I woke up slumped against the workstation, cheek stuck to cold metal. My neck ached like hell. The frame for the shoulder-mounted gun sat in front of me, half-assembled, screws scattered across the table. Guess I'd passed out in the middle of working last night.
My stomach growled, deep and hollow. That pulled me the rest of the way out of sleep. I rubbed at my face and blinked at the mess on the table. Tools, scrap, the smell of oil. Yeah, no wonder my head felt heavy.
For a second, I thought about asking Vasha if she'd already made breakfast. My mouth opened before my brain caught up. "Vasha?" I called toward the kitchen.
Silence.
Right. She wasn't here.
The air felt sharp all of a sudden, stinging the inside of my nose. My throat tightened. I sat there staring at the empty doorway, muttering under my breath. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm okay." The words sounded thin, like if I stopped saying them the room would collapse on me.
I scrubbed at my eyes with the heel of my palm until the pressure behind them eased a little. Then my stomach growled again, louder this time, and I forced myself to move.
Food. Just… food first.
I dragged myself to the counter and flicked the heater on. It whined as it warmed up, same as always.
Shockwave sat slumped in the corner, lifeless and dust-gathering. I gave him a look. "Would be nice if you could cook," I muttered. Maybe I should actually load some kitchen subroutines on him. At least then I wouldn't risk poisoning myself.
I filled a pot and set it on the heater, then started digging through the bag of greens. Washing them felt mechanical. Slice, rinse, pile on the plate. This was usually her job. She'd handle the heater, keep the food moving so it didn't burn, and I'd be the assistant. Wash this, peel that. Occasionally sneak a bite and get smacked on the wrist for it.
A year ago she'd let me start using knives. Said if I could solder without frying my own fingers, I could handle chopping a few vegetables. That promotion had felt like a big deal at the time. Standing here now, alone, it just felt empty.
The apartment was too quiet. Normally she'd be humming something under her breath or arguing with the pan like it had a personality. I kept glancing toward the doorway, half-expecting her to walk in with her lekku bouncing, asking why I hadn't set the table yet. Of course she didn't.
It had only been a day, but it felt longer. Was she okay? Did they feed her? She'd worry herself sick over me, I knew that much. Probably imagining me starving, or setting the place on fire. If she could see me right now, fumbling over a pot of water, she wouldn't be wrong.
The pot hissed and I realized it was boiling too hard. I panicked, grabbed it without thinking, and the whole thing tilted. Boiling water spilled across my arm and thigh.
"Ah, kriff—ouch, ouch, ouch!" The heat bit into me immediately.
I flailed back from the heater, nearly dropping the pot completely, and slammed my arm under the sink. Cold water roared over the burn, making me hiss between my teeth. My leg throbbed, fabric sticking where the water had soaked through.
I stood there breathing hard, clutching the edge of the sink with my good hand. The sting dulled under the running water, but the skin was already raw and angry red. My thigh felt worse. The pants trapped the heat, and I wasn't sure I wanted to peel them off yet.
Great. Real smooth. The first solo cooking attempt and I managed to scald myself. Vasha would have laughed first, then scolded me, then shoved me aside to finish the meal herself. Thinking that just twisted something in my chest.
She'd probably tell me to keep my arm under water longer, and then shove some salve at me while calling me an idiot. I'd give anything to hear her nag me right now.
Instead it was just me, dripping water across the floor, staring at Shockwave's blank metal face in the corner. He'd seen the whole thing, not that he could say anything. Installing those cooking routines was starting to sound less like a joke.
The smell of burnt greens hung in the air. My stomach growled again, mocking me. With my arm stinging and my thigh throbbing, finishing dinner wasn't happening.
I sighed, twisted the tap off, and peeled off my soaked pants. They clung uncomfortably to the burn, and I hissed the whole way through. A fresh pair from the drawer felt better, though the fabric still rubbed the raw patch. I shuffled to the fresher, splashed my face, and brushed the sour taste out of my mouth.
The mirror showed a tired kid with red-rimmed eyes and bed hair that refused to stay down. The blotches on my arm were already angry and swollen.
"Great look," I muttered at my reflection.
Back in the room, I pulled on a jacket over my shirt, checked my pockets for credits, and gave Shockwave one last look. He sat in the corner like a silent insentient witness to my humiliation.
"See ya in a minute..." I told him, then grabbed the door handle.
The words echoed flat in the empty room.
-----
I ended up on a rooftop with a pre-packaged meal balanced on my lap. The heater fiasco had killed any chance of real food, so this plastifoil box of reheated noodles would have to do. Not exactly satisfying, but at least it was warm and edible.
It tasted like cardboard with seasoning, but I still wolfed it down sitting cross-legged on the roof. Hunger didn't care.
The view almost made up for it. From up here the city stretched out in all directions, lights flickering in clusters like mismatched stars. Cargo haulers rumbled in the distance, and farther out, the flat plains of Lothal faded into the horizon. It was the kind of view you couldn't get from street level. Up here you could almost pretend you weren't just a rat in a maze.
I licked sauce off my fingers and winced. My right hand had already started to blister. "Fucking great," I muttered, turning it under the light. My palm looked like it had lost a bar fight with a kettle. Good start to the day.
Not exactly the best condition to kick off my "genius Force biologist" career. I'd thought about starting some preliminary work with midichlorians today—mapping out what I'd need, maybe rigging some old equipment for cheap tests. But carrying half a lab across town with one hand that looked like boiled fruit? Yeah, no. Tomorrow, maybe.
Today, meditation.
I set the empty meal box aside, rubbed my sore hand, and tried to clear my head. Hyper-Perception always worked too well outward—walls, pipes, dust motes, the whole sensory buffet. Turning it inward was harder. I'd managed once or twice. But with nothing better to do, I gave it another shot.
At first it was just the usual: wind against my ears, the creak of the roof under my weight, a loth-rat skittering in an alley below. Then I pushed past that. Pressed deeper.
For a few moments, the world sharpened in a way I couldn't describe. Every light in the city seemed to hum on the edge of my skin. The air itself vibrated like it was alive. Maybe this was what Jedi or Sith meditation was supposed to feel like. Maybe not. They probably didn't sit here wondering if they were just hallucinating.
I snorted under my breath. Wouldn't that be hilarious? Years of "meditation," and it turns out I've just been zoning out really hard. Vasha would have-No, stop it. stop it...
I shifted position, trying to find a more comfortable spot on the rough duracrete. My burned hand throbbed, but sitting here thinking about Vasha wasn't going to bring her back. If anything, it was just making me feel worse.
Maybe meditation would help. Quiet the noise in my head for a while.
I closed my eyes and reached for that familiar sensation. Usually I'd push outward, map the building around me, feel for anyone moving in the streets below, to see how much I could push the limits. But tonight felt different. Instead of spreading wide, I turned the perception inward.
The shift happened gradually. First just my heartbeat, steady and strong. Then deeper. The streams of Living Force flowing through me, that constant current I'd grown used to sensing. Below that, the sea of tiny lights—millions of midichlorians scattered through every cell.
I was settling into the rhythm when something caught my attention. A hiccup in the flow. Like a record with a scratch in it.
I focused on the spot, following the disturbance to its source. My right hand. Specifically, the burned area on my palm where the boiling water had hit.
The injury was throwing off the natural pulse of the Force around it. Where everywhere else the energy moved smooth and even, here it stuttered. Jerked. The damaged tissue was like a stone in a stream, making the current eddy and swirl in ways it shouldn't.
Huh. That was new.
I held the perception steady, studying the pattern. The burn wasn't big—maybe the size of a credit chip—but it was definitely messing with the flow. The Living Force still moved through the area, just... wrong. Choppy.
Wait. That reminded me of something.
I shifted focus to my head, to that void where the twin stars sat. The massive white star that was me, and the smaller, fractured blue one that was what remained of Ezra. Same problem, different scale. Ezra's damaged soul was distorting the signal when I tried to use the Force, scrambling my intent before it could reach the galaxy around me.
A physical injury disrupting the Living Force. A spiritual injury disrupting my connection to the Cosmic Force. Both distortions, both breaking the natural flow.
Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe there was something here.
I let my attention drift between the two—the burn on my hand and the fractured star in my mind. The hand would heal in a day or two. Already I could sense the tissue starting to repair itself, cells dividing and rebuilding. As it healed, the distortion would fade. The Force would flow normally again.
The star in my head? That was getting worse. Slowly, steadily fading as time went on.
Actually, now that I thought about it, maybe that explained a few things. Any improvement I'd seen with the Force over the past couple years—it probably wasn't because I was getting better at it. It was just my body growing. More cells, more midichlorians, more raw signal strength. Enough to barely stay ahead of whatever was eating away at Ezra's connection.
But bodies don't grow forever.
I opened my eyes, staring out at the lights below. The city looked the same, but something cold had settled in my stomach.
My growth would plateau soon. Seventeen, eighteen, somewhere in there. The biological tide would stop rising. But that hole in my mind wouldn't stop leaking. The decay would continue, year by year, until maybe I'd be no more Force-sensitive than that loth-rat I'd heard scurrying around earlier.
I flexed my burned hand, feeling the sting of stretched skin. At least this one would heal.'
----
A/N: I just fuck up the update timing every time. It doesn't help that the update time is exactly when I would be having dinner in Mess and I am the type of guy who keep writing till the very last second before updating.
Well, hope you enjoyed the chapter. I wanted to do some action, fast pace stuff but I don't have the bandwidth to really do that as my mind is quite much occupied due to exam stuff. And I think next 2-3 chapters are also going to be quiet, as Ezra does Preparations (for what you may guess) and some scientific research about midichloreans.
Don't forget to vote! Might be able to update on Sunday as Monday and Tuesday are gonna be totally packed for me with double exams each day (haven't studied even a word in all 4 subjects lmao)