She's a Rebel [Star Wars | Luke Skywalker] *EDITING*

Twisted Nerve

The next thing I know someone is grabbing my arms and pulling me up from the sand. But the ground is no longer sand, it is mossy and muddy and damp, and the screaming has stopped, and the air is muggy and humid. I open my eyes and look up at the person pulling me from the floor, and I see Luke. 

He pulls me into a hug, and I cling to him, shaking, the ringing in my ears having not yet disappeared. My eyes flit over my surroundings; the twisted trees, the boggy lake, and my ship sitting beneath the branches. 

"It's okay," Luke says comfortingly, holding me to him. "It's okay. I'm here. It wasn't real."

"It felt real alright," I murmur, my voice hoarse and sore from screaming. 

Luke lifts his head from mine and looks to Yoda. "What was that all about?" he yells at Yoda, his arms still around me protectively as I stand shaking in his arms. "You scared her half to death!"

But I understand. It's all about my strength of character, like with Luke's hallucination. The fact that he still took his weapons when Yoda told him not to shows that he's still susceptible and weak to the temptation of the dark side of the Force. 

"Your past and your future, that was," Yoda says to me, ignoring Luke.

I nod along, pushing myself away from Luke, and I wipe sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. "I need... I need to be alone for a while," I whisper, looking up at him. 

"Are you sure?" he asks, frowning at me in concern. 

I nod again, and I begin to walk away from the clearing. I don't head back to my moss patch in the trees, I keep going, right past Yoda's small hut. 

I press my back up against the bark of a tree, my ears still ringing, and I slump down to the floor, my head in my hands. That hallucination was meant to represent my past and my future... The screams must be my future, and there's no doubt as to who caused them. 

"Oh, God," I whisper out loud, pulling my hair down from its plait and running my hands through it. 

And it's like when I first started trying to find peace with myself, which seems days ago now. The hallucination has brought up so many things, and brought thoughts back into my head. 

About the things I've seen and done, and desperately want to forget. How I had to stand and watch as the Empire committed horrendous acts upon innocent people as an undercover Rebel, and how I couldn't do anything. I watched as the people I fought for were tortured and killed for information I had, because I was one of them. 

About the hundreds and thousands of troops, both Imperial and Rebel, falling like lumps of meat, their bodies shot and blown beyond belief and recognition. Their bodies, if they remained whole, laying like unburied ghosts on the battlegrounds. About the Commanders, Corporals and Captains who's nerves were clearly shot, yet they still went blindly into battle, sacrificing themselves to save the future generations. 

About my allies who marched off into war, and how those who returned were often times more unfortunate than those who had been killed. About their flesh, burnt or mangled, and how it quivered in the heat. 

About how corrupt that system is. About how it is the young and the innocent who pay for the mistakes of the old and the educated, of those who should know better than anyone that war gets you nowhere. How they send their children to hide with blasters in dark and filthy places, to do their dirty work for them. 

And the blood that rests on my hands, and I think to myself 'Oh, God, how did my life get to be like this?'. And I have memories of all the kills I've caused, both directly and indirectly, and I slowly realise that they all had people who cared about them, regardless to whether or not they were brainwashed Stormtroopers or manipulative Grand Moffs. I know the Empire's training techniques. They isolate you, take away any memory you have of the outside world. I watched it happen to people from my town who were taken alongside Zach, Evan and I. We survived the manipulation, and they didn't. They became mindless killing machines.