Saga "Again"--Anakin and mental torture--one-shot (hooray!)

Title: Again
Author: leiamoody
Timeframe: Soon after ROTS
Author's Notes: This is an attempt in trying to do something dark. But it turned out only slightly dark. And way too melodramatic. Yippie!


"It is just death, dearest. Just death."

The soft voice echoed throughout the chamber.

Anakin cried out in pain...the voice sounded like a whisper, yet ripped through his ears like an explosion.

He was in the darkest of dark places. Caught in the center of the deepest black hole. Here he had lain for one thousand years. And here he would remain, until eternity claimed him and the universe for its own.

"Only death is true now. And you will die..." The soft voice formed into ice and poured into his blood. Again. And again.

"Never!!" His words tore out of his throat. Prisoners violently revolting against their jailer.

The voice laughed, making itself brittle to his perception. "You must die again! You have died once, yes, but yet you still live. Murderous traitor, you don't deserve life!"

A sharp beam of whiteness overpowered his vision. He fell into a typhoon...being pulled to the bottom of the white abyss like a sinking ship being pulled down to the bottom of a sea.

Yet...he was pushed back...once more into the darkness.

The white beam floated before him, then twirled and spun in a circle. Then it stopped, and made itself into a column. One more shift, and it turned into a woman. Raven-haired, with pale skin of ivory. Delicately boned, and small in stature.

Poisonous. A poisonous frost was this ethereal figure. Yet...she was beautiful...in the way a madman would view beauty.

She held out her arms. "You were our blessing. The gift of the Force." Then she crossed her arms over her chest, one hand touching each opposite shoulder.

"Where am I?" Anakin crawled through unseen mud...or was it...he raised up a hand to see.

The poisonous woman laughed again. "Yes, foolish boy! Look at what your sins have brought you!" She threw her head back and let out a shrill and hysterical sound of insanity and dark delight.

Blood.

It fell down across his palm...dripped through his fingers...the rain of living essence.

"What have you done to me?!" Anakin tried to stand, but from her eyes came twisting flames which pushed him back...hard into an invisible steel wall.

She pointed at him with an outstretched finger. "You stupid boy! You are the one that did this to yourself!" Then she waved her finger above her head. "Watch now, Ani. I will become your beloved."

And the corpse-pale face melted away...to be replaced by the lovely and familiar features of Padme.

But he knew Padme was gone. This monstrous demon simply recreated the face of his dead wife.

The Padme simulacrum drew back her hand, and red nails the length of daggers emerged from the tops of her fingers. And then she turned the dagger-nails upon her face, and drew blood as they pierced the flesh.

"She cries in the pit. She screams and mourns and begs for you...but her tears are the blood that froze in her veins when she died." The demonic woman's face gushed the red liquid of life, and she laughed some more. Again, and again.

"I did not cause this!" He could not...this woman...this cursed demoness! She took Padme. Swallowed her whole like some great beast of the abyss...or cut away her flesh like a master of the Great Sacrifice, and draped it over herself to trick his mind...to drive him insane.

He did not kill Padme! This harlot took the life from his beloved! Gone, gone, gone..."Go away!"

"I cannot." Her response was said with a quiet voice. "You cannot go either."

"You have me trapped! Let me out!"

The woman smiled, a gentle and mocking blossom on her white lips. "You made this prison. Do you forget so easily?"

No...not again..."Don't make me remember!!"

The woman creature said in a harsh whisper, "You must."

He tried...to keep it back...to not let the memories surface...but he had no control. No choice.

Betrayal, anger, hatred...children run through by his saber...the grasp of unse