The Redemption of Fate ~ A Reylo Story

16

"You came. Finally. I knew you would." Palpatine's horrid voice bounced off of the walls in Rey's skull. She couldn't see him, but she could feel his looming presence. His repulsive, decomposing fingers reaching out to her, cradling her face with their grotesque clamminess.  She couldn't see anything but a still blackness, but her ability to sense the invisible touch was heightened, as if she was being haunted by a ghost. 
"Is this man truly worth it, granddaughter?" Palpatine's wretched fingers were creeping along Rey's head, sliding through unseen hair. Rey jerked away. She knew he was referring to Ben. Palpatine's imperceptible being was quickly beginning to evoke an inferno inside of her already smoldering veins. 

"What do you think." Rey replied, even-toned, despite her raging insides. Palpatine chuckled. Again, that detestable gurgle, deep within his cavernous throat. It was sinister and it was disgusting, and it was causing Rey's chest to tighten with abhorrence.
"I know I disgust you, granddaughter. But please--oh please," Palpatine feigned fear, "don't try to kill me, for you know I am already dead. This is nothing more than a pleasant little vision, isn't it? After all--you fool--you were the one who conjured me here."
Rey's chest tightened even tighter. She clenched her impalpable jaw. "Would you just stop these games."

"Oh, but I thought we were having fun." Palpatine snickered, and Rey felt the core of her heart burn in flames of hostility.
"Do what you need to do! Just cut this act out."
"Whatever you say." Suddenly Palpatine's voice altered into another voice completely. The mechanical hum of a respirator reverberated off of the dark walls that Rey now felt were closing in on her. Darth Vader. His deep, sonorous voice boomed in Rey's ears. "I would have warned you of the consequences, but you foolishly refused them. The dangers are irreversible." 
Rey swallowed hard then. The pitch-black room began squeezing at both sides of her arms, forcing them tightly against her torso. 

The room was shrinking. Pain ached at Rey's body as it was now completely surrounded by cold, strong walls, flattening her. Rey screamed, but her chest was restricted from the closing space. She felt a bone pop inside of her sternum. Something slid out of place in her ribs from the pressure of four unstoppable walls squishing her from all angles. She felt even the capillaries on her face burst. Her nose bent under the pressure, crushing all too audibly. Anguish, purse anguish. Rey rocked her invisible body around violently, trying to rid the horrific tension in her body. This is the end. . . Ben. . . Ben, I'm so sorry. So terribly sor--
Then Rey died. 

At least she thought she did. The brilliant burst of light shooting from the center of her eyes only meant her doom was over, and her afterlife was in the present--wherever that might have been, but no--as her vision focused, Rey took in the scene around her. It had changed drastically: from devoid darkness to blinding light. She squinted hard and laid a hand over her eyes. 
A hand! Rey pulled the limb of her body away in wondrous shock. My hand!
Her ligaments were exposed now; every piece of her body now visible to her perceptive eyes. She felt apprehensively at her body, her face. Rey was in one piece. Her nose was not broken, her arms were not compacted against her torso. Her sternum was no longer fractured. She was whole. There was no agony. As if nothing had ever touched her. 

"Hello?" Rey was frazzled. Her field of vision could only make out a landless, soulless, blood red space. It stretched on for thousands of miles--the same monotone deep red shade. There were no dimensions, no curves or shadows, not even hers--nothing.  "Is anyone here?"
But Rey already knew the answer. Nothing was in eyeshot. There weren't even any sounds. It was as if everything had been sucked up by a gargantuan vacuum.  Not one other soul--if Rey even had a soul in that simulated, barren space--was with her. She was alone in a red wasteland. But it wasn't a wasteland for long.