Death wasn't at all as he had expected...

He was aware of it, for a start, even if that awareness was of a fragmentary, nebulous sort. His consciousness came and went in waves, drifting in and out on unfathomable tides. He sank and surfaced at the whim of forces he couldn't begin to comprehend. All he could do was ride with them and hope that death wouldn't be like this forever.

There was a considerable amount of pain, considering his body no longer existed, lurking at the edge of his consciousness like a reminder of something important he had forgotten. Was this some kind of punishment for the actions he had performed in his life? Were the Jedi he had slain getting their revenge from a more privileged position in the afterlife?

That was a ridiculous thought, he told himself. Irrespective of whether there was an afterlife or not, privilege could not possibly exist, for anyone. The Light and the Dark Sides of the Force were identical in stature, if not in effect. He could no more be tormented by the Jedi than he could torment them.

There were voices, too, and visions. They were harder to rationalize...

Some were familiar: Such as PROXY soothing him as he would a child - as he had for many years, before Darth Vader's had grown too old for such coddling.

There was Darth Vader himself, urging him to embrace his fear, not fight it, and thereby become as strong as a mountain.

Some of the visions were memories: Such as of the time he had asked PROXY to chain him immobile in the dark and refused food or water until he had assembled a lightsaber lying in pieces before him, using only the Force.

He had failed in the attempt, but in his extremity he had found the strength to abandon his weakened body and embrace the dark side! He returned to that place many times after his death at Vader's hand.

In endless loops he felt his Master's lightsaber burning through his stomach and the coldness of vacuum sucking the air out of his lungs...

Many of his visions, however, were of things he could not possibly have seen while alive, featuring both familiar and unfamiliar in times and places he could not always pin down:

He saw...

...General Rahm Kota in the center of the TIE Fighter Factory over Nar Shaddaa. His eyes were undamaged, and his stance was straight-backed from his recent victory. Flanked by armed insurgents and surrounded by the bodies of dead Stormtroopers, he snapped off his lightsaber and began issuing orders.

 "Lock down the command center and get that holoprojector up and running! Tell all squads to fan out and funnel any opposition towards us!"

"Yes, sir." Insurgents began running in all directions. 

"General Kota, he's here!" cried one. 

Kota quickly moved to where a flickering image had appeared on the newly activated holoprojector. It showed the Rogue Shadow. On seeing it, the general smiled grimly.

"So I've finally drawn you out of hiding..." To the insurgent he added, "Lower the containment field on Hanger 12 and tell the men to get into position."

"Yes, General." The soldier left the room to hurry about his errands.

He saw...

...Kazdan Paratus on his four metal limbs about the Junk High Council Chamber. The blank-eyed heads of his mannequins turned easily to follow his progress.

"No rest!", he wheezed. "No rest for any of us! Why can't they leave us alone!?"

He turned to face the mannequin of Master Yoda as though the pile of droid junk had spoken to him.

"Eh, my friend? What's that? Oh, yes. He stinks of Sith, all right! But what's he doing here now? Haven't I suffered enough!?"

The paranoid Jedi Master continued to pace back-and-forth, passing his deactivated lightsaber pike from hand to hand, as though debating whether or not to use it.

He saw...

....Shaak Ti, deep in the fungal forests of Felucia. Shading her eyes, she watched the Rogue Shadow glide overhead, visible as little more than a distortion in the light. She frowned and looked down at a young Zabrak woman who stood nearby, also studying the approach of the starship with concern. Several Felucian Warriors guarded them, restlessly watching the trees.

"Darth Vader has found us?" asked the girl, a hint of excitement in her voice.

"Perhaps..." Shaak Ti answered her. "Gather your belongings and go into hiding, just as we practised. Do not return until I summon you."

An angry flush spread across the girl's face. "But...you can't send me away! Let me fight at your side!"

"Against a Sith Assassin? You would surely be killed." The Togruta Jedi Master raised a hand a hand to silence her protests. "Please, Maris, just go to the graveyard and wait for my summons. I will lead this assassin to the Ancient Abyss alone. Your strength will be tested in other ways, and soon."

With an angry look on her face and tears running down her cheeks, the girl turned and ran into the forest.

Shaak Ti watched as the jungle closed over her.

"May the Force be with you, Maris Brood." she whispered.

He saw the past. That was what he assumed anyway. He was at one with the Force - and the Force saw all things, felt all things, lived in all living things. He had returned to the source of the river that ran steadily through the galaxy, invigorating and sweeping up the dead as it passed. The current tumbled and turned him to face all aspects of his life. He watched it unfold with new understanding.

Some fragments were, however, much harder to comprehend.

He saw...

...a sad-eyed young woman standing at a large bay window, looking over a landscape of denuded forests. In the distance a fiery line stretched up into the night sky, to a point in low orbit where a cluster of tiny lights gathered. Somewhere nearby, an astromech droid cooed mournfully to itself...

...a dirty and tattered man sitting in the corner of an enclosure that seemed made entirely of bone. A small holo-lamp shone in front of him. His hands hung free, but his wrists were tightly bound by electric cuffs. The stink of raw meat cloyed in the air, making him wrinkle his nose in disgust...

...Darth Vader, his armored life-support suit rent to the flesh beneath in a dozen places, standing in the wreckage of a mighty battle. Dead Stormtroopers lay in pieces on the bloody floor surrounded by fragments of shattered transparisteel and twisted metal.

The apprentice's former Master put a hand to his exposed temple, touched the scars visible there, and swayed.

"He is dead..." Vader said with some difficulty over the damaged wheeze of his respirator.

The Emperor stepped out of the shadows to stand at his side. 

"Then he is more powerful than ever."

Was this what might have been had he stood up to his Master, instead of giving in numbly as his entire life had been turned upside down? In his deathly state of semi-consciousness, the former apprentice couldn't tell. He could only watch as he would a blurry, fragmented holodrama, in the hope that at some point, perhaps when he had more of the pieces before him, the sense of it would start to emerge.

If anything, however, it only became more complicated. Beyond light and dark, beyond past and future, beyond life and death, he saw the same face that he had glimpsed while fighting Rahm Kota; the face that might have been his as an older man, had he lived: strong and kind, with dark hair and warm, brown eyes.

In the background, he could hear the distant pounding of weapons and the crump of explosions. Trees cracked and fell. A shadow loomed over the vision, as though a cloud had blocked the sun. He could smell burning blood and hair, and hear the sound of a lightsaber sizzling through flesh. 

A voice cried "Run! Run now!" - but he didn't. He couldn't. Whatever kind of dream this was, it wouldn't let him move. He was trapped within it, fixed tight by some strange kind of mental amber. Was this a fantasy or something more sinister? Was someone trying to tell him something?

He saw...somewhere not so far away - or perhaps at the farthest edge of the universe - Chloe Moretz was in pain.....

Author's Note: And that will do it for the first chapter of Act 2. What are your thoughts on this chapter, and are you looking forward to Act 2 and what could happen next? I hope you all are doing well and staying safe, and I hope you all have an amazing day!