In the central Resistance ship, Finn and Rey are walking through a hallway, and Finn sees a pair of guys, who look just like him and Poe, pass by. The lookalike duo is wearing a set of prison guard uniforms. He does a double take. “Hey, did you just see that?” Rey answers, “No?” Finn says, “Those guys looked just like me and Poe!” Rey doesn’t know what to say. “Huh...”

They continue walking, and an old man approaches them. “Excuse me, do you know where the cafeteria is?” Rey kindly says, “To the left, just up ahead.”

“Thank you, young lady.” The man strolls off. Rey asks Finn, “Who was that?” Finn replies, “Old man Dunwick. Used to be a skilled console operator, now he just spends his day looking for the same cafeteria. The Resistance just keeps him around cause he’s got nowhere else to go. As long as he just plays card games on his computer all day, he’s not a bother.”

“It’s awfully nice of the Resistance to give him a place to stay. But I wonder if it’s a good idea to keep him in a military base,” Rey says.

“Well, if he went anywhere else, he’d be toast. I heard he pissed off the family of one of the First Order officers so much that he’s one of its most wanted guys.”

“That’s... a bit hard to believe.”

In another corridor, a crew of soldiers is walking in formation. One of the officers is carrying a drink.

“Slow day, huh?” he remarks to his coworker.

“I’d say. Nothing out of the-” But suddenly, his coworker’s eyes widen. The officer, noticing this, looks at his drink, and to his surprise, it begins floating. The next moment, all the officers are floating. As soon as it happens, Rey and Finn walk past the corridor, and gasps at the spectacle. For some odd reason, Rey and Finn are not floating.

They try to get the troops to calm down, but they’re all too shaken and scared.

“Are you doing this? Let us down!”

“I’m not!” Rey responds in a panic.

Just then, she notices a small dark circle forming, and spiralling ever bigger and bigger. She motions to the officers, “Do you see it?” Confused, the officers shake their heads. But Finn sees it too.

Finn snaps back at Rey, “Rey... whatever that is... don’t do anything with it.”

The rupture in space and time has grown into a portal as big as a small blaster. But now a voice, one that Rey seems to recognize, is calling out to her. Unable to resist, Rey tries touching it, and is shocked with a sudden force vision, accompanied by an agonizing, torturous scream. Fearful, she pulls her hand out.

“Rey!” Finn grabs her, and shouts, “What were you thinking?”

However, Rey realizes this vision could have the answers to these anomalies. When she tries to touch it again, it’s already gone before she can reach it.

Then, in an unexpected instant, the troops are dropped down to the ground. One of officers roars into his transmitter, “We have an abnormality to report! Another gravitational anomoly, General!”

THE base convenes in an impromptu meeting. Rey meets with some of scientists.

One scientist asks her, “So... are you sure you didn’t have anything to do with this?”

Rey tells her, “Yes, I’m very certain.”

The scientist is not convinced. “We just read reports about how you were losing connection to the Force. This isn’t the first anomaly we’ve recorded. In fact, there have been several, all throughout the galaxy. Could it be that you, and other Force sensitives, are losing control of it, and are causing these accidents?”

Another scientist chimes in, “Yes, that does seem to be the most likely cause.”

Rey stomps down, “That was one time. I have perfect control of it now. You just have to believe me.” She exits out of the room, annoyed that, for a second time, the Resistance officials are accusing her of something she did not do. However, she is not as irritated, as this time, they did not assert their accusations, but were merely hypothesizing.

She heads back into her chambers, and mutters to herself, “Time to give this another shot. Maybe this will have answers.” She takes out a text of ancient Jedi teachings, which she obtained back when she tried to train with Luke, and throws them on the bed. BB-8 whirls up next to her, and she chats with him, “Time to put those reading and writing skills Unkar taught me to the test.” BB-8 whirls in confusion. Rey answers, “Okay, so he didn’t really teach me. He was always in debt and was threatening to sell me off, so I scrambled to find a way to make more money. I secretly took on additional work as a digital typist... they had a bunch of training videos. I managed to make enough, so I was useful enough to keep around. I stopped when Unkar wasn’t in debt anymore because he sold enough of the other children.”

She opens the books and tries reading a page she had bookmarked. The text reads:

[Rey reads five zen-like poems, but they each seem incomplete]

“Huh. That’s just pure nonsense. Let’s just the next one,” Rey tells herself, and flips around to random pages, trying to decipher each page, but to no avail.

“What... does this even mean...?” Frustated, Rey chucks the texts aside into a forgotten corner. “Just as I thought, I get nowhere with them again. Who wants to read these dusty old books anyways,” she remarks.

She feels tired now, and tries to fall asleep. As she drifts into her slumber, she can’t help but long for that familiarity. It was the first time, in a long time, that she had heard those words. “The Hooded Beast,” Rey whispers into the darkness.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

A voice answers her: “The Smiling Shadow.”

Rey opens her eyes. The world around her is gone- she’s in total darkness. She shouts out, “How are we still connected? That was Snoke’s doing, wasn’t it? But he’s gone!”

She hears the voice again: “Perhaps there was something else connecting us. You know it, too.” Kylo emerges from the darkness, and is standing several feet away.

“I was wrong about you. You monster.”

“So we’re back to where we started.”

“Maybe it was always meant to be this way,” Rey snaps back.

Kylo begins to get irritated, “Enough of your games. Tell me how you know.”

Rey glares at him, “You first. Tell me how you know him. Anakin.”

Kylo scoffs, “My grandfather?”

Now Rey is the one who is annoyed, “No, the child. Anakin.”

Kylo pauses. He replies, “That wasn’t who I knew. You misunderstand.”

“All I know is that you did something to him.”

“I didn’t do anything! I...” Kylo stops. Rey walks up to him, “You what?”

Kylo shakes his head. “It can’t be. Can you tell me something?”

“Tell YOU something? You haven’t even answered me!”

Kylo continues, “The Red-Violet Sands. Its neverending rays of light.”

Rey freezes. There is something in Kylo’s words that she just doesn’t want to believe. She finally speaks, “The Laughing Carnival.”

“I know it, too.”

Rey steps back. “Why are you doing this to me? What kind of trick is this?” She masks her face with her hand. “Why would I trust you?” She pauses. “You still don’t know just how much you’ve hurt me.”

In a hushed tone, Kylo angrily asserts, “And what about me?”

“You did that to yourself. No one- no one in their right mind- would ever leave their loved ones to be with you and your insane, sick desires!”

“Fine. Lie to yourself. You will never know the truth.” Kylo disappears, and Rey stands still in place. She opens her eyes.

She’s back on her bed in the physical world, and most of the Resistance is asleep. She can barely keep her eyes open, but in the corner of her eyes, she notices something terrifying. The dark tear has appeared agin. She closes her eyes and hopes it goes away, wishing it was just a hallucination, but when she opens her eyes again, it’s still there. It calls out to her. The voices are familiar- she suddenly remembers that they mimic those from the hole in the island. Unable to resist the curiosity, she gets up from her bed, and touches it, trying her hardest resist the screams. She pushes her whole body into it, and is enveloped in a world of various ruins. All around her are gigantic glass stones, and wheat-like grass taller than any tree she’s ever seen. But the sky is shrouded in darkness. As she steps through, she feels like the screams continue to call out to her. She senses something- numbers, as if they were coordinates to this mysterious place. Just then, ahead of her, is a dark figure. As it around, Rey gasps- it’s General Citho. He appears 20 years younger.

But there is a more powerful presence just beneath him. Rey steps back, and is reminded back to when she was trapped in that alleyway as a child in Jakku, completely helpless. Unable to take it anymore, Rey screams, “I believe in you! Please come back!” She prays for the Force, but only a shrill shriek is heard. After collapsing, she pulls herself together and reaches her hand out to push the darkness away, and finds herself back on the ship.

Rey rushes to Finn’s room. After hearing Rey knocking fervently, Finn finally opens the door, groggy eyed.

“Finn, do you remember those dark rips in space we saw?”

Finn replies, “Um, yeah. Rey- you didn’t actually touch one again, did you?”

Rey responds, “I went inside. I heard the Force- it’s calling out to me!”

“What? Oh no, what the hell.”

“Finn, the Force is in trouble. Before I tell you, please promise me that you will not tell the commanders about this.”

Finn raises his brow, but nods.

“Remember I said someone was taking power away from me? I think someone is disturbing the Force. And the Force is telling me where to look. I saw an island-”

“Another one?”

“It was covered in giant glass stones, and had wheat taller than trees. But it was dark. I stepped on its ground, and suddenly I knew where it was. I saw... Citho there. It was like the island had a memory of him stepping there. And I felt that it was afraid of him. Citho was up to something. And the strangest thing about this place is... I know how to get there.”

“Don’t you remember what happened the last time you followed these visions? You were led to Kylo, and right into Snoke’s trap.

“It’s different this time!”

“Why? Because the Force spoke to you? Rey, you can’t just rush into danger like this. It’s too risky. You just can’t go-”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll get hurt!”

“I don’t need you holding my hand!”

“Oh, okay. You don’t need me. That’s right. Because you’re the savior, huh. You’re invincible. You can do anything.”

“You just don’t understand because you don’t see the Force the way I do.”

“And I don’t, but I have something else: common sense! Whatever crazy stuff you keep on witnessing, you can’t always say it’s the Force. It’s not always going to be a guardian spirit. You have to just... doubt yourself.”

Rey realizes what Finn means, and suddenly becomes disheartened. “So it was all a lie? When you said you understood what I meant- when I poured my heart out to you about how I felt the Force as a child- you didn’t believe a single word?”

“I never said-”

“I know what you mean. You’re no different than those old Resistance leaders.” Rey storms off. Finn calls out to her, “Rey, wait up! Hey! Stay right here! I’m not done talking to you!” Finn chases her, but Rey uses the Force to close the hallway doors behind so he can’t follow her. He whispers to himself, “No one ever listens to me...”

Rey marches towards her room. She gathers some survival supplies and a container holding the jade kyber crystal. She takes a look at the books, and after hesitating, she sarcastically remarks to herself, “You’re the only thing that could possibly understand me now,” then grabs the books too. As she heads towards an escape ship, BB-8 starts following her. Without looking at him, she curtly says, “Don’t follow me.” BB-8 whirls. Rey laughs, “You see ME as your owner now?” After some back and forth, BB-8 brings up an old memory using a hologram. Rey sighs and says, “So you’re resorting to dirty tricks? Fine. I guess you can come along if you have nothing better to do.”

She continues, “I was planning to do this the hard way, but with you tagging along, we can do it much more quietly.” Rey tells BB-8 to shut off security. Rey goes into the Millenium Falcon, but has trouble starting it up. BB-8 whirls.

“What do you mean it’s under repair? I’m not that familiar with the other ships here. Is there another one that’s similar?”

She searches around and sees a transport ship that eerily resembles the Millennium Falcon, but is sleeker and new. “Oh, the prototype that Chewbacca was working on. I’m sorry, Chewbacca...” She gets in and starts fidgeting with it to try to break in. “What did he call it again... the Myrioi Osprey?” Finally, she gets it to work. She tells BB-8 to disable its tracking systems, and takes off. When security is back up and notices she’s gone, they alert everyone. Chewbacca runs to the hangar and sees that the ship he was working on is gone, and roars in a bellowing rage.

Citho wakes up, greatly disgruntled, and asks a crowd of rebels, “Where did she go? Why? I want answers NOW.”

One rebel speaks up, “I saw her arguing with the First Order defector.”

Citho marches towards Finn’s room. He finds Finn outside, then yells at him, “What in the name of the Force has gotten into you? This is strike two. What were you two up to? Where has she gone?”

Finn retaliates, “That’s none of your business.”

“It is A MILITARY ISSUE. I am not Gnovian so this is not the time for philosophical meandering. DON’T QUESTION IT.”

Finn looks to the side, sighs, then replies, “She had a vision. And now she’s gone to where she thinks it’s telling her to go.”

Citho throws his hands up in frustration. “And you don’t know where?”

Finn hesitates, about to describe the place, but remembers what Rey said about Citho. He responds: “No.”