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Leia heard the creeping sound before she actually got to see anything for herself, as it often happened when she was in danger. That scratch-like noise of metal brushing against metal, crawling and piercing her ears and giving her the impression that it wouldn’t stop until her brains bled to death and she would lose her mind for good.
“The walls!” Luke had been the first one to notice how the room suddenly seemed to shrink in size, the garbage piles moved, pushed by the sides of the trash compactor and how they seemed to eat out every bit of space left between the cold embrace of the metal walls and their frail, human bodies.
‘They’re gonna crush us to death.’ panic arose in the brunette’s chest, poisoning her mind and infecting each one of her senses. Suddenly the pain of her past tortures, the constant pressure in her left arm, which was probably broken or twisted beyond healing now, and the stinging sensation coating her whole body from all those open wounds felt like childhood scratches compared to this.
“Don’t just stand there! Try and brace it with something!” she barked all of a sudden, shocking even herself as she gazed around in alert for something to keep those walls from turning them into a mass of cartilages and crushed bones – or at least postpone the inevitable ending. She spotted the long, somewhat strong shadow of a metal pillar, which she launched for the following moment. The princess found herself surprised when the other man – what even was his name? Leia didn’t quite get it – grabbed the object at the same time as her, but none of them protested. Did he ever tell her his name? No, he had been too busy arguing with her while she was trying to save their lives. Too bad she hadn’t taken into account the possibility of being reduced to four corpses in a rotten, crappy metal coffin. The scoundrel flashed her a short nod before they simultaneously lifted up the pole by opposite ends and placed it between the dangerously close lurking walls.
Luke continued to scream desperately as he pushed back the wall with the Wookie’s help, cursing the name of two droids that didn’t seem to be very cooperative at that moment. Leia arms had already begun growing numb from all the pain and pressure, body trembling as she continued to hold on to the metal branch, the only barrier that stood between a slightly delayed death sentence and the faint, crumbling hope of making it out alive of their soon to be tomb. Then came the abhorrent sound of the metal pillar bending and twisting at both ends as the walls of their cage only crept closer and closer, crumbling mountains of garbage and stealing every single inch of solid ground. The princess felt a cold, terrible shiver running down her spine, her ears invaded with the mocking, nails-sharp giggle coming from the very cage they were trapped in. The walls, those damn walls were laughing at them; laughing at how done for all four of them were, smiling with all its sharp, chainsaw inexistent teeth at the image of meat and bones being mashed and frittered against each other until there was nothing left but flesh and calcium white powder floating in a pool of blood.
The walls laughed at their imbecility, at the utterly foolish risk they had taken without thinking twice. And they laughed at Leia especially; they derided her, for it had been her betise idea to jump into the garbage chute, hadn’t it been? Yet it had seemed safe, almost logical in her mind at that moment. It had made sense, so who would have thought that those damn troopers would go as far as to turn it on?
Leia, the answer was Leia. She should have gone as far as to take into account every single possibility of this plan going wrong, no matter how little time she had had to think it through, damn those nanoseconds in which she had been barely able to breathe. She should have weighted their options before jumping in the deep end, assuming a thousand risks she hadn’t even acknowledged or accepted beforehand.
But she hadn’t done any of those. She hadn’t even processed what happened merely a few minutes ago: one moment ago she was locked in her cell, waiting to be taken to her execution and face the cruel axe of her mistakes; and then she was free, running for her life while holding the hand of a strange boy who had metamorphosed out of nowhere – and, strangely, in whom Leia sort of trusted in a way she couldn’t really describe. And how sweet had freedom tasted in those little, fracture-like seconds before the princess had dragged all of them to a painful, slow death.
The pole broke and fell helplessly at her feet, twisted and frushed beyond repair. Even the air felt thicker, dirty and heavy as if she were swallowing melted iron. The brunette coughed, losing her balance all of a sudden and almost stumbling into the metal wall that was impatient to catch her in its hard claws and fracture each and every one of her bones. And then her helpless body would get swallowed whole by the mountains of rot and garbage and all that would remain from the other two men and the Wookie when the garbage chute would be done with them.
‘They are going to die.’ the woman thought, holding back two crystal clear jewels blooming in the corners of her eyes. Maybe she deserved this, to be punished for her naivety and carelessness, for still being alive – but not Luke, nor the smuggler and his Wookie. They had tried to do something good, and now they were going to pay for it. 'They are all going to die because they tried to save me – and it’s all my fault.’
Two strong arms seized her by the waist when she had expected the least, rescuing Leia from the cruel grasp of the metal right before impact and nurtured her into their hold. It took the brunette a second to realise that the scoundrel had embraced her, then to process how secluded the space between them had suddenly gotten, barely large enough to shift your position without hitting the other. She felt her heart racing faster than a speeder propelled by lightning speed and her shoulders painfully stiff as she reciprocated the man’s gesture in one last, final act of salvation, swallowing dryly as tears began cascading down her hot cheeks.
“I’m Han.’’ the scoundrel’s words were loud yet almost whisperlite, low and guttural enough that only the two of them could hear. His voice was hopeless, rough, suffocated, and Leia swore that he was barely holding back from crying as well. Perhaps he was trying to make her feel safe by abstaining from such an act of vulnerability, keeping up this one last broken shield despite being no good for use any more.
Leia’s body continued to tremble in Han’s embrace as her arms cradled his armoured back, nails digging into the hard surface as if looking for support.
“My name is Leia.’’ her response had been late only by a second, but Han nodded either way in acknowledgment right before a pitched, loud scratch drowned in Luke’s screams and the Wookie’s growl poisoned both their ears. The brunette buried her face in the man’s neck as the smuggler’s fingers sunk almost painfully into her waist, clinging to the last living thing he would, perhaps, ever get the chance to touch.
Leia waited for the pain to settle in, for the soft push to become killing prease and the stifling, unmistakable sensation of choking on her own blood as the iron taste stained her tongue and the liquid would leak down her chin. She waited for Han’s body to break and for their bones to mend and collapse against each other, for their ribcages to explode and leave their lungs feeble and exposed. She waited for Death to come and take their souls at last, to spare them and let the torture of living end.
But nothing came. No pain, no blood, no crushing sound.
The brunette opened her eyes and watched in surprise as the walls stopped millimetres away from the impact that would have been fatal to all of them, her mouth hanging open in shock. Then came that dreadful sound one last time, yet this time the compactor seemed to push back, expanding back to its initial shape, leaving only the routed garbage and broken pillar still laying somewhere near Leia’s feet as a memory of their almost death. She heard a relieved, absent chuckle coming from Luke as his right hand rested above his heart, still regaining his breath. The boy’s face had frozen in a painfully horrid smile, his blue eyes staring into the nothingness ahead, clutching the little comm device in his fist.
They didn’t die. They had been spared – but Force, for how long?
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.’’ Leia hushed, breaking free from Han’s arms and shifting her attention to the ugly hole at least four meters up, squinting her eyes in spite.
She would not be trapped. Not now, after she barely escaped the cold hands of her executioners. Not now, when she had been given another chance to make up for her mistakes.
She would not let those regrets be her death wish.