Chapter Text
He was hungry.
Very hungry. Not the crippling kind of hunger he had felt sometimes—mostly during the first couple of weeks after he was left alone, thrown out onto the streets like trash.
No, this was the kind of hunger he would call a warning. A warning that he needed to move, that he needed to find food while his legs could still run and his mind was still sharp. In a way, it was a countdown to get food before it became even harder.
When was the last time he ate? Two days ago? Three? It was too hard to know right now.
Looking at the deep darkness behind his eyelids while lying on the rough sewer floor beneath Lothal’s Capital City, Ezra could only be sure of two things: the hard ground against his joints felt like the only anchor to reality and that the moisture seeping into his skin was disgusting.
Still, this was his home now —even if it had tried to drown him just a few days ago.
The rainy season had come early this year. Capital City hadn’t been prepared and water that was usually collected and used for crops in the surrounding farms, had instead, rushed straight into the old, decommissioned sewer, taking everything in its path.
Ezra felt the water, soaking his hair and skin before he heard the rushing sound of it through the tunnel.
It wasn’t too much water—the sewer really was decommissioned—but Ezra was small for his age. Years of eating garbage didn’t have done much for him. It looked like his growth was paying the price.
The small flood had stolen from the little thief some of his belongings as a ironic karma.
Ezra had thought back then that most of it was junk anyway, but deep down, he knew that having junk was better than having nothing.
At least I managed to save my credits and the water bucket. Ezra thought among the thick haze that was his mind.
The same bucket he used to collect water now lies empty somewhere.
He took a deep breath of stale, damp air and let his fingertips brush over the uneven ground. For a moment, everything felt a little more real than before, but his thoughts began to drift again, so easily that he could already be dreaming right there.
Near the commercial district of Lothal—one of his favorite places to steal—there were always these guys who liked to bother Loth-rats and unfortunate homeless people.
As his mind was drifting, he remembered someone calling him "a brat without a single credit to his name” and he could almost hear the raspy voice resonate through the huge tunnels as if the wind could carry the words with it. The echo reverberated, and the contempt spilled every word. It felt too real.
They weren’t wrong back then, but now he does have a few credits to his name, and he wanted to brag about it to the ghostly echo, but he couldn't even breathe well.
Had he saved them from the flood, right? He was pretty sure he had.
Maybe he had ten or twenty credits? No more than twenty. Ezra closes his eyes, trying to concentrate, to make his thoughts coherent again, but they keep slipping through his grasp like water through his fingers.
He’d be fine. He had gone through worse in the last five years since living on the streets, and he was still here, surviving. He’d done it before, and he’d do it again.
The difference between a wet Loth-rat and a dry Loth-rat was just water.
It was so cold. Even with the filthy blanket over his small body, the breeze running through the sewer stole away what little warmth he had left. By now, he couldn’t even tell if the ground was cold or wet—it was too hard to think about it.
A small, stubborn, logical part of his brain knew that if he still had an appetite even while sick, it meant he was hungrier than he realized before. But he decided to ignore that fleeting thought.
Unlike his confusion with the floor, Ezra knew hunger very well, he couldn't be disgaiced by his own mind now. He even had learned to classify it into four types, and he was proud of it.
The first was the kind that never left him—the one that started the morning after his first night on the streets and stayed with him even on his best days. Sometimes, he wondered if it would ever go away, or if it was even still with him. Maybe it was just his natural state now. Maybe he had gotten so used to it that he couldn’t tell if it was there or not.
It just existed there, in the back of his mind all the time. Harmless. As natural as breathing.
The second was the one with him now. He was hungry, but strong. He knew he was burning through his last reserves of energy and that he needed food soon. It wasn’t painful, just annoying. A warning. Nothing more.
The third he had felt it sometimes in his life—more often than he liked to admit. Mostly it took him back to those early days on the streets. He gripped the blanket until his fingers hurt. As he tried to suppress the train of thought that had suddenly resurfaced, the pounding in his head got worse.
His mouth was dry, but the idea of getting up to look for water felt as impossible as just standing up. His thoughts started slipping away again, and he was too weak to redirect them again.
Once again, he landed in that part of his mind he never liked going to—but always returned to on his worst days. He didn't know why, as he didn't know why he still keeps looking at the same abandoned house every time he is near it.
These weren’t memories he liked to dwell on, but it looks like his mind disagreed with him. It always disagrees.
After being thrown onto the streets, Ezra cried. A lot.
"To miss something, first you need to have it." He heard that somewhere, and now, feverish and dazed, he wonders what he misses? Suddenly, his body felt colder, which probably meant night was falling outside the sewer. Ezra hugged his legs tightly, trying to keep in the little warmth he had left.
Drifting between dream and reality, Ezra remembered what should’ve been a happy day.
He remembered how excited he was to turn seven. He remembered that the day before, he had wished on the stars for time to go faster so his birthday would come sooner.
If he had known it would be the last night, he’d be sleeping in a bed, the last day he’d eaten three full meals, and the last time he’d seen his parents… maybe he would’ve wished for the opposite, but it was too late to think in regrets.
The Stormtroopers raided his home in the morning.
Sometimes, he wished he could say he remembered what happened, but it was all a blur of colors and sounds. There were screams and blaster fire, so many Stormtroopers to count, marching, breaking all in his wake—and he thought his parents were screaming. Ezra didn’t know if he was screaming either. Everything was so fast and too confusing.
He had thought over the years that he should probably feel bad for not remembering very well what was supposed to be the worst day of his twelve-year life. But maybe it was a blessing. Better that way.
What he did remember was when the chaos faded. He remembered the Stormtroopers stomping around the house, their heavy steps echoing everywhere. He remembered vividly the smell of the air—that faint but unmistakable scent of fired blasters.
Some nights Ezra could see through his own younger eyes, heard himself asking where his parents were.
“When will they be back?”
There was no answer.
“Come on, kid. You're going to an orphanage,” said one of the stormtroopers—a tall one with a robotic voice and flawless white armor. He didn’t even look at Ezra.
Maybe that was a small premonition of what his life would become. Ezra, though. People didn’t look at Loth-rats, even if they looked like seven-year-old kids.
Ezra remembered screaming, but not what he said. Just the burning of his face as ugly tears streamed down his cheeks and stained his birthday clothes. He was scared and angry, and then something happened—glass rained down.
The ceiling lights shattered.
Tiny crystals fell from above as the lighting in the room changed suddenly. The sun was setting—orange light filled his home. He didn’t know how the Stormtroopers had broken the lights, but it wasn’t surprising. It was the only thing left intact until then. What else could they take?
A dense silence settled for a moment. When the surprise wore off, two stormtroopers stood in front of him, staring. Their helmets reflected that strange orange light—so warm, yet so cold. Ezra couldn’t see their eyes, their expressions.
Are they people? Ezra asked himself, confused. How could people look just like machines? He took a step back, hearing the crunch of broken glass under his feet, but his eyes couldn't allow them to move from the stormtroopers.
The shards of crystal reflected the same sickly light all around the house. Maybe in another time, it would’ve been a beautiful sight—if he weren’t standing in the wreckage of his former life.
One of the stormtroopers stepped forward, but the one on the left held out his arm to stop him. Ezra didn’t know if that trooper looked him in the eyes beneath the helmet, but he’d bet his last credits he did. There was something there—something he couldn’t identify. A feeling. A sensation that made his skin crawl.
A faint bell ringing deep in his mind. His body was on edge.
And then, with his arm still raised, the Stormtrooper pointed his blaster straight at Ezra’s head. Even under the helmet, the gaze felt piercing. There was something else behind it. Ezra couldn’t explain. Not back then, not now.
Ezra’s eyes widened, and the silence grew heavy and thick. That look—that wasn’t really a look—would haunt him for years. He had dreamed of that Stormtrooper more than once.
His fingers trembled with adrenaline. For a second, he wondered if he was really going to die there. Something that had never crossed his mind before:
How would his life end?
Is this all? Ezra though.
“You must leave. You are forbidden to return to this house. It now belongs to the Empire,” the trooper said. His voice was harsh and commanding. Ezra would swear he was gritting his teeth under the helmet.
“If you come back, we’ll burn it down with you inside if we have to.”
On mornings after dreaming of that Stormtrooper, he’d laugh at himself. Why dream of someone who threatened to burn him alive instead of dreaming of his parents?
Ezra mind try to keep up with all that was happening, but he was barely seven. All of this was wrong.
It wasn’t right, because when his parents came back, they’d need somewhere to return to.They couldn’t burn the house down! Where would they live then?
His mind tried to keep up with what was happening, but his rushing thoughts were interrupted suddenly.
"WAIT! That kid is..." The Stormtrooper couldn't finish his sentence because the first one interrupted him.
“LEAVE!” the Stormtrooper with his raised arm shouted. The silence shattered. Time resumed.
A wave of panic surged through Ezra. That tiny bell rang louder than ever in his mind, and he knew—he had to leave. No matter what.
Ezra ran before he knew what was happening, and a blaster fired.
He ran like a coward fleeing his fate.
He ran until his legs ached.
He ran until the orange light turned red and then disappeared into shadows.
He ran until his lungs burned, until his mouth was dry, and until he couldn’t run anymore.
Ezra stared at the dark ceiling of the sewers of Lothal with feverish, glassy eyes and imagined a timeline where he didn’t run.
A timeline of where he stayed.
Where everything ended. Would it all end there?