Torn // Poe Dameron

33. Flames

"Don't" I jerk away and the nurse pulls her hands back.
"Go" I weakly bark another order and she leaves. As soon as the door closes behind her my face crumbles into an exhausted frown.

Four days since we've returned from the mission on Farros. An unsuccessful mission in every possible way. There was no sign of Resistance members nor that the town sympathised with them. Oh, and I got stabbed and ordered my men to burn the village to the ground with its people.

Since then my mind has been stuck in a torturous loop, playing the scenes all over again. I wanted to help and be nice but the ungrateful woman tried to kill me. The word that never left her lips cries through my head like a broken siren.

Monster.

So I did everything to prove her right and submit to my role. I killed her, her child, her home. Ruthlessly. One thing I didn't consider, blinded by rage, was the aftermath. Never before did I feel guilty, at least not as strongly as now.

The guilt doesn't sit on my brain, but my chest, my heart. My insides died slowly in the toxicity, needing no more than a spark to set it ablaze. The fire burnt me out so badly there was nothing left but a shell, an outline of a person.

That's why I'm refusing treatment. I don't want to heal because the people I've murdered won't be able to heal. I deserve to suffer because I am a monster. I deserve the pain. In some twisted way it makes me feel good, knowing that I'm paying for my sins.

And it's not like I have someone to talk to about it. I can't tell Kylo about my guilt, he wouldn't understand. Maybe he'd even be disappointed that I am too weak to own up to my actions and blame it on the light in me, probably urging me to kill it. Besides, he is used to burning villages and people dying. And only a couple months back I was too. It's what the first order does, eliminate innocents and foes alike.

Hux? I almost laugh. He's even worse than Kylo, meaning less empathetic. Besides, Hux is not my friend.

And Poe.
I haven’t visited him since I've returned, mostly because I'm stuck in the medbay but it's not like I couldn't find a way to leave. No. I can't visit him, tell him about my cruelties. My eyes close violently and I see his disappointed, disgusted expression in front of me. We didn't harm any Resistance members... instead we committed a homicide and burned a village full of innocent civilians.

He would never want to talk to me again, he would despise me.
I can't un-do it. I'm a monster and I don't deserve his love. Poe would've never done something like this, he always does the right thing, is kind to everybody. He solves problems while I create them. I'm unworthy of a man so sweet, of his love.

Since I haven't visited him, he probably thinks I'm dead anyway.  And maybe it's for the best.

I simply wish that one day I will feel removed from my sin, washed clean of it, but the guilt is a stain on me, quite literally an ugly scar.

The scar is like a washed out fish bone on my lower abdomen. It is the only evidence of the long ago surgery that restored my perforated organs. Sometimes it aches like a ghostly echo of the knife that cut it so deep.

Luckily, Kylo taught me how to use my own energy to heal myself and I was able to quicken my recovery. Another reason why I don't need a nurse.

I can't stand the company of anyone right now, I just need to be alone and wait for the tornado that is my thoughts to calm down and see clearly again. Moreover, I have the feeling that every person who would come in here will despise me for either what I did or how I'm feeling right now. But they can't hate me as much as I hate myself right now.

Another sigh and my eyes fall shut, focusing to direct my energy into the wound on my abdomen. 

It has already healed enough, the scar will decorate my syomach either way, reminding me of my deeds.