Cadre
the NPC bucket
The blade passed through her, and for a single, breathless moment, time shattered.
Esme gasped — a small, broken sound — as her body trembled against the inevitable. The darkness inside her shrieked, a sound not made for mortal ears, and the ground itself seemed to shudder. Her form twisted violently, the entity within her clawing, scrambling for a hold. Her eyes — once so vibrant — flickered between soft humanity and seething, red malice.
Muscles spasmed. Limbs contorted. Her hands raked across her own body in agonized death throes, nails tearing into her arms, her chest, her neck — desperate to tear free of the horror suffocating her soul. Blood streaked her fingers, her trembling hands trembling as she fought both death and the darkness dragging her down.
A second soul howled within her chest.
"We could have ruled the stars... together..." the entity hissed through her bloodied lips, voice cracking and beautiful and monstrous all at once.
Her arm, slick with blood from her own clawing, lifted shakily toward the one she had loved. Fingers, trembling, reached outward — an invitation, a temptation, a final plea for him to fall with her into darkness.
But it was too late.
The hand dropped. Heavy. Final. The corrupted energy within her body cracked and bled away like smoke from a dying fire.
Esme stumbled backward, her legs folding beneath her weight. Yet, somehow — impossibly — she turned her face to the stars above. Her fingertips brushed the empty sky, reaching, yearning for a future that had been stolen from her.
A soft, trembling smile touched her lips.
Around her, faint and fleeting, memories began to spill into the night: The feeling of the first rainstorm they shared. The warmth of sun-drenched fields between the vines. The first shy, clumsy kiss under the branches heavy with ripening fruit. A heartbeat's laughter, a whispered promise, a hand held in secret. Each memory shimmered like mist before vanishing into the smoky air.
Her body collapsed, but her spirit — fragile and luminous — hesitated. For one final, impossible instant, the true Esme stood whole again. She gazed forward, eyes clear and full of love, full of sorrow, full of everything that could never be said aloud.
And then — like a sigh on the wind — she dissolved into shimmering particles of light, carried away into the embrace of the Force.
All that remained was silence. A beautiful, terrible silence that spoke of love lost, promises broken, and a life that would never be lived.
