June, 4012 ABY
I stare into the void of space, watching the galaxy stretch farther and farther away.
Breathing.Thinking.Fading.
The stars pull from me like strands of memory. Steel walls twist and fade into ash. Everything falls apart, and for a moment, it's just me and the dark.
Until, from shard to shard…Dathomir begins to form.
The sand stings my face. The heat of the sun presses down. It feels real.
I turn. And the sky of Dathomir cracks open. Darkness spills in like blood across the horizon.
The day they came… begins again.
I ignite my saberstaff.
Its glow flickers in the wind, A pale light in a dying world.
But this time, I don't run.
I walk the battlefield. Slow. Silent. The hum of the saberstaff was steady at my side.
I watch the Nightsisters die, one by one.
Their screams ring like bells in the bones of the world.
And then, I see him.
Me.
Seventeen.Fighting. Screaming. Burning. Still believing it could make a difference.
I stand there, a ghost watching a memory that refuses to die.
And as I fade…I look down. The saberstaff is gone, vanished from my hands.
Ash begins to fall, drifting down like snow from cracks in the sky.
A voice rises from the darkness:
"You always hated fire. The smell always reminded you…of your parents."
I turn.
Kaelrah.
Standing there in her dark robes, calm and quiet.
I want to run to her, but my feet are buried in the sand.
"Kaelrah..." My voice breaks. "I thought you died."
"Died?"She smiles. A little sad. A little proud.
The sand swallows my legs. Darkness presses in again,
The arena.Where I bled for the first time.
She's behind me now. Her hand on my shoulder.
"You begged me not to die, remember?"But I was never afraid. You were."
Her voice is warm. Ancient.
"I watched you, Lorenzo. I saw you beat Alexander. I saw you kneel before the Pale Father."
My fists clench.
"You left me. You let them burn. You"
"They would've burned anyway," she says, gently."You needed to survive."
The saberstaff reforms in my hand. But it feels wrong. Heavy. Loud. Out of place.
Kaelrah reaches toward itNot with fear, but with sorrow.
"This thing is starving you," she says."It drinks your pain like water."
"I need it."
"No," she says. "You use it because it reminds you of me."
Her eyes meet mine.
"But I'm not in the weapon. I never was."
We're standing in the training circle. Nightfall.
She moves like mist. I move like fire.
"Do you remember your first lesson?"
"How could I forget?" I whisper.
"Don't run from the pain," she says softly."But don't marry it either."
The sky fractures.
Drips of blood fall, then the rain comes.
I fall to my knees, clutching my chest. The saber pulses violently at my side.
"You carry too much hate," she whispers."Too much fear."
"I've tried to let go," I choke."But every time I do…Someone I love dies."
"You have to, Lorenzo. You are not a Jedi.Not Sith."
From the shadows, my 17-year-old self steps forward.
"You are who I used to know," Kaelrah says."And deep down… I know he's still alive."
Everything fades into ash.
Her voice is the last to remain:
"Remember who you are beneath the blade. Beneath the fire.Beneath him."
Back aboard the Executor-Class Super Star Destroyer
I gasp.
Breathless.Drenched in sweat.
I stare into space.
And in the glass, I see him.
My younger self.
Eyes full of fire.
And just for a moment, in the wall's reflection, Kaelrah. Watching.
Then gone.
But her words remain. Branded into my soul like a scar that refuses to close:
"Remember who you are."