Private Madness on Myrkr (Solo)

[Caden Evesa]

"Depression weighs you down like a rock in a river. You don't stand a chance. You can fight and pray and hope you have the strength to swim, but sometimes, you have to let yourself sink."

Myrkr was a planet unlike any other, tranquil and calm. It had a connection with nature unlike very few, roots pierced the majority of the planet surface and sprouted trees which enclosed the majority of the planet surface in shade. The whole planet was one big forest and everyone always claimed nature was calming.

"What people don't understand about depression is how much it hurts. It's like your brain is convinced that it's dying and produces an acid that eats away at you from the inside, until all that's less is a scary hollowness. Your mind fills with dark thoughts; you become convinced that your friends secretly hate you, you're worthless, and then there's no hope."

Two weeks.

That's all it had been. It had only been two weeks since Caden had lost everything, had given up everything that he once held dear to him. It had been two weeks since Caden left the halls of the Commenor Jedi Temple, since he gave up his path as a Jedi. It had been two weeks since he decided he wasn't worthy of it.

"I woke up one day and realized?--I am just tired. Not in a desperate way, not from a quitters point of view. This is different. It's the taste of disappointment. Over-whelming disappointment. In life, in situations, in experiences, in other people...but most of all? In my own God-damned self.”

Slowly the young boy walked through the forest, every quote playing through his head as he did. He wasn't sure where he had heard most of them, probably random books. The only thing he realized is that every single quote dancing through his head, every single one related to him in some sad sort of way.

He had become convinced that his friends hated him, convinced himself that they needed to hate him. He had convinced himself that he was worthless, that he was just company for people who had more important things to do that focus on him. He had convinced himself that everyone used him because that's all he was good for.

He was worthless.

"I wanted to write down exactly what I felt but somehow the paper stayed empty and I could not have described it any better."

Caden walked, feet crunching leaves underneath him. He thought about every quote that went through his head. He was consumed with over-whelming disappointment in himself, in every single action that he had carried out. He was disappointed that Okkeus Dainlei had turned to the darkness and he was disappointed that he had been the one to cause that.

He had tried to write down exactly what he felt and he couldn't. There was nothing there but emptiness. He had never sat down and processed his feelings, processed the sadness of losing his best friend, his brother. He had never sat down and processed how guilty he felt for nearly getting Mathieu Brion killed.

"People with depression are not looking for sympathy, they are merely trying to stay alive in a world their own mind doesn't want them to live in."

Looking up, Caden felt a single tear forming and dropping. He felt the streak of water it left as it fell from his eye, trickling down his cheek and dropping from his chin to the grassy, leaf covered floor below. He had never felt so pointless, so broken and so worthless. He had never wanted anyone to leave him alone anymore than he currently did.

"No more"

His voice was raspy, breaking on the two words he spoke. His time with Teyla Sal-Soren had told him that he had a purpose to at least someone. K Kaine Australis agreeing to teach him the true ways of a Mandalorian warrior was proof that he had a purpose to someone, that someone had faith in him.

Every failure he had ever been responsible for causing would live with him forever. Okkeus, Mathieu, all of them. In time he would process them and he would learn to deal with them, they would fuel his drive to be better. They would fuel him to correct himself, ensure that he was never responsible for any similar failures again.

He remembered the last quote again, that people who had lost everything weren't looking for sympathy. They weren't, at least he wasn't. He was simply trying to stay alive in a world which his mind didn't want him to survive in. He was simply walking through every day until they blended together, becoming so similar they may well have been the same day.

Someone had once told him that everyone went through a slump, that everyone needed a hand. He had no-one to give him a hand though. Teyla Sal-Soren was gone, left on Jedha. K Kaine Australis wouldn't accept weakness. Damian Starchaser and Mathieu Brion were both part of an old life and Okkeus Dainlei wanted him dead.

Another tear fell.

He had made his best friend hate him. He wasn't sure how he was ever supposed to forgive himself for that, forgive himself for causing his best friend to fall to the darkness and forgive himself for making his best friend and his brother hate him. He hadn't expected everything to happen so quickly.

“That’s a natural reaction. The desire for revenge, it’s a part of grieving. The difference is in my world, I knew that those violent desires would never become real. In yours, it’s a very likely outcome.”

He felt his hand close around the blaster at his side. In an instant it was pointed, firing at a random tree in the distance. Caden wasn't sure why he had assumed it would make him feel better, in honestly it didn't make a damned amount of different to his mood. He was weak and Kaine wouldn't accept it.

He needed to conquer his own mind.

 

[Caden Evesa]

Some people used imagery.

To some people, imagining your weaknesses as a physical object allowed for a person to conquer them easier. To others, imagery didn't work because you could never imagine your thoughts as a physical object, Caden could never imagine every mistake he had made as a physical object.

Other people used drugs.

The galaxy was full of different medication which helped in the battle against your own mind. Some of this medication was legal, some of it wasn't. To Caden that seemed like the cheats method, the root cause was still there and the medication couldn't make that go away.

A good majority of people tried to talk about their feelings.

Caden had no ability to talk to people. Okkeus hated him, Mathieu was a different life and Teyla had returned to wherever she had come from. He couldn't speak to Kaine, Kaine would just view him as weak. He didn't want to be viewed as weak by the closest thing he had to a mentor.

He dropped to a knee, blaster pistol dropping to the floor, still warm.

He heard the metal clatter as it hit the ground, distant. Everything sounded distant to him, distant to the constant battle that was going on inside his brain. That battle took center stage, constantly overwhelmed him and reminded him that he was broken.

He had beaten the odds before but he had never beaten his own mind.

Fighting a physical battle was so much different to battling your own mind. In a physical battle, you knew where the enemy was and it was easy to kill and subdue. In your mind, you only knew the enemy was yourself and short of killing yourself, there was no easy way to subdue.

He had nothing.

 

[Caden Evesa]

"You know it's been said that the damaged become dangerous because we know we can survive"

Caden pushed himself to his feet, refusing to be crippled by the ongoing war that was raging throughout his mind, refusing to be crippled by the feelings that were overwhelming, pushing on him that he wasn't good enough and that he would never be good enough.

People fighting their own mind, as Caden was learning, were simply trying to survive. It was hard to ever truly ignore the feelings that you weren't good enough, that your friends hated you. It was difficult to get up when faced with those facts.

Yet you had to.

Caden had developed a plan to handle his own emotions, how to win the war within his own head and that's why he had dragged himself out to the clearing that Kreslin Westwind had set up for the Mandalorian Union's meeting only days before.

The young boy almost fell into the clearing. It had seen a lot of footfall during the meeting yet it hadn't changed at all from when Caden was there. He remembered the clearing, remembered where everyone had stood and remembered what was said.

Caden sat down in the center of the clearing. He had stood there only days before, surrounded by trained soldiers who he was sure had never had to once fight their own demons attacking them from their own minds. He was certain they had learned to be strong.

Almost as soon as he closed his eyes, the memories flooded him.

Cold breathing on his neck. Something was behind him, there was something. The pull of the force was forcing him in one direction but the fear of whatever was lurking in the dark was freezing him in place. He was powerless to resist the force, yet the fear he felt of whatever was behind him was certainly giving it a good attempt, a good attempt at stopping him walking.

He turned.

Okkeus. It was just his master. Okkeus must have followed him into the cave, must have come to check on his young Padawan. He was safe with Okkeus, the man would protect him. The relationship they had was amazing, two brothers learning from each other, going on adventures.

He tried to say something, anything, but there were no words. He tried to force air through his throat but there was nothing coming out. He wanted to speak to Okkeus but he couldn't form words. It was like he had suddenly become a mute. Why couldn't he talk, he had never not been able to talk before.

The yellow eyes.

Okkeus? Okkeus didn't have yellow eyes. Caden wasn't actually sure what color his mentors eyes were, but he was sure they weren't yellow. Why did the version of Okkeus in front of him have glowing yellow eyes? Yellow eyes were a Sith trait and Caden was very much sure that his mentor, his friend, his master was no Sith.

He heard the buzz of a lightsaber. He felt the blade skim past his face. Red blade in the hand of Okkeus. His mentor didn't wield a red blade. His mentor had two lightsabers, blue and white. Caden knew, he had held both and wielded the blue one into battle.

The eyes of the boy snapped open.

He wished that someone had previously told him how accurate the vision in the cave was. He wished someone told him that he would be fighting Okkeus in the exact same cave. He wished someone had told him that he was a useless leader and would get one of his friends injured, then he could have abandoned the entire mission.

"So, my child. Did you beat him?"

Caden recognized the voice instantly, the same voice from the cave. The same voice from Corellia, the voice that had plagued him ever since that day on Mygeeto, the voice that haunted his dreams for months. He had never told anyone, and he regretted having kept it a secret.

"Mother"

He had expected the voice to be a projection through the force, the force messing with him. He hadn't expected the voice to have a form this time. It was a ghostly form, yet a form he recognized none the less. It was the form of his mother.

His mother was a beautiful lady, the ghostly form just making that more obvious. Caden was surprised that the force had chosen to give his mother a form. In many ways though, he was happy to see her. It was at least a familiar face who didn't hate him.

"So, my child. Did you beat him?"

The question was asked again, no change. Caden expected the same question to be asked again and again until he answered. He expected the ghostly form of his mother to torment him until he admitted the truth to her, to himself.

"I couldn't. He was too strong. He was too powerful. He nearly killed Mathieu and it was my fault"

 

[Caden Evesa]

"I couldn't. He was too strong. He was too powerful. He nearly killed Mathieu and it was my fault"

He nearly cried the sentence out. He almost hoped that the ghostly figure of his mother would give him some reassurance, a hug of some description but instead she just existed in one place. It was no comfort to him, not the comfort he wanted.

"As I warned you"

She had warned him, she had warned him on Mygeeto the same day he lay claim to his crystal. She had told him that he wasn't strong enough to win the fight, and he hadn't listened. He regretted not listening, he regretted returning to Mygeeto when he wasn't strong enough.

"It was my fault that Mathieu nearly died. It my was my fault that Okkeus fell to the darkside, I pushed him to evil. Everything that happened rests on my shoulders, a weight for me to bear. My mistakes caused so much hurt, so much pain"

He wished that the ghost of his mother would give him some sort of comfort yet she never did. Instead the ghost of his mother just existed there, floating lightly above the ground. Caden hated that she wasn't just reaching out and providing the comfort he wanted.

"And how do you fix it?"