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FN-2187 can barely remember a time when he wasn’t afraid. Now, it feels like he is afraid constantly, and it is an ugly feeling—but a useful one, too. That fear keeps him in place. That fear keeps him in line. Most importantly, it keeps him alive.
FN-2187 has learned very quickly that the people here do not care if he is alive or not. He learned that on the first day.
They’d been in a small room, then—before he was told to call himself FN-2187, before any of this had started to feel real. All he’d known then was that the scary people in white had brought him to this room, this room full of trembling children, and they’d left him there. They’d left all of them there.
It was cold. FN-2187 was in his pajamas—his home pajamas, not the itchy black ones he wore now. He remembers that he was crying, but then again, so was everyone in the room—crying for mothers and fathers and heroes to come and rescue them from the dark, scary room, from the scary, tall figures shining in white. Everyone was wearing different clothing. Everyone was dirty, too. Some had streaks of dirt across their skin. Some had streaks of red, like FN-2187 once had when he had fallen out of that tree.
They were left there. FN-2187 remembers being hungry, too, remembers the feeling of his stomach churning, of trying to digest nothing. He was supposed to be eating breakfast. Ma always made breakfast. He wanted Ma to make him breakfast again.
He wanted Ma.
He wanted Jannah. Jannah was brave. Jannah was always brave, even when they’d taken her away from him, she had kicked and screamed and tried to get back to him—
Jannah was brave, and Jannah was strong, too. Jannah was okay. She had to be.
What FN-2187 can’t remember is how long they were left there for. It felt like days on end, but he was just a child—a child surrounded by wailing and fighting his own, growing desperation while memories of flames and screams flickered in his mind. Reflecting on it now, however long he thought it was was probably incorrect. They came for them eventually, though, and FN-2187 remembers that part. He wishes he didn’t.
There was no warning. The door opened all at once, and the children all cowered in a swarm-like motion, backing away into a corner of the room as those people in white marched in—and someone new, too, someone wearing a black outfit and a frown. A woman, FN-2187 remembered. She didn’t look nice.
“I hope your time in isolation has been enough to calm you all down.” Children were still sniffling, and if it wasn’t for the harshness of her voice, FN-2187 might not have heard her clearly. He was in the back of the clump of kids, controlling the quivering of his own lower lip as best as he could. Not everyone fought the battle against tears as well as he did, though. The girl next to FN-2187—younger than him, too, he thought, because she was really small—started crying loudly just at the sound of the woman’s cold voice. The woman’s lip curled, and quickly and carefully, FN-2187 reached out a hand to shuffle the little girl behind him. Jannah did that sometimes when the two of them got in trouble for knocking over a merchant’s goldenfruit stall while they were playing. She kept him out of trouble like that. FN-2187 didn’t want the girl next to him to get into trouble.
“Still behaving like animals, then, are we?” She said it like it was a question, but FN-2187 didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t think he was supposed to answer. None of the children raised their voices, but a few more started crying. The woman seemed very unhappy with that. She clicked her tongue. Ma would do that sometimes when he and Jannah came home with skinned knees from playing too rough, but the way this woman did it wasn’t the same at all. Ma was never angry at him, even when she scolded him to be more careful. This woman was angry.
“I see.” She stepped forward, and FN-2187 could clearly hear the sound of her boot hitting the floor. “If that’s the case, if you all can’t learn to compose yourselves, then you can stay here until you learn.”
The thing is, FN-2187 doesn’t want to stay here. He wants to go home with Ma and Jannah and he wants to eat food again so his stomach doesn’t hurt so bad and he wants to be away from these dirty, crying kids and this mean, scary woman and the people in white. The other kids don’t want to stay, either, and FN-2187 can tell because even more are crying now, hiccupping little sobs echoing in the room. He is finding it harder and harder not to let his own tears fall. One child, in the midst of the sobbing, speaks up.
“I wanna go home.”
Just like that, the woman freezes, and her eyes scan over the crowd of children. She looks even angrier now, and FN-2187 feels very, very scared. She looks like she’s going to yell at them. “Who said that?” Whoever it was, they do not step forward from the crowd. The woman scoffs.
“None of you will be going home,” she spits out, and the chorus of wails rises almost immediately. “This is your home now. You are soldiers of the First Order. You will learn to be strong, and to bring peace and order to the galaxy.” FN-2187 doesn’t know what that means, and he doesn’t care to listen. All he cares about is the first part of her statement. None of you will be going home.
But I have to, he almost says. I have to. I have to go home to Ma and Jannah because I miss them and Ma misses me and I don’t know where Jannah is but I really really miss her and I want to be home with them again.
He doesn’t say it. Someone else does. Someone else takes action. It’s a little boy, about FN-2187’s age. He rushes forwards, and it’s clear that his fear and sadness has bubbled over into anger. His face is twisted into a frown, and he runs at the woman, voice sharp and ferocious as he shouts out the words, little fists raised to rain down on her as soon as he reaches her.
“I want to go home--!”
He never reaches her.
It happens so quickly that FN-2187 isn’t sure what, exactly, has happened. All at once, everyone around him is screaming, wailing even louder than they have been before—and he starts to sob, too, terrified because everyone else is terrified. That’s before he sees the boy’s body on the floor, a steaming hole in his head, and the woman’s hands holding the little blaster she whipped out of her holster. When he connects the dots, he only grows more frantic.
Then there’s another flash of light, red and hot, and one of the lights in the room falls from the ceiling. The clattering noise is enough to make everyone jump—and enough to make everyone realize that the woman is glowering at them even more, now, her voice now raised to a shout.’
“Enough!” Not everyone is able to stop crying, but FN-2187 tries his best because he does not want to be like that boy, lying on the floor and not moving. He does not want this woman to hurt him. She looks like she will.
“I hope this serves as an example for the lot of you.” One of her shining boots moves forward, nudging the boy’s lifeless body. He does not react. He is dead. Someone screams, but the woman ignores it. She stares at them, eyes still burning with that anger. “You will learn to be good soldiers. You will make yourselves useful to the Order. You will do as I say and compose yourselves by the next time I come for you, unless you’d rather end up like him.” She nudges the body again. FN-2187 wants to scream, but he can’t even breathe. He can’t even think, except for the endless stream of pleas and prayers in his head—I want to go home, I want Ma, I want Jannah, please I wanna go home I want Jannah I’m scared please Ma I’m so scared please let me go home.
The woman turns. She’s made her threat. She steps out of the cell, and the figures in white follow her. When the door seals shut, the children are left alone again—left with the body of that little boy on the floor, lifeless and hollow—and the cell is suddenly full of screams and crying.
When the door opens again some time later, the body is still there, and the children are still there. Their stomachs are desperate for food, their bodies and spirits weak. The woman steps inside, and this time, not a single sob can be heard. There is sniffling still, but her warning has clearly been heard. Nobody wants to be like that body.
She smiles.
Everything happens quickly after that.
The woman leads them to another room. They’re brought through hallways, herded like nerf by the figures in white, tall and gleaming in their uniforms. Eventually, FN-2187 will learn that these are Stormtroopers. They are soldiers of the First Order—obedient, purposeful, and willing to die for the cause.
FN-2187 learns that he will be one of them one day.
For now, though, no such thing is discussed. This new room the woman brings them to is big, and it has very long tables with metal chairs. She tells them to sit, and they do. She smiles and gestures a hand, and suddenly a few droids appear, carrying something on their tops—trays, with little items on them. She instructs the children to pass the items down the line. When FN-2187 finally gets his, he does not know what it is. The woman tells them to open the flimsy packaging and eat it.
The moment he hears the word eat, his starving stomach spurs him into action. He tears away the packaging and takes a huge bite. There is no flavor, no real taste, but somehow, it is the best thing he has ever eaten—even better than Ma’s breakfast. He is just so hungry.
When they are done eating what FN-2187 will one day know as a ration bar, the woman speaks again. She tells them that she is a Major. FN-2187 does not know what that means, but she says it like it is important. Her name is Major Shimta, she says, and she is going to make them valuable members of the First Order.
They spend a lot of time with Major Shimta, that day. First, they are told that they need to change out of their clothes. FN-2187 is okay with that. He is given a plain black outfit to change into—a shirt, pants, socks, and shoes. That’s okay, too.
When Major Shimta sends the white figures to collect their clothes, FN-2187 doesn’t think much of it. Sometimes Ma takes his clothes and goes and washes them. Jannah helps sometimes, but he just plays in the river. He assumes that’s what the white figures are going to do with the clothes.
He never sees those clothes again. Afterwards, they cut his hair until it is so short that FN-2187 can barely feel it on his head. They cut all of the childrens’ hair.
At the end of the day, when FN-2187 and the other children are led to another big room with lots of beds, when FN-2187 is finally allowed to lay down in the bed he has been assigned as his even though it doesn’t have his favorite blanket or his stuffed toy that Ma made him for his birthday, he feels very, very tired.
He is very tired, but he cannot sleep. He cannot stop thinking.
The thing that keeps him awake is not that Major Shimta still seems very mean, or that he is still very hungry and would like another ration bar, or that his hair is short now, or that he misses his clothes that actually fit him. It is the last thing Major Shimta told them that is still swirling around his mind as he struggles to wrap his head around it.
FN-2187 does not have a name anymore.
Major Shimta told them this last. Their old names do not matter anymore. They are soldiers now.
(FN-2187 doesn’t want to be a soldier, he thinks, but then he remembers the body on the floor of that cell, and he remembers that he does not have a choice. He has no choice but to be what Major Shimta expects, to do what she orders.)
They are given new names, one by one, but these names are not names like FN-2187’s old one. These are numbers and letters, like the designations given to droids. They are given their designations, and then they are made to repeat them. They will be given one week to learn them, Major Shimta says, and from then on, they will be punished if they forget. She also says they will be punished if they say their old names.
FN-2187 does not ask what the punishment will be. Nobody does. It seems that they all remember that little boy’s body.
In his bed that night, when he cannot sleep, he repeats his new designation over and over in his mind. He wants to remember it, he does not want to be punished, but remembering is hard. He’s never been good with numbers. Sometimes they go all out of place, and he can’t remember if the 8 comes first or the 7. He doesn’t want to have to learn these numbers. He wants his own name back.
He cannot say it, though, no matter how quiet the room seems to be. Major Shimta could always be around in the darkness, and FN-2187 really does not want a punishment. He is afraid, and he wants to stay alive.
Thinking his name, though… even if he feels he’s not supposed to do it, that he would be punished if Major Shimta found out, he can’t help himself. He thinks of Ma, and Jannah, and the way they said his name. When thinking about his name starts to scare him too much, when the threat of punishment starts his heart beating a little too fast, he thinks of other names, too—nicknames.
Ma calls him ‘starlight.’ She calls Jannah that, too. She says the two of them are her little stars. She says it every night before bed, when she tucks them in, when she leans over and kisses their heads. Goodnight, starlight, she’d say to them, giving them each their goodnight kiss. I love you.
FN-2187 misses Ma so fiercely that he nearly breaks into sobs right then and there—but then he hears the footsteps, and he knows by now that those calculated steps are those of Major Shimta, coming to check that everyone is sleeping as they should be. He will be punished if she finds him awake. As quickly as he can, FN-2187 closes his eyes tight and curls up under his blanket, breathing as quietly as he can as the footsteps grow louder and louder, and even still as they finally go away. She will be back, though.
FN-2187 spends the rest of the night pretending to sleep.
FN-2187 gets very good at pretending to sleep.
Some nights, he’s so exhausted that he doesn’t have to bother, he just passes right out. Those nights are nice. He actually likes sleeping like that, when he just shuts down and is lost to the world for a few hours. In his sleep, he doesn’t have to fear punishment.
Luckily, tonight is one of those nights. Today was a long day. FN-2187 and the other cadets watched lots of holovids about something called the Empire, and how it tried to fix the galaxy but it didn’t work, and so now the First Order has to do it, and FN-2187 and the others are going to help the Order succeed. One day, the Order will be triumphant, and they will be heroes.
FN-2187 likes the idea of being a hero. He does not like learning about the Empire, though, because it is boring and he doesn’t really understand it. After a day of hearing about different leaders and battles in a big, boring war, he is exhausted, and the moment he hits his cot, he falls asleep.
When he wakes up, it is not to the shrill alarm that he usually does. It is to someone shaking him, someone shaking him hard, and FN-2187 bolts up in his bed, heart pounding and wide eyes adjusting to the darkness.
He can barely make out the figure in the darkness, but it’s there all the same. There is a person next to his head, a person holding his arms tightly—and when they see him, they tense immediately, a hushed whisper leaving their lips.
“Addie,” the voice whispers, and all the air leaves FN-2187’s body. Only one person calls him that. Only one person has that voice.
His lower lip begins to tremor immediately, even before he manages to wrap his arms around his sister. Jannah pulls him in tight, muffling his crying the moment it begins. FN-2187 is shaking, but so is she. She must be crying, too—but she’s quiet. She’s smart. Major Shimta is always around.
“Jannie,” he whispers, and he feels his sister’s hand on his back, keeping him close. “W-Where were you--?”
“Shh,” she hushes. She has good reason to. There’s supposed to be no noise at night, he’s supposed to be asleep. “It’s okay, Addie. I’m gonna get us home. Back to Ma. But you gotta do everything I say, okay?”
FN-2187 does not need to think before he nods, heart hammering in his chest. All he wants is to be home with his mother and sister.
“Okay,” Jannah exhales, and she lets go of him just enough to let him breathe. “Okay. Don’t put on your shoes. We’re gonna walk real quiet, like—like the games we used to play, remember, when we would hide from Ma and then scare her?” He remembers, and he nods. “Just like that. Follow me. Stay close to me.”
She peels herself away, and he carefully crawls out of his bed. His socked feet step on the floor just as his eyes begin to adjust more to the darkness, and he looks up to his sister. She does not look like his sister. She’s not wearing her clothes. She’s wearing the same black sleep uniform FN-2187 is, and her hair—it’s cut just like his, too, so close to her skull. It’s not right. Jannah loves her hair. Ma braids it for her, and Jannah loves it, and FN-2187 suddenly wants to yell at whoever took it from her.
Before the sudden urge can overwhelm him, Jannah is taking his hand and pulling forward. He trusts his sister, and he follows, even though he is scared of the dark still. He has Jannah at his side. She won’t let anything happen to him.
They walk past row after row of sleeping children in their cots. Some of them are probably pretending, like FN-2187 has many times before. If they are, they do not give any indication that they are awake. Belatedly, FN-2187 realizes that they probably think the faint footsteps are those of Major Shimta. He does not like the feeling of being anything like the Major.
They walk until they reach the big wall at the end of the room. Jannah hits a few buttons on a small keypad, and the doors open just like they do for Major Shimta when she comes in with the Stormtroopers. He does not ask how Jannah learned to do that, but he can imagine. She’s smarter than him, and she knows more numbers, too. It probably has to do with that.
They’re in a hallway now, but this one has lights, and he feels relieved to be out of the darkness. He feels relieved to be holding his sister’s hand, especially as she pulls him off quickly to the side, ducking the two of them into a small side corridor. He doesn’t get a chance to voice his confusion at the sudden and harsh maneuver before Jannah is clapping a hand over his mouth and holding him close, and he’s left waiting with wide eyes. He hears it, then—heavy walking, like the Stormtroopers do. It gets loud, and then it gets quieter again, just like when Major Shimta passes by his bed during the night. Jannah knew they were coming.
She waits until it is silent again to let her hand fall away from his mouth, and once more, he doesn’t get his chance to speak. Instead, she crouches just a little, just enough to be level with his eyes.
“Addie, you need to listen.” Her voice has never sounded so serious before, not even when she would tell him to stop playing with her toys or try to trick him into believing those old stories about the monster in the pond. He meets her eyes and sees the same seriousness there, and it scares him into listening. “We’re going to tiptoe to another door. When I open it, you need to get inside right away, okay?” He wants to protest, to tell her that he was never good at hurrying, but she doesn’t give him time. “As fast as you can. No matter what happens. You can’t look back, you can’t stop for anything. You need to get in. Promise me, Addie.”
He looks up again, and when he nods, he feels heaviness. This is scary. He doesn’t like seeing his sister so serious, but he trusts her. He trusts her to get them back to Ma.
“Okay,” he murmurs quietly, swallowing and shifting on his feet. “I promise.”
Jannah watches him for another moment, and he can’t help but wonder what she’s thinking, why they’re not moving yet. Then she reaches out and pulls him into a tight embrace that makes something in his chest hurt, and he realizes. She’s just as scared as he is.
“I love you, Addie,” she whispers, holding him so tight that he can hardly breathe, and he nods, finding his voice shaking as he speaks up.
“I love you too, Jannah.”
They stay like that for another long moment. When Jannah pulls away, he doesn’t want to let go—but he promised to listen to her, after all, and so he tries to be brave like Ma always says he is. He won’t let Ma down, and he won’t let Jannah down.
“Stay close to me,” Jannah whispers one more time, taking his hand, and he nods quickly before the two of them are creeping back down the hallway, steps padded by their socks. There’s doors on both sides, but Jannah guides them past those. He can’t shake his fear that one will open and Major Shimta will step out—or Stormtroopers, or anyone. He doesn’t want to be punished.
The hallway ends, eventually, and at the end of it is a series of tiny little doors. They’re small, and he wants to ask what’s behind them, but Jannah is distracted, fiddling with a small box embedded in the wall. From what he can see, it’s full of wires, and he frowns, wondering why she can’t just press a button like she did on the last door. He needs to trust her, though, and so he stays quiet and close until Jannah turns to face him again, that serious look back in her eyes.
“It’s gonna be really loud,” she warns, eyes focusing on him. “And—people are gonna come after us. And maybe try and hurt us. But you can’t get scared, okay? The doors are gonna open in a couple seconds. As soon as they open, you get inside.” He nods, and Jannah swallows, staring at him for one more moment before she reaches into the box again and pulls a wire.
Chaos erupts around them.
An alarm is screeching so loudly that he can’t help but clap his own hands over his ears, eyes blown wide in panic. The doors aren’t opening, and this is loud, people are going to come after them.
People come sooner than he expected. Even with the alarm, he can hear them, the massive stampede of footsteps. The Stormtroopers, he thinks, and he’s so distracted that he doesn’t realize the doors have opened until Jannah harshly tugs at his arm, hissing at him. “Get in!” He turns, wide eyes landing on her to find that she’s already inside the little compartment the door leads to. He wants to move, but he can’t, he can’t even think, the alarm is so loud and he doesn’t want the Stormtroopers to come and find him. Everything feels like it’s happening too fast. It takes blaster fire hitting the wall to finally spur him into action, and he steps forward, ready to dive into the compartment with Jannah.
Another shot from a blaster lands, sparks flying. He closes his eyes and dives, and he hits a cold, hard wall.
The blasters stop. Everything stops. His whole body aches in pain, his head especially, but he scrambles frantically to his feet, little hands slamming the viewport in his rush to look outside, and he sees her. Jannah. Jannah, staring back at him through the viewport of the escape pod, tears falling steadily down her cheeks, screaming what he knows is his name, his real name, though he cannot hear it.
Jannah is gone.
FN-2187 is alone.
He’s like an animal trapped in a cage, all of a sudden, fight-or-flight instincts activated. He stumbles a few feet to the next little door, but that one is closed, too, and the smoldering control pad on the wall tells him just how that’s happened. They shot it. They closed the doors, they sent Jannah off without him.
Jannah is gone.
The Stormtroopers do not fire on him. They draw closer, though, and that’s enough to make FN-2187 panic. He backs up until his back is flush against the wall, until he’s breathing so fast that his brain feels like it will explode. He thinks he might be crying, but he cannot tell, he cannot think.
Jannah is gone.
He hears her before he sees her. He hears the click of those boots on the floor, and he knows when he turns his head that Major Shimta will be waiting for him. He expects her to be angry, but when his eyes fall on her, standing in front of the many Stormtroopers who had responded to the alarm, she is smiling. It makes FN-2187 feel like he’s going to throw up.
“A touching attempt,” she says, and steps forward, her eyes focusing on FN-2187. She’s going to shoot him. He knows this. He’s going to be just like that little boy, that little boy in the cell who couldn’t follow the rules, the one who was left lifeless and cold as a consequence. FN-2187 is going to die, and he doesn’t want to die. He wants to be with Jannah. He should’ve been with Jannah.
Her gaze turns to the viewport after a moment, and she sighs, reaching to her belt for a comm and speaking into it quietly. “Don’t bother sending an attachment. In that pod, she’ll be lucky if she makes it through atmo.” FN-2187 doesn’t know what those words mean, but he knows that they’re not good. He closes his eyes and hopes fiercer than he ever has before, hopes that Jannah is going to be okay, that the bad people aren’t going to touch her again. He hopes Jannah goes back to Ma.
He does not hope the same for himself. Instead, he merely hopes that his death comes quick and painless. He does not want it to hurt.
The blaster shot does not come, though, and when Major Shimta speaks again, he realizes very quickly that it’s not going to. She has other plans.
“Take him to reconditioning.” FN-2187 does not know what that is. He doesn’t think he wants to know, but those big troopers are moving forward and grabbing his arms and it hurts and he looks up at the Major, watching her with pure fear. She is smiling again, though, like she knows something he doesn’t. “I don’t want to see FN-2187 again until that girl is gone from his mind. Do you understand me?”
FN-2187 understands. He understands all too quickly. They’re going to take Jannah away from him, they’re going to make him forget her. He cannot forget her. He cannot forget his own sister.
The troopers mutter a monotone “yes, Major,” and then they are dragging him down the hallway in his sleeping clothes and socks. FN-2187 screams, and cries, and kicks. He will not stop screaming and crying and kicking for days.
Two weeks later, when he returns to the barracks, FN-2187 is not screaming or kicking or crying. He stands tall, even when the bottoms of his feet cry out in pain and the scars he now knows populate his back scorch with red hot heat. He is stronger than the pain is.
He does not think of his sister. He does not think of escape pods, or running away, or Ma.
He sits with the other cadets and watches videos of the Empire, of the Order, of the glory that he is going to fight for. He repeats the statements Major Shimta tells them with increasing determination. His designation is FN-2187. He is a cadet of the First Order. One day, he will be a Stormtrooper, and he will help bring order to the galaxy. He will be a good Stormtrooper—obedient, useful, ready to die for his cause.
When he pretends to sleep at night, when his mind drifts off to thoughts of such abstract things as ‘home’ and ‘family’ and ‘love,’ he does not remember a mother, or her loving embrace, or the way her lips felt on his forehead, or the way she would tuck him in and call him ‘starlight.’ He does not remember a sister braver than he could ever hope to be, a sister who did all she could to save him, a sister who loved him more than anything in the galaxy.
The only home in his mind is the Order. This is his life, this is his purpose, and he drills it into his mind, willing it to just stick—but at nighttime like this, when his mind is left to wander, he cannot help but yearn for something more. What more, exactly, he doesn’t know, but he wants anyways.
He promises himself that one day, he will find it.