Andrew's boots echoed in the cool metallic corridor, his body tense as he approached the reinforced door. The schematics he'd bypassed through the data console had
given him a path — narrow, encrypted, meant to keep most guests blissfully in the dark.
But not him.
Not when
Sommer was involved.
His fingers hovered over the control panel. He started to input the override code when—
The lights flickered.
The door didn't open. Instead, the walls around him
shifted with a low hum. The interface beneath his hands blinked, then vanished completely.
And slowly, like a tide crawling in,
a memory bled into the room. Artificial. Designed.
The lighting turned
ash gray, dim. Dust motes drifted through the air, the smell of
burnt metal and ozone thickening around him.
Andrew turned — weapon half-drawn — but no enemy stood behind him.
Just… the past.
The corridor became a
child's hallway.
Scorched walls. Exploded furniture. Crumbling stone and lightsaber scoring.
And at the center of the room — a
burning door, collapsed inward. And just visible beyond it: two bodies.
His parents.
The Jedi had come looking for a fugitive. A rebel. It hadn't mattered. His parents hadn't run. They hadn't fought.
They'd simply
been in the way.
And now… they were burned into memory.
Andrew was no longer just standing there as himself —
he was watching a smaller version of himself, knees bloodied, fists pounding on the stone floor,
screaming at the heavens.
Then the voice —
the same one that had broken Sommer's composure — slithered into his ears.
"Still think you're a hero, Andrew?"
"All that armor. All that cocky charm. All those drinks and smoke-filled rooms and flashy entrances…"
"You wear the laughs like war paint."
"But deep down, you're still that boy. Crying. Weak."
Andrew's lip curled. He didn't speak. But his pulse pounded.
"You blame the Jedi. You always have. But you don't hate them because they killed your parents."
"You hate them because they never came back for you. Because the Order forgot you. Left you in the rubble. That's your truth."
The illusion shimmered. The flames flickered out, leaving only silence.
And from the dark, a new image formed.
A
holographic version of himself, older. Wearing sleek armor. Smirking. Confident.
"You pretend to be me," Andrew said aloud.
The fake him laughed.
"I am you."
"The one you feed. The one who seduces. The one who saves face while Sommer keeps you from falling apart."
The smirk turned cruel.
"But you don't deserve her. You know that, right?"
Andrew
snapped.
He drew his weapon — not to shoot the illusion, but to blow the
security panel on the wall. Sparks flew. The lights glitched.
He slammed his fist into the backup console beneath the bulkhead,
forcing a hard override from his wristpad. The room screamed a security alert.
A door hissed open — real this time.
He ran.
Not from the ghosts. From the
delay.
Sommer was still in that chamber. Still alone.
