Force Destiny

World Beyond

There was a magnetism that pulled Rey through the opening, but her feet didn't touch solid ground on the other side as she expected. She cried out, tumbling forward. It wasn't until she felt the wind on her face and the fluttery feeling in her belly that she understood she was falling. She tried to slow herself with the Force. Though she could feel its energy around her, she couldn't manipulate the Force here. She was at the mercy of gravity. At once, she hit an invisible solid and rolled. Instead of rolling off the side, she rolled straight into another portal.

Rey hit the mud and realized it was raining. There was the familiar crackling buzz of lightsabers behind her, and she turned over. She knew immediately where she was. Kylo stepped forward, impaling a villager on his lightsaber. Rey had seen this place in a vision once on Takodana. She had seen it again in Ben's memories. She knew it was strange, because the connection had spanned space and time, but why did the portal bring her here? Rey was paralyzed at the sight of her bondmate. Alive. As he stepped toward her, something yanked her backward, and she fell onto her back on an invisible skyway. The brief scene she had just experienced replayed repeatedly in the portal before her. When the scene replayed, Rey was a part of the memory.

"What is this place?"

If she could push through the portal to the past, if she could change it, could she change what happened to Ben? Rey pushed herself to a stand and immediately felt small. It looked as if she was in open space, standing on a transparent path of energy that led to infinite branches of other rolling paths. Connected to the paths were more portals like the one she had fallen through. These portals were more circular and uniform than the opening she had slipped through, but the concept seemed the same. They were doorways to moments in time.

Rey hesitantly took another step on the path and watched the energy ripple under her feet. It was as if she were standing on a visible representation of the Force. She followed the path in wonderment. As she walked, it felt as if she was surrounded by the strong energy of other Force users. Then she heard the disembodied whispers.

"Through the force, things you will see, other places, the future, the past, old friends long gone," one whispered.

"You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view," said another.

"Your focus determines your reality," said a third voice, closer.

The voices surrounded her, words overlapping, until she stopped at another portal. Through the opening, she watched the devastating moment that had broken her heart. It was only a brief flash, but it was enough. The lightsaber clutched between them ignited, casting both of their faces in an indigo hue. The plasma blade passed through her bondmate – sealing their tragic fate – with sickening ease.

Rey stumbled back from the viewport. What was this place? Why had the Force brought her here? To torment her? She glanced around at the other portals. All the moments in time portrayed by the portals were just flashes, but they weren't all negative. They weren't all her memories, either. They were, however, all consequential. They were all moments that had affected her future.

Her attention was drawn back to the portal in front of her. The brief flash played in tortuous repetition. She had seen it before, of course, through Sidious, who had seen it in the World Between Worlds.

The World Between Worlds.

Was that this place? Was this what Sidious had seen? If she stepped through this portal, could she change it? She didn't change anything in the first portal she had fallen through. Rey had witnessed that scene in Ben's memories, she had always been there. Unless, the reason she had always been there was that she had accidentally fallen through the portal to that time and place and permanently changed it.