I’m feeling like writing a fanfic I have in my noggin where I just traumatize Cal but I’d need a resolution where he recovers from the emotional damage and I don’t know how I would do that
I’m up to 1,000 words…
Okay, so I have a tiny (tiny) wip now...
give me critiques please and thank you so I can decide whether or not to continue...
Gen rated snippet under the cut
I wrote some more......
The world was in limbo.
The Forced washed over Cal and ebbed away, each new wave barely to be felt. Present, but a fading sense. The attempts to ground him were futile. Slowly, against his will, a riptide was pulling him away from the safety of shore. He couldn't control or fight the pull into the deep. Into the void. Into a static and a paralyzing, numbing still.
His body was light, floating, while simultaneously feeling as though it were buried deep under sand.
Slowly, his mind was finally coming to, but his body wasn't—or couldn't.
His eyes strained to see anything besides the blinding, white light of the surgical lamp above him. He tried to turn his head to look away from the light, but couldn't. He couldn't move at all. The metal restraints of a surgical table kept him locked in place.
In a panic, he reached for The Force to summon his lightsaber, but he couldn't feel its presence. Instead, his reach found echoes trapped in the surgical table.
He couldn't suppress a rattling cry of anguish as the echoes enveloped him.
He was seeing through the eyes of hundreds all at once. Overlapping images, fear, and inescapable pain. Life snuffed out in an instant, while others suffered slowly—begging for death.
Imperial doctors watched with clinical, emotionless eyes. Analyzing their victims like the diagnostics of a ship. Like their victims weren't even considered real, living, breathing beings. Only a number in a datapad.
The echoes lasted for mere seconds and hours and days and weeks and months all at once, until every life was extinguished.
Cal saw them all. Felt them all. Died with them all.
The feeling of death lingered in his body, almost on the brink. Lungs straining, heart skipping beats, mind reeling in pain. Death was familiar to him—he'd brushed against it and experienced it far too many times—but in the limbo of past and present, he wasn’t sure if the looming sense of doom was calling to him, warning that his body was near to death as well.
"Seems he's coming out of it. Fascinating. It lasted three hours, eighteen minutes, and thirty five seconds."
The light above Cal was mercifully turned off and the surgical table was slowly tilted to a sixty-degree angle.
"Record brain activity, vitals, blood, everything, R-62, " said a scrawny, rather demure looking humanoid in a medical uniform. His shoulders were hunched as he entered information into a datapad. "Quickly, R-62."
"Woop," the droid responded, as it connected to the bulky computer terminal.
Cal took in his surroundings with his bleary eyes: a damp, derelict, prison-like space, its decay set against the stark newness of white, sterile medical equipment and computer terminals.
His mind began to register the dull pain in his arms and noticed he was connected to several wires and different IV lines. Some of the wires reached up to his head and he felt the electrode pads on his temples.
"...What're... doing... to me..." Cal said, against his labored, shaky breathing. The edges of his vision were fading and it was a fight to keep his heavy eyelids from closing. He reached for The Force again, but his connection felt fragmented.
The doctor excitedly stepped up to Cal. "Sorry, my manners. I am Dr. Enen. I already know who you are and it's a pleasure, really. I've read all about you. Please don't feel you have to speak, I won't be offended, I assure you. I understand that your respiratory rate is quite high right now. Oh, I should really finish writing that down..."
"...This isn't... the Inquisitorious...?"
"They would only get in the way of my research. They know nothing about this. I'm sure they would be focused on turning you into an Inquisitor or executing you for being a terrorist. No, you're safe from them here. Don't worry."
"Safe..." Cal said with a short, humorless laugh. "...Right."
"Yes, you're safe." Dr. Enen's hand brushed Cal’s cheek, gently wiping the tears of anguish away—
—Cal tried to jerk away. He wanted to pull away from his touch with every fiber of his being, but couldn't. The helpless vulnerability made his stomach twist.
Dr. Enen smiled. He turned and retrieved a new IV bag, placed it on the IV pole, then connected the line to Cal.
The solution burned into Cal's veins and he couldn't help but react to the sensation. "...What... is that...?"
"Your tremors are severe. This sedative will help and make you more... biddable. Impairing your inhibitions is important."
"...For what...?"
"Trilla Suduri documented in a report that she was able to immobilize you just by handing you her lightsaber. I want to study how "echoes", as she called them, affect your physiology. What items do and do not trigger a reaction. I'm hoping the serums I've formulated will make you more susceptible to echoes. In addition, I've acquired and collected several items I think are connected to memorable events, hopefully days worth, and I want to know what you see after you come out of them. Telling me what happened is profoundly important to me—I need to know if there is a correlation with how your body reacts to each event."
"...And if I don't tell you...?"
Dr. Enen turned to R-62, "Have the DT droid bring in the prospector."
"Ee-woop," R-62 responded and rolled out of the room.
The ominous thud of the DT droid's footsteps filled the corridor. The droid, clad in black armor, entered the room, clutching a frightened prospector.
"You're a Jedi—I understand a senseless death is a tragedy to you. I'm sure you don't know this prospector personally—" Dr. Enen lifted a blaster and pointed it at the prospector.
"Please, no! Don't kill me!" The prospector raised her trembling hands in surrender.
"Stop!" Cal struggled against his restraints, begging The Force to help him. "You don't... have to do this..."
"Please, understand, I take no pleasure in this." He pulled the trigger, and the blaster bolt burned into the prospector's chest. The DT droid dropped the prospector to the floor like garbage.
"No!" Cal screamed.
"I need you to understand, if you become uncooperative," Dr. Enen said in a kind tone of voice. "I won't hesitate to harm others—including your youngling. I need you to know I'm serious. I've gone through a lot planning to track you down and capture you for my research."
"...Kata..." Cal’s mind was in such a daze; he assumed that, since the droids had tried to throw Kata into a gorge, she was of no interest to them. "...BD-1..."
"Yes, they're both here. Don't worry. Do as I say, and nothing will happen to them." He gently rubbed Cal's arm. "I promise."
Sheer panic was overwhelming Cal. He couldn't breathe. Each beat of his heart felt like it could be the last.
"Let's get started," Dr. Enen said softly.
