Chapter Text
This is the death of Anakin Skywalker.
A ship was being ripped apart, his son’s heart was in shreds, a rebellion screamed in triumph, as an empire screeched in defeat. Nothing about this moment was silent. Not the tears on his son’s face, not the sirens blaring through the docking bay, nor the force which withered at the shear scale of life lost. His ending was predetermined yet his path had been of his own choosing. He had chosen to rip a galaxy to shreds. He had chosen to be a lap dog to a tyrant of a being. He had chosen to be the horror story parents whispered to their kids at night. However, he felt as if there had never been much of a choice. To lose those he loved was a fate that he could not reckon with and yet it was his refusal to accept the loss that caused it.
His soul had never known peace, nor had it known true happiness. Not as a slave, not as a Jedi, not as a Sith Lord, not even as a father. His life was one of failure and success. He was successful at all the wrong things. His blade had cut down more beings than any other, his actions had brought star systems to their knees, and his hands had maimed and tortured his own children.
He was not a good man, not even a decent one. He had never known silence. His mind had never quiet not even during meditation. Always his soul screamed, and his withered heart ached and yet there is a moment of silence right before a person dies. A hush of breath and a stillness of a heartbeat before it shudders to a stop. It did not matter the treachery he had committed in his life or the pain he had wrought across billions of souls. It did not matter that most of his years had been spent in oppressive darkness. At the end, held in the arms of his son, he knew silence. His soul, which had screamed in agony from his time as a child into his mangled adulthood, knew rest. How underserving was he to finally hear silence and yet how humbled was he to know it. To finally hear nothing as his eyes fluttered closed.
This is the death of Anakin Skywalker.