Warmth came first. Not the sharp, sudden heat of waking from a nightmare, but something gentler, a slow tide rising through layers of darkness. It wrapped around me like water, patient and inevitable, pulling me toward consciousness whether I wanted it or not.
I didn't want it.
There was something comfortable about the dark. Safe. In the void, there were no questions, no confusion, no.... Light.
It flooded in from above, piercing through my eyelids in shades of amber and gold. I tried to turn away from it, but my body felt strange. Distant. Like I was operating a machine I'd never used before, all the controls in the wrong places.
My breath hitched.
That was the first real sensation, air moving through lungs that felt too small, ribs expanding in a chest that seemed impossibly narrow. Panic sparked somewhere deep in my mind, a primal alarm that something was wrong, but I couldn't quite grasp what.
I forced my eyes open.
The ceiling above me wasn't the old popcorn design of my condo, It was smooth, elegant and pale stone veined with bronze. Geometric patterns etched along the edges where wall met ceiling. Soft light emanated from recessed fixtures I couldn't quite see, casting everything in a warm, almost ethereal glow.
It was beautiful , very alien and.... very wrong.
I tried to sit up and my arms.
My arms!
They were small. Too small. Thin wrists, delicate fingers, skin a rich dark brown, though it was similar to my normal skin color. It was more richer then what I remembered, I noticed the rough calluses on my hands I'd spent thirty years knowing were gone. I stared at them, turning them over slowly, watching the way light played across knuckles that seemed impossibly tiny.
This isn't right.
My heart began to hammer against my ribs, those too-small ribs, each beat a thunderous drum that echoed in my ears. I pushed myself upright, sheets sliding away from a body that felt like a stranger's. The mattress beneath me was soft, almost luxurious, nothing like the queen size bed I sleep on.
Last night.
What happened last night? I tried to remember, grasping for the memory like smoke. There had been... what? My house? No. Something else. A feeling of falling, of being pulled through something vast and cold and.
Gone. The memory slipped away before I could catch it.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, bare feet touching cool stone floor. Even that felt wrong, the distance from bed to floor was too short, my legs dangling like a child's. Like a child's.
The thought crystallized into terrible certainty. I stumbled toward the far wall where I'd glimpsed something reflective, my gait unsteady, my legs moving with a coordination I didn't quite trust. Each step felt like piloting a mech suit three sizes too small, all the proportions shifted, center of gravity completely off.
There. A full-length mirror set into an alcove, its frame the same bronze-veined stone as the ceiling.
I stopped three feet away from it, suddenly terrified of what I'd see. The reflection stared back at me with wide, golden eyes.
Golden.
Not hazel, or brown. Pure gold, bright as newly minted coins, with a slight luminescence that seemed to catch and hold the light. They dominated a face that was undeniably young, soft cheeks still holding baby fat, a small nose, full lips slightly parted in shock.
But it was the other details that made my breath stop entirely.
Snow-white hair, wild and curling slightly at the ends, framing that too-young face in a way that should have looked absurd but somehow didn't. And my ears, I reached up with one trembling hand to touch them, tapered to subtle points. Not the dramatic, swept-back points of a fantasy elf, but enough to be unmistakable. Inhuman.
"What..." My voice came out high and thin, a child's voice. "What the fuck?"
I stepped closer to the mirror, pressing my small hands against the cool surface as if I could push through it and find my real reflection on the other side. The child in the mirror mimicked me perfectly, those impossible golden eyes wide with the same horror I felt churning in my gut.
This wasn't a dream. Dreams didn't have this much detail, the slight chill of the stone under my feet, the way my new hair fell across my forehead, the faint hum of technology in the walls that I could feel more than hear. Dreams didn't come with the nauseating sense of wrongness that came from looking down and seeing a body that wasn't yours.
I was in a child's body. A child's body that wasn't human.
The room tilted. I grabbed the edge of a nearby table, low, sized for someone my current height, and tried to breathe through the wave of dizziness. My heart was still racing, small chest heaving with breaths that felt too quick, too shallow.
Okay. Okay. Think. Process this.
I forced myself to look at the reflection again, cataloging details with the desperate focus of someone trying to solve a puzzle before the timer ran out. Dark brown skin. White hair. Golden eyes. Pointed ears. Young, maybe four or five years old, if I had to guess.
The temple were the key. I'd seen a design like that before, in... In Star Wars.
The thought hit me like a physical blow. I actually staggered back from the mirror, one hand flying to my mouth.
No. No, that was insane. That was....
But the more I looked, the more certain I became. The elegant architecture of the room. The bronze and pale stone, the geometric patterns that looked almost like High Galactic script, though I couldn't quite read them. The hum in the walls that could easily be advanced technology, the kind that powered a city-planet like,
"Coruscant," I whispered.
The word felt right in a way that terrified me.
I turned slowly, taking in the room with new eyes. It wasn't just elegant, it was Jedi. The minimalist aesthetic, the meditation cushions in the corner, the way everything seemed designed to promote calm and focus. Even the color palette, whites and golds and bronzes, matched what I remembered from the films, from the books, from hundreds of hours of consuming Star Wars media like it was oxygen.
"No," I said aloud, as if speaking it would make it less true. "No, this isn't, this can't be."
"Oh, you're awake."
I spun toward the voice, nearly losing my balance in the process. A woman stood in the doorway, tall, graceful, her skin a warm orange marked with white facial patterns. Montrals rose from her head, and lekku draped over her shoulders, their tips nearly reaching her waist.
A Togruta.
A Togruta, standing in my doorway, wearing robes of white and gold that marked her as clearly as a neon sign: Jedi.
She smiled, and it was kind, but I found myself backing away anyway, my small body moving on instinct. She noticed immediately, raising both hands in a placating gesture.
"No need to worry little one," she said, her voice gentle. "You're safe. You arrived only two days ago." She tilted her head slightly, studying me with eyes that seemed to see more than I wanted them to. "The Force is strong with you, to be awake so soon."
The Force.
The words hung in the air between us, and I felt something shift in my chest. Not physical, something deeper. Like a door I hadn't known existed had suddenly cracked open, and on the other side was something vast and terrifying and real.
"I..." My voice came out as barely a whisper. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Where am I?"
"The Jedi Temple," she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "On Coruscant. You may call me Healer Vela." She took a single step into the room, moving slowly, like she was approaching a skittish animal. "And you are Cain."
Cain. The name felt foreign and familiar at once. I turned it over in my mind, testing it. Cain. Not my name, not my real name, but apparently the name of this body.
"I don't..." I started, then stopped. What could I say? I don't belong here? I'm not supposed to be a child? I'm from another reality where this is all fiction?
Yeah, that would go over well.
Healer Vela seemed to sense my distress. She moved to a chair near the door and sat, making herself smaller, less threatening. "It's alright to be confused," she said. "You've been through quite an ordeal. Do you remember anything about how you came to us?"
I shook my head slowly. It wasn't a lie, I genuinely had no idea how I'd ended up here. The last thing I remembered was... what? Going to sleep in my house? No, that felt wrong. There was something else, something just out of reach.
"That's not uncommon," Vela said. "The mind protects itself sometimes. The memories may return in time." She paused, then added carefully, "There's someone I'd like you to meet. If you're feeling up to it?"
Every instinct screamed at me to say no, to stay in this room where at least the parameters were clear. But I also knew that wasn't an option. Whatever had happened to me, whatever impossible situation I'd found myself in, hiding wasn't going to solve it.
I nodded.
Vela's smile widened. "Good. Come, then. Let's get you dressed first."
The robes she gave me were simple, a youngling's training clothes, she called them. Soft, cream-colored fabric that was easy to move in, with a brown belt that she had to wrap twice around my small waist. As she helped me dress, I caught sight of a datapad on the nearby table, its screen displaying information in Basic, a language I somehow understood despite never having learned it.
Name: Cain
Age: 4 standard years
Gender: Male
Species: Human/Sephi hybrid
Force Sensitivity: Off the Charts
Status: Initiate (Provisional)
I stared at the screen, committing every detail to memory. Four years old. Sephi hybrid, that explained the ears. And Force Sensitivity rated as "Off the Charts," which probably explained why I was here in the first place.
But it was the last line that made my stomach clench: Initiate (Provisional).
They were going to train me and make me into a Jedi.
The weight of that realization settled over me like a physical thing. I was in the Jedi Temple. On Coruscant. In the Star Wars galaxy. And unless I was having the most elaborate, detailed hallucination in human history, this was real.
Which meant everything else was real too.
The Clone Wars. Order 66. The fall of the Republic. Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader. The Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Abeloth. Decades of war and death and suffering that I'd consumed as entertainment, as fiction, but which here would be horrifyingly, devastatingly real.
"Cain?"
I looked up to find Vela watching me with concern. "Are you alright? You went very pale."
"I'm fine," I lied. "Just... processing."
She nodded slowly, like she didn't quite believe me but was willing to let it go. "Come, then. Master Yoda is waiting."
Master Yoda.
Of course. Of course it would be Yoda.
I followed Vela out of the healing chamber and into the corridor beyond, and despite everything, despite the fear and confusion and existential terror, I couldn't help but stop and stare.
The Jedi Temple was magnificent.
The hallway stretched before us, impossibly wide, with vaulted ceilings that soared at least thirty feet overhead. Sunlight streamed through tall windows, casting geometric patterns across floors of polished stone that gleamed like mirrors. The walls were the same pale stone as my room, but here they were carved with intricate reliefs, scenes of Jedi history, I realized, recognizing the Battle of Ruusan, the defeat of Exar Kun, other moments I'd read about in sourcebooks and novels.
And the people.
Jedi moved through the halls in ones and twos, in small groups and alone. I saw species I recognized, Twi'leks and Rodians, a towering Wookiee, a Kel Dor whose mask hissed softly as he passed, and dozens I didn't. Younglings ran past us in a laughing cluster, their training robes flapping, supervised by a patient-looking human woman. A Padawan stood in an alcove, deep in meditation, his braid marking him as clearly as a badge.
It was real. All of it. The Force, the Jedi, the Republic, real.
I felt something crack inside my chest, some last wall of denial crumbling. This wasn't a dream or a hallucination. Somehow, impossibly, I had been reborn into the Star Wars galaxy.
"The Temple is beautiful, isn't it?" Vela said softly. "I still remember my first day here. It felt like stepping into a dream."
Or a nightmare, I thought, but didn't say.
We walked for what felt like miles, though it was probably only a few minutes. Vela pointed out landmarks as we went, the Archives, the Council Chambers, the meditation gardens, but I barely heard her. My mind was racing, trying to piece together where in the timeline I'd landed.
The Temple was intact, so before Order 66. The architecture matched the prequel era, not the Old Republic. But was this before the Clone Wars? During? How much time did I have before everything went to hell?
"Here we are," Vela said, stopping before a wide doorway. Beyond it, I could hear the soft murmur of children's voices. "Master Yoda is teaching a meditation class. He asked that you join them when you awoke."
She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. "You'll do fine, Cain. Just breathe and listen. The Force will guide you."
The Force will guide you. The words that had been a throwaway line in movies, a piece of mystical nonsense, now felt heavy with meaning. Because the Force was real here. I'd felt it when Vela first said the word, that sense of something vast and present, watching and waiting.
I took a breath, small lungs, remember, and stepped through the doorway.
The room beyond was circular, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over Coruscant's endless cityscape. Speeders zipped past in the distance, tiny as insects. Closer, I could see the spires of other Temple buildings, their surfaces gleaming in the afternoon sun.
But it was the figure at the center of the room that drew my attention.
He was small, barely two feet tall, with green skin and large, pointed ears. He wore simple robes of brown and tan, and leaned on a gimer stick that looked older than most civilizations. His eyes, when they turned to me, were ancient and knowing and impossibly kind.
Grandmaster Yoda.
I'd seen him in movies, in shows, in games. I'd read his dialogue, analyzed his philosophy, debated his decisions with other fans. But none of that prepared me for the reality of standing in front of him.
He radiated presence. Not in a physical sense, he was tiny, almost comically so, but in the Force. Even without training, without knowing how to sense such things, I could feel him. Like standing next to a bonfire and feeling its heat, except the heat was something else entirely. Power, yes, but also wisdom, compassion, and a deep, abiding sadness that seemed to permeate everything around him.
"Ah," he said, and his voice was exactly as I remembered, gravelly, warm, with that distinctive cadence. "Young Cain. Welcome, you are."
I bowed, the gesture coming automatically. "Master Yoda."
His eyes narrowed slightly, studying me with an intensity that made me want to squirm. I forced myself to stay still, to keep my expression neutral, but I could feel his attention like a physical weight.
"Strong in the Force, you are," he said slowly. "Very strong. A bright future, you may have." He paused, and something shifted in his expression. "But clouded, your mind is. Fear and doubt, I sense. Confusion. Secrets."
My heart hammered against my ribs. He knows. He can sense it. He knows something's wrong.
"I..." I started, then stopped. What could I say? How could I possibly explain?
Yoda's expression softened. "Natural, these feelings are, for one so young and far from home. But careful, you must be. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." He tapped his stick against the floor. "Let go of your fear, you must. Or lost, you will be, before your journey even begins."
I swallowed hard. "I'll try, Master."
"No." His voice was sharp, cutting. "Do, or do not. There is no try."
Despite everything, despite the fear and confusion and existential dread, I felt my lips twitch. That line. That line, delivered in person by the actual Yoda. It was surreal and terrifying and somehow, impossibly, a little bit funny.
"I understand, Master," I said. "I will do my best."
He studied me a moment longer, then nodded. "Good. Good. Now, join the others, you will. Beginning meditation, we are. Enlightening, I believe it will be for you."
He gestured with his stick toward the other younglings, who sat in a loose circle facing the windows. I recognized the setup from the movies, the meditation chamber where younglings learned to sense the Force, to open themselves to its guidance.
I moved to join them, acutely aware of every eye on me. The other children ranged in age from maybe three to six, representing a dozen different species. They watched me with open curiosity, whispering to each other behind their hands.
"Sit here, you can," Yoda said, pointing to a spot between two younglings in the front row.
I settled onto the meditation cushion, crossing my legs in what I hoped was the right position. To my left sat a girl with pale, fair skin and silver-white hair. Her ears pointed like mine but more pronounced, a full Sephi, I thought. She gave me a quick, assessing look, her silver eyes cool and dismissive, then turned away without speaking.
To my right was a human boy with messy brown hair and bright blue eyes. He smiled at me, warm and genuine, and whispered, "Hi! I'm Derren."
"Cain," I whispered back.
"I know," he said, his smile widening. "Everyone knows. You're the one with the really high midi-chlorian count, right? Are you the Chosen One?"
The Sephi girl made a soft sound of disgust. "Be quiet, Derren. We're supposed to be meditating."
"We haven't started yet, Seris," Derren shot back, but he lowered his voice anyway. "Don't mind her. She's always like that."
Before I could respond, Yoda's stick tapped against the floor, and the room fell silent.
"Now, younglings," he said, his voice taking on a teaching quality. "Meditation, we practice today. The first step to understanding the Force, this is. Close your eyes, you will. Gently, like falling asleep, but do not sleep."
I closed my eyes, my heart still racing. Around me, I could hear the other younglings settling, their breathing gradually slowing.
"Breathe in," Yoda continued. "Slowly, like smelling a flower. Breathe out. Gently, like blowing on hot soup. Again. In... and out."
I followed his instructions, focusing on my breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The rhythm was calming, and gradually, I felt my heartbeat begin to slow.
"Good," Yoda said. "Now, inside you, picture a small light. Tiny it is, but bright, like a star. That light... is the Force. Always with you, it is. Waiting. When you are still, when you are calm, stronger it grows."
I focused inward, trying to visualize what he described. At first, there was nothing, just the darkness behind my closed eyelids, the sound of my own breathing. But then, slowly, something began to emerge.
A pinprick of light, so small I almost missed it. I focused on it, and it grew. Not quickly, it was more like watching a sunrise, the gradual brightening of the sky. The light expanded, warm and golden, pushing back the darkness.
"Reach out," Yoda's voice seemed to come from very far away. "Not with your hands. With your feelings. With your heart. Feel the light. Feel the Force flowing through you, around you. The floor beneath you. The friends beside you. The air moving, soft as a whisper. All connected, all one."
I reached out, not physically, but with something else, some sense I hadn't known I possessed. And the light responded.
It surged forward, no longer a gentle sunrise but a wave, a tsunami of golden radiance that crashed over me and through me. I gasped, but I couldn't hear the sound. The meditation chamber had disappeared. The other younglings, Yoda, the Temple itself, all gone.
I stood in a void of absolute darkness, and before me blazed a sun.
It was golden, brilliant, almost too bright to look at directly. But I couldn't look away. The light called to me, warm and welcoming, like coming home after a long journey. I took a step toward it, then another, and with each step, the warmth grew.
What do you want?
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It wasn't one voice but many, male and female, young and old, speaking in perfect unison. The sound of it resonated in my chest, in my bones, in the very core of my being.
I stopped, staring at the golden light. "What?"
What do you want? the voices repeated. Why have you come?
The question cut through me like a blade. Why had I come? I hadn't chosen this. I hadn't asked to be reborn, to be thrown into a galaxy of war and death and impossible choices. I hadn't asked for any of this.
But standing there in the void, surrounded by that golden light, I knew the answer.
"I want to be free," I whispered.
The light pulsed, and suddenly it was inside me, around me, through me. I felt it in every cell of my body, a warmth that was almost painful in its intensity. Power surged through me, vast and terrible and beautiful, and I understood in that moment that this was the Force, not as a concept or a plot device, but as a living, breathing reality.
And it was infinite.
I opened my eyes.
The meditation chamber snapped back into focus, but something was wrong. The other younglings were staring at me, their eyes wide. Derren's mouth hung open. Even Seris looked shocked, her cool composure cracked.
"How did you do that?" Derren breathed.
"Do what?" I asked, and my voice sounded strange, distant, echoing.
"You're floating," Seris said flatly. "And glowing."
I looked down.
She was right.
I hovered about six inches off the ground, my meditation cushion several feet below me. And my skin, my entire body was suffused with a soft golden light, the same color as the sun in my vision. As I watched, the light began to fade, and I felt myself slowly descending back to the floor.
The moment my feet touched the ground, my legs gave out. I collapsed onto the cushion, gasping, my small body trembling with exhaustion.
Yoda was beside me in an instant, his hand on my shoulder. "Youngling Cain. How do you feel?"
I tried to answer, but my throat was dry. I swallowed and tried again. "I'm... I'm okay. I think."
"What did you see?" His eyes bored into mine, ancient and knowing. "What did you feel?"
I hesitated. How could I explain what I'd experienced? The void, the light, the voices? "I felt... at peace," I said finally. "And power. Like I could drift away and sleep forever in the Force."
Yoda's expression grew grave. "Dangerous, that feeling is. Powerful you are, young Cain. Very powerful. But careful, you must be. Lose yourself to the Force, you can. Rare it is, but possible. Always possible."
"I don't understand," I said, though I had a sinking feeling I did. I'd read about Force users who'd become so immersed in the Force that they'd lost their sense of self, Anakin Solo during the Yuuzhan Vong War, came to mind. The idea of it happening to me, of losing myself to that golden light, was terrifying.
"In time, understand you will," Yoda said. "For now, rest. Enough excitement for one day, you have had."
He helped me to my feet, and I realized that every youngling in the room was still staring at me. Great. So much for keeping a low profile.
Derren was the first to approach, his eyes shining with excitement. "That was amazing! You really are the Chosen One, aren't you?"
"I'm not...." I started, but Seris cut me off.
"The Chosen One is supposed to bring balance to the Force," she said, her voice cool. "Not show off in meditation class."
"I wasn't showing off," I protested. "I didn't even know I was doing it."
She studied me for a long moment, her silver eyes unreadable. "We'll see," she said finally, then turned and walked away.
Derren watched her go, then turned back to me with a sympathetic smile. "Don't worry about her. She's just competitive. She's been the best in our class until you showed up."
"Great," I muttered. "That's exactly what I need."
But as I watched Seris disappear through the doorway, I couldn't help but feel a flicker of something that might have been respect. She was proud, yes, and arrogant. But she was also driven, focused. In a galaxy that was heading toward catastrophe, I was going to need people like that.
I was going to need all the help I could get.
That night, I lay in my new bed in the younglings' dormitory, staring at the ceiling. Around me, I could hear the soft breathing of other children, the occasional rustle of sheets. The room was dark except for the faint glow of Coruscant's lights through the window.
I should have been exhausted. My body certainly was, I could feel the bone-deep weariness that came from pushing too hard, too fast. But my mind wouldn't stop racing.
I was in the Star Wars galaxy. In the Jedi Temple. About to be trained as a Jedi.
And somewhere out there, on a desert planet called Tatooine, a boy named Anakin Skywalker was growing up, completely unaware of the role he would play in the galaxy's future. The role I now had a chance to change.
If I could figure out where in the timeline I was. If I could gain enough influence to make a difference. If I could survive long enough to matter.
Too many ifs. Too many variables.
I closed my eyes, trying to quiet my thoughts, and felt myself slipping into meditation almost without meaning to. The darkness behind my eyelids deepened, became absolute, and once again I found myself in that void.
But this time, I wasn't alone.
Lights appeared in the distance, not the golden sun from before, but smaller lights, like stars scattered across the night sky. I focused on the nearest one, a steady green glow, and somehow I knew: Yoda. I could sense him in that light, his presence unmistakable.
Near him, another light, purple, strong and steady. I didn't know who it was, but I could feel their power, their discipline.
Further out, a blue light that flickered occasionally with yellow. Something about it felt familiar, though I couldn't place why.
I wondered. Were these lights the lights of force sensitives?
That would make sense considering what I am seeing in this void.
And then I saw them, three crimson lights, clustered together in the distance. The third one burned brighter than the others, surrounded by what looked like lightning. Something about those lights made my skin crawl, filled me with a dread I couldn't name.
Sith, I realized. Those were Sith. Then I looked up, and my breath caught.
Above me, directly overhead, blazed a golden light, my own, I realized. But it wasn't pure gold. A shadowy darkness swirled around its edges, like ink in water, never quite mixing but always present.
What did that mean? Was I already falling to the dark side? Or was it something else?
I forced myself to look away, to scan the rest of the void. More lights appeared the longer I looked, dozens, then hundreds, a galaxy of Force-sensitive souls scattered across the darkness.
But one light drew my attention more than all the others.
It was far away, at the very edge of my perception, but it shone brighter than anything else in the void. White-silver, flickering between colors, silverish white, and blue like the sky. It was beautiful, and as I focused on it, I saw something that made my heart stop.
A child. Small, with bright blue eyes that shone like stars. He looked back at me across the impossible distance, and I knew who it was.
It's hard not to recognize him or this presence. "Anakin Skywalker," I whispered into the void.
The light pulsed once, as if in acknowledgment, and then the vision shattered. I jerked awake, gasping, my small body drenched in sweat. Around me, the other younglings slept on, undisturbed. But I couldn't shake the image of those blue eyes, staring at me across the void.
Anakin was out there. The true Chosen One. And somehow, impossibly, he'd seen me too.
I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, and stared out at the lights of Coruscant. Somewhere in this vast galaxy so much war, conflict, and darkness was coming. But I was here now. I had knowledge, power, and time.
Maybe, just maybe, I could change things.
I had to try.
Because the alternative, watching it all happen again, knowing I could have stopped it, was unthinkable.
"I want to be free," I whispered again, the words I'd spoken to the Force. But freedom, I was beginning to realize, came with a price. And I had a feeling I was going to pay it in full.