[Journal Entry.]

Connections to Alderaan with piano? Relatively nice music is nice? Art packed into hallway - Okay, let’s say that’s irrelevant.

Appearance of Bob - Something to do with him? Comparison between me and him?

Mirror - Vanity? Seeing without touching? Bad luck? Breaking stuff?

Man and reflection - Actions don’t match up. Yellow teeth - Connected to self-worth? Yellow eyes - Connected to the Dark Side? Apples - Tasty and juicy? Keep doctors away? I don’t know. Similar appearance - Me? Lyman?

Breaky stuff means breaky stuff? I don’t know. Fragility? I’m not good at this sort of stuff.

Kazic III - Old life? Home? Connection to Lyman? Burning trees fairly common.

Gravestone - Family? Old life again? More connection to Lyman?

People popping up from the snow. Hypothermia isn’t as fun as it’s made out to be? Walking dead? Hiding under the snow - Bad idea or baddest idea?












Well, that was an exercise in learning absolutely nothing.

[OOM] A dream.

The mirror again.

Chirpy music playing from somewhere nearby, the sound of applause, and footsteps following him. Atton didn’t need to strain his ears to hear the sound of a cloak trailing across the sound, or the soft breathing of the man. Every sound was amplified.

He looked up, reaching one hand up to adjust his glasses. Bob’s face, peering back at him from the mirror, was younger than he knew it. Long strands of blond hair flopped over his glasses. There was a smattering of acne across the bridge of his nose.

The man came into view, just behind Atton. He stood only six or seven inches taller, but he seemed to tower inordinately high, yellow teeth bared in a wide, toothy grin. There was the crunch of an apple being bitten - Atton couldn’t see it. The reflection wasn’t eating at all. But he could hear it and smell it and that was enough.

The man’s reflection raised one hand, brushing it along the mirror. The glass cracked along, splintering and shattering outwards. Around Atton, the corridor creaked and twisted in a gale, cracking like glass and shattering, shards spiralling away in the wind.

Atton was Atton, now. Even with the mirror gone, he could feel that he was taller, and a glance down at his hands confirmed that they were his own.

The man’s reflection straightened slightly, head tilting slightly as he grinned, slowly at Atton, brushing one hand over the gravestone between them.

(Shira-Gon Tae, Kanna-Yu Tae, Fedotik-Rode Tae, Randall-Jaq Tae.)

The man took a bite out of an apple, crunching on it loudly. From around, in the snow, men and women started to rise, poking through the snow like flowers, eyes abnormally bright, clothes ragged. The trees burnt without a storm to ignite them, firelight dancing across the men’s faces.

The dream changed. Not noticeably, but a low whisper and a twitch in the Force marked a turning point, as the men continued to rise. The dream had stopped before, faded away to flashbacks of Malachor.

Something rumbled beneath them all, shaking the mountain. A spiny mandible burst through the rock, flexing and pulsating. Somebody screamed, lightning coursing outwards, melting the snow into thick vapours that hid the planet from sight.

As they cleared, Atton found he was standing on a metal floor, with the rumbling of a monster replaced by the dull roar of a ship’s engines. He was shirtless, bruised, bloody, breathing heavily as he peered at prone bodies. Their features were hidden by the steam.

The man he’d seen before - All yellow teeth, yellow eyes and features that were so familiar - raised an apple to his lips, taking a long bite out of it and tossing it aside.

“End of the line, Jaq.”

A lightsaber snapped on.