-From the perspective of Ahsoka-

  We resumed our walk soon after the quick breakfast. The treasure hunter’s supplies were stretched thin, which was expected as the number of mouths to feed had essentially doubled since we found the rest of the girls.

  I was still having a hard time g with what had happeo think that so many of our order have perished because of a cruel betrayal. I asked Nizzy a couple of names, belonging to the jedi masters who I know personally. Unfortunately, she didn’t know for sure if they were alive or among those who had lost their lives.

  She said that the order was likely still trying to figure out the true extent of the damage they suffered. Because of that, there was no official publicized list of the deceased yet.

  However, she was kind enough to tell me the names belonging to those she ko be among the living.

  It was a small reassurance, if nothing else.

  From that point onwards, we have walked and climbed for several hours without a pause. Either by luck or the subtle guidings of Lily, there was nothing ued happening on the way out. Our only stant pany was the endless series of dull-dark corridors following one another in a hypnotizing fashion.

  I would have pletely lost my sense of time without the help of my carriable holo-unicator attached to my wrist.

  Kalifa, alking by my side, sighed heavily as she realized that after this long dry corridor instead of the awaited bright blue sky, what followed was just another simirly dull passage. I could uand what she felt. I was feeling a simir urge to get out of this cave system. This pce seemed to beore and more oppressive with every sed I spent underground.

  I forced myself to stay calm, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the shadows surrounding have truly moved from time to time, or if it was only the work of my imagination.

  As time tio pass, I was beginning to lean towards the first possibility. This pce, the overp darkness it held, was more than capable of pying triy mind. That thought only seemed to solidify itself, as I observed the as belonging to the rest of the team.

  It was not just me, aside from Nizzal and Lily. It inly obvious that the rest were simirly affected, or even worse. They were throwing suspicious g one another, making nervous sudden movements while staring at a certain p a shadowy corridor. Only to realize that there was nothing there.

  Taking all of that into sideration, it should be no surprise to ahat the tter half of our trip was unnecessarily tiring, filled with an over looming tension.

  Still, after hours upon hours of stant walking, a faint light was finally noticed at the end of a corridor. The sight of natural light gave us an urge to hurry, to finally leave behind this cursed cave and never see it again. Our bodies felt revitalized and s moved with a refreshed spring. The goal was finally in sight.

  If we walked any faster, then we were already moving, then we would have been running out of that damned cave. As, our sense of happiness was short-lived. As I stepped out into the blinding light, I felt the scorg heat of the sun assault me with all its unpleasantness.

  Waves upon waves of dry-hot air filled with sand were sucked in by the drafts of wind around the entrance leading into the underground tomb. The wind from which you would normally expee sort of relief in a summer day was nothing of the sort here. The air was too hot, pushing more of the sand filled boiling air into my face, creating a stant sense of suffocation.

  We covered our faces with our hands or clothes and pushed forward to get away from the strong draft present at the cave’s entrance.

  A few mier, when we were far enough from the small scale red sandstorm surrounding the cave's entrance, we stopped with the iion rouping and deg which way we should proceed onwards.

  In the meantime, I started looking around in barely hidden awe, as the red sea of sand dunes c the still visible remains of a loroyed civilization, surrounded us on all sides until the eye could see.

  As I marveled at the sights, I felt an ued sense of peace flushing over me. It took me a few seds to realize that it was not due to the sights I was enjoying, instead; it inated from Nizzy.

  I looked at her with a solemn curiosity, as the peaceful, almost nostalgic emotiohreatening to overwhelm me.

  I took in her form with careful observation and saw her eyes glinting with an unmistakable sense of familiarity and dread? As she watched the surrounding ruins, her eyes seemed to reflect with a series of stroions. It surprised me. I have never, ever seen the apathetic twi’lek show emotions quite as vivid as this was.

  Not even in the face of death.

  I turned back to the ruins and blinked, already lost in thought. I remembered what she told us about herself, that she was not what she looked like. A being older, much older than we would ever imagio be. Hidden uhe disguise of a child.

  I believed what she told me, as I was her friend. And those things she would have shown and taught me were more than enough to validate such cims. However, believing in her words and uanding them was quite different I realized.

  This was the first time when that differeruly sank in.

  Her hazy pink eyes were seeing a different Korriban, then ours were. One probably filled with life, even if it was in the form of the Sith Empire. An empire that owerful and prosperous enough to create buildings that to this very day hold unbelievable amounts of treasure. Buildings that have stood the test of time, and ughed into its wrinkly face with a stubborn, det smile till the very st sed.

  Naturally, time was not something that could have beeed so easily. In the end it will eventually disappear, molded bato the raw forms of rocks uhe tireless hands of erosion, just like other civilizations did before, and will tio do so iure.

  Eternity, as the human mind could uand, was nothing more than a tentative blink of time to the universe itself.

  -Whatever we do has little meaning in the end? Isn’t that just the truth?

  I felt my lips form a wry smile as if to hide the barren dread grasping my heart uhe guise of everyday casualness.

  I could feel as a pair of pink eyes were suddenly seeking out my own blue ones. I submitted to the temptation aively looked into those deep eyes, somewhat surprised to see a gray whirlpool in pce of that lively pink I inally expected.

  A strange sense of ess and resolution radiated from those cloudy eyes. For a short sed, I felt the world stilling around me, around us. I tried to look away from it, but I couldn't will my body to do so.

  I felt myself pulled deeper into the whirlpool and soon there was a mixture of voices whispering inside my head.

  Nizzal’s one among the many, but I reized it right away. When the voices were loud enough, I listeo what they told me. Each word, sometimes each sylble told by a unique voice, in a different at. Giving to the sentences a song like a mysterious attribute…

  -If whatever you do has no real sequehat would mean you are free to do whatever you want. A sound notion, but misguided he less. Look at this pce, young ohe denizens of this p believed in what you spoke of. Their beliefs are still lingering over the skeletons of their abandoned strus. Poisoning the minds of those who linger in their presence. Every a has a sequence if not in the present, then iure… Just like your present as are the sequences of yours or others’ past deeds. Nobody’s existen this world is truly futile, even if they themselves don’t reize that truth… Their as, their presenewhere sometime will eventually matter.

  There was a pting silence left behind.

  It was suddenly broken by a burst of wind, followed by a sense of floating that surrounded my body, and I could finally look away from her eyes. Only to realize that I was in the middle of an incredibly dense fog… Before I could start panig the fog ged arou stretched out and de seemingly random pces, only to shock me a few seds ter as a familiar se was drawn out by the fog itself.

  -Is this the pce we were looking at just now?

  I asked in awe, my eyes bulging at the sight. People in strange uniforms were walking in front of the aombs, which were even then mostly covered by the tight embrace of sand.

  The voices spoke in my mind agaiuring, telling about an age long since past.

  I was swept away by the flood of information, as the images flickered in and out of the fog, only to be repced by a different story with distinct characters as. Eventually my mind grew tired uhe stant assault, and just like that, the images stopped ing.

  -Now you know. This pce is nothing more than a moo human strife, stubbornness and self-denial. Beyond hatred, anger and injustice, there is only oion that truly describe this pce…

  I waited while unsciously withholding my breath, as the voices fiheir sentences.

  -Sadness.

  I swallowed drily as the word echoed through my mind. I wasn't expeg something like that. Before I could speak up, I felt the mist disperse, and in a blink, I was ba the present, staring into a pair of pink, mirthless eyes coupled with the unusually pale tours of Nizzal's face.

  Her thin lips moved in a whisper, and I read the words from her lips.

  "Now you know."

  I winced as I felt a slight wave of nausea. What… what was that just now? I wobbled a bit, making an effort to stay on my feet as an immense amount of information flooded my mind. My head pulsed with a dull pain, which was to my relief gradually weakening with every breath.

  Still, at the end of the minute, I found myself grasping for air as new yers of perspiration formed on my skin.

  A funion was finding its pto my thoughts as I realized that I was likely knowing more of the Sith than anybody else alive in the Jedi order present.

  My gaze waoward a nearby obelisk, casually looking at the hierographs carved along its side. My eyes running along the first rimiten its path.

  “Iy shall they rule, seated upon the corpses of those beh them.”

  I felt a wave of surprise, which quickly morphed into shock, followed by a wave of disbelief and disgust. I blinked a few times, as I looked at the half buried obelisk once again. Staring at the unfamiliar yet familiar characters carved into its shaft.

  I shouldn’t be able to read this… it was Sith writing, fod’s sake! Could it be… because…

  I g Nizzy anxiously, but she was showing her back towards me right now… Did she… did she tea entire nguage to me in a few seds? And who were those other voices speaking in my head?

  I had so many questions… yet before I could walk up to her to ask a single one of them; I was brought out of my shocked state by a disgruntled and quite desperate shout.

  The voice was belonging to one of the excavation members, more specifically to our leader, Ligo.

  -For fuck’s sake! Stop joking with me, Qaghr… and tell me that it’s not that dire!

  As I focused on the current happenings, I realized that the rest of the group was arguing about something while looking into the distah worried expressions. The retly left behiion of tension was ing back with a redoubled force.

  There was an alien voice speaking in an aone of voice, likely spouting curses at the other maually, his words ged to gactic standard.

  -I am tell’n you it is! The sh’ip is that way!

  Spoke the aqualish man with siderable effort. He was not very good at the nguage...

  Suye, the other inal female member of the excavation team, who retty shy girl, only speaking when spoken to, but clearly ehe excavation part of her work… I would know since I was helping them to look through the rooms in the renovated part of the tomb before running into the others…

  Anyway, she had a terrified expression creeping onto her faow and I heard her shaking voice speak:

  -It ’t be… what will we do now?

  I finally decided toto walk up to them as they were standing on the upper part of the sand dune we were currently standing on. When I reached the top and stood o the others, a plicated expression immediately settled on me as well.

  There, behind a rge rock outcropping about two to three kilometers from here, a rge bck cloud of smoke was emanating into the sky. I felt a sudden knot f in my throat as I was gazing helplessly at the billowing cloud of smoke c half of the horizon.

  With a certain suspicious growing in my thoughts I sighed... It seems our way home was cut short before it could bee an actual option.

  At least that expined where the Sith disappeared so suddenly… especially after promising us a particurly gruesome end.

  I thought sarcastically, trying to keep my plummetiions under trol.

  We were helplessly staring at the dark clouds, uhe scorg heat of the sun, while a tight feeling was f in each of our chests. Soon, without anythier to do, we started to walk towards the unmistakable signs of destru.

  As we desded oher side of the red dune, we also desded into a deep silehat seemed to take us in its cold, ominous grasp.

  In the deepest pit of my belly, a familiar feeling began to form. Ohat I felt quite often, even though I rarely admitted it…

  Fear.