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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there exists the legend of a man who had everything – beauty, power, money, and above all, love – until he committed an unthinkable atrocious crime due to a broken, corrupted mind. Legend tells us that, to this day, the man's spirit roams the streets searching for what he lost, forever doomed to never find them as punishment for his crime.
Many have forgotten his name, as so long has passed since his story happened, yet everyone who hears his story shivers at the thought of him, eternally fearful of summoning his spirit or finding him in the night.
Because, legend has it that, if you ever hear his cries and follow them into the night, this man will take your children from you if you aren’t careful enough. And he will kill them, the same way he killed his children in a fit of jealousy and rage.
His name was Anakin Skywalker, and he was one of the most beautiful beings that had ever existed in the galaxy – a being so beautiful that many mistook him for an angel due to his preternatural ethereal beauty. Anakin wished for everything but had very little, with only a mother who loved him completely and whose loss would mark him forever, unable to move on from it.
Her loss would lead him to commit unforgivable acts.
It was not long after her death that Anakin met foreigner Obi-Wan Kenobi, an older man from faraway lands who was captivated by Anakin’s beauty and charm from the moment that he saw him. Anakin fell for Obi-Wan as passionately as Obi-Wan fell for him, and it wasn’t long before the pair were wed and welcomed their twins Luke and Leia Kenobi Skywalker.
During the first years of Luke and Leia’s lives, the Kenobi Skywalker family shared moments full of love, fun, and happiness. Obi-Wan, overcome with joy at having a family to call his own, ignored the dark shadows that crossed Anakin’s face whenever Obi-Wan held the twins in his arms, as if he was jealous of the twins’ presence in his husband’s life.
To Obi-Wan, those shadows were of his own invention, passing moments that meant nothing more than an adjustment to the twins’ new presence in their lives.
But then, the day came for Obi-Wan to part, as his job as a merchant demanded him to travel far away for long periods of time to strange new lands.
The first few days, Anakin prevailed with his head held high, knowing his beloved husband was set to return soon to his arms. But as days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and Obi-Wan remained away, Anakin had a harder time pretending everything was okay.
Spending time with his children, who looked so much like their father it was at times painful to look at them, filled his mind with doubts and fears. In the darkness of the night, his mind whispered to him that Obi-Wan was being unfaithful during his travels, breaking the oath he had made to Anakin on their wedding day.
To Anakin, Obi-Wan’s prolonged absence could only be due to an affair, as he could not conceive the idea of being away from his beloved without feeling as if his very soul was being ripped in half. But it was looking at Luke and Leia, the beings Obi-Wan loved the most, that filled his soul with rage and envy, as he knew that, if Obi-Wan ever left him, he would be taking the twins with him.
Without Obi-Wan, Anakin had nothing.
Obi-Wan returned after a year away, but not even his presence pacified Anakin’s fears, as the first thing he did was engulf his children in a loving embrace. Anakin’s jealousy and possessiveness of Obi-Wan demanded him to have his husband love only him, with the rest of the world coming second to him.
Obi-Wan remained oblivious to his husband's change in demeanour, too busy spending time with his children to notice Anakin’s descent into madness. Something that he would come to regret for the rest of his life.
Anakin’s fears drove him to break Obi-Wan’s privacy, desperately looking for the proof he was sure to find of his husband’s affair. He searched and searched in every single one of Obi-Wan’s possessions until he found a piece of paper at the bottom of his suitcase. In it, he saw the name of Obi-Wan’s mistress, Satine Kryze, written in beautiful calligraphy that he had never seen before that day.
Anakin seethed in jealousy at the sight of her name, crumbling the note in his hand before tossing it away in the trash. Swallowing down the rage that burned his soul, Anakin plastered a smile on his face as he made dinner that night, knowing that in order to hurt Obi-Wan like Obi-Wan had hurt him, he’d have to act swiftly and stealthily, else his husband would stop him.
He waited until Obi-Wan was asleep, the goodnight kiss they had shared tasting like poison to his lips. Sneaking out as stealthy as he could, he went to wake the twins from their slumber, uncaring about the late hour of the night.
Without caring for pretences or excuses, Anakin grabbed their little hands and walked them away from their home, never stopping to look back. Obi-Wan’s pain was the only thing in his mind, and he couldn’t stop, or he would never be able to do what he had set his mind on doing.
Luke and Leia, who at first had followed their dad without complaint, started feeling cold and scared. Protesting loudly, they tried to make their dad stop and take them back home, where their father was waiting for them, asleep as they should’ve been.
But Anakin was unable to hear them, driven to madness by jealousy and rage. Ignoring his children's protests and cries of fear – as well as their fighting against his grip – Anakin dragged them towards the lake at the outskirts of the town, where no one would be able to save them.
His children protested as loudly as they could, the fear and cold in their hearts making the tears on his cheeks scorch their skin. Anakin turned to look at them with a strange look in his eyes, and kneeling in front of them, he whispered the words that eased their fears.
“Don’t you trust me?”
Even through their fear, the curiosity they had as to why their dad was waking them in the middle of the night to take them to the lake – a place the Skywalkers were forbidden to visit unless their Father was present since none of them knew how to swim – was greater than anything else they were feeling. They trusted their dad, because why wouldn’t they? For all they knew, he had loved and cared for them for their entire lives.
They took his hand with a smile on their faces, following him to the river bank, where Anakin put their little heads underneath the lake’s surface. He held on tight until they were no longer moving.
When Anakin realised what he had done, he stared in horror at the body of his children lying dead on the lake, their little heads underwater. Anakin screamed in agony for his children, his broken mind unable to comprehend it had been he who had committed the crime. He cradled their cold unmoving bodies into his arms, begging them through his tears to open their eyes and smile at him like they always did.
But Luke and Leia could no longer hear him, and Anakin couldn’t understand why.
It was with his children's bodies in his arms that he decided to take his own life, walking towards the middle of the lake to sink into its depths and never come out, calling Luke and Leia’s name as he went underneath, forever doomed to never find them.
No one knows what happened to Obi-Wan after he woke up, what went through his mind at the sight of his husband and their children lying dead on the lake, all of them taken from him before it was time. Some say he seeked refuge in a desert, to atone for sins that weren’t his, punishing himself in the most horrible and cruel ways for having failed the ones he loved the most.
However, there are some who say that he seeked a similar fate as the rest of his family that same morning, wanting to join them as the idea of living without them was too much to handle for his broken soul.
But while Obi-Wan’s fate remains unknown, as no one ever saw him again, it is Anakin who continues to roam the streets, forever calling Luke and Leia’s name in agony and despair, unable to comprehend why he can’t find them and be reunited once more.
There are people who claim to have seen his ghost in the coldest nights of the year, roaming the streets looking for his children.
But whether you believe in him or not, everyone knows he must never find your children, for he will stare at them as if he had finally found his children. He will take their little hands between his and take them to the lake, to drown them like he drowned his children all those years ago.