The box was not locked. She opened it.
A heavy, slow, mechanical breathing filled the room. Turning, she found herself looking down an impressive hallway, its architecture reminiscent of the Old Empire. Peering harder, farther, she saw in the distance a section of the famed Cloud City. Two figures were locked in combat, distant, distant.
Someone, somewhere, somewhen, spoke her name.
Hello? Wreathed in the irrationality of the moment, she called hopefully, but received no answer.A boy appeared at the end of the hallway. She started toward him, and the world turned inside out, causing her to trip and fall.
Onto the wall, which had become the ground. Not the adamantine ceramic she had just seen, but dry grass. Nearby, a lightsaber slammed into the ground. A missed thrust, a statement of powershe didnt know, couldnt tell. A hand appeared to pull it upward.
Day became night, sky ominous and filled with rain, cold and chilling to the bone. She was standing, she was sitting, she was looking upto see someone, a warrior, take the full force of the lightsaber. He screamed and fell. Battlefield then, all around her. Putting a hand to her mouth, she rose and turned. As she turned, she found herself confronted by seven tall, cloaked figures, dark and foreboding, all armed. Soaked and shivering, she stumbled backward, turning as she half fell. Firelight illuminated her, firelight from a distant, burning temple.
The seven vanished. A sound made her turn, and she blinked in surprise at the sight of a small blue and-silver R2 unit. A new figure appeared. Falling to his knees, he reached out to the droid with an artifice of an armmetal and plastics and other materials with which she was not familiar. She blinked and both were gone.
Around her now: barren, snowy woods, the sounds of unknown forest creatures, and a conviction that she must be losing her mind. Once more she climbed to her feet, her chilled breath preceding her.
From in front of her, not far away, came the sounds of battle: the cries of the wounded and the clashing of weapons. Then behind her, another voice.
That voice.
Stay here. Ill come back for you.
She whirled, glazed eyes desperately scanning the dark gaps between the slender trees, trying to penetrate the darkness.
Where are you? She started running toward the voice.
Ill come back, sweetheart. I promise.
Im here! Right here! Where are you?
No response. She started forward again, running, only to be brought to a sudden halt by a figure appearing without warning from behind a tree.
She screamed, and screamed again, and fell backward, backward, sitting down hard in
She was in the underground corridor, sitting on the cold old stone, her chest pounding as if she had just run from her home all the way to Niima Outpost.
There you are.
The voice made her jump. But it was only Maz Kanata, standing alone in the passageway between her and the far stairway.
