Karran Val’teo found himself standing in the middle of his childhood home. He was wearing his Brotherhood robes, but found no lightsaber on his hip. The Jal Ka’toor settlement was nothing special. People milled about, performing their daily routines. They bought food, scolded their children, and bartered with the Jawas over droid parts. The drone of their seemingly boring lives was shattered by a thunderous roar that shook the very ground. The world went black.
The Zabrak’s vision returned and he was running with a crowd of people. He looked over his shoulder and saw a massive shape silhouetted against one of the suns. An incomprehensibly large monster, bigger, it seemed, than a star destroyer, on four legs, tearing through buildings and crushing homes. He ahead to the left and right. There he saw his mother, Batii and father, Kar. His mother was looking back, tears in her eyes.
“Keep running *kelloh*. Please, we have to keep running.” Batii smiled through her tears, attempting to comfort him, still a boy in her eyes.
“Okay, *setȃr*!” The voice was his, but did not come from his lips. He looked to his right, and saw himself. Just a boy of fourteen, his horns just barely coming in. He was running, a look a pure determination in his eyes.
As the horde of people got closer to the exit gates to the settlement, the entire crowd halted. People crushed together as they tried to keep going. Karran and his father tried to look through and over the crowd. A group of landspeeders had crashed at the gate, blocking if off. The gate’s arch was beginning to crumble and collapse from the impact. From behind them, they heard the roar again. People began trying to climb over the burning wreckage of the speeders, burning themselves horribly before they could get through. Others simply froze in place and stared at the gargantuan Krayt Dragon behind them.
A burning rage filled Karran’s chest. He wanted to charge the beast, even if he was unarmed, and stop it, kill it before it destroyed everything. But he found he simply could not move his feet. He tried to let out a bestial scream, but it was caught in his throat. He felt truly powerless. He was vulnerable, just as he had been on that day nine years ago. The massive dragon slowly approached the crowd of people.
The Sith looked over to his parents and his young self. His mother had collapsed to her knees, holding her son. His father had stepped in front of them, as if to shield them with his body from the beast that was bearing down on the crowd. Kar looked to the left and right, before reaching down and taking his wife and child by their hands. He pulled them to their feet and began running, nearly dragging them behind him, down an alley. The family ran through the alleyways, as screams of pain and panic echoed from behind them.
Karran woke up in his bed with a scream. Sweat poured off of him. He breathed heavily. He hadn’t thought about the day that his family had lost their home in years. He knew that the time was fast approaching when he had to go home and face the beast.