Locked-In

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

When you're frozen in carbonite you don't know anything. Time stops for you.Not even the Force can save you. You're gone. In some ways it's worse than dead. The Force can beat dead. Hundreds of Force Ghosts and Essence Transfers will tell you that. Carbonite though.. Nothing saves you from carbonite. If no one unthaws you, if no one comes for you, that's it. You don't get to die and move on to where ever. You don't get to be honestly unmade you just.. Stop.

For some people, its what they want. A dream come true. They get to keep existing in some form. Maybe they'll be unthawed when times are better. For others.. For others it's a nightmare. They have things to do. People who depend on them. And it's not like what mot people think. You don't just turn off.

You're still there. Still awake. Still aware. Just trapped in your own head. What's going on around me? I don't know. There's just this. Just me. Alone. And.. I don't know. I suppose I'm used to that by now. How long has it been? I have no idea. I have nothing to judge time with. No sun rising and setting. Not even the beat of my own heart. Nothing. Just this disembodied consciousness that cannot reach out and touch anything. Maybe that's why they took me alive in the end. Because it was much, much crueler than a clean death ever could be.

I think I might be going mad.

Did Meliha get away? Is my daughter safe? Or did I condemn her to a different death. At least suffocation is peaceful. Her oxygen would have run out gradually. She'd just go to sleep and never wake up. But I don't know. Maybe I'll never know. Maybe my daughter, who I was just getting to know, did live. Maybe she is old now. Maybe she's lived her life and died.

Maybe I'll never know. If I'm not mad now that thought alone might drive me there.

Did Khaleel look for me? Did my Blood at least keep up his end of our bargain? Did he look after the Ravens? Even now I worry about them, and the honest truth is this, here, trapped in my own mind, I can say that they were not good for me. Which of them stood by my side? Which of them earned the loyalty I showed them? None. And I should not have expected any better. They were criminals. And still I worry, still I circle. Round and round and round again.

What of Viyi'ee? Is he all right? Did someone tell him? Did he find Meliha? Declan knows. He knows what we've done. I do not think he would reach out to him though. Declan understands. You cannot trust anyone. It was my small people, those that the galaxy thinks do not matter. They were loyal. Declan, Henn, Anders. Everyone else left me in the end.

To be free. To be allowed to burn again. There is nothing here but me. Not even all of me. The Force cannot reach here. I would be gone. Blinked away in a moment. It does not matter where to. Let it be the heart of a star, and for one brief, glorious moment I would be alive, I would feel.

But there is nothing. Nothing and nothing and nothing. Nothingness forever.

What does Starbird burn when there is nothing but self? When there is nothing to burn but self? When even after burning one is not gone. Not destroyed, not consumed, just left to be ashes.

I am nearly ashes. No ember left. No spark. No death, no life, just ash.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, blow on unending.

I think I'm going mad.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

I remember the desert. I remember lots of things. I have nothing but memories. I am nothing but memories. Memories and empty wishes that will never be. But I remember the desert.

I remember I thought it was lifeless, barren, boring.

Possessed of it's own beauty of course. After I left it I never wanted to see it again, but I thought of it fondly. It is the landscape that formed and shaped me. I survived. Where others went to die, I lived. That is the core of who I am. I survive.

Now I wish I had not. There is no break from myself here. No distraction. Even after I stopped sleeping, there were always things to take my attention. To stop my mind, just for a moment. For a moments peace.

There is no peace here.

I remember the desert.

And I long for it.

For the kiss of the sun. For the biting of the sand on the winds. For the cracking of my lips. For all the things to see, the sensations to feel. All the things that are outside of myself.

I am so tired of myself. So tired of my own company.

All along there was only me that I could count on. And now I am trapped forever with only myself. I cannot save myself this time. I cannot do anything, but go round and round in circles.

I orbit a pit, within it is utter madness. It has a gravity that pulls me in. With each pass I get closer.

No one is coming.

There is only me.

I am driving myself mad.

What if I did not survive? What if it was all madness, hallucinations brought on by the sun and dehydration.

Perhaps I'm in the desert still. Dying.

Perhaps I'm already dead.

Nothing but a ghost on the wind.

I remember the desert.