The ship trembled as it emerged from hyperspace, starlight snapping into frozen pinpricks across the canopy. Aleru hovered below them, an ochre sphere cloaked in thin storms and cracked desert. It felt empty, distant in a way that wasn't just physical. Like a place the galaxy had long since forgotten.
Ryen adjusted the controls, eyes sweeping over the readouts. "Radiation's within limits. No major settlements. No signals. Looks like Bral was right — no one's listening out here."
Eli sat beside him in the co-pilot's seat, unmoving. He hadn't spoken much since waking. His posture was too still. As if movement might shatter something delicate holding him together.
The freighter began descent, slipping into the planet's thin atmosphere. Winds screamed across the hull, but the ship held steady. Below, the jagged scar of a canyon carved its way across the terrain like a wound still trying to heal.
Ryen angled them toward it. "There's an old outpost tucked in the rock, near where Bral marked. Looks buried, but intact. No heat signatures. We'll set down there."
Eli gave a small nod, eyes fixed on the cracked landscape outside. The colors made something twist in his stomach — that reddish hue, the dried earth, the endless sky.
He'd seen it before.
Or something like it.
In dreams.
Or memories that weren't quite his.
Or… weren't supposed to be.
The ship touched down with a muted thud, venting heat and pressure into the canyon's dusty air. The wind howled past them, tugging at loose stones and bits of old wreckage half-swallowed by the sand.
As the ramp lowered, Ryen slung his blaster over his shoulder. "Stay close. These places have a habit of falling apart when you breathe wrong."
Eli followed him down the ramp, squinting against the sun. The air smelled like metal and ash. Not fresh, but not poisoned either. Just old.
The outpost ahead was nestled into the canyon wall, half-buried in rockslide. Its dome-shaped roof had buckled in one corner, but the entrance held. Thick durasteel plating covered in dust and scorch marks.
Ryen approached the door and keyed in a manual override on a rusted panel. The lock hissed, and the hatch creaked open with a puff of stale air.
Inside, it was dim. A narrow corridor led into the main chamber — a circular room with minimal furniture, one broken viewscreen, and walls lined with storage lockers. The air recyclers buzzed weakly. Someone, somewhere in the past, had built this to last. They just hadn't stayed.
Ryen stepped inside first, scanning the corners. "Looks clear. Power's low, but we've got lights and gravity."
Eli stepped in behind him.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the pressure shifted.
Like the room exhaled around him.
The Force twitched at the edge of his perception — faint, distant, like a note played underwater.
"Something's off," he whispered.
Ryen looked back. "How do you mean?"
Eli hesitated. "I don't know."
He didn't. Not fully.
But the sensation was there, prickling at his skin.
It was familiar — not in the way a place becomes familiar with time, but deeper. As if some part of him had already stood here. Long ago. Or not yet.
He shook the thought away. That wasn't how time worked.
Except… it was.
For him.
Sort of.
They made camp in silence. Ryen ran checks on the outer perimeter while Eli picked a corner of the main chamber and sat cross-legged on the floor, trying to center himself. He reached for the Force as he had so many times before — the rhythm of breath, the pull inward, the quiet stillness.
But the center didn't come.
There was something else.
Not noise.
A lack.
A void.
Eli's breathing hitched. It was the same sensation from the ship — from the dream. That emptiness hadn't faded with wakefulness. It had followed him. No — it had been there before the dream. He was only now recognizing it.
A fault line within himself.
He opened his eyes slowly. The room hadn't changed. But he had.
Or something inside him had.
He closed his eyes again, sinking deeper.
And this time, the dream came back.
Not in pieces — not fragments — but whole.
Fire. Not from the Temple, not from Coruscant. A different blaze. A world Eli didn't recognize, burning beneath twin moons. Screams echoing through blackened ruins. Lightsabers buried in ash. A shadow moving through it all, faceless, but smiling.
A voice whispering his name — not the one he'd been given here.
The one he'd had before.
He didn't remember it clearly. Not anymore. That other life had faded after the first loop, scattered like smoke behind glass. But sometimes, when he closed his eyes, it tugged at him.
A world with cities made of steel and light. A life where Jedi were fiction. Where none of this was real. Where Anakin Skywalker was a character, not a person.
He didn't know if it had been a dream or a life he lost. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
But the memory — whatever it was — haunted him.
It made this life feel… fractured.
False.
Or worse — pre-written.
He opened his eyes and looked at his hands. Small. Calloused. But not made for this world.
Sometimes he wondered if he had been dropped into this galaxy on purpose. Other times, he wondered if it was punishment.
And now, there was something in him he didn't recognize.
The void pulsed again. Not angry. Not alive.
Just present.
When Ryen returned, the light outside had begun to fade. The twin suns dropped behind the canyon walls, casting long shadows across the stone.
He paused in the doorway, watching Eli.
"You sleep at all?" he asked.
Eli shook his head.
"You didn't sense anything strange outside. No tech. No creatures. But inside…" He trailed off, frowning. "You're different."
Eli looked at him slowly.
"I don't mean the loop stuff," Ryen said. "I mean now. Something about you feels… hollow."
Eli didn't answer.
Ryen stepped closer. "I don't know if that's the Force I'm sensing or something else. But it's like there's a shape where you used to be. A shadow around the real you."
"I know," Eli whispered.
"That wasn't there when we met."
Eli stood, slow and stiff. "It started a few loops ago. I didn't notice it at first. Just little things. My saber felt heavier. Meditation came slower. Like I was slipping out of rhythm."
"And now?"
Eli looked toward the wall, toward the stone beyond it.
"Now, I think something's watching from the inside."
Ryen stiffened. "You mean from within you?"
Eli nodded.
They stood in silence for a while.
Finally, Ryen spoke, his voice low.
"If it gets worse, or… if it tries to control you—"
"I'll deal with it," Eli said. Not a question. Not a promise.
A fact.
Ryen didn't argue.
That night, they sealed the doors and settled into the alcoves.
Eli lay on the cot, staring at the ceiling.
The darkness around him was still.
But the void within was not.
And far away — in a galaxy that may have once been fiction, or memory, or prophecy — something shifted.
Not watching him.
Waiting for him.
The Force didn't speak.
But something else did.
Just once.
Just a whisper.