The Recurring Nightmare

[Joslae]

I'm in the dark; it always starts like this. I'm not falling, I'm not walking, I'm nothing, just in the dark. There's nothing that could exist; nothing has ever existed previously, and it feels like nothing ever will exist. But that's how it starts. There's warmth, it's familiar, and a scent. I know it's yours; it couldn't be anyone else. Nobody else's warmth feels the same; nobody triggers that same response in me. I know it's you, but I shouldn't be able to feel your warmth, I shouldn't be able to pick up your scent, I should be able to see your smile. But that's what I feel, smell, and see. I see your smile in the darkness, your eyes, the way you looked at me. But you turn away and walk away; you said you would come back but never do.

I open my eyes, and I'm somewhere. Where I am doesn't matter; the details have changed sometimes. There's usually glass or a door. There are machines, occasionally vivid and sometimes they are like sketches of half-remembered details. There are people around me. I can't see their faces; I never can, but there are many of them. I think my Master is there; he's familiar always, taller than me, his sharp is darkness with a lilac glow, like a void. I know he's there, but I can never focus on him. Never reach out to him. Others are there but don't react to me and instead huddle in small groups. Strategising? Praying? I scream at them: we need to go faster; they need to do better. But they aren't there for me but for my Master. They ignore me. Something breaks then, sometimes literally and sometimes no. I always feel it. Maybe the window, the floor beneath me, a wall, or I break apart instead. I scream; I feel like I should die, like my lungs should shrivel in my chest, and my breath should turn to dust. The others don't seem to notice, or they don't understand my pain. I wish it would end there, but it never does; I must live out the rest.

I run, or fall, from the room with the other people. I sprint or walk out the window, door or floor, but it never seems fast enough. I'm in a hallway; it feels like it's lightyears long. I can see the end; it's burning. I don't feel my anger. I don't feel my body move. I watch from behind my own eyes as I break down walls; lesser Sith are pushed to the side: some large, some small. They fall flat beneath me; they'll answer another time. I see him, the first face, the one I hate with all I have left to hate. Elias Zotam. I won't name him anywhere else; he doesn't deserve a name. He's laughing at me, blood on his hands. He gloats; he says he's won. My blood boils, my vision glazes red, and I become something less than conscious. Every time I pull him down in a different way: I crush his skull, I tear him limb from limb, I bludgeon him against the ground, I burn him down to the last atom. I've tried every method of death that I know; I've devised new ways of killing with brutality I never imagined before. But he keeps laughing, and he never stops laughing. I kill him quickly or slowly, with extreme brutality or cold accuracy. His hand on my cheek, his touch disgusts me and turns me, and I feel my body break down. A whole side of me is pulled back layer by layer; I feel this pain every time. My skin is gone, my muscles are gone, my nerves are gone, my blood is gone. I feel how his filthy touch breaks me down, but that physical pain is nothing to the hole that I know is left in me.

On bloody hands, his or mine, I crawl along that hallway. There are other bodies there, like barriers to climb over. I crawl on my hands and knees, and the others with me walk past. They don't look down at me; they don't rush to the end; they are cautious. I hear them talking of the tragedy and the disaster this was. Their words are hollow. I hear the falsehoods in them. I don't know how long I crawl for; I think it changes. I look down the hallway. I see the fire that doesn't get any closer. When I look down at my bloody hands, I arrive at the destination. Whose blood is on my hands? Is it yours? I'm no longer crawling on the floor; it's a beach of white sand. I wish it were sand; that would be more forgiving. It's never sand; it never will be. It's ash. For as far as I can see and further, it's ash. I see the shape of you piled high on a mountain of your ashes; I reach for you to hold you and to breathe my life back into you and to tell you all the things I never could say to you. I never touch you; you turn to dust, and I only find a battered old ring. I don't have any anger left to scream, the pain left to suffer, or vengeance left to shout to the heavens. I'm left empty, covered in enough blood to make me sick, and a hole in my chest.

I don't know when it ends and how long I stay in that nightmare, but it always does. I always awaken to find that it's not real; maybe it once was, but it's not real anymore. I might have slept for minutes or hours, I might awaken to sweat on my sheets or have torn bloody gouges in my skin. I used to wake up somewhere else, with a sword or axe near me. That phase took a long time to pass, which scared me the most that I didn't know why I was reaching for a weapon. Was it out of anger, or was it grief? It doesn't happen every night, which I'm grateful for, but often enough that I wouldn't say I like to sleep often now. If I stay active, I can stave off the visions for a few nights anyway. Sometimes I'm left alone, but they always come back. I feel sick afterwards; is it my sickness at myself? My actions? My lack of them?

Could I have saved you?