Lamic by Apwar Trigit
	With a familiar snap-hiss, he deactivated his lightsaber. The crimson hue instantly vanished as if the sun had suddenly expired and left the room's only occupant to lament amidst the darkness. Fear began to eat away at his insides. All of the stories his parents recited to keep him in bed at night came rushing back in a flood of emotions. Fear, anger, depression. He had felt those emotions before. They were his friends, his allies. He needed them to live; he needed them to feel alive. None of that mattered to him now, yet the reason for this thought was still a mystery to him. For some reason the figure felt a deep sense of regret, of anger, of hate. The fog inhabiting every square inch of his conciseness refused to dissipate under his inquiries, as important as they may be. "What am I doing here? Where is here exactly?" These and other questions began to bounce around inside the figure's head. As hard as he pushed, he gained no ground in his quest for answers. "L.... La.....Lami.....Lamic. I'm Lamic?" The words sounded hollow in his ears, as if he were hearing his voice for the first time. Then it all came back to him. Not one memory at a time, but all at once. In a flood that threatened to split his skull, all of the empty spots in his memory were filled. Some were coherent, decipherable, and others were far from understanding. Racked with pain, Lamic fell to his knees, sweat dripping from his nose. Letting his arms fall limply to his sides, his lightsaber rolled from his right hand to clatter noisily to the Ferro Crete floor. The splitting pain began to retreat from his head, allowing intelligible thoughts to reign once again. Yet as the pain subsided from his brain it settled into his heart. Pain. Pain was his friend. Why should he fear this pain? But there was something different about this pain, this darkness. This darkness was absolute, and all consuming. Darker than the blackened room he now found himself in. It mirrored the feeling of profound loss in his gut and now he knew why. The sound echoed in the dark, cavernous room. The sound of laboured breathing. "Dia!!!!!!" That sound was not as alien as the last, yet the sound that answered was not human. It was not Dia. It couldn't be. Lamic felt his way across the darkened room. On his hands and knees, through broken glass and splintered remains of furniture, he continued his frantic quest for Dia, the centre of his life. Letting a sigh of relief escape his lungs, Lamic found Dia on her back near the rear of the room. As he felt for her face, he stifled a shriek of terror. Dia's face was there, but it wasn't the way he remembered it. It wasn't a face. Then it hit him. The events of that night became that much clearer. Lamic and his wife Dia were searching for his Jedi teacher, Neeja Ji Hallus. They entered Neeja's home from the rear and were slowly making their way to Neeja's living quarters when blaster fire erupted from Neeja's doorway. Brandishing his crimson lightsaber, Lamic swatted the bolts away like annoying insects. Then another blaster entered the fray. Two blasters and one lightsaber, Lamic's job just became that much harder. With the bolts coming so fast he had no time to reflect them back at the shooters, so he tried to angle them away from Dia and himself. The hallway leading to Neeja's quarters was too narrow and too empty to hide, so Dia stayed as directly behind Lamic as possible. As the two shooters began to advance on Lamic and Dia, Neeja came into view. Eyes glassy and lifeless, lying on the floor of his quarters. He seemed so peaceful lying there, but that mattered little to Lamic. The anger raged inside, consuming every inch of his being. Crazed and blinded by his rage, Lamic began to miss bolts and found that he no longer felt the burning pain of the blaster bolts striking his flesh; he now fed from the sensation. Lamic's anger exploded in a cry for blood. This emotion also felt normal, it felt right to Lamic. He lunged at the assailants and drove them into Neeja's quarters with Dia right behind him. His saber flailing madly and without caution, he proceeded to administer justice to the persons who killed his friend, his master. Blaster shots still rang out in the dark room as the shooters attempted to hit something before their inevitable and gruesome end drew near. Then he heard the most blood-curdling scream he could remember. Dia. The lights in the room had been shot out in the fight seconds before and he stood stricken with fear in the centre of the crimson-hued room. That is were Lamic found himself minutes before. Dia was this way because of Lamic's lapse in judgment. It was his fault. His fault. And as Lamic sat with Dia's head in his lap, she expired quietly. Her last breath drifted up and broke upon his face. It teased him with something he would never have again. Dia. Rocking gently on his knees, he held Dia's head lovingly and caressed her forehead for the last time, allowing tears to trickle from his nose and cheeks as he looked down. He tried to remember Dia's face, but it seemed his memories of her had left with her mocking breath. Throwing his head back, Lamic loosed a sound of pure emotion. A sound of total devastation and utter ruin, a sound that would chill even the most calloused and cruel sith to the core. "WWWHHHYYY!!!!!!!!"