The Clone Wars: One-Shots

19. pain, it has brought

He didn't drink water for more than twelve hours. Hell, he only arrived on Tatooine for less than a year and he was already on the verge of death.

Raising the bottle to his throat, he prayed that a drop could be spared. Nothing came out.

As he hooked it back to his side, muttering curses, something up ahead caught his eye. A faint figure outlined against the endless plains of sand.

"Master?"

His voice was husky and he immediately tried not to vomit as bile climbed up his throat. He stumbled forward, his hand outreached pathetically.

Right before him, he could see his Master Qui-Gon Jinn, tall and steady as the trees of Kashyyyk. His hand passed right through the mist, and he blinked rapidly, wiping his forehead. His hopes lifted to meet nothing one too many times, and he was sick of it.

Black spots crowded the corner of his vision, but he could still see his Master hovering there.

"Obi-Wan, what are you doing?"

Hallucination or not, it didn't matter. He just needed a friend.

"I d'know, you tell me," he huffed. Obi-Wan was exhausted. He didn't have the strength or energy to answer.

He just wanted to lie down and never wake up. Something seemed to darken as Qui-Gon's brows furrowed, his voice booming across the terrain.

"Answers like that killed your friends."

Obi-Wan flinched at the sudden change of tone. His Master never condemned him for countering back with snippy answers when he was younger. This wasn't Qui-Gon at all. The apparition of his Master continued.

"So tell me, how will you get out of this?"

He had tried everything he could, and the only blessing he carried was being good with animals, having kept them away from him. Obi-Wan's mind shifted as he realized...he didn't know.

He actually didn't know.

Death finally caught up to him, and he couldn't escape its grasp.

"I mean I probably won't! Everyone's out to kill me, and Tatooine might as well get in line!"

He was going to die here. There wasn't even a shred of hope in him left.

His lips pulled back into a crazed grin, giggle erupting from his throat. He was laughing, but there was nothing humorous about the situation. A breeze rustled through his hair, biting his peeling skin.

His hope had extinguished, the thought of seeing Luke lost to the sands of the desert. He had always kept going in the past, pure determination raging through him. But now? Now, he couldn't bring himself to care.

Luke was in a loving and caring home. He didn't deserve the burden to save the galaxy. It was better this way. Obi-Wan couldn't do this anymore.

"Then so be it."

Obi-Wan's eyes widened and his laughter abruptly came to a stop. His head snapped up, and Qui-Gon's image started to fade.

"Wait!"

Obi-Wan tried to get up, only managing to fall back to the sand as Qui-Gon disappeared. He'd barely seen his Master and he was already gone.

Master Yoda had told him that Qui-Gon had become a ghost of some sort, but the only places he would appear were in his daily nightmares. The scene of him being stabbed by Maul was always seared in the back of his mind. Disappointment and disgust always rang through his head, spoken by everyone he knew, and he saw the exact same thing on the face of the phantom Master.

Obi-Wan was ripped out of his thoughts as sand made its way through his nose and eyes, causing him to cough up more blood. Only the rustling wind and the sand dunes were his companions now.

He was alone.

Obi-Wan wheezed as harsh coughs racked his body, his knees hitting the ground. Drops of blood soaked through the sand and he wiped his mouth, tasting iron on the tip of his tongue.

The sand around him danced, but there was nothing graceful about its movement. He instinctively curled up into a ball, trying to protect himself from the pain repeatedly inflicted on him. It was like he was being set on fire, but cold shivers swept through him as if he was on Ilum.

Something hummed in his ears, a deep rumbling of danger shaking through the Force. His eyes closed.

Before he knew it, he was tossed several feet away, pelted by whipping winds. Sand and dust lacerated his skin, and agony pulsed through his body repeatedly.

His screams couldn't be heard over the sandstorm as he was pushed deeper and deeper into the ground until sand filled his lungs. Each breath was a struggle, and in mere seconds, he couldn't inhale oxygen.

He still wanted to see the sky. Obi-Wan didn't think it could get any worse until he opened his eyes. His eyes burned, and he didn't think he could hold onto life anymore. The Force howled around him, blending in with the shrieking of the disaster.

He only saw eternal darkness, his breath cutting off as he was fully submerged. Seems like the Force granted him what he wanted, in a much more excruciating way.

He had tried his best. He had done everything he could.

But his best wasn't enough.

A/N: Last of the Obi-Wan-centric stories :)

I got tumblr prompts next, but I don't know when those will be out yet!