Private “Ashes to Aleen”

[Alyssa Kydd]

Alyssa flinched.
"No."
She stepped forward. Her voice was firmer than before, but not cruel.
"I think… you might've been created. But that doesn't make you less real. You didn't steal anything. You survived. And if there's another version of you out there—original or not—she's not the one standing in front of me right now. You are."

 

[Sommer Dai]

Sommer stopped. The wind moved her long wrap in lazy, sad motions.

"But what if I'm incomplete?"
She swallowed hard.
"What if what's in me — the Force, the song, the memory of Azis — what if it only works because I'm half of something broken? What if this is all a performance… and I'm just a rehearsal version?"

Flash of Vision

The ground pulsed.

Sommer gasped, stumbling. Her knees hit soft dirt. Images flashed behind her eyes — fast, chaotic, and wrong.

• A stasis chamber somewhere deep below. Cracked glass. Machinery flickering red.
• A woman curled inside — identical to Sommer, but unconscious. Her eyes twitching behind closed lids.
• Echoes of screaming. Not pain. Rage.
• A handprint burned into a steel door, not by fire, but by Force.

Then—

A presence. Cold. Metallic. Watching.

And the faint echo of a voice not hers, whispering from her own lips:

"One soul, divided. One thread… tangled."

The vision vanished.

Sommer sat trembling, clutching her stomach