I was digging through my Obsidian notes when he found this little gem. What do you all think?
Kylo Ren/Ben Solo POV
Setting: SW Episode 7: TFA
Chapter 1 - The Voided Mind
CW: Dissociative Identities
The endless void of space stretched out before me. I lay, half-awake in my bed, the hum of the star destroyer's engines a needle in my mind. Ever since picking up the strange girl on Takodana, my mind had been restless, tossing and turning.
Mind reading was my speciality after all, the ability to peer inside a person's head coming naturally to me. It was like gazing into a pond, then dropping a net into it, catching the thoughts trapped by it. Poe's mind had been relatively easy to read. Pathetically easy, actually, an open book with pages that shrivelled at my icy touch. It had left him screaming for days after that.
But the girl's? It was something else. It was like looking into space itself, an endless void of nothing. It was a necronomicon, a forbidden tome that had forced itself shut even as I pried at the edges. Unable to resist the urge to investigate, I finally left my room. I walked the empty corridors, descending steps, crossing under red lights. My only companion in the darkness was the incessant whispering of Ben. Who was Ben, you may ask?
Well, Ben was the other side of me. The light side, some might say. To me, he was a major annoyance, a weakness. A treacherous creature forged on Ahch-To, all love and light.
Shut up, I hissed, recognising the deep snarl of my own real voice. Satisfyingly, the little wretch cowered, backing off into the shadows. I approached cell block H, where the girl was, the void was. The moment I entered, seeing her in those restraints, two things hit me.
One, my own reaction: rather dainty, with small, delicate features. Yet, these featured had a hard fierceness to them, as if forged beneath the hot sun of a desert planet.
Two: Ben's annoying, stupid little squeak. Don't hurt her. She looks so cute.
I hissed at him, and he scurried back into the dark again.
I saw her flinch. Immediately I switched to my normal voice: "Forgive me. It was just… Something."
Did I see a smirk dance across her face?
"It's fine," she replied, and the steel in her words made me pause.
"I'm looking for the map to Skywalker," I said. "I know you have it. So I'm going to get it."
"Curious," she answered. "I didn't know that."
"Well I'm going to get it. And I know you have the answer." "Try me," she said.
I reached out through the Force as I always did, probing, searching for answers.
I found myself falling through darkness instead, her mind an endless well, a rip in space I could not escape. Answers came as flashes of light.
So her name is Rey. Grew up on Jakku - though I could tell. Interest in the light side of the force-
More Jedi, Ben commented. Cool.
I couldn't be bothered to quiet him. I saw flashes of faces, of worlds I had never seen. Of the Millennium Falcon. Of hundreds of rebel wings. Of our own mighty fleet ruthlessly reclaiming the empire. All chaos happening in the night skies of the nowhere world. Of Anakin's lightsaber, my grandfather's lightsaber, a blue burning streak. Before it became red.
Then suddenly the inky void engulfed me completely. I was lost in it, struggling against some powerful current. A light danced in that current, and I chased it. It weaved, I weaved. It dodged, I followed. It paused, I reached out, only for it to dart away. I cursed, kept going. It bobbed for a moment, moonlight on water, then vanished. It reappeared beside me, pulsing with energy. I flinched back, it was gone.
Rey's laughter, like tinkling glass, echoed around me. "Catch me!" Her voice seemed younger, more childlike.
I ran after the star, desperate to snatch it, to protect it for some bizarre reason. The light buzzed, zipping through the clouds of purple darkness.
Finally, I grabbed it. Its energy rippled over me, pushing me back. Still clutching the light, I was falling backwards, head over heels, memories playing in reverse. The light engulfed my entire body, and I screamed as it burned against Kylo Ren, my former self. I felt Ben Solo, the weakling, grow stronger, staggering to his feet, eyes shining with my father's defiance and my mother's resolve.
I accelerated back into myself, crashing back against the wall. The room swayed, and I felt sick.
"Are you okay?" It was Rey's voice, distant and garbled.
"What happened?" I groaned, but the words were a mess. The heat from the light still thrummed through me, chilling my clothes.
Stupid! Kylo Ren snarled. You learned nothing!
I learned not to look into voids, Ben replied.
Because you are an idiot, Kylo snapped. Small wonder you're such a terrible leader. You're doing a great job of running the First Order into the freaking ground.
Oh, stop it. If you hadn't insisted on skewering every person we met, then maybe we'd be closer to that map! Ben sounded stronger, more assertive.
Stop arguing, you two! Strangely, it was Rey, telling us off like we were children. I suddenly found myself giggling. "This is so embarrassing."
Of course Ben would make me laugh like a child.
I stood, staring at Rey, who was now smiling. "Sorry about that. I just, couldn't resist trying out reaching through the Force like you did. It'll need practice, though."
I nodded, confused but somehow floating inside.
Kylo was fuming, growling in the back of my head as I went upstairs. But tonight I sensed a change in me, as if my journey had just started. Maybe, just maybe, that girl would change my whole life.
Let me know if you would want to see the rest of this, I'll see what I can do... :)