Private Eyes Wide Shut

[Amea Virou]

Credits on route. Bastion under siege.
Not gone yet, but might be marching away.
Ret’urcye mhi, ori’vod.​

The message got a curious glance out of the spacer. She had known for a while that her friend had a morbid sense of humor, but something about this one felt off. It carried a tone to it that she hadn’t really come to expect from Runi. Amea tried to make sense of her hunch that Runi was aware of something that she was not, but hunches were more often than not hard to explore if you didn’t know what they were trying to tell you. The engine of Evelyn’s ship kicked into high gear and Amea got herself situated in the rec room as she waited for her girlfriend to come over and take a seat next to her.

Amea’s head rested against the top of the couch, her eyes fixed on the ceiling as she struggled to find a position that was truly comfortable to her. The gut feeling lingered at the forefront of her mind. At least until the Echani woman entered the room and took a seat next to her. The comfort of her lover’s calm embrace found her and Amea let herself slide into a heap of warmth.

The introductory scroll of their chosen space opera began on the small screen before them. It was an old story from quite some time ago, if legends were to be trusted. A story about a young man radicalized by a religious sect to murder his father but who ultimately sees what he was about to do and turns the tide on those that had tried to manipulate him. It barely held up by modern standards and yet had it still managed to acquire one of the more long-lasting rabid fan bases around.

As the scene where the boy was given his very own lightsaber slowly circle-faded onto the screen, Amea felt a small twitch to her cheek. It was as if she had just pulled a non-existent hair from a place she had not expected to find one. Her brows furrowed with unease for a moment before she shook it off as just a trick of the mind. Part of her suspected what it could have been, but that was just not possible. She continued to watch the movie despite the feeling that nagged at the back of her head. The idea that this was the bond at action felt impossible.

The scene progressed before another sharp pain prickled from the side of her chest, but this time with a bigger effect to it. Amea shifted in her seat to play her grunt off as a discomfort in how she was seated on the couch. But in reality a very palpable worry began to spark within the confines of her chest. The arm that she had wrapped around Evelyn slowly lifted as she began to push out of her seat to stand back up again.

“I uh, I need to check something really quick. I’ll be right back.” Amea said and motioned with her thumb over her shoulder towards the bedroom. “Don’t pause on my behalf.”

“Okay,” Evelyn smiled at first before her worry began to surface. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, just…” Amea grunted despite her best efforts to hide the pain she felt. “Forgot something.”

Another sharp pain began to pierce against her skin. Amea’s arm was set on fire as it got all the more obvious that her bond with Runi was what had caused all of this. As she stepped into the room Amea began a frantic search for her communications device with a pat against each pocket that she could think of until finally she withdrew it from the back pocket of her pants. A very real sense of anger burned against the blackened periphery of her vision as she punched in the digits to reach her friend only to realize that the hyperdrive jump had brought them out of reach from any communication buoy strong enough for her needs by at least a dozen parsecs.

Her fingers paled and the device cracked before she threw it against the wall to shatter it into a million little pieces. Her teeth bared and she began to heave for air. Another wave of emotions rolled over her and drowned her under its waves. Whatever had happened on the other end had meant a struggle against confusion and anger, and yet within all of that there was a small spark of hope in an otherwise dark ocean. A feral growl split Amea’s lips into a vicious snarl as she struggled to contain the emotions that spilled through the force and into her body, but it was already too late.

Amea clutched her wrist. A grunt croaked through her bared teeth as the struggle continued for even longer. At the other end of her bond, Runi was enraged by that point same as she always was in battle. The familiar feeling bled into her own system with the same intoxicating spark that Amea herself had once tried her best not to leech off of.

Yet as the sensation seemed to reach its peak it was quickly swapped out for something else. Surprise pierced through Amea’s heart with a dull throb that lasted but a second before a sharp pain exploded against her chest and knocked the very air out of her lungs. It began within her chest before it spread out into every limb, every fibre and cell of her being until it cracked from her fingers and into the ground below her with a violent push. Amea gasped for air but the breaths just wouldn’t find her. Her hand tried to reach out towards the door where she only too late had realized that Evelyn stood. As if she knew it on instinct, burning hot tears began to well down her face with the realization of what had just happened.

Everything went dark. Amea passed from consciousness as Evelyn called out her name. If this was death then she wasn’t ready for it. Memories and regrets began to flood her system, one brief moment of despair before the other until it all stopped. Through the bond she felt a rush of memories pass before her very eyes like a shitty slideshow meant to summarize her time with the kiffar woman that now stood at death’s door.

There, ahead of her in the shadows stood the silhouette of a Mandalorian woman. Her permanently etched-in RBF uncaring as she took one step after the other ever so close towards the bitter and cold abyss before her. Amea tried to call out her name but her voice didn’t carry any sound, not even a hiss. As she desperately tried to claw her way towards Runi’s form there was nothing to be gained. Each push brought the abyss closer to her friend and each pull was a step in the wrong direction. The ground beneath her slowly shifted as she continued to crawl towards her friend. From stone which turned to dust which turned to mud which turned to water.

No matter how hard she tried to struggle, the shadows still embraced her friend. Amea tried to scream yet again but continued to find herself muted. The water before her was as cold as the hidden oceans of Hoth, and yet Amea threw herself in nonetheless. The waves tried to push her to shore but there was still time. The icy water’s frigid current swept her back to shore time after time again until finally there was little more left of her friend. The shadowed silhouette of Runi Verin gave one final glance over her shoulder, a knowing grin to her lips towards Amea before she inevitably immaterialized into nothing.

A look of horror set over Amea as she slowly let her hand reach out towards where her friend had just stood. Where once there had been a thin ice sheet and smoke there was now nothing. The once rugged chain that had bonded the two together through an aetherial link snapped like a twig, it’s purpose void and nullified by what had just happened. As much as Amea wanted to deny what she had just felt and call it all a bluff, that Runi had faked it all, she knew that it was true. Tears like fire began to pour against her skin yet again as a bitter sense of resignation slowly began to set on her.

As her senses slowly faded back into reality she found herself lying on her side. The cold floor ached against her arm and hip while her thigh and knee was positively miserable. In the midst of all the pain and loss that Amea felt there was yet one small beam of hope that she clung to. A hand ran through her hair as Evelyn’s soft voice whispered in her ear. “What happened, Amea?”

She couldn’t respond. The burning in her throat and on her cheek was too much to bear. Amea who under most circumstances were one to not show much at all decided to bare everything as she simply broke into tears. Wit her head rested against her girlfriend’s thigh she curled up into a ball while her entire body shook.

“Ret’urcye mhi, ori’vod.” She whimpered under her breath as she contained the desire to scream. “Nuhoy pirusti.”

“I am sorry, Runi.” Her voice hissed as the lump in her throat kept it from being anything more than another whimper. “I am so sorry.”