jaigvision.

          _{Every step becomes more ARDUOUS than the last. The clones frame indurate as they follow the attenuating, twisting staircase. With blaster in hand expecting the worst, his feet stay constant, keeping a steady pace of his own behind the Commander. His visor would deviate ever so often to glance back behind from where they once came. The space between them and the only known entrance for now growing further and further apart. The LUMINATION of the lightning bugs followed in their tracks, drawing further back as the radiance grew dimmer with each step. It was almost as if they were trying to warn them of the dangers of the temple. An attempt to stop them finding out the unfortunate truth.}

          _{Rex’s dual lights guide their way through the darkness. Plantation trampled underfoot, as very fine sounds RADIATE from under foot. The echo of his boots reverberating up the staircase. His attention would continue to turn to look back, the light of the insects now out of sight. The only light source available was that of his helmet and that of the Jedi’s IGNITED sabre. The brickwork of the temple now seemed to be more ERODED than the previous rooms, though, the cause of the additional erosion remained unknown. Whether it still had a story to tell. Maybe, just maybe there was more that went down on the fateful day the temple was abandoned.}

          <sub>One mark in particular caught his eye. A long gash down the stonewalling. To others, such a marking may seem ordinary, an obvious sign of the amount of abrasion the temple had SUFFERED in its long, undisturbed slumber. To Rex, however, it almost looked as if there was some sort of fight that had been put up on the stairs.

          Before Rex could mention his sighting to the Jedi, he found himself being stopped in his tracks, walking into the extended limb. The end of the flight of stairs in sight, however, that wasn’t what worried the Clone Captain.‘ Sir? General Kenobi’s back with the battalion. ’ Uneased by what had POSSESSED the Commander. Never had Rex seen him in such an unsettled state. Anakin, for as long as he could remember had always been so confident, so fearless to the unknown but to see him like this, it was a disturbing sight to behold.

          Rex heard an easily recognisable voice of a brother he hadn’t heard for so long.‘ Fives. ’ That laugh — it sent a BITTER CHILL down the clones spine. Ever since his death, Rex had tried to say he had moved on from it, though, deep down he knew his mind was still absent to the truth. He was gone but Rex still clung to his brother each and every day, living each moment in the name of his fallen brother. On the day of Fives’ passing, it was like a stars spark in the night sky had extinguished. A bright spark so LOYAL  in the name of the Republic had shone its last ray of hope upon the world, finally being reunited with one of his closest brothers.</sub>

          _{Looking back to Anakin, the clone taking a moment to think his options through. Questioning his own SANITY, as well as that of his General. However, the decision was seemingly made for him. The laughing that had been haunting him had now SOFTENED, being replaced by a very distinguishable voice that echoed his name throughout the halls. Not from Anakin, no, it was Fives again.}

          _{He followed his friend’s voice, hoping to find the source of the unnatural voice. Conflicted feelings storming through his TROUBLED MIND as the voice dragged him away from the safety of his Jedi, or at least, what was left of that Jedi. He found himself coming to a dead end in a large room that could only be referred to as the temple’s conference room.}

               ANAKIN CAN MAKE out four intricately-engraved stone walls just beyond the luminous perimeter of his saber. Its blue core burns bright phantoms across his retina in the juxtaposing shadows. A heated updraft scatters the room’s nocturnal chills, raking hot && cold along his spine. All else is left subsumed in darkness. Lingering on the outskirts of his awareness, fuzzily-articulated in the force. 

               Anger uncoils within him, splintered fury turning over into tangible ripples that cause the foundation of the hallway to groan && shift. Anakin would tear down these walls with his bare hands had he been sure it wouldn’t cause the entire temple to crumble. Even that thought, removed from the likely possibility of injuring Rex && himself, is an appealing one. 

               Destruction is the purest form of release. && Anakin’s capacity for it is his greatest strength, as well as his deepest flaw. 

              He turns to go back from which he came only to find another wall obstructing his path, its edges seamlessly blended into the corners where it meets the other ends of the room. Anakin snarls, a bellowing bestial sound that claws itself out into cacophonous echoes. He slams his mechanical fist against the wall, watching it crack into lightning spirals that barely exceed the circumference of his hand. It’s solid then. Not a Force-bred hallucination, or so it seems. 

               He scrabbles desperately for any slights in the wall’s composition that might reveal what triggered its appearance, but all that hopeless rage loses its focus in the dark. It slides along the corroded walls && recoils, folding around him in the shape of vicious regrets. ❝ Kark! ❞ Koochoo, you knew it was an illusion. It had to have been. But even now Obi-Wan’s voice resonates within him; a scintillating hum similar to the feel of his former master’s presence in the Force, but not identical. Had Anakin been more willing to investigate these details before running off into the dark, perhaps he wouldn’t be in this situation right now. Obi-Wan would have never made this mistake. 

               A thought comes to him then, unbidden; a whispering thread of clarity he wraps himself around. What if his preoccupation—his longing for his former master’s presence—is what summoned his voice? Is it possible for desire to manifest itself in such a way? && if so, is the holocron he’d seen in his vision the cause? There’s no taste of the dark side in this, nor the light. It conveys ambiguity, existing between the black && white boundaries Anakin had been raised around. 

               Anakin grips his head, a series of images axing through his brain in a disjointed presentation of possibilities. Endings && beginnings unconsidered in this lifetime, those that exist in universes parallel to their own. 

               The sheer mass of the suggestion leaves him breathless. The Force tightens around him, enclosing him in a protective barrier that only serves to aggravate his claustrophobia. The knight drops to his knees, gasping, salt stinging the rosy corners of his eyes. In falling, he strains with fingers, arms, && tortured shoulders, curling into himself on his side. He knows what this is. The all-consuming panic, the ice climbing through his veins && tunneling his vision. All symptoms of a regularly-visiting hysteria he lets everyone believe he grew out of. 

               Anakin drags in a shuddering breath, && then another, forcing himself not to hyperventilate && regain some semblance of composure. His lightsaber lays abandoned, enclosing him in impenetrable black. He stares sightlessly through the darkness && imagines fingers around a throat, && doesn’t know whose throat or whose fingers.