Seeing Red: A Stain in the stones.

[Rich]

The night raged on. The skies had become turbulent.

Red with fires that he couldn't quite see, but the heat of which he could feel burning up his flesh. Burning at his insides, all around the hole in his stomach.

Fingers clutched at the wound, either trying to tear it open so that the pain in his chest was lessened, or trying to hold it closed so that he could keep on living. At this point, Ayden wasn't too sure which one it was himself.

For the longest time, the Force sustained him, enhanced his senses, so that he could watch with all the misery drumming up in his heart- the love of his life walk off complacently with another man.

There had been no stopping. There had been no questions of looking for him. His hands shook with invisible fury, as he pulled the force tighter around him. He neededed it. He couldn't let it go.. When they were out of sight, he dragged himself up. He found himself on the verge of puking. On the verge of simply slipping into the true realm of Shadows.

But something drived him on. A private voice that laughed and mocked him. That spoke of a sinners inability to find love. That whispered of the thousands of horrible deeds he had done... and that it was only through war that he had use. IT was in spite of this voice that Ayden moved now. That Ayden had clipped his sabre to his hip and stumbled along roof-tops trying to find something...

His arms were going numb. And his legs were long past the point of use, and it was only through the Force that he was able to lift them, and carry onwards. He was choking on his own breathe. The pain in his stomach had brought on the coldest of chills. But it was the intense pain in his heart that he felt most of all. Compared to that, the spitting toxin that coursed through his viens, was nothing.

But that was killing him, just as much as the heart-break. His eyes drooped. His hands barely responded to his wishes... and before long he stumbled over the railing of a darkly lit home... noisily broke open the balchony's door, as he tripped and finally settled down onto a bed.

The noise had awoken whomever lived in this house... and with the full scorn of a rancor, a young woman burst through the metal door, eyes filled with fire... hand filled with a blaster pistol that looked like it could take the head off a Praetorian soldier from fifty yards. When her eyes spotted the bloody Rogue, she dropped the pistol and jolted forward...

Though he couldn't quite hear her words, he knew she was screaming for something from the other-room.. "Wheres the hag..." Ayden lips contorted and tried to ask, even as he felt himself pushed onto the empty bed. Felt his finely woven outfit, torn open to reveal the hole within his stomach. He could see her grimace, as she answered.

He coughed violently, turning his head and spitting something black onto the ground. His eyes were misting over with red. He couldn't quite see anymore. The foggy haze of red twisted his mind. It conjoured images from the dead up..

"poison..." He whispered as he felt himself slipping. As he felt himself spiralling towards the shadows of his mind. His arm jerked up, and underneath his fingers, he was distantly aware of soft flesh. "Sttttoooop...the...." The words seemed to take forever to spit out. "paaaaaaain..." If was aware of his hands tighting, and then an instant shock of white fire to his ribs.

His hand fell to the bed, and his head dropped to his side. The force booming within him. The twisted pain in his heart, the only thing he could feel all over. Even as he knew the force was guiding him into a trance.. Even as he was aware that he had to be near death. And then he was gone....

He woke with a start, a hand grasping at his heart, clawing over the scarred marks to try and tear away the area that was causing him the most pain. The pain that he imagined must have felt like being hit by a star-fighter well EV... His breathes were ragged and barely there. His other hand was holding a crystal, so tight that his fist was bleeding over it purple shine. "Oh..oh.."

His head dropped. Dark blue orbs were filled with misting eyes. He couldn't see. The red haze was still there..."Give me some stims..." Was all he managed to croack out...

Sitting next to his bed, her hands resting on his arm... big brown eyes staring softly at him..."Your still feeling pain? We've got you on a high dose of..."

He turned his gaze to her, but he didn't see her. He couldn't quite see anything except that red viel that beat with every painful pump of his heart. "Give me more." His abrupt manner, got him a quick prick in the arm. Moments later, he could still feel the vibrant pain in his heart... "I need more... "

"No. No more Ayden."

"Get the old lady..."

"She's not here... she's off-world."

Another shot of pain echoed through his being, and he clutched tighter at his chest, as the crystal in his hand.."You can't even feel what your doing to your hand!" He felt her fingers unwrapping themselves from the crystal... felt the gem plucked up as she started bandaging his hand.

"I'm still in pain, I need more stims..."

"Just like you need more of those death-sticks? Or Tabac?"

He gritted his teeth, trying to make his visage seem angry.. but he wasn't sure if it was working. And finally sighed heavily.. he couldn't argue with her. He couldn't even see her countenace.
"Ari..." He whispered as he lay back down under the pressure of her hand. The pain that spiked now from his heart, to spread through all the viens in his body, intensifing.

"You did one hell of a number to yourself... lucky you got to me when you did." He didn't feel that lucky at the moment. He felt the cold chill of shadows beckoning him from far away, calling him to drop bodies, and tear up ships. His throat tightened and he felt her oddly close to him.

His eyes drifted upwards, his vision hinting at clearing... before he felt a sharp stab at his temples.. "You'd be glad to know I just finished my degree too... a week sooner, and you'd be here all alone.." She was making small talk now. Even as she began to start changing the bandages over his stomach.

He wasn't much in the mood-for chatting. His eyes closed and his head was flat on the pillow. All he could see was Cecily walking off with Nylan. He felt the moment echoing through the force. He felt his anger boiling from within, just below the constant stabs of sorrow. Ari's hand was on his arm, and he could feel her head on his chest.... listening to his heart. Did she think he was fading out?

He gritted his teeth, and reached outwards grabbing her arm..."Make this pain stop..." He whispered quietly, before he realized how close he had tugged her. Realized the young girl he had watched grow from a teenager to an adult- still haborred that childhood crush. He shook his head, dropping it back onto the pillow. Cecily's betrayal still felt like a new wound... the pain still the only beacon of his existance from the shadow world.

"It won't end well..."

"So? Nothing ever seems to end well for you..."

[Ang]

(This is jumping ahead of what Max and I are working on currently, so remember kids, don't jump to conclusions. ^_~ )

Cecily was sitting at the edge of the bed in the dark hotel room, a bathrobe wrapped tightly around her figure.

She glanced behind her for a moment where Nylan was sleeping...nay, the man was practically out cold. He had every reason to be, naturally, and she wasn't exactly wide awake herself. The soreness of her bruises were starting to overtake her, and it ached to move nearly every joint in her body, but it wasn't that pain that kept her awake.

Something stabbed at her chest...a burning sharp pain that she could only define as betrayal.

But WAS it betrayal even?

She then glanced toward the various chairs and into the bathroom where her damp clothes were slung up along with Nylan's after they did what they could to scrub each other's blood out from them.

That pain again...It was worse that any sort of emotional pain she could ever feel, what was this? This felt as if she had pieces of her heart and stomach just ripped from an oriface in her chest. Broken ribs? No, not this bad...

She clutched her legs into her chest, and and, to stifle herself, pressed her face into her knees and started to cry. Something was wrong, something was terribly wrong...

"Ayden..." a very light whisper escaped from her lips, "Where are you? Can you hear me?"

She wasn't sure if she had quite gotten the hang of reaching out to other's with her mind...Moving objects with her thoughts was easy, but trying to talk to someone through them was another story. Though she had done it before unknowingly and seemingly effortlessly...To Nylan, which included thoughts she never actually wanted him to hear. That was quite sometime before though, before Ayden had made such an impact in her life.

If it wasn't for Nylan she would have never been able to open herself to Ayden, let alone ANYONE else in the Squadron.

If it wasn't for Nylan pushing her, she probably would've been dead sometime before by incineration over Toprawa or Gala.

...If it wasn't for Ayden, she wouldn't have been able to walk again after Kashyyyk.

...If it wasn't for Ayden, she wouldn't have found love again.

Shit, was it love? Cecily knew love once, and she knew that any subsequent attempt would feel insignificant compared to that she felt for her husband. That, was a void that NO ONE could fill. She made that perfectly clear to herself years ago. She would never remarry, and children were no longer an option for her anyway, so what was the point? There wasn't! There was NO longer a point for her to even CARE!

Her fingers dug into the corner of the mattress until she could feel her entire body shaking from the pressure just enacted by her hands. She released her grip suddenly and took in a deep breath.

"Stop it." She said to herself. "You know better, don't..."

Wiping her eyes she looked back up and surveyed the surroundings again, just incase something had happened. Then a light flashed from her datapad on the nightstand, it caught her eye quickly and resulted in her jumping slightly.

"A message?" She asked out loud, and reached for it. Flipping the screen to life, her recent engineering schematics dimmed for a new window to pop up that read:

INCOMING MESSAGE FROM LACOSTE, DEXTER - ACCEPT?
INCOMING MESSAGE FROM LACOSTE, CEDRIC - ACCEPT?

Cecily felt a disappointment coming over her, hoping that one of them would be from Ayden, though he rarely would mail her through her work. Nevertheless, she clicked on the first one from her father, which read:

Hey Sweetie,
Just checking on you. Please call when you get back to Kuat.
Love ya, Dad

Cecily blinked. How did her father know that she wasn't on Kuat? Not to mention that message seemed awfully...soft for him. Usually it was her mother that called her by pet names.

She continued:

Cec,
Gotta talk. Let me know when you're back at shop.
Cedric.
PS: Tell Nylan I said hi.

Cecily felt a twitch when she read her brother's message...THAT is how they knew she wasn't where she was supposed to be. Cedric knew. Cedric ALWAYS knew.

...Which means that he probably knew where Ayden was.

[Rich]

Sleep didn't come easy.

It felt like it took years for the darkness to grasp hold of his forever lingering thoughts, to drown him in unconciousness... away from the pain that was forever taunted his waking moments.

Here in the realm of sleep, he was safe from the pain she caused him. Safe from the betrayal. Safe from the galaxy that would undoubtly swallow him whole if given the chance. Safe and sound within the glimmer of a shadow that he should have remained as.

And then, across the infinite channels of the force, from lightyears away... her voice... images of her.. her thoughts.

Instantly he rose up, screaming. His voice broke through the silence of the room, the sheer pain he felt was enough to have his fingers digging into the stitches at his stomach, trying to tear them open so that he was distracted from the vibroblade that had to be digging in his chest. The sonic-hammer that had to be beatting against his mind and eyes....

All the while, his body felt like it was on fire. Like his very soul had to be in the eternal blazing of a Corellian hell. Then, like the flashing of lighting across the empty sky, too fast and too sudden, he felt nothing.

Truly nothing. The pain that had brought such violent screams from his lips, was gone. All except the nasty wound in his stomach that he had reopened. He was shuddering, he felt his eyes misting up... because try as he might, he couldn't feel it.

Pale as ash, his eyes wide and drawn, he didn't notice Ari working to push him down, to once more close the wound. His throat tightened and he tried to put it to words. To make it real.. but everytime his mouth opened, the words wouldn't come.

He couldn't feel things beyond himself. He couldn't sense what was inches infront of his face. Worst of all, though he knew he was drawing into himself... he couldn't feel the force respond to it.