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Title: Losing Velocity
Author: Agent J (agentj0@yahoo.com)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Ficlet, scene, song-fic

Summary: Vader contemplates his new existence.

Author’s Note: This is a story in a series for the LiveJournal community ficalbum wherein one writes a piece of fiction for each song from one store-bought CD. My CD is Nexus by Sarah Fimm.

Warning: gruesome imagery

//And I know it was meant to be
But how do I know I'm still alive?//

//Breathe in.//

It was nearly three standard weeks since the accident. Inside his new lifesuit, every move he made caused him to be poked and prodded, or whir and click like some mechanical creature. He felt like he were encased in a cocoon. It gave him strange comfort to watch the diagnostic data scroll across his personal viewscreen as the meddroids, his only companions, assisted to his needs while he lay dead and still on his biobed like a broken motivator. He liked watching them try to fix him. Life was so much easier when trying to fix things.

//Breathe out.//

His own breath, perfectly regulated and even, echoed endlessly around his enveloped ears. Despite this outward consistency, every breath he took was a new study of mind-numbing horror. He wanted nothing more than to take the shallowest of breaths to keep himself from screaming, but the automatic contraption which was woven in and out of his flesh made him breathe deep and heavy, forcing every air sac to fill with oxygen. It was like being burst back into flames all over again. His new master, the self-appointed emperor, had explained the importance of pain in his recovery. "It reminds us we're still alive," he had said, touching the fibrous scars along his face with a sickly smile.

//Breathe in.//

He tried walking earlier today. He managed two, perhaps three steps before he had to call on the Force to take away the pain. He had gritted his teeth against the agony until his bones ached, every last one of them, even the ones that had been cut away from his flesh and left to tumble into the fiery pit beneath him. After his few, pathetic steps, he nearly passed out, crumpling to the floor like a broken string-doll. The meddroids were forced to haul his hulking bulk back to his biobed. He didn't bother to cry. There was no one there to comfort or hear him.

//Breathe out.//

The image of Obi-Wan Kenobi haunted him. So cocky, standing with hands on hips at the bottom of the gangplank as Obi-Wan demanded him to let his treacherous wife go. That stupid way he'd flick his head to get that damnable mane out of his eyes while they duelled. The way his eyes would darken, enlarging his pupils, as he drew upon the Force. The touch of the man's calloused hand on his shoulder, his hip, his back as he guided him in the movements of swordplay. Thinking of Obi-Wan again made him burn from the inside out, until his mouth tasted of ash and soot. This was how the Jedi betrayed him: taking him from those he loved and giving him to someone who loved him, only too late.

//Breathe in.//

He didn't believe in chance. Everything that happened had to happen for a reason. As a child, he knew nothing of the Force, but always felt that just under his fingertips was something magical, something only he possessed. When Qui-Gon came, filling him with hopes and promises, of dreams to a better life, somewhere inside, he already knew his path would be nothing more than a torturous nightmare of an empty existence. He was chosen, it was said, to do what no one else had done. Alone, he would create balance in the Force, and there would be peace. It was never written that he would come to know it for himself.

//Breathe out.//

END

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