, stabbing into his whole body from the interior, fighting its way out and searing his skin. He writhed, twisting in the blackness as it sucked him down deeper, dragging him towards its deepest point. Claws of shadows snatched at him, pulling him in. He could hear his own screams mixed with a hundred others, reverberating off the glass and ringing in his head.

Then everything went deadly silent.

Something snapped, and the fiery pain turned to an icy coldness, the writhing to stillness, and the screaming to silence. He could move, the darkness around him no longer burned or hurt, but pulsed down in his veins. It lived in him, bound to him.

He opened his eyes, looking around at the eerie black mirrors, reflecting back his image. Only this wasn't the same boy as before. He stared at the boy in the black mirror, turning in every direction, but seeing only him.

A monster dressed like a man, standing in his 20's with tattoos, scars, pure white hair, and cold black eyes...