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Stars surround him. They are beautiful.
A feeling is in his chest - tight, ill, . . . wrong. Something black and putrid, but powerful, terribly powerful, writhes between the stars. Its movement in space is refelcted inside him. Urgency pricks his pulse.
All around him knots of pain tangle and tighten throughout the galaxy. In distant places frantic hands claw at the coils; teeth gnash against the fibers; fingers bleed and shred; teeth crack and drop from gaping mouths.
A sound winds toward him from between the stars, building from a tenuous strain into a discordant cacophony. The screams of a hundred billion suffering beings rise like corpses to the surface of an ocean, littering space with their violent, despairing wail. The stars become points of agonized sound - white, dead things that hang powerlessly in the seeping blackness. Cloying prisons for howling souls.
He covers his ears, but the screams are inside, piercing him in a pale blaze of unholy sound. Something tears at his throat, not from the outside, but from the inside, an animal shredding its way up through his chest. He can’t hear his own scream. For all he can tell, his scream and those of the stars are the same, when before he could only hear it, he now can feel it.
The galaxy whirls around him as he writhes in the oily black.
Stars and space. . . Sound and silence. . . Motion and stillness. . . . Pain and numbness. . . . Sight and blindness. . . . Heat and cold. . . . Life and death —
— Patterns.
A heart beating. A breath heaving. An eye blinking.
Everything is defined by its relationship with everything else. Nothing is seen without a perspective. To see is to define. To define is an act of creative understanding.To define is to have power over what before was the undefined. Once you’ve truly seen a thing, it will always be yours.
The knots strangling the stars resolve into patterns. Don’t blink. Hold the patterns in your mind, like a rope around the foot of some wild beast. Don’t let go. Dangerous, wild patterns of the universe, but don’t be afraid. You’ve seen them, and they are yours. Gently now, don’t hurt the stars as you free them from the dark.
The screams drop from the cacophony like the last rains of a thunderstorm, disappearing into the stillness of a lake.
Then silence. All that is left of the sound is a sensation.
His own mouth and throat form an open wound from which blood pulses. Each breath feels like drawing acid into his lungs. He is so tired. Time to sleep. Time to close his eyes.
But his eyes stare into the universe, now bright with light. His will attempts to drag them closed, but he must have tore away his eyelids as he grappled with the darkness. He tries to cover his eyes with his hands, but his hands are gone, only bloody stumps remain after toiling with the knots.
Panic rises in him like a hot wind.
But that is not the only thing moving inside him. There is something cold, something he remembers: the living darkness he saw between the stars, now living in him, forming a knot around his beating heart. A voice sounds like his own, but it is not he who is speaking:
Once you’ve seen a thing, it is yours. But you also give something of yourself to it. When you saw me, you gave yourself to me. Now you belong to me. Your sight is mine. When before I was blind, I now see everything that is. Now it belongs to me. You have given me all. Listen to the stars as they sing my song.
Helplessness burns tears from eyes that are no longer his own. His body contracts, rebelling against the coiling darkness inside him, but the vomit mixes with blood filling his lungs, liquidly lurching from his open throat. He turns his head, trying to find the knot forming around his heart, but he cannot see through the blood and bile. He cannot feel the patterns of the knot, and the slick, raw stumps of his wrists can only manage glancing blows at the cords in his gaping chest.
Powerless.
The darkness winds from his heart into space, wrapping itself around the stars once more. When it is finished, darkness encompasses all. The black, unseen stars scream their chilling song. Between them, distant across the void, a familiar voice laughing . . .
A heartbeat. Just one.
I’m sorry.
. . .
The soft glow of the key-lights explodes against the inky pitch behind Thrawn’s eyes. Cool air rips into lungs as he bolts upright on the cot. His body is wracked by tremors. He tries to take another breath, but fear has cinched his chest too tightly and the muscles don’t obey. He gulps painfully at the elusive air. Panic and despair at some unremembered terror still course through his mind as he tries to focus with eyes that burn as though having been drenched in engine fuel. Colors swim across his blurred view of the officer’s quarters. Tides of nausea rise and fall, causing metallic bitterness to seep from the back of his throat.
For a lingering moment, the terror of the dream chases language from his grasp, and an attempt to form a thought falls limp, causing a new wave of panic. Something else rises in his chest. It reminds him of something, something just on the edge of memory . . . lingering . . . why can’t I remember?
Thoughts begin to form more strongly. But the welling in his chest continues - a roiling tumult of emotions that he can hardly extract and identify before they crash like tidal waves into his mind, leaving his reason little opportunity to restore itself before the next assault. The only thing he can do is wrap his arms over his head, curl tightly against the cold wall, and let the roiling ocean inside rack him. The convulsions in his diaphragm leave his throat burning and several dry wretches cramp his stomach.
After what may have been only a minute - but which felt much longer - Thrawn is able to shakily unfold himself. Standing is unthinkable. He lay on his side, numb, exhausted, rogue tremors still making their way through his body. The numbers on the clock beside the cot resolve themselves into something readable. At least morning is nearly here.
Presently, a need for water begins pressing on his will, forcing him from the sweat-sticky cot to make his unsteady way toward the fresher unit. After gulping at water from the sink, he sinks into the fresher and swipes at the knobs to make icy water flow.
The cold lances into his skull and for a moment he thought he might loose consciousness, but the childhood routines of physical discipline that dealt with intense cold take over, and almost without thinking, he begins to regulate his breathing, deliberately relax contracting muscles, and focus on nothing but the sensation of water beating his skin and the movement of the blood winding through his body.
Sweet, velvet darkness finally blankets the rioting colors behind his eyelids, and he feels control ebbing back into his body.
The automatic timer on the fresher unit chimes and the water ceases. Exhaustion is a weight, pulling him away from consciousness. He melts into the fatigue with only a modicum of resistance.
. . .
Eli sighed. Thrawn was usually the most punctual of people. Every now and then, though, he seemed to get lost somewhere in that strange mind of his, and required a bit of a nudge back into the routine. Today he had missed a morning officer’s meeting, which was a first.
Probably just mediating with his artwork again. Wish he wouldn’t turn off his com while he does that. It would save me a walk.
The door to Thrawn’s quarters hissed open and Eli paused as he entered, then frowned. It doesn’t seem like him not to make his bed. Concern stirred in him as he called Thrawn’s rank and name. No response. The fresher door was open and the light was on, so he made his way over.
“Sir!” Eli froze momentarily with shock. Thrawn was tucked limply into the the fresher unit, his hair and sleep-pants still clinging wetly to his frame, his skin appearing unusually pale in the bleak light.
Eli dropped to his knees beside his superior officer. He doesn’t look hurt, exactly. He put out a hand to gently shake Thrawn’s shoulder, “Sir. Sir? Wake up.” He’s very cold. “Thrawn!”
With a lethargic twitch Thrawn stirred, and his eyelids lifted. Then some subconscious instinct vaulted into action. Before Eli could react, a sharply boned forearm snapped into the wrist of the hand he’d placed on Thrawn’s shoulder and fingers latched in a vice around his throat.
He put his hands up and tried to relax his body, meeting Thrawn’s eyes. For a fearful moment, the alien embers held no recognition. Then confusion seeped into those sunken features.
“Vanto?” His voice sounded raw and cracked.
What the hell is wrong with him? Eli nodded and touched Thrawn’s wrist, just to remind he should let go of his throat.
The burning gaze flicked down, and seemed not to comprehend the meaning of the pale blue hand around Eli’s neck. Then the eyes widened slightly and with a hiss the hand was drawn back as though Eli’s throat had suddenly become scalding hot.
Eli rubbed his neck. “Thank you, sir.” He peered closely at Thrawn, who was gazing unseeingly through the floor, knees drawn up, arms pulled closely around his torso, body shaking slightly. It could be the cold, but Eli fond himself trying to mentally dismiss the image of a canine he’d once seen turn suddenly on its master. It too had folded in on itself and shaken, a similarly lost look in its eyes, having been betrayed by its own instinct.
“Are you alright, sir? Should I call a med team?”
Thrawn gathered himself, and inhaled deeply and slowly, passing a hand over his eyes. “No need. Are you alright? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to harm you.”
“I’m fine.” Eli touched his neck gingerly. I hope that doesn't leave a mark. He pulled a towel from its hook and offered it to Thrawn. “You, on the other hand, look awful. What happened?”
Thrawn gingerly unfolded himself and pulled the towel around his shoulders, clutching it to his chest. “May I have a glass of water, please?”
Eli quickly filled a glass and handed it to his superior officer, who took it in a trembling hand and emptied it in the span of several long swallows. He put the glass down and pressed a now steadier palm to his forehead. “I think . . . I think I had a dream. A very terrible dream.”
A dream did this? Seriously?
Eli peered closely at him. “What was it about?”
“I don’t remember." There was a pause, then, almost to low to hear, "I do remember how it felt, though. I still felt it when I woke.” Fingers tightened to grip damp hair. “Even now. . .”
Eli studied Thrawn's bowed head in silence for a moment, then shook his own head. “I'm afraid I don’t understand, sir.”
“Nor do I.”
“You need to get dried off and dressed. Eat something. You’ll feel better. I’ll tell the Captain that you’re ill. You need to rest.”
Thrawn took another deep breath, and pulled himself to his feet, pausing with a hand against the wall, then letting the hand fall to his side as he straightened into a decent approximation of his own typically impeccable posture. “I’ll be alright, Lieutenant. It was only a dream. I'm certain my condition will improve once I begin working again. Thank you for your assistance.” He paused and his gaze softened slightly. Guilt? Concern? It’s unusual, whatever it is. “And I’m sorry I reacted as I did. I was not myself.”
“No problem.” Eli still wasn’t fully convinced that his Commander was well.
Thrawn saw the hesitation, and drew his head up a few centimeters, “You are dismissed, Lieutenant.”
Eli inclined his head shortly. He knew there was no point to arguing. “Yes sir.”
. . .
When Vanto had left, Thrawn stood for a moment. He didn’t understand. He’d had night terrors before, certainly. He knew of few warriors who did not experience such things, at times. But this was different. Whatever the dream, it seemed to have touched something he was barely aware of, some unnamed fear that lay undefined inside of him. He unconsciously flexed a hand. Useless to dwell on such things. It’s only a distraction. You were alone and dreaming. There was no danger. There is no threat. Not in this. The true threats lie elsewhere.
He banished it from his mind as he dressed, successfully occupying himself with the day’s agenda and responsibilities, but as he looked in the mirror to asses that his uniform was in order, an icy shadow of a memory pierced his mind, causing almost tangible pain.
. . . Laughter. Just as he woke, there had been laughter. It wasn’t in the dream. It was in the room with him. In the walls. In the air. Inside him. Fading . . .
Impossible. But the memory of it ran up and down his spine like a cold, taunting finger. He must have heard it. He knotted his jaw against the possibility. No. He had been alone. You've always possessed an active imagination. That’s all this is. You're not being rational. Compose yourself. With more effort than it should have taken, he turned his mind from the issue, and focused on what was before him. Agenda. Responsibility. Command.
His uniform was impeccable. Good.
He let the uniform define him, tell him how to stand, how to move. His expression became as smooth and precise as the pressed fabric.
Moments later, the Imperial Commander stepped briskly from his quarters.
Held deep beneath the surface, where none could hear or see, a man who had seen a great darkness was still screaming.