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His cries were quiet, muffled by the pillow that he was clutching onto. The nightmares were plaguing him again. Like every night. Visions of fire and rushing water. Death. Cold. Blood. And screaming. And before he woke, there was always a voice. It made his spine tingle and he wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and hide beneath all of his blankets or in the back corner of the closet. Come to me, Ben… the voice said.
Ben’s eyes shot open as he sat up, a strangled cry filling the dark space within his bedroom. His eyes searched around wildly, looking for the source of the voice, but he was alone. Sweat on his brow, he struggled to get breath in his lungs, laying back down and covering his face with the blanket. His body whole body trembled in the wake of the nightmare as tears started to fall, unbiddingy, from his eyes. Fear shook his entire being, and released through the powers that he was just learning how to use as his entire bed started to shake along with him.
“Shhhh…” a gentle voice whispered, cutting through the tidal wave of darkness that threatened to drown him. Someone sat on the edge of the bed beside him, and a hand began to comb through his hair. “My dear boy, it’s okay. It was just a nightmare. You are safe now.” Ben latched onto her voice as the darkness was chased away, like night turning into morning. The bed went still, and his breath started to slow again. The fingers combing through his unruly black hair were a lifeline. As the fear vanished, Ben opened his eyes again, pulling the blanket from his face. It wasn’t his mother that sat beside him, but she still felt familiar. Younger than his mother, her hair laid down and loose in beautiful curls. The gown she wore were the colors of a sunset, and reminded him on the ones his mother wore sometimes. She was beautiful, and there was something about her that he knew.
“Are you an angel?” he asked, his voice still trembling slightly.
She chuckled, pulling the blanket up to his chin, tucking him in once more. “You are not the first boy to ask me that.” She moved the hair out of his face. “You can sleep now. No more nightmares tonight.”
Ben kept his eyes on her face and he remembered a picture in his mother’s office. “I know you…”
She nodded. “Yes you do. Your grandfather used to have nightmares too. Every night. Just like you.”
“Grandfather…” he repeated. He didn’t know much about his grandparents. Mother didn’t talk about them. “Did they ever go away?”
Her smile disappeared as she shook her head, glancing away from him. “I don’t know. I hope so.” After a moment, her eyes found his again. “Close your eyes, dear boy. Sleep now.”
His body tensed, afraid. “Will you stay with me?”
She nodded, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. “We are always with you. Right here…” her head pat his chest, right over his heart. “Now sleep. Good dreams are waiting for you.” Her hand started to comb through his hair again as she started to hum and beautiful tune. Ben’s eyes drifted closed as his hand took hold of hers on his chest, not ready for her to leave just yet…
20 years later
Kylo Ren stood before the burnt out, and deformed mask. Everything about who he was, came from the legacy of this mask. And he hated it. Hated everything about his past. He needed something new, something that was his. Not the Sith. Not the Jedi. Something else. He was tired of rules and people telling him that he wasn’t good enough. Not enough for the Jedi. Not enough for the Sith. Not worthy. He didn’t belong to anyone. Or anything. And he didn’t need to. Not his parents. Not his uncle. Not Snoke. And not… her. He didn’t need any of them.
His hand was trembling, just like it used to do when he woke from his nightmares as a child. He slowly clenched his fist, and the metal of the mask bent and cracked to his will. Until his was so deformed, you couldn’t tell what it was before. There was no legacy he had to stand up to any longer. He would make his own.
“I was wondering how long that would take…” A voice startled him. Kylo Ren whipped around to see a man standing before him. But he wasn’t exactly a man at all. His uncle told him stories of Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi. And Force ghosts. But he’d never thought he would see one for himself. “Hello Ben.” The man smiled, calling him by name. There was only one person this could be.
He glanced back at the destroyed mask, and then at the ghost over his shoulder. He was young, about his age. “Anakin…”
Anakin grinned. “The one and only.”
“You’re… here.”
“We are always with you, Ben,” he stepped forward, standing beside him, staring at the mask that he once wore. That he hated. “Sometimes you are hard to reach...like I was. Once.”
A memory flashed. Something that he had long forgotten. It wasn’t the first time someone said that to him. “Padme…” he whispered, unable to stop himself.
Anakin glanced at him in surprise. “What?”
Kylo Ren, blinked, shaking his head. “Padme. She used to come to me as a boy. When I had nightmares. I don’t know if it was real, or a dream. She told me the same thing… we are always with you.” Anakin was silent, but a soft smile grew on his face. “She said that you had nightmares, too.”
“I did. Every night. Just like you.”
He hesitated, but he had to know. “Did they ever go away?” Ren asked, feeling like a boy again.
Anakin shook his head. “No. They never did. My nightmares were of my own making, Ben. And trying to stop them only made them come to pass.” He paused until Ren turned to him, his hand trembling again. “Don’t make the same mistakes that I made.”
Ren shook his head. “But the Jedi-”
“Were wrong. The Sith were wrong. They both were. I wasn’t the Chosen One, Ben. I didn’t bring balance to the Force...but you can. You both can.”
His brow furrowed. “Both…?”
Anakin nodded. “Rey. Don’t shut her out, like I did. The moment you find yourself alone, is the moment you fall.” The sound of her name made his jaw clench. “We’ve passed on all we know. A thousand generations live in you now. Of Sith and Jedi. Find her. Forge something new. Together.”
Kylo Ren. Ben Solo. Two different sides of the same coin. Kylo Ren was just a mask he wore to hide from what he really was. Who he really was. Someone he didn’t deserve to be anymore. He couldn’t possibly belong anywhere else now. “I know that look…” Anakin said. “All too well. You are not a monster, Ben. He’s gone. Let Kylo Ren go too.”
“How?” Ben asked in a strangled voice, glancing away from him back at the mask. “Everything that’s happened…”
“I can’t tell you how. But you’ll find it. Just like I did.” Looking down at the destroyed mask of Darth Vader, Ben swallowed in fear. “We are always with you,” Anakin whispered. Ben reached up and placed a hand over his heart. He turned to look at his grandfather, and found himself alone. “Find her, Ben…”
Find her. But what would she do when he did? She came for him before. Maybe, just maybe, she would listen again. Ben turned his back on the mask, never looking back.