Phantoms of Korriban - A Star Wars Short Story
Just a short thing I made, trying to push myself to write more.
He felt Korriban. Not just the common whispers of the force, echos of long-dead civilizations and ripples of past battles, the residual hatred that had stained the earth itself. But sometimes, alone in the dark empty tomb he called home, he truly felt Korriban. He felt the great fire that was the dark side return to not only the barren planet but to himself as well. He felt the hundreds of different armies that once held claim to the world all at different points in history all at once. He felt the red demon-like creatures that once inhabited Korriban - the beings from which the Sith took their name - as strongly as if they were sitting right next to him, despite having been extinct for several millennia.
And he felt his arm. Eyes closed, in deep concentration, he could feel his arm once again. He could move his fingers, crack his knuckles, stretch it out and enclose it into a fist. But every time he reached his other hand out to touch it he would feel nothing. In that instant, it would all melt away. The amazing, burning power would dissipate into a whisper, residue of all the death Korriban had culminated over the many, many years. He would open his eyes and they would instantly tune to the pitch black darkness. The Lion's amber cat eyes would almost seem to glow, even despite it not being biologically possible for them to do so. He would glance over to his side and see his left arm gripping the air, and then he would remember.
"Cleaved off," He would mumble to himself, his words broken, jagged like shattered glass. "Cleaved off." He would repeat, endlessly, constantly, like a priest reciting a hymn or senator reciting a lie. At the edge of his vision, for only a brief second, he would see his master. A bluish specter, the form of a woman long ago dead. Her eyes staring down at him, a fierce disappointment that seethed almost as powerfully as the Dark Side had done so only seconds ago. He could never look long at her, he would turn away as quickly as possible, shutting his eyes closed once again in hopes of bringing the lost feelings back.
They wouldn't come back through, not when he wanted them to. Some memories came back, the wrong ones. They not so much crawled as ran. Memories of when he was called 'Commander' and lead troops into battle against seas of metal constructs; the memory of his finest hour would always play next to his worst as if they fought for dominance of his mind... or they were intrinsically tied together, Hark preferred to not think about it.
"Cleaved off." He would say again, despite fighting against the urge. He wanted to stop saying it, to stop reminding himself, but the Cathar found he couldn't. More than once he had considered using his old lightsaber to burn out his vocal cords, but there was no way to do that without killing himself. Did he want to die? He wasn't sure, despite how much he told himself he wanted to, despite how many times he held his saber's bright green light to his throat... he simply couldn't do it, he was too scared. Hark hated that, he hated that he was scared, he would have used that anger to fuel his powers, but a cold apathy would always win him over before he could. Ultimately, he would lay back down, praying for a dreamless sleep but never getting one.